Three.

53!!!!

53 times an hour x 8 hours a night x 35 years of being alive =

NO WONDER I’M SO DAMN TIRED ALL THE TIME!

Holy Crap.

This material is dovetailing nicely with all the things I was thinking about after reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, back before my intestines became the unfortunately fertile breeding ground for Hostile Alien Bacteria. Specifically it’s helping me to answer the question, “What’s my word?” Because not only have I realized that, of course, my word cannot be anything other than FREE, all this reading about my ancestors has given me a good idea of where that might have come from.

Of course we all know the traditional story of the Pilgrims and their desire for freedom from the king of England and his church, but it’s the way that Philbrick describes these desires that sometimes has all my hair standing on end in amazed recognition.

When I read things like, “…the Puritans had chosen to spurn thousands of years of accumulated tradition in favor of a text that gave them a direct and personal connection to God,” I remember how powerful an experience it was for me to go through the workbook of A Course In Miracles for the first time (Philbrick, p.8).

Or when I read that they wanted to be “…free to establish themselves on their own terms”, I think about how I have done the very same thing in creating my own work, my own contribution to the world, and my own role within my marriage (Philbrick, p.16).

And when I read that during their services, “…the entire congregation had participated in a passionate search for divine truth”, I almost shot out the top of my head, because that is what my entire life has been devoted to (Philbrick, p. 12).

Of course the form of this search, as well as the form of the truths I’ve discovered, has taken many different shapes over the years.

In my younger years I was of the opinion that, There Is Only One Truth, And I Will Find It, And I Will Carry It To The Rest Of The World, and, well, I’m sure you can imagine just how well that worked out. But these days I’m more of the mind of Pontius Pilate in “Jesus Christ, Superstar” where he says,

But what is truth?
Is truth unchanging law?
We both have truths.
Are mine the same as yours?

I say that now, because back in March of 2004 at the end of an extended depression, as well as a year of doing the Course, my mind just split open and everything came pouring out. Everything I ever thought I was, every belief, every conclusion I’d come to about myself and the world, every single thought I’d ever had about anything just crumbled and then dissolved away.

I’d just experienced too many things that showed that the way I thought about life, and myself, and God was not the way things actually were. I could no longer not know what I knew. And what I now knew was this: that there are as many unique, individual paths to God as there are unique individuals on the planet.

And so I love this quote by Ghandi which says, “My commitment is to truth as I see it each day, not to consistency”, because that is exactly how I now experience my day-to-day life.

By the time the worst of my crisis had passed, my mind had literally become a completely blank slate. As I went through my day I would pick up every thought that occurred to me, from “I like these pants”, to “I believe in God”, and examine it to see if it was true for me. I literally rebuilt my mind in this way, one thought at a time.

And so now, this is what freedom means to me: that I am free, in each and every moment, to choose my own thoughts.

This was not the first time I’d been introduced to this idea, nor was it the first time this idea precipitated a major life crisis.

When I arrived at college at the tender age of 17, what blew me away was not the freedom I found to act in whatever way I chose, but rather the freedom to think whatever I wanted to at any given moment. Up until this point I was always in an environment where someone else was constantly telling me how and what to think, and because it seemed to work for me at the time I just went along with it.

But when I got to college I was completely on my own mentally speaking, and because I was unused to such total and absolute freedom, I was completely overwhelmed. And interestingly enough, this very same thing happened to the Pilgrims. Before they came to the New World they lived for a while in Holland, and according to Philbrick, “Once in Amsterdam, the Separatists from Scrooby found themselves thrust into conflict and contention. As dissidents who had come to define themselves in opposition to an established authority, Separatists were often unprepared for the reality of being able to worship as they wanted in Holland” (Philbrick, p.13)

I’m not sure exactly what the Pilgrims did to deal with this, but I, brilliantly, contracted mono, which gave me an excuse for lying in my dorm room alone for long periods of time, away from the constant pressure of new thoughts and ideas and experiences. Just like my crisis in 2004 gave me the space I needed to re-create my mind in my own, authentic image.

Happily I’m learning more and more how to experience all this freedom without needing to first experience a serious illness or a major emotional crisis.

Now I know that I can think whatever I choose in every moment. And it is all very good.

1. If I won the lottery, the very first thing I would do would be to install a soda fountain in my office so that I could enjoy the ambrosia of a fountain Coke whenever I wanted.

2. My husband and I refer to our cats in the third person, as in, “The Pip really enjoys expressing her love for us via the judicious application of her ass to our faces.”

3. Growing up I was of course not allowed to swear, but I was also not even allowed to say “shut up”. So during the spring of my freshman year of college I began my extremely late adolescent rebellion by calling up my husband (then boyfriend) for the express purpose of yelling out my very first swear word. (Do I know how to be a rebel or WHAT?!)

4. Thanks to nine years at Evangel Christian School I can sing all the books of the New Testament in order.

5. I passionately hate the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Just ‘cuz.

6. My favorite word is “creamy”.

7. When I was a senior in high school I was offered a partial music scholarship to Southern Methodist University for my piano playing ability, but I turned it down.

8. I must, at every second of the day including the times when I am asleep, be located near a bottle of hand lotion.

…that by taking the new antibiotic I contracted clostridium difficile,, an intestinal infection consisting of nothing but those very same intestinal issues

…that the treatment for this infection is…yet more antibiotics.

Oh, Universe, you tricky bastard you.

Me: Why not?

My Husband: Because Whole Foods is like crack to you.

So true.

And don’t even get me started on the orgasmic wonderland that is The Container Store.

…Then he went on to explain, in a mixture of English, Italian and hand gestures, that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people’s thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be-that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don’t really belong there.”

-Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

I know exactly what she’s talking about.

