I always thought I was a coward, but reading Sue Monk Kidd, I saw that I’ve taken a lot of risks. I took those risks out of desperation. At one point, when someone was talking about getting out of their “comfort zone,” I realized that I’ve never had a comfort zone, except for rare and limited times. A lot of my life has been the struggle to find or create one.
In When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd talks about the spiritual journey, using the image of a cocoon. She talks about how you can do a lot initially, working on your stuff with will and intellect. But you can only get so far that way. I think of my work with Dr. Rankin, learning to look for triggers, and my ongoing work to monitor my thoughts and words. Then you come to a place where you can’t do any more. Now you have to let go and let it happen. Let God do it. I was unable to say “Thy will be done,” but I was given a mantra that worked for me at Kripalu: “I offer myself to this process.” Letting it happen requires the practice of patience, of listening, of allowing things to incubate in the soul. My therapist Karen helped a lot with reminding me of the process of “incubation” when I was feeling stuck.
“… having done all we can, we allow God to work directly on the more secret and deeply ingrained attachments we have to self. We allow God to release us through the experiences, encounters, and events that come to us.” p107 (italics in original) Certain intellectual processes have been really helpful for me. Learning to look for assumptions and data. Learning the symbolic language of dreams. Learning AA’s Twelve steps. I found step one: “admitted that I was powerless to change whatever I was struggling with, that my life was unmanageable,” to be very very useful. It helped me “let god do it,” although I wouldn’t have used that language. Learning about the physiology of trauma — it didn’t help me heal, but it did help me manage myself better.
I think it wasn’t until the trip with Bettie that I began to see the limitations of the intellect. The Seminar in Symbol and Myth my senior year was a big help too. It wasn’t until my “collision with California” that all my attempts to get what I wanted, or what I though I wanted, were blown to pieces. I desperately wanted a boyfriend, because I wanted someone to love me, because I thought if someone loved me that would prove I deserved to live. I hadn’t thought that out, I had just desperately wanted a boyfriend, but all my attempts ended in disaster.
Sue Monk Kidd talks about “mid-life crisis,” and how people’s lives have grown stale, and they feel a push toward something new and different, but did not dare risk their security. Looking back from this perspective, I see that I took a lot of risks. I risked moving to Claflin my junior year. I risked taking studio art even though told I’d get no credit because I hadn’t taken a history of art course. I risked planning a trip to Europe — looking back now I see how utterly foolish that was, but I was desperate, even though not knowing how desperate I was. I was so fortunate that Bettie wanted to go with me. It was out of desperation that I went to California, left Stanford, left Fred, followed Kathi to Davis, risked an affair with David, finally went home to Maine “with my tail between my legs,” an utter failure. That first year in Maine I was just trying to survive. Looking back, I don’t see that I had any security to go back to. A year “at home” with my parents taught me that.
I was fortunate in having enough money to not have to get a job. But not enough to feel secure. I bought a house and settled down in Brunswick and tried to make a life for myself. But there were times of terror, times of depression. I know now that if I’d had to work a 40-hour week, I’d have had a breakdown and had to be hospitalized. God knows what would have happened after that.