Mindful Therapist Musings

Since I was a little girl, I’ve been a creative soul, focused on art the way that other kids focused on play.

Maybe it was the Montessori school and all those macaroni pictures we made with dried noodles and glue. Or maybe it was because I watched my very young parents make music every day the way that other parents went to a j-o-b. Because at our house, that was their job.

I was lucky to have art modeled for me. My parents bought me art supplies and music lessons and books instead of toys.  While the other kids were playing softball and watching TV, I was in my room doing embroidery, writing poetry, playing the violin and piano, learning to make art with pastels, and dancing.  My favorite doll when I was 10 was a ballerina doll that twirled around when you pushed the tiara on her head.

But as I grew older, things got confusing. My parents told me I needed to get serious and learn how to make money.

I remember feeling very confused, because I always thought I’d be a musician or a music teacher. But I did what they said because they were paying for my college. I decided to become a biologist because I loved nature, and I had the brain for it. I did well at school, but I didn’t love it the way that I loved music and art. Because it took so much of my time to succeed in this new area, I neglected my art, and over time I became creatively blocked.

I gave up the violin entirely, deciding that I would never be any good at it and that I hated it. I still played the piano, but only in secret, when nobody else was in the house to hear. I wrote a few articles for magazines, but I never was able to do more than that. I wanted to write a novel, but all my ideas seemed boring and trivial,and the task of writing an entire novel and then finding a publisher (this was in the days before self publishing) was way too daunting. Over time I stopped writing. I became “too tired” and “too busy” to write. I became a shadow artist (see The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron) — I was the world’s number one critic on music and literature. And I produced nothing of value myself.

Then a miracle happened. I got divorced, and a post-divorce fever freedom came over me. My life force started to rush through my body again. I left laboratory science and took a job as an scientific editor. At least I was one step closer to writing! Then I decided to learn to bellydance.

Dancing saved me. It was a creative pursuit that was free of all the heavy history of my childhood, where I was always striving for perfection and never quite there. Even better, it was free of the grief and loss I had over giving up music. In bellydance I could be “good enough” and people would love me for it.

Through the dance, I finally connected to my kundalini. There’s a column of energy that runs through the human energy body, from root to crown, and depending on what we choose, that energy can run smoothly, or it can block up.

When my kundalini runs smoothly, creativity unblocks. My physical health and vitality go off the charts,. And sex? Yum-my. When this opens up for me I am empowered and free to do my art, and to express my voice in the world.

In my perfect day now, I practice four major channels of creativity: Dance, Music, Writing, and Knitting. When I have a day where I touch all four of these bases, I feel balanced, joyful, passionate, and free. The more I feel these amazing sensations, the easier it is to keep the channel open so more creations can flow through it.

Where do I find the time? Well a couple of ways. I cut out a lot of TV. I started saying no to anything I don’t want to do. I cut back on my volunteer hours. My mindset has changed so that now whenever someone asks me to take on something I think first about how it will impact my creative time.

I’ve found that I love to teach others how to unblock their own inner artist.  Think about this: how would you be different if you practiced the art that you love every day? And how would your courageous acts of creation change the world? How would the world be different if every single person practiced some form of art each and every day?

Are you feeling blocked in your creative life?  What would you create if you had unlimited time, money or energy?

I would love to help you explore this though a class or private shamanic support. 

When you’re walking a spiritual path, everything is an opportunity for change and gratitude. When life gets hard, sometimes the task isn’t to try harder. Sometimes the task is to let go and f$*#!ng surrender. After all, there isn’t really much else you can do anyway.

Recently my life has been a shit storm. Pardon my French, but that’s just my accurate truth. The shit has definitely hit the fan. My Mom got diagnosed with stage 3 melanoma, my son is growing up and pulling away, my best friend moved a thousand miles away, another friend died, and then an ex called to tell me he’s having a baby with his new girlfriend.

That’s a lot of loss. While I consider myself a grief expert, from many years of dealing with loss, this little clump of disasters has me in an agony of depression and sadness. Things are bad enough that I need to go back to therapy after 10 years. And then it turned out that my medical plan had been cancelled.