I’ve visited places that, for no apparent reason have felt just as comfortable as a perfectly broken-in pair of jeans, as well as places that, for no reason I could see, made me feel so uncomfortable that I just wanted to peel off all my skin and flee the planet.

I’m in a very good place right now, and since my environment is such a great match for my word, now I’m really curious as to what exactly that word might be.

I definitely know some words that it is not. I spent many years forcing myself to stay in environments and situations that did not match my word, as apparently I sometimes like to take the extra special bonus course in Learning Things The Hard Way.

I served a tour of duty in BLIND OBEDIENCE.

I did some hard time over in IMAGE AND ILLUSION.

I dabbled in ACADEMIA and BEING A PROFESSIONAL.

I served a sentence as LABORER.

And I spent an inordinate amount of time in the land of VICTIM.

Of course, the fact that I was constantly beaming out a vibration of VICTIM into the Universe meant that I was constantly attracting people into my life to play the accompanying role of VICTIMIZER to my VICTIM. For me this showed up as an endless stream of low-paying, dead-end jobs with horribly abusive female bosses. We’re talking y-e-a-rs here. (I was apparently going for my Ph.D. in Misery and Suffering.)

And then one day, somehow, a little space opened up inside my brain and let in a new thought, which said…maybe…just maybe…it’s me…not them…

That was the first time it had ever occurred to me that if I was in a situation I hated, a situation that kept repeating itself in ever increasing amounts of horror, that maybe, just maybe, I needed to change something within myself, rather than something external.

I think this was a result of September 11th. Looking back now I can see that, because everything about that time was so horribly beyond anything I’d ever imagined was possible, it also opened a space where maybe, just maybe things could also be joyful beyond my imagination.

And so I finally gave my notice to that last, soul-sucking, dead-end job, and the very day I did I went to a workshop where I met my very first coach and began the process of taking responsibility for and creating my own life.

During 2003 and 2004 when I was doing A Course In Miracles (aka, “The Year Where A Giant Hand Reached Inside My Brain, Stirred Everything Up, And Then Turned It Completely Inside Out”), I learned that the woman who scribed the course had had a very similar thing occur to her. She was in a very difficult situation at work, and finally she and her boss (I think) said, “There has to be another way to do this.” And once they opened up that space, the Course was born.

According to the Course a miracle can be defined as “a shift in perception.” And that was what finally happened to me at the beginning of 2002, when I took the first steps down the path to finding my word (which I know, I know, I haven’t gotten to yet, but if I break this long epistle up then I have something to blog about next week too )

While spending four months in an ashram in India she meets Richard from Texas, who gives her the following counsel on a relationship she recently ended with someone whom she believed to be her soul mate.

She told him, “…I think the reason it’s so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was my soul mate.”

He replied, “He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. ”

I know exactly what he’s talking about.

I recently had a relationship like this end-not a romantic relationship, but a friendship. And I knew it was exactly this kind of a relationship, because I spent its entire duration having my insides ripped out so that I could examine them in the clear light of day.

Why, you might ask, would anyone willingly spend even one day (much less years) in a constant state of gut-wrenching turmoil?

That is an excellent question and, as it turned out, one of the main lessons I needed to learn in this particular relationship.

Why did I constantly settle for so little?

Why didn’t I think I was deserving of good things?

Why did I continue to give until it hurt me, especially since I got so little in return?

The most interesting thing about all of this was that I don’t think this person had any idea of the role they were playing in my life. Everything that happened was actually between myself and I, inside my own head.

It was like the Universe led me to an internal storage shed I’d forgotten about and said, “OK, it’s time. You need to do something with all of this stuff.”

It was all there for me to stumble over. Every old bit of magical thinking. Every unrealistic expectation. Every story I’d made up in my mind about how I thought relationships “should” be. All the parts of me that believed my happiness depended on what someone else did or didn’t do. Everything in me that thought I had to figure out a way to control other people and change them, so that I could feel better. Every part that was addicted to drama, crisis, and emotional extremes. It was all there, waiting for me to unpack it.

So I did. I opened up each and every mental box and dealt with its contents. I shone a flashlight into all the dark, icky, unattractive corners of my soul and swept out all the cobwebs. I owned my stuff. I did my work.

And then one day, I was ready to let go. I knew it was time, because I was able to release this person with love and gratitude. I truly wished good things for them in their life apart from me. I was done suffering in the same old ways, and was ready for something pleasant and new.

“A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. “

-my massage therapist, working on a particularly stubborn knot in my back

What was this amazing gift? Flowers, jewelry, poetry? Nope.

In honor of our anniversary he rewired the house so that I can now plug my computer directly into our Internet connection, rather than having to rely on the sometimes-spotty connection I used to get through the wireless router. And I could not be happier. As a matter of fact, when describing how enthralled I am with my very fast, very reliable Internet connection to my husband, I believe my exact words were, “This is a dream come true!”

Apparently the road to my heart runs right smack dab through the middle of my Inner Nerd.

I have one more week left of “tapering off”, and then, for the first time in almost 14 years, I will no longer be on anti-depressants. YAY!

But in-between dealing with the side effects of getting off this medication I have also been dealing with the SURPRISE! Guess-what-I-found-hiding-underneath- once-I-worked-through-all-the-stuff-that-caused-the-depression- unexpected-additional-pop-up-feature?

That’s right. An EXTRA BONUS LAYER of triple-protection-strength ANXIETY. F*%@.

But then yesterday I was talking to an acquaintance of mine who felt inspired to share the following information with me:

“You know, I have all my jeans lined up in my closet going from my favorites to my least favorites. This pair is #4. Tomorrow, I’m wearing #1.”

And I no longer felt quite so alone.