This post is about transformation. It contains real experience and raw emotion that comes with truly living.
Finding the right traveling partner takes patience, courage and most of all Love. I fell in love many times before I met the person that ended up being the right partner for me. I broke hearts and had mine broken too many times. I dated people that I didn't even like because they were great at pursuit and I was tired of running away. I dated people that I didn't connect with because I felt I should give everyone a chance, they might be the one. I chased one or two long after I knew it would end in heartache and tears. All of those experiences led me to the place I found myself in, the afternoon I finally met my resolve.
I was lying on the sofa, reeling with pain from some breakup. I felt like a house had landed on my chest. Like the aftermath of a tornado when everything settles and I was stuck beneath something that was crushing me. I remember feeling like I couldn't breathe. My lungs just wouldn't stretch far enough. I felt panic inside. A thought came to me that I couldn't really grasp onto. It was more of an idea or a feeling that was in the distance, but making it's way toward me. I felt the need to stay still with this feeling in my chest. Just stay there and feel it. I actually began to imagine that the weight of it was moving through me, into the sofa. I lay there for several hours and when I stood up, I felt lighter.
When one drastic thought pattern changes, the others have to follow suit, for they've lost their leader.
In the weeks that followed, I began to notice just how little I'd ever believed in myself. Friends, family and even counselors had been telling me for years that I needed to be easier on myself, not so rigid and judgmental. I felt that they were just being nice and that if they really knew me, they'd never think that. I would even think horribly mean thoughts about myself without ever realizing what I was doing. I'd walk around replaying conversations in my mind and in the end, I'd always receive harsh criticism and feel it was what I deserved. This way of thinking affected my entire life. All of my relationships with friends, families and boyfriends, my grades, my performance at work, even the way I felt about myself when no one else was around.
I'm not sure what happened in what order but in the next few months, many things in my life began to change. People came into my life that had important things to share with me. Books found their way into my life that had valuable and life changing messages that began to shift and shape the way I saw the world and most importantly, the way I felt about myself. I was 25 years old, recently graduated from college and finally realizing that I'd spent most of my life hating myself and the entire time, I'd been pretty clueless.
I'd love to say that this is when I met my soul mate and fell in love and now we are living happily ever after. But, that's not even close to what happened next. I did fall in love, sort of. I don't know another way of explaining what began to happen except to say that I felt the way one feels when they fall in love. Everywhere I looked things looked brighter. It didn't happen over night and it didn't happen without effort on my part. But I was falling in love with or least falling out of hate, toward myself.
During this time, I had an acquaintance that began pointing out to me just how often I belittled myself. I'd say things like, I'm so dumb or that was so stupid of me. I'd look in the mirror too frequently and think, Of course he doesn't like me, look at me. These thoughts penetrated my entire being and ran through every part of me. Once this acquaintance began pointing these negative statements out to me, I began to notice how often I said and thought them. It was overwhelming. Over a few weeks, I noticed that almost every thought that I had about myself was critical and demeaning. So many things were happening at once, new information was coming at me from every direction. As quickly as I became aware of the problem, solutions began being apparent. Conversations with friends. Lines in books. The answers to my negative thinking began to show up everywhere. I developed acute awareness of my actions toward myself and with this new knowledge came an intense willingness to change these patterns.
I began thinking certain thoughts with intention. The moment my eyes opened each morning, I'd think, What a beautiful day this is, I'm so thankful to be alive to experience it. While getting dressed for the day, I'd sing songs to myself about being beautiful, inside and out. When I couldn't think of a statement, I'd repeat meditation chants that I'd learned from a local meditation center. I'd ride my bicycle and repeat over and over the Heart Sutra, Gate gate para gate, para sam gate, bodi soha. Or I'd repeat the simple prayer, Om mani pad me hum.
At this time, my heart began to open to vast extents. Also during this time, I began to realize that until I healed, I'd never attract or be attracted to the type of person I truly wanted. I also began to reconcile that perhaps I'd never meet someone that fit the ideal my heart held onto. I couldn't predict where my life was headed and having lived in a moderate sized town most of my life and knowing the type of people I had to choose from, I began to consider what life might look like if I never met anyone at all.
I shed many tears over the prospect of being alone forever, but I continued to work toward eradicating the negative thoughts and feelings I still had about myself.
For two years I worked toward loving myself. I began to conquer many fears that had kept me living in unhealthy patterns. I began spend more time doing things that nourished my body, mind, and soul and less time worrying and thinking negatively from a place of fear. With every day that came and went, my ideas and aspirations grew larger. Things that I once thought were impossible began to appear attainable. I used an exercise that was shown to me by a dear friend and spiritual mentor to find guidance of what I should do next in life.
I wrote out what my life would look like if there were absolutely no obstacles like time or money or necessary experience. This exercise took several attempts before I wrote out that I'd like to travel to another country, live in that country long enough to learn the language and become immersed in the culture, have the opportunity to help people while I was there and not have to pay a lot of money in order to do it. Circumstances began to fall into place in the magical way that they do when a person sets foot on the path of their own destiny. A day or so later, a women I barely knew stopped me in a parking lot and suggested I go and volunteer over sees with this organization. She'd just flown back to the states the day before and sat next to someone on the airplane who was volunteering and the entire time they spoke, she thought of me. Next day, there we were, meeting on the sidewalk in front of a grocery store. After a sleepless night, I applied the next day.