Are you getting the picture?

With all this loss, difficulty, and hardship it finally became clear to me that Source just wanted me to stop everything for a few days. So I stopped. I wish I could tell you that I spent that time meditating, but to be honest I felt too sad to meditate for more than 10 or 15 minutes.

Instead I spent a lot of time zoning out with TV. I watched all of the last season of Game of Thrones, then True Blood, and now a cute little show called Enlightened. And that’s where God found me, right there in the middle of HBONow. In the show, Laura Dern’s character says:

“I will change, and I will be an agent of change”.

That woke me up. I remembered that I have a choice about how I will receive these events in my life. And I realized that I want to receive the gifts. I want to live every day in the present moment and feel all of my feelings. I want to feel gratitude for everything that’s good and beautiful in my life.

Part of that appreciation is that I cry a lot, sometimes all day. Sometimes I’m crying with sadness, other times because I’m happy, and still other times because I feel lost and confused. Amidst all this, is another miracle. I’m seeing these gifts of grieving so deeply that sometimes it feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest (or at least a very large, very fluffy 30 lb cat!):

1. I appreciate each moment more
2. I’m unfiltered, I have more courage to say exactly how I feel and what I want.
3. I feel softer and more emotionally connected to my partner
4. I’ve let go of doing anything I don’t want to do
5. I can hear Spirit’s voice more clearly
6. Choices seem a lot more simple.
7. I’m more determined about the vision I want to create in my life.
8. My brain is quieter and not filled with a million thoughts a minute
9. Small things don’t bother me
10. People are kinder

Through all of this, I’m working the 1st Gateway’s Sacred Tree Meditation multiple times a day to stay grounded and let go of the big feelings. Then I use the 6th Gateway’s receptive breathing to open to receive more support from Source.

It’s working. two days ago I woke up and felt as though a lot of the weight had been lifted. Although the grief still comes in waves, I’ve received these miracles:

1. Waves of love from my partner
2. My son calling me more often to connect
3. Knowing my Mom is still ok today
4. Beauty in the wake for my friend who died
5. Free therapy from an understanding therapist until my insurance kicks in

It’s clear that when I relax into what’s real, even when it’s extremely painful, life flows forward and Source does everything in its power to lovingly support me. Seeing that cycle unfold gives me tremendous hope, and allows me to surrender even more deeply to the gifts of grief. 

Are you experiencing grief and loss in your own life? If so what gifts is it bringing you? 

I would love to help you explore this though a class or private shamanic support. 

When my dream of a committed, easeful, loving, and passionate partnership came true, I found myself conflicted. I was ecstatic to finally be in relationship with my true love, but I worried that in the end our differences would be too great, and found myself fighting against being in the present moment and enjoying what we were actually sharing together. The stakes of life suddenly seemed higher, and the chance of making a mistake and screwing it all up loomed large in my fear zone. I found myself learning a whole new set of lessons about receiving the gifts in my life.

It wasn’t new for me to have a problem with receiving with something I wanted once I got it. I often have that feeling of “it’s too good to be true” when a relationship or my work in the world is going well. Here was a man who cooked, cleaned, and did those manly chores that I don’t know how to do, without being asked. This was a man who loved me unconditionally and told me so every day. This was a man who liked to hold me all night long and make love to me passionately with sacred connection.  With this man I was for the first time experiencing trust, ease, unconditional love, and passion — all the key elements of true love.

It was terrifying.

It reminded me of the time my son’s father gave me the exact brand and model of new camera that I had been longing for. My first reponse? “We can’t afford this!” The camera sat in its cardboard packaging for at least two weeks, and when I finally took the camera out of the box I had trouble remembering to use it, to embrace it as part of my life. I just couldn’t seem to accept that it was mine. A few months later it was stolen. Talk about the law of attraction! I was simply not able to receive that camera and accept that I deserved it.

I have a similar problem with men.

