NB: I’ve written this entire post but despite all the various personal development I really just think it was meditation / diagnosing having mind disease that was the thing that actually helped. Working on social skills and not letting my shadow screw with others is definitely, definitely great. But it’s the Buddhism/meditation that was the only thing that “worked”. That’s the truth. With that out of the way, I’ll let you read my post now.
Hope and Surprise
In my 42nd year I’ve noticed that whenever I have cause to reflect on my youth and personal development journey, I have come so far as to be unrecognisable to myself. I’ve also noticed that some kind of threshold has been reached, which is new. I feel that all, or almost all, the blockers of my youth have been dissolved, and now my life force, or self-expression, flows freely, almost entirely unimpeded.
I remember that in my youth I had many, many less-than-ideal interactions with myself and others, many insecurities, confusion, uncertainty, bouts of shame, periods of despair and more chronic problems such as lack of direction, numbness, panic attacks and low affect. When I look back on all the problems and painful tangles I had on a daily basis I am quite struck by the relative peace I now enjoy.
It’s as if a major struggle is over. So major, that it feels like a life chapter. Interestingly, this is consistent with more than one theory or pattern that I’ve come across in books and online. In astrology, the age of 40-41 brings a start/end point with a few planetary cycles. In personal development psychology, there seems to be a threshold where “ego development” is complete and starts to be transcended. Ken Wilbur is one person who likes to summarise the personal development literature, and then theorises about the “spiritual development” milestones that come after.
It’s quite a surprise to me to feel this way. It’s been such a long and hard road that I had adopted the sense that “the work is never done” and while that is true, it turns out that large chunks of the work can be so close to done as to basically not feel like an issue anymore. In addition, it now feels like the first part of life could be its own stage, with a particular stance. Once a certain amount of progress has been achieved, the stance or the type of activity that must be done, can completely shift. The phrase that comes to mind is going from “surviving” to “thriving” which is pithy and correct but seems to lack depth around the profundity of this shift.
All this to say I was not expecting to feel “done” and to shift into a different mode at age 42. And yet since that has happened to me, my message here is I hope that gives HOPE to you. Hope that even if it’s a long road, there is an end. Hope that healing can have an end point, and that something comes after.
I Am Not Typical
I feel I should include a note here that I am far from a typical person, and while I want to, as always, give hope to others around me who might be looking for hope, I must say your mileage may vary with this story I am telling.
I have long known that I did not want to have children because my own trauma and lack of development from my parents and my childhood would only rebound negatively onto those children. I even set a date for checking in with myself about how I was doing on the healing front (it was age 28) and I knew I was not close to done at that age. Not having children, and knowing this about myself, and by extension not looking for a marriage partner, or having any thoughts toward it whatsoever, saved me a great deal of time and energy. This is not the case for most people.
I’ve also been so obsessed with figuring out how to make life feel better that I have almost never worked a full time job, sacrificing career, a home of my own and other finances in order to “have time to think”. I had to use a great deal of inner resources to survive this way, and most others don’t have my particular set of characteristics or traumas to do the same.
I also cannot disambiguate between conventional modalities for learning and healing, and the more recent spiritual insights and religious beliefs that I have developed in order to pinpoint or separate what worked and what didn’t, what age any changes occurred, and indeed I can’t say what future situations might at any time throw me straight back into misery again. These changes, and rate of change are somewhat unique to me, but aspects of it all will fit a more general pattern. I just don’t know which aspects!
With that said, read on for some more thoughts on how I feel now.
Reflecting on Blockers
From this mid-point looking back, one thing that is striking is that, while it must be the case that I, as a new human being in this world, was constantly learning and experiencing things, thereby adding something like knowledge to my being, this journey was also about removing blockers, limiting beliefs and traumas from my experience so that something inherent and natural could shine through.
In my youth I was rather against the idea that genes, God, or some other kind of pre-determined programming was responsible for my beliefs and behaviours. Rather I believed that it was external factors such as upbringing, epigenetics and “society” that was the primary force shaping myself and everyone else.
I fairly quickly upgraded my thinking to accept that there must be at least some pre-determination going on, working in concert with external factors, but I still leaned on the outside factors being the “activating” principle affecting whatever is latent within us at birth.
My view also totally ignored the fact that my personal tastes, thoughts and will, my desires, my self-esteem and my internal compass were themselves extremely strong forces in my life that I relied on to survive, and were appearing ex nihilo, ready for use. I knew some parts of myself were inexplicable, such as my strong self-belief, but I never closely examined certain things that I absolutely took for granted, that could easily be said to be “inherent” or “programmed”.
But now I tend to believe the teachings that say there IS a human nature that underlies our circumstances, and further it definitely seems like the most effective activity for change I’ve done was a path of removing things, rather than adding things.
The things I had to remove were on the level of thoughts, (such as models of the world that had blindspots/limits), memories and traumas that were stored in the physical body, (such as frozen muscles and organs) and blocks and traumas in the energetic/subtle body, particularly blocks in the heart.
By staying humble and removing these blockers (“removing” here is more like seeing, loving, forgiving and letting go, rather than e.g. surgery, or cutting out), a loving and curious person (me???) can now shine through. In my youth I would have not described myself as a loving, caring person by nature, even with some scattered evidence to the contrary. But now it seems possible that this loving person was always there, waiting to be uncovered, all along.
Methods & stances
What methods did I use?
In dry terms I used these modalities and they likely helped:
- Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, self-directed web course prescribed by a doctor
- self help books, particularly “They F*** You Up” by Oliver James.
- keeping track of my dreams
- training in art
- having and then abandoning a well-rounded political ideology
- interest and deep reading of philosophy
- Polyamory-as-spiritual-practice
- personal development theory coined by Robert Kegan and then expanded by Susan Cook-Greuter, Ken Wilber has similar
- Communication practices especially non-violent types, sharing circles etc, listening to feedback from my friends
- some psychedelic use, but not a lot
- energy body readings with live feedback
- meditation starting in metta, and moving on to insight within the more zen-inspired traditions though not directly zen
Overpowered stances:
Curiosity, patience, persistence, humility (beginner’s mind), courage, self-worth, desire for truth, forgiveness, empathy, sympathy, compassion, joy/delight (in others), questioning, noticing, comparing, cross-domain applying.
Attention, love, intelligence, intuition.
Surprises:
Finding a religious perspective which makes sense to me. I call it “my crackpot religion” because it’s a series of beliefs I have that come from a VERY non-mainstream source that I would expect only a few people would even take seriously. I’m not even sure I should! But holding it lightly is fun.
Finally
I finally feel qualified to go forth and actually help in the world, like, properly. No longer dogged by a sense of lack of purpose, or of not yet finding it. No longer struggling against impositions, which I was 100% right to do. My nervous system is regulated. My self-resourcing is online. I have enough experience to feel calm, no matter what may happen. I have trust in my abilities and strengths, of which I have many.
Some great project is over, and now the work truly begins.
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