Notes from the Chrysalis
The Road to "Good Enough":
"I have been called by that which has always known me better than I have known myself. If I do not repond to the call most likely I will end up somewhere I am not at home; I will be a stranger to my own skin... But if I do respond to the call, I will need to surrender to my life's meaning... To follow my call I will need to know how to go apart from the crowd and follow a path others may never understand. I will need to commit myself to my life settling only when I find its meaning and purpose, saying yes to my passion, bearing the aloneness of my own authority..." ~ Robert S. Henderson
The Great Horned Owl
"I have started to notice the patterns; no easy task when my head is down and I am trudging along these roads. But, yes, little by little, the repetition is becoming clearer, the subtle sense of déjà vu. The scenery is different, but it is the same route. Eventually I will end up where I began, bewildered and worn out, my heart a little heavier, the pain a little sharper and emptiness a little deeper than when I started out the last time. These feelings are so uncomfortable, I can't stay idle. I start another journey quickly as to not experience their intensity.
~ Carl Jung"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart...
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens."
Boldly I start out, this trip will be better, I can feel it already. Maybe this map isn't flawed after all. 'Good Enough' is on this road I know it. I haven't felt so alive! This is definitely the right road. But, wait, I think I have seen this sign once before...maybe? It can't be the same sign, can it? Frustrated, I'm not slowing down to look, this feels too good to be the wrong way. Oh no, there it is again. I hear the warning in the wind, 'this is the wrong way'. I don't want to stop, but I can't deny it, here's another sign, and I know I have seen that one before.
Sign after sign. Defeated, I admit I am going the wrong way. Oh look, here I am again, just about where I started. I still haven't made it to 'Good Enough', but I will give myself a tiny bit of credit, I'm a little wiser from this trip. At least I recognized the warning signs a little sooner than I had on the previous trip.
I have been searching for that elusive state of 'Good Enough' for years. I'm emotionally exhausted from my search. I have latched onto a lot of people on my journeys-family, friends, acquaintances, strangers...some of these people I had enlisted as my travel agents for months or years at a time, trusting that they know the way to "Good Enough" because obviously I can't find it on my own. All this searching with no results could only mean one thing: My road map to 'Good Enough' is flawed. I am convinced.
Recently, I suspended my travel plans. I spread the map out on the floor. It's a large map, it covers the entire floor. I had no choice but to stand on the map, go inside the map. I began to look around at all the terrain I have covered. Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to see something I've never noticed before... All the roads, they led away from me, away from my feet, in front of me, behind me, off to my sides, they radiated out...But they didn't lead anywhere, and they certainly didn't lead to 'Good Enough'.
N Ditz
~ Confucius"Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart."
At the end of each of the roads, I always found myself right back where I started, always wound up coming back to the beginning to, to...well, to me. All the roads, they eventually led back to me. And eventually it struck me that perhaps this map wasn't flawed after all, perhaps it had been telling me what I refused to see for all those years: I don't need travel, I just have to slow down long enough to realize that 'Good Enough' starts and ends with the exploration of myself.
My journey through depth therapy is a continuing lesson in staying still, tuning into, reading and trusting my own internal compass, choosing my heart as my guide, compassion and fear as my travel partners on my own internal journey, creating the map as I go. It's a slow process to reacquaint myself with myself; I have been gone so long.
My journey over the last few months has felt like the beginning of a homecoming of sorts. I am literally coming home to myself. Sometimes though, I get impatient, confused and anxious in this process, and I find myself wandering down those well worn outbound roads. During these times, it's helpful to have sign posts along the way to help correct my course, remind myself that the path least traveled is indeed the way to 'Good Enough'. Home is truly where the heart is."
One of my favorite sign posts is the following poem: Love After Love