Saturday, January 23, 2010

Putting Myself Back Together

I bought a really nice newspaper rack today. It was one of those foldable things and came in black leather and stainless steel.

What surprised me was that when they handed me the box, I saw that I had to assemble it myself. Now, this is the catch - I have never assembled anything in my life by myself before. I always had somebody who assembled things for me. So imagine my anxiety when I saw the screws and dismantled parts waiting for me to put them together.

But I had no choice. I had to do it. So I briefly looked at the instructional diagram that came with it and set down to work.

This rack was designed with two crossing bars on each end and joined by four horizontal bars – two above and two below. Across the horizontal bars, you have to insert alternating leather bands to form the body itself.

I was almost done and putting on the end bar to seal my masterpiece, when I realized that it wouldn’t fit. I looked at the diagram again, more carefully this time, and realized that I didn’t put the horizontal bars correctly. In my lackadaisical manner, I just screwed in the bars without realizing that they were not all of the same size and that each bar had to be placed in a specific spot. So I had to dismantle the whole thing and start all over again.

This newspaper rack suddenly mirrored the life I was living.

I, too, was, broken and in pieces a lot of times in my life. Circumstances in my past have left deep marks and wounds that have rendered me undone. And similarly, I always waited for somebody to fix me up – “to assemble things for me”. I would go into relationships expecting the other person to put me back together.

I was slow to learn that rather than fixing me up, what I was doing was actually messing me up some more. I realized that no person can repair me other than myself. That Jerry Maguire was wrong and there was nobody out there who will be able to “complete me”. I alone possess the diagram to build myself into the person that I was meant to be.

I also realized that sometimes, we put the pieces of ourselves together without careful introspection. We make decisions haphazardly, too impatient to take the time and examine things fully. We want everything now and at this instant. Not fully grasping that maybe what we thought we wanted was not really serving our purpose. Until you get to the end of the line, thinking that you have got it made, only to realize that the pieces wouldn’t fit. That no matter how hard you try and force things to connect, it does not work. That the life you were living was not really filling you up the way you imagined it to.

You are then faced with no other choice, but to dismantle your whole self again and start all over. Only this time, you know you have to do things differently from before. As Albert Einstein once said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I am in a major crossroad in my life. I am once again broken and in pieces. What differs is that I am finally learning to put the pieces by myself, knowing that I have all the resources I need and trusting that if the diagram gets to be very complicated and difficult to decipher, guidance will come.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

the transformatory power of pain

I have been living a life short of a fairy tale until that fateful day last year. A job, a wonderful husband, a delightful daughter, a big house complete with a garden, a whole room dedicated just for my clothes and shoes....I was a princess!! The only thing missing was a dog and we could have posed for the cover of Good Housekeeping.

The lone factor that casted a shadow on this, otherwise, idyllic picture was that I didn't feel like I was in a fairy tale. I was more feeling like the frog than the princess. Friends wanted to trade lives with me while I wanted to trade with theirs.

To have everything but to feel like you have nothing is a dreadful state. I was awashed with feelings of guilt for being ungracious of all the blessings I have, but at the same time, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was looking for something. And there is nothing worse than looking for something without an inkling of what it is you're actually looking for. To demand answers but not have the questions. I was, so to speak, utterly, inexplicably, absolutely lost.

Only after a certain period of reflection did I realize that it was my own spirit shouting release. It was crying out to me from the depths of my being. For my spirit was empty. My soul was parched dry. I was looking for meaning. For purpose. Something bigger than the mundane life that I was living. I was not just lost. I was gone.

Being reborn to a purposeful life sounded grand. It sounded noble. But there was a catch. The problem with rebirth is that you have to die first. And the bigger problem is that you don't really die. Just figuratively.

Let me explain. Awakening comes with a price - pain. And I'm not talking about the "ouch-i-scratched-my-knee" kind of pain. I'm talking BIG pain. HUGE. It brings about feelings of desolation, desperation, solitude, hurt, anger, fear, doubt and all other things coming from the same family. That when you finally stand face to face with it, you beg God to give you a merciful death. You really, literally, want to die.

But you don't.

This is because your Higher Self is relentless in its pursuit. It forces you to stand up, take stock and assume. It commands you not to buckle down. And in a world of paradox, the only way you can do that is by going through the pain.

Pain is not just a given in the road to awakening. It is a necessity. Only by accepting this pain and embracing it, can we forge on and emerge in triumph.

We see the chronicles of humanity replete with this image. Various bible stories, legends and lores contain this rite of passage. God had to flood the Earth in order for new life to bloom. The Indian prince, Siddartha Gautama, had to turn his back on his life of utter perfection in order to attain spiritual enlightenment and become the Buddha. It is also everywhere around us in nature. A caterpillar has to spin itself into a cocoon, surrounding itself in darkness, before metamorphosing into an exquisite butterfly.

As excruciating as it is, embracing the pain is our only vehicle to go into the light. So rather than closing our fists and resisting, let us open our hearts and welcome. For in that solitary moment of darkness and hollow emptiness, your awakening begins.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Testing the waters

It's January 17, 2010 and I have decided to blog. Talk about being a late bloomer.

The past year has been extraordinarily, out-of-this-world (or at least out of the world that I have known until now) stressful that my mind has been full of mental chatter.

My mind has been a chatter all my life anyway. But these last few months, the chatter has surpassed anything that I have expected my own puny mind to spurn in its own lifetime, that I decided to put everything down with the idea of liberating my brain from the indescribable pressure of WORDS. The expression "I feel my brain is going to explode"? I felt that literally.

But, typical of "let's try to see the silver lining of everything" me, I decided to take the mental chatter as a form of my own personal creativity pouring out. So, in my own theory, by putting out the words of my mental chatter on a blog, I am freeing more precious brain space for more creative juice to come. At least, that's what I hope to happen.

The title "Journey to Self" has been coined through my own road to awakening that I have been through since 5 months ago. From September 8, 2009 to be exact. The day that I got separated from my husband/friend/lover/knight-in-shining-armor/father-of-my-child. The day that I felt my own world collapsing much like the twin towers that crumbled in mere seconds exactly 8 years ago.

Funny, I was on my honeymoon when the twin towers collapsed. Newly married with high hopes for the future and looking through the world through rose colored lenses...and a great tragedy struck. Could it have been a premonition of things to come in my world? For like the twin towers that collapsed into dust, I, too, crumbled into a massive heap of rubble.

But, little by little, I am reconstructing myself...brick by brick. And I would like to share each brick here with you in the hope of bringing some nuggets of insight should you also be in the same journey as I am. Or maybe, just offer companionship.

Often, you go out into a journey expecting to meet different people and visit different places. However, in a rare moment of grace, you just might meet someone unexpected - yourself.