Returning Home

We've spent a long week up in Desolation Sound – which is hardly as isolated as it sounds. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can upload them.

I've been somewhat ambivalent about what I am coming home to. I keep thinking about my practice – this small, slowly blossoming career that I have stepped into – and I find myself wondering if the current way it is manifesting – is what I really want. So I ask myself – what would I like? What is it about the current status quo that doesn't excite me? What is IT that is leaving me feeling ambivalent?

The beauty of those questions is that I don't know. I don't know yet. In this present moment, I understand that there is something that I need to shift or tweak or release in order to clarify the choices before me. I do not need to know what it will look like – I simply need to be present in body, spirit and mind in order to listen as I continue to explore and expand my awareness. That is all I can do. And it's not easy. I do struggle against the unknown mystery – the ever revealing truth that is mine alone.

I picked up a book about two years ago and I'm just now getting around to reading it with the excuse that it will help me with a client. The author is Dr. James Hollis and the book is 'Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life'. There are some nuggets in this book – wisdom put into words that is meaningful to me as much as helpful to anyone else. One of the things he talks about is the difference between anxiety and depression as we age. He asserts that depression often comes at mid life because we have become mired in the masks and distractions; the pseudo identities that we have taken on in order to work through those wounds from our childhood (or the way we made meaning of the experiences we had – the narrative mythology that we have written for ourselves). Depression is the messenger that the ego needs to be overthrown by the Self in order to rediscover what we really want. Anxiety comes when we begin to step into that expanded awareness. He talks about anxiety as being the ticket to a life lived well.

I like how he utilizes depression and anxiety as messengers and not the end run of our experience. I tend to think of these emotional states in the same way. And yet – and here's the kicker – I'm tired of being anxious. I'm tired of the edge, the learning curve, the new landscape to explore. That's been the story of my life for the last ten years – especially the last two in grad school. There is a place within me that feels like I've been running a marathon and it's time to stop in order to catch my breath. I wonder at my ability to continually sustain this new learning mode. And that is where, I fear, my ambivalence dwells – in that place that really desires to resheath my nerve endings. Even as I write that the fear comes – what would that mean? Would I backslide? Would I forget or lose somesort of edge that I imagine is so important to my work and life?

Another thing Hollis says is quite interesting. He talks about how important it is to honor the inner child and the struggles/wounds that that child had to contend with AND it is just important not to let that child govern your choices as an adult. I think what he means is that as a child my options and tools were so limited that my responses to the situations that I had difficulty with are fraught with levels of confusion and strain that is not pertinent to my adult self who has so many other options and tools are her disposal. As I deal with the unknown future choices, I can soothe the inner child who is fretting in a much smaller world than I live in. I don't know where I am heading in my personal growth or my vocation. And my adult self can sit with that, smile and say – okay. Now go out and enjoy the day that is in front of you.