A year passed before I actually stepped onto the airplane that was to take me to distant places. In that year, I practiced love and kindness meditation several times a day. I spent each day practicing awareness of my thoughts, awareness of the judgment I placed on myself, always returning to the solutions that I'd been shown. Each time I met these thoughts and judgments with loving statements. Each time the thoughts were neutralized.
In that year, I packed up the house I'd lived in for 7 years and gave away almost everything I owned. I read anything that was suggested to me and I found answers to questions that I barely knew I'd asked. I became so open to possibility that my heart seemed to extend far beyond the reaches of my physical body. I met men that I found attractive and often felt confusion about whether or not I should date them. I never could quite let go though. The path that I was on was a powerful one and I felt that anything that might compromise that would have to wait. I needed to travel and leave everything that was familiar, though I couldn't explain why. I just knew I wanted it more than anything.
During that year, I grew closer to my best friend. I became a better friend to her and knew that our friendship would surpass any distance and time that lie between us. I grew closer to my sister and to my mother and further from my father. I ended friendships that had existed long before I knew anything about friendship. I grieved and felt deep sadness and loss over these changes.
In that year, my friends became certain that I'd go away and meet my soul mate. They felt that perhaps the person for me didn't exist where we lived. They thought that I'd surely meet someone, how could I not? I'd go away and fall in love and this journey would take me right to him. On some level I began to believe them, though I took the idea with skepticism and held both in my hands.
A few months before leaving, I met a young man that pursued me with unstopping intensity, most likely due to the fact that I was due to leave town. Some people are most comfortable in situations like those. It was innocent and never became romantic, but in many ways, meeting him just months before I left reminded me of the impermanence of everything. It brought me back down to Earth and helped to plant my feet firmly on the ground. I'd been floating for a few years and I hit the ground with a thud. A thud that woke me up, just before embarking on one of the most painful and eye opening journeys of my life.
I'd love to say that I flew away to this village and that the love of my life found me or that I found him, but it did not happen that way either. I did fly far away and soon found myself in a village where I felt like an outsider. I looked different from everyone and I certainly didn't have the skills to survive there. Because of this, I first went to live with a family that provided all of my needs. This experience was one of the most difficult to live through. I could not provide my own food, my own water for bathing or drinking, I could not speak the language, or clean my own clothes. Everything had to be graciously accepted with thanks. But all I felt was guilt. I felt so extremely guilty for needed so much from these generous people. I had no choice. I either accepted with gratitude or I went without. I felt like a small child, recently born to this new family, more dependent on them than their youngest, age 4. Each day, I smiled and accepted their gifts of survival. I was aware of how uncomfortable I felt and how my entire life, I felt most comfortable if I was giving, therefore, I owed no one. I could not remember a time that I received without guilt or even self loathing for having to need in the first place. I began to repeat the mantra that this year, I'd learn to lovingly receive. I said it over and over.
Many challenges and new experiences awaited me while living far from home. With them came every emotion the imagination can summon. I became broken open and then pieced back together by the loving Forces behind the gift of Life. I remembered feeling for the first time, that I was truly an adult. On my 28th birthday, I felt that I'd truly become a woman and that I could trust my own instinct and inner voice. A voice that by now was stronger than ever before, yet more loving than I ever imagined possible. By the end, I returned home a truer version of myself. More defined than I'd ever been before. I'd been carved and etched by the sharp edge of experience. I'd been purified and transformed by the fire of the Alchemist that created us all.
I'd spent more than a year away with ample time to think about everything I'd ever wanted to think about. I lived in a world that moved in different time. I became still so that I could truly feel the rhythm of the flow of Life. I watched and listened until it became too painful. In the end, I left filled with experiences that can never be erased, though they often feel like a dream I awoke from, fuzzy and distant.
After returning home, I spent two months traveling around and visiting friends in different places. I had no plans and no real idea of what I wanted next. I remained open to where Life was taking me. With each passing day, I felt the culmination of my experiences beginning to dull. I felt over whelmed by choice. I had been living in a world where choice was rare. The gluttony that surrounded me once returning home was suffocating. I retreated into writing. I returned to the exercise that I'd used before embarking on my last journey. I wasn't sure that I wanted a relationship, but something in me seemed open to the possibility. Once I allowed this idea to penetrate my thoughts, every cell became alive with the idea. I sat outside one day and wrote the following:
I am at one with my perfect partner who is loving, kind, honorable, spiritual, intellegent, considerate of people, animals, the planet, and himself;
who honors my mind, body, and spirit;
who stimulates my mind, body, and spirit;
who shares in similar interests as me;
who shares mutual attraction on all levels;
who is in awe of me in my truest essence;
who I am in awe of in his truest essence;
who has a full and interesting life of his own;
who shares a mutual respect and honor for our relationship;
who is my partner and equal;
who I can learn from and teach to;
who sees me as beautiful, inside and out;
who can honor and respect each aspect of me;
who cares about being healthy and honoring his body;
who is comfortable in nature and in a city;
who is moderately clean and accepting and understanding of my clutter;
who enjoys socializing and travel;
who has dreams and aspirations of his own;
who is open to trying new things together;
who I will recognize as my perfect partner and who will recognize me;
who mutually desires as partnership with one person;
who can communicate these hopes and desires easily and openly;
who is a believer and seeker and open to all spiritual walks.
To be continued...
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