“But he [Depression] just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself, fully dressed, shoes and all.” Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
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When I started telling people I was going on this journey, I got many types of reactions. However, if I were to categorize their reactions into three buckets, it’d probably go something like this:
I’m so excited for you! I can’t wait to hear what you discover
I’m so sorry you’ve had such a hard year; I hope you find what you’re looking for
I see, you mean like: Eat, Pray, Love?
“Eat Pay Love! F*** you!” I wanted to say – but I’m from Minnesota, so I probably just smiled. The comment seemed to minimize my entire journey (seemingly such a monumental thing for me) and turn it into the playing out of some tired cliché. In fairness, I’d never read Eat Pay Love. But I felt like when people said it, they did so with an undercurrent of sardonic knowing. Despite that, after getting the comment yet again earlier this week for the Nth time, I gave up and downloaded the audiobook. If you can’t escape something, at least do it ironically.
Five minutes in, and I found myself saying that F word again silently in my mind. It’s really good. The prose is evocative and imaginative. The internal struggles she describes are many of the same ones I’ve been trying to navigate. I needed to hear this story, now. The first portion of the book describes her time in Italy. For her, it was a time of fullness, joy, and discovery, and yet, there were many moments, often unexpected, when her old demons came to visit. In one scene that especially struck me, she describes coming home one day after feeling joy and wonder only to discovering Depression and Loneliness (personified), luridly lingering around, waiting to rough her up like mob muscle or corrupt cops in a film noir. “Wherever you go, there you are,” I thought.
After Baptiste Level 1 Training, I felt like I’d been transformed. I could see my old self-limiting stories so clearly. I understood why so many relationships in my life had fallen apart. I felt a wellspring of joy that had been dammed off for so long. I felt so empowered to change the course of my life, to change all the broken relationships...
And yet, this morning, I found myself beside perhaps the most stunning road in America (Utah-128), looking out over the Colorado River and watching the sun reflect off the cliff faces. What more beauty could I hope for? And yet, I couldn’t stop crying. This was a new experience. What kind of a man cries without reason? I berated myself. And In Public? Alone?!
This trip has been marked by so much opening up, but this morning I could feel myself withdrawing again – falling back into old patterns of hiding, fear, and self-loathing. Is this really a time of transformation or just a hiatus? Maybe what happens on the mountaintop can’t be brought back to valley. Are all my relationships doomed to deteriorate the longer I am with that person? Why can I only express my heart so freely through text, but clam up when I’m face-to-face with people I love? Am I just running away, like a child, without a plan, expecting someone else will find me? My old favorite quote kept reverberating around in my mind, like a prophesy of doom: “It is a joy to be hidden, but a disaster not to be found.”
It’s not that I don’t see that these fears are part of my old stories – it’s that they seem to be still be true! That is the true punch to the gut. It’s same feeling I imagine a prisoner must have, thinking he escaped, seeing the outside, taking that first step into the fresh air, ready to run, only to fall down -- discovering an unbreakable fetter was still around his ankle.
But no – I know this cynical hopelessness is part of my old story too. Perhaps it is better to imagine these old stories as wolves roaming the mesas of my mind. I have long fed them, and they’ve grow strong. They are part of me, and so I cannot kill them; but I can stop feeding them; and if I do, in time their howls may grow weak; so enfeebled they’ll be as indistinguishable and impermanent as the wind.
Yes, my life is littered with broken relationships. Yes, my patterns of thought are deeply ingrained. Yes, I don’t know where I am going. Yes, wherever I go there I am. And that’s why I’m on this journey. If I knew how to get there, I’d already be there. If it were easy, it would already be done.
In the midst of my tears I began to text my brother – half way around the world in Africa – spilling my fears and frustrations to him in a way I never do. He was so kind and loving -- so reassuring.
So often in the past I’ve tried to carry all my striving alone – but salvation can only come in admitting my inadequacy to change alone AND not to wallow alone in that truth, but to trust that there are many others who want to stand beside me in my brokenness.
If I’m able to bring the mountaintop back into the valley, I know this is the path I need to trust.
Post script - several of you have asked me whether it’s okay to forward my emails to others. The answer is yes. I am fully owning this journey (physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually). I have no shame in admitting my struggles or hesitance in sharing my joys, even to perfect strangers. That integration is part of the work I need to do right now. So, if you think one of my posts would be interesting (or better yet helpful) to someone - please send it to them! It would make me very happy to know my words are finding their way to those that need them.