I have a lifelong habit of pushing away the men who love me. Perhaps it’s because I grew up with a mother who showed her love by paying extreme attention to every detail of my life. Her attention came with a lot of suggestions for my improvement. I learned to associate “I love you” with “please change and be different.” As an adult this association still gives me the urge to run from love. I still struggle to accept that men are able to love me the way that I am — no changes needed. At the same time over the years I have developed almost zero tolerance for anyone who wants to change me.

Obviously I still have healing to do. I know that the sweet spot lies somewhere between people pleasing and total individualism.

It’s a process. My growth is that these days I see what I am doing. I watch myself try to push love away, and when that happens I turn to prayer and meditation. I ask Spirit for help to shift my behavior and to heal the emotions that create that behavior.

Celebration is definitely in order, now that I have finally stopped attracting men who cannot love me. Now it is time to open to the possibility of Happily Ever After.

As I watched my beloved’s deep concern not only for my welfare, but for the welfare of all his friends, I saw how insane was the desire to push him away. I understood too that I had been “single” for 6 years. I had lovers, business partners, and tantric partners during that time, but not a romantic partner that shared with me a vision of a life together. Adjusting to having another person deeply in my life took some time.

During that adjustment period we both wondered: Is it ok that we feel comfortable being in the same space all day but working independently? Is it good that after several days together we both want some solitude? Is it weird that we flow so well together for things like meals and activities but sometimes disagree about how to organize our belongings and our spaces? Is it too soon to wonder how all these idiosyncrasies will fit together if we share living space?

I learned to tell myself the same thing about this over and over: I don’t have to decide today, and Spirit has led me here, so I trust that Spirit will help us both to know what is right.

My work became focused on keeping my heart open and on the practices in this book. Awareness has continued to bloom, and my heart opens more as I keep reminding myself that this man is not the father who was absent for so much of my life, or the mother who loves me through constant correction. This man is someone who tells me how beautiful I am every day, who supports my spiritual and creative growth. This is the man who is my true love. And, finally, I am learning to receive the gift.

This blog is an excerpt from my book, The Heart of Intimacy.

What gifts are you struggling to receive in your life? 

I would love to help you explore this though a class or private shamanic support. 

Green-Eyed One,
Among the Oaks
Laughing Songs
Singing Jokes
Far beyond the Oak’s
Great majesty
He dances life
He waits for me

No, I didn’t write this song about Tom Hiddleston, but in searching for an image of what I dreamed and where this song came from, this photo comes closest to conveying the feeling I had when  the song arrived, fully formed, in my head.

It all happened the year that I turned 30. It was a big one for me. I got divorced, changed careers, let go of my house, and relocated from North San Diego County into the heart of the city.

While all this life change transpired,  I started dreaming about a man with glowing green eyes and long black hair. In my dreams he wanted me to dance, to play my violin, to be my fullest self. He followed me around with the violin saying, “here, take it, it’s yours”.

In my dreams I lusted after him in the worst way. I wanted him to be a real flesh-and-blood man. I didn’t want the violin, I just wanted Him. As time went by it became clear that he was my guide and teacher.

Fast forward a few years, and one morning I woke with a fully formed song, courtesy of my guide, in my head — the lyrics you see up above. This kind of instantaneous song creation had never happened to me before, but I’d read about it. I had received my shaman’s power song.

So I wrote it down, sang it, breathed life into it. And it became the way that I connected quickly to the land or to just create sacred space quickly in any situation. It made me stronger whenever I sang it, gave me hope, helped me let go of my worries, reminded me I wasn’t alone. Every time I sang or played it, I felt my invisible guides and teachers gather around me. It became a prayer, an invocation, and an ongoing initiation all rolled into one.

Now roll forward another 20 years, into 2015. A few months ago I was brainstorming about a show that Zoe Sol and I wanted to create. As she shared a new song she’d just written, I instantly knew that somehow my power song was connected to it. Like me, she’d woken up with her own song fully formed. We decided to perform both songs on stage. Together they created a magical initiation, not only for both of us, but for the audience.

