Take What You Like and Leave the Rest

Here it comes: I’m going to out myself. I am a member of Al-Anon, a 12-step program for friends and family members of alcoholics. Technically anonymity is a big part of the program, but I have decided that keeping myself anonymous in this is actually against my best interests, and so I am finally going to talk about something that quite literally turned my life around five years ago when I found it.

When I first went to Al-Anon, I had no idea that alcoholism had effected me as much as it did – I was not aware of how much I was aware of the people around me, to the point where I was counting others’ drinks, keeping score of others’ behavior, and living a life that revolved mostly around how much I could stay out of the way of whatever terrible thing I imagined could happen, regardless of whether it happened or not. (I wrote about this before without talking about how it was related to Al-Anon; you can read my post on codependence here.)

Now I know that a lot of my behaviors are related to having grown up in the company of an alcoholic; that many of my actions are actually defense mechanisms that were built into my childhood to cope with things beyond my control; some part of me created them to keep me safe in a situation that never felt safe to me on a very deep level.

When I first went to Al-Anon, I was already aware of many of the tenets of the program; the alcoholic in my life had stopped drinking when I was young, and I had been to meetings before, as a child. I knew the first step of Alcoholic’s Anonymous, which, coincidentally, is the first step of Al-Anon, too, although in Al-Anon we focus more on our inability to control another’s relationship to alcohol: 

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol; that our lives had become unmanageable.

In my first Al-Anon meeting of about 4 people in a small village in Mexico, we read this first step, and everyone shared what their first meeting had meant to them. There was a silence when everyone else had finished. I looked down at the book in front of me, swallowing repeatedly to hold back the tears. 

Someone cleared their throat and said, very gently, “You don’t have to say anything, but we are here to listen.”

“I don’t want to be in charge of anyone else anymore,” I said.

And then I cried. 

Hard.

I think I may have spoken more. I think I may have explained that I wasn’t even sure I belonged there, because I hadn’t lived with an active alcoholic for more than 20 years; I probably expanded on the idea that I had always thought unconsciously that my job in life was to take care of others. I probably said all this, but I have no idea how, because all I really remember of that day was racking sobs and the relief that came from finally giving up the thought that I had the ability to control anyone, any situation, or how anyone acted. Best of all, it wasn’t my job to fix it. It wasn’t about me, and anything outside the sphere of me was none of my business.

At the end of each Al-Anon meeting, there is a line, and it has always been one of my greatest comforts, much the way that Al-Anon became a comfort to me in the fact  that I could go to a meeting anywhere in the world and the format was always the same; the ritual was always similar. That line says, “In closing, I would like to say that the opinions expressed here are solely of the person who holds them. Take what you like and leave the rest.”

Al-Anon – and other 12-step meetings – allow a person to talk about what is bothering them in an environment where people understand where they’re coming from and what they’re going through, but it also allows that not everything heard in a meeting is going to apply to everyone, and that is one of the most comforting parts, as far as I’m concerned.  However, I have not been going to meetings lately, and it has caused me to forget how important this line was to me, and how applicable it is not just in a 12-step environment, but in life in general. 

I’ve been so tired lately, invisible audience. I have stopped answering emails, I have stopped engaging, and I have found myself either holed up in my home or escaping to Costa Rican beach towns, all because I am having problems hearing myself think. This is not a new problem, but it is a cyclical one: when I am trying to grapple with new emotional upheavals or discoveries, I tend to get easily overwhelmed, and during these time periods, anything anyone tells me comes at me in stereo sound, with a lot of bass and not a lot of room for me to hear myself think.

What’s new, however, is an immediate connection to my intuition that wasn’t there before. Before, anyone could state how they felt about something with conviction, and I would find myself wanting to believe it was true because they seemed to know it was, and it very likely IS true…for them. It would take days or weeks for me to finally come to the understanding that just because they believed it didn’t mean I had to…that in fact, the exact opposite might be true for me.

The difference now is that I am suddenly feeling my disagreement in the moment, where I never could before; where, because of my experiences as a child, it was never safe to do anything but defer to the biggest, loudest and most insistent opinion out there. Now, when someone says something that is against my best interests or doesn’t resonate with me, I feel sick. Nauseous. And it is not until I consciously dismiss their words and own that I don’t agree – either out loud or simply to myself – that I start to feel better.