Sometimes an initiation can take this long to come into being. These types of downloads are becoming more frequent since I’ve begun working daily with the Six Gateways, and they are creating MAGIC in my life. I’m led to the right people, the right places, and the right ideas at the right time. I want that for you too. I want to share what I know.

To pass on this way of opening to what Spirit wants for you, I’ve created a new Six Gateways Shamanic Initiations Class. Starting on August 1st, I’ll be leading a group of 6-8 people through a series of initiations around San Diego County. We’ll explore local sacred sites and “power up” our lives with this incredibly juicy energy that comes from connecting to the land and opening up to divine guidance.

We’ll meet twice a month on Saturday mornings (to beat the summer heat), at different outdoor locations in San Diego County. I hope you’ll join me.

http://sixgateways.com/events-and-initiations/

Here’s a short video of one of the locations where we’ll meet:

Last Friday I sang on stage for the first time since I was 16 years old — I’m 52 now, so you do the math 🙂 The experience was exhilarating. I felt completely aligned in every way with who I am and my true purpose on the planet. Partly that was because I wasn’t just performing, I was helping to create a sacred space for everyone present to receive a spiritual upgrade — an initiation, really.

What is an initiation? In the shamanic tradition, it is a powerful experience that changes you forever, usually bringing clarity, removal of obstacles, and sometimes, enlightenment.

As a scientist in my youth, I found it really hard to believe that abrupt life transformation was really possible through a single spiritual experience. Growing up Christian, I’d read the entire bible, which included many stories of people being healed just by a touch or a word or hearing a holy person speak.

But I still didn’t believe it.

Later when I became a shaman, I discovered many Native American and European stories of similar transformations, mediated by the gods.

Now I no longer doubt that they’re true.

10 years ago, my life fell apart. I lost my husband, my home, and custody of my 5-yr-old son. But miraculously, I was transformed by initiation. I received a job, a new man, and unlimited visitation with my child.

5 years ago, it happened again. My business and romantic partner and I parted ways, which led to the end of my business and a series of difficult relationships. I was really stuck in a place of suffering and pain. I received traveled to Peru and received powerful initiation rites in that tradition. And again, things got better.

This year, 5 years later, I received initiation again, only this time directly from the land and from Spirit. This time, rather than falling apart, my life has been exploding like a supernova, getting better and better with a love I truly cherish, a beautiful living space, and more and more opportunities to offer my gift to the world (like the Prayerformance last Friday).

I believe it’s all because of the power of initiation.
10 years ago I signed up for a class with a shaman that ended with an initiation. I can still remember that each time I left the house to go to class, my problems were left behind and I felt exhilarated, passionate, and FREE. At the end of the course, when my teacher put her hands on my head, I felt something pour into my soul. And after that I was no longer the same person.

It was scary, because it meant leaving the life I’d built so carefully to keep myself safe. But it was ok because it didn’t happen all at once, and there was so much joy and support along the way. The truth was I was stuck in this life where I was a corporate drone editing other people’s scientific documents all day long. I was miserable.

I wanted a life where I could express my creativity and help people heal. And now I have that.

The Six Gateways path emerged 10 years ago, after 20 years of spiritual study. I wanted to create a simple system for myself and my clients to unify the important spiritual practices I’d learned. Since that time the gateways have grown into a way of life for me.

In my new Six Gateways Shamanic Initiation class, I want to give you that leg-up that I received from my teachers. I want to pay it forward.

I’m going to take a group of 6-8 people through a 3 month journey. We’ll visit different sacred sites in San Diego (starting in Rancho Bernardo) and receive shamanic downloads that help clear away the junk that gets in the way of being our best, brightest, and most powerful selves. Class begins on August 1, and will meet twice a month on Saturdays, at different outdoor locations in San Diego County. We’ll meet in early morning to avoid the summer heat. Please join us if you are ready to take the next step in your life evolution. To find out more, contact me at kypris@sixgateways.com or 760-522-2554. Space is limited, so register now if you are called to join us.  Click here for registration, dates, and details.

 

Would you prefer one-on-one shamanic work? Start by requesting a free phone consultation. 

 

The last week or so I’ve been buzzing with anxiety. It’s filled every waking moment, kept me from sleeping, and almost made me forget who I am and why I am here. There’ve been some big changes in my life — a new car when I’ve never had a new car before. A new place to live that’s so perfect that there’s no doubt God had a hand in it.

To most people these probably seem like wonderful changes, but to me they’re terrifying. Why? Because I don’t like change. Even though I know it’s good for me, even though it always turns out better in the end, I don’t like it. I don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen.

But the truth is? I never really know what’s going to happen anyway. Unexpected change comes into even the quietest of lives, bringing with it joy, anguish, and a million other emotions.

My emotions are so strong when they come, that they threaten to sweep me away. And I don’t like that. I don’t like feeling out of control. And the less I’m in control, the more anxious I become.

But I forgot something important. I forgot that I’m never in charge.

I often say that spiritually I’m like a little dog (which is hilarious because I’m really a cat and rabbit person when it comes to pets). In this case, I’m like a dog who thinks he’s in charge of the household, even though my owner (God) is bigger and smarter than me.

In this case, Goddess is trying to give me a bigger and better life, and I’ve been fighting. Just like a dog who fights moving to a new home because he doesn’t like to leave the old one. Or who doesn’t want a NEW toy because he just loves that old familiar stinky sock to play with, even though it’s frayed and grey and coated in doggy slobber.

It took my long-time mentor to finally bring me down to earth after 3 sleepless nights. She said: “It sounds like you think you’re God and that you think you know exactly what’s going to happen”. She reminded me that the unknown can be really amazing, but I have trouble seeing that because I have a limited viewpoint. I only know what I know from my own perception. And when I’m filled with anxiety that feels like a nest of snakes biting each other in my belly, I might be looking at things from the wrong perception.

And then I remembered: true enlightenment is staying in touch with my higher power in every minute of every day.

It’s so simple, but when I’m afraid like that it’s hard for me to open that channel. Fortunately I received several initiations years ago that anchored how to do this.

When I came to those initiations, I was filled with anxiety and unable to banish it. Now, 22 years later, once I realize that I’m anxious and why, I can go back to the Six Gateways practices to let go of it.

Here are some simple things you can try doing on your own to relieve the anxiety:

1. Come into connection with the sacred through your physical body and ask for help. What helps the most is to get out into nature and pray. Yesterday I walked by the lake, sat on a rock, and watched the sun set. I could literally feel the anxiety draining out of my body

2. Practice the World’s Easiest Meditation — close your eyes and take six deep breaths. I do this every time I start to feel anxious.

3. Make a cup of tea and use it to soothe yourself and rinse away the negative emotions from your body.

After my shift, I slept well and was powerfully guided to the next right actions. One of those is to offer you a brand new Six Gateways Shamanic Initiation class that’s I’ve never offered before. I’m going to take a group of 6-8 people through a 3 month journey. We’ll visit different sacred sites in San Diego and receive shamanic downloads that help clear away the junk that gets in the way of being our best, brightest, and most powerful selves. Class begins on August 1, and will meet twice a month on Saturdays, at different outdoor locations in San Diego County. To join us, contact me at kypris@sixgateways.com or 760-522-2554. Check out my events page for details.

Would you prefer one-on-one shamanic work? Start by requesting a free phone consultation. 

There’s magic in the air today.

For two years I’ve been working towards a vision of a life that I love–a home that fits me, a car that makes me smile (rather than worry things are going to fall off it), work that is fulfilling and authentic, and a relationship that is passionate, satisfying, and committed. Suddenly today a wave of good feeling washed over me. It hit while I was pouring myself a glass of water. I realized that the life I’ve been visioning is partly here, and it feels so GOOD.

It’s kind of snuck up on me. While I did ask Spirit back in December for the birthday gift of a life I love, I didn’t really expect it to happen. You know how that is, right?

It all began with my relationship. Last year I did a “relationship cleanse”, stopping all dating for 8 months. It was weirdly good, after two marriages and a live-in boyfriend, to learn about myself, who I am, and what I want.

So there I was, minding my own business, and getting pretty comfortable with being solo, when an old love rekindled in my life. It was like lighting a candle, which then became ten candles, and then a roaring bonfire. Since my time alone had shown me what I DID and DID NOT want in relationship, I was able to speak that loud and clear, which set us up for a completely different dynamic. It’s been really good. Sure we still have our struggles — after all we are both over 50 and prone to curmudgeonry. But it feels like coming home.

Next there was a shift in my work. I’ve been an entrepreneur for 10 years now, and my business had been hit really hard by the “Great Recession”. Diligent work was only resulting in barely getting by. I was starting to wonder if I was going to have to give up my dreams and get a J-O-B. (Shudder).

And what happened? I failed utterly. I put on an event and nobody came. And I got really really ANGRY at God. I cussed, I swore, I cried for 2 days. (I also repeatedly called the Goddess a very bad word….). And at the bottom of that anger I found myself. I realized that the event failed because I was not being true to myself. I was trying to be something I’m not, to be “acceptable” to others, rather than just following my heart and being authentic. So I came out of the closet, finally, and declared myself a shaman. After all, I had nothing left to lose.

Almost overnight, my practice tripled, and since that time a few months ago, money has continuously streamed in to support me. My business is booming, because I’m doing what I LOVE.

And this brings me to…dah dah dah….the car.

For the last four years I’ve been driving this ancient Toyota Camry. It is (or rather now, WAS) a true antique, made in 1988. By my calculations that makes Jasmine (my name for her) 27 years old.

So little wonder that a few days ago, she died. I could feel it coming, because I have REALLY good intuition. I kept hearing, for the last three months, a voice saying, “It’s time to get a new car”. I’ve been diligently putting money away, being frugal, thinking about what kind of car I want.

So when the axle broke off inside the transmission, I was mostly grateful. I was grateful that it happened AFTER I had just exited the freeway. I was grateful that AAA sent a tow truck to rescue me. I was grateful that my sweetheart was nearby to give me a ride home. I was grateful the scrapyard gave me $300 CASH. 🙂 And now as I go through the process of shopping for a new car, I just feel happy and joyous, not anxious and scared.

Next up? My home. I’ve been staying with my beloved for the last 2-1/2 months in a tiny trailer that is barely big enough for one person, let alone two. But again, I have enough money saved, not only for the new car, but also to move into a new home, it’s just a matter of finding the right thing.

In all this, I’ve learned that’s the bottom line — that Spirit HAS to guide me if I want my life to be this good. I can see now so clearly how the majority of the difficulties in my life were caused by ME, by making choices for all the wrong reasons — because somebody wanted me to do something, or didn’t want me to do something, or because I wanted to be rich, or because I was afraid, or because I wanted somebody to like me.

It’s the human condition. We want to avoid pain at all costs. We want love. We seek pleasure. But the trick is that sometimes the most pleasure comes after enduring a little bit of pain. And a life that we LOVE comes from learning what we fear, and cultivating the courage to move through that into our best and truest life.

Want a shamanic healing with me to create a life that you LOVE? Start by requesting a free phone consultation. 

This last week I’ve been almost drowning in a barrage of difficult thoughts. The days are reflecting the way I feel,  heavy with low clouds keeping the sky a gloomy grey and constantly misting the ground. I feel like I’m living on Venus, a planet that never sees the sky because of Her thick layer of clouds.

I long for the blue summer skies sharp enough to cut your eyeballs in half. When I was a little girl, my favorite crayon in the box was “sky blue”. Turquoise is my birthstone and my current favorite color. So when I say I miss the sky, you see, I really MEAN it.

For days my mind has been like the oppressive grey mantle of mist hanging overhead, weeping all over everything and generally feeling miserable. Normally I’m really good at keeping myself positive and surfing difficult emotions, but I just hit a wall last week.

You see, I had a discussion with someone that’s still stuck in my craw. I can’t seem to cough it up and out of me (and in fact I’ve been down with a physical illness — starting with a really painful sore throat and turning into coughing and wheezing).

I’m one of those people who manifests their emotions in their body. This conversation I had made it clear to me that my loved one and I have very different needs, and all of my abandonment triggers reared their ugly heads as I became convinced that I was about to lose yet another person from my life.

This happens to me sometimes because I’ve lost a lot of people. There’s been death, addiction, and sudden breaking of long-standing commitments. And even though I know that this is just a story I carry, it’s hard for me when I think that a loved one and I are going to have to distance or part ways.

This morning I saw blue sky for the first time in days — in my mind anyhow. I talked with a mentor who was able to reflect back to me that I’m stuck in a place of black and white thoughts. I’m stuck in an obsessional lose-lose scenario.

I’ve got some other ones too:

1. I’m either the best writer in the whole world or the worst.

2. I’m the best mom in the world or the worst

3. Either everyone loves me or they all hate me

4. Either I’m rich or I’m poor

And while my mind actually knows these thoughts are ridiculous, I can’t stop thinking them. There’s a vicious cycle being created within my flesh, the unhappy thoughts piling up in me, making my body feel more and more unhappy.

So this morning after talking to my mentor, I drew the “Wheel of Fortune” tarot card. What a wonderful reminder that the events of anyone’s life simply go around and around. Sometimes things are fabulous, sometimes they are awful, but mostly they are somewhere in-between. Most of life is in this between space. And really, my thoughts are  huge part of whether that middle space, where things are “so-so” is joyful or awful.

I used to think of myself as an optimist, a visionary, but I wasn’t really expecting the best in real circumstance. What I was really doing was living a fantasy life. Regardless of my actual situation, I was always convinced that my life was about to be transformed in a moment — just like a fairy tale.

In high school I was convinced that at any moment one of the most gorgeous football jocks in school was going to fall in love with me. In college, that I could get straight A’s without studying (ha ha). In my first job, that I would make some great scientific discovery by designing my own work time instead of doing the work I was hired for. And as a writer, that I was always about to write the next great American novel (well that one could still be true!).

Now that I’m in my 50’s, I’ve finally realized that I’ve lived my whole life in a sort of vague fantasy, always convinced things are going to magically change, but without any real plan for how to create that change.

Through the healing work I’ve done, it’s become clear that this way of being comes from growing up with an alcoholic parent and a lot of neglect. Because I was desperately unhappy as a child, and felt unloved, I created a magical world for myself where everything was rosy and wonderful. In some ways that served me really well. It insulated me from the pain of my situation, allowed me to form strong spiritual connections to a higher power, and gave me strength to create a good life for myself where I was able to go to college, get two graduate degrees, and succeed at my chosen career.

But these days I want a different kind of success. I want to succeed at living a satisfying life, at relationships, and I want to change the world.

Yes, I know it’s still a little bit Don Quixote. There’s nothing wrong with optimism, and I hope that passionate belief in the best outcome never leaves me. But I’ve come to see that I must stay calm and take practical steps towards my goals. And right now my first, biggest step is to stop the black and white thinking and open my arms and my heart to all the shades of grey.

That’s hard for me. Because grey feels like dying, like limbo, like throwing myself into a limitless void that will swallow me up and leave nothing behind. And GREY is my LEAST favorite color in the crayon box.

But embracing it is the only way forward for me now. If I want to continue my journey towards enlightenment — which is really just a way of seeing myself and my actions clearly — then I have to learn to LOVE the grey crayon, to learn to see it as just as beautiful as the sky blue.

When the Buddha talked of releasing attachment, I think he was talking about this middle path, this place of grey. And in this place maybe there are many options of how to be.

Maybe some people love me, some like me, and some are even indifferent. Maybe when they love me, that love doesn’t look any particular way.

And maybe I’m no better or worse than anyone else, just one of the crowd, doing my part, the part that I was sent here to do.

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