I have to take what I like, and leave the rest. And believe me, there’s a lot to leave: ideas about my role in life; what I am capable of; what is not my responsibility; others’ ideas on spirituality, reincarnation; my career, if I even want one. There is much more to leave than there is to take, and this is news to me. It is no wonder I have always felt overwhelmed, if I somehow thought I had to take all that was handed to me and treat it as truth, even if it didn’t fit.

In Al-Anon, we sometimes refer to emotional sobriety: of an ability to maintain equilibrium in the face of life’s storms. Many people in Al-Anon are still living with active alcoholics, and our own disease is often seeking out these people and trying to care for and change them; making their lives our own. Regardless of whether that’s the case, regardless of how each day shapes itself, the truth of the matter is that there will always be something to rock the emotional boat. I am finding that my own emotional sobriety has more to do with choosing the right battles. I have to work on letting go of the ideas that no longer serve me, and fostering an ability to manage stress that does not actually require an absence of stress, but a healthy awareness of what is mine to own and what I don’t have to; what is outside of the realm of my control or responsibilities. It is about being aware of what I get to take, and what I get to leave when I leave all the rest.

Love and all the rest kisses

Morgan

What AM I Running From?

"Walking and walking across the world he will gradually find consolation, and one day, when he is too fatigued to take another step, he will realize that he cannot escape sorrow, he will have to tame it so it doesn’t harass him.” 

~ Isabel Allende, Island Beneath the Sea

Hello, invisible audience. Long time no talk. It’s been a whirlwind month for me: I was in a show at the beginning of August through the local English-speaking theater, that we then took on tour to a beach town near Panama City, and I took the opportunity to go visit some friends then pick up my dad. He came in time to see my last show, then I spent the next 10 days showing him the best that Panama had to offer in Panama City and near Boquete.

It’s interesting to see your life through another’s eyes, especially when that person is your father on his first trip to see your new home. In some ways I am sure my existence surprised him with its simplicity -- "Geez, you live way the heck up here. Don't you want to live closer to town, or think about getting a car?" -- and in some ways I think he was impressed with the comfort that I live in for spending so little each month.  More than any of that, I like to hope he felt somewhat comforted by knowing that I have carved my own little niche here.

“Do you know where you’ll go next?” he asked one day, over yet another cup of local coffee. “And when?”

“No,” I said. 

No, I don’t know, because I don’t currently have a desire to go anywhere. No, I don’t know, because suddenly the thought of carrying everything with me and traipsing around on a bus through unfamiliar territory sounds more tiring than it’s worth. No, because I like where I am, and I’m not ready to leave.

This could change. Up to this point, it has changed regularly for me. Even if I’ve stayed in a general area, I have not lived in a single house, apartment or other shelter for more than a year since I went to college when I was 18.

I don’t want to leave. One of my co-actors, the lead in the show, pointed out to me that valley Boquete is in is shaped like a cradle: it’s a nest, it is comforting, sheltered, and quiet. She said this on the night before she left; I agreed, and unlike other times in my life when friends have left on a new adventure, I have no desire to pick up and go, too.

“What are you running from, Morgan?”

I’ve heard this a lot in my life, and depending on how tired or angry I was, my answer changed, as did the amount of venom in my retort. As much as I have been angered by this question and would deny its validity, I would find myself asking it, too, in the dark of night, staring at the ceiling of yet another room that I found myself restless in. What was I running from, and have I lost it now, or just managed to find a better hiding place for awhile?

As always, I think my answer could change with my mood, but for now I’m feeling introspective and calm, so my answer is the same: introspective, detached, and calm.

I was running from me. I was running from the part of me that was unable to say no, unable to say that I was tired, that I was overwhelmed, that I felt I didn’t have the strength to be all the things I had always presented myself as. I was running from a life I built that was not sustainable, that did not allow enough time for me, and did not honor what I wanted and needed: a star-studded sky, the ability to hear the wind in the trees, and, in that silence, the ability to hear the small voice in my heart that can be so easily drowned out by any other voice.

Over the last month and a half, I have gone from near hysterics – and one time, actual hysterical tears that were so long and violent that the next morning a local coffee shop owner asked me if I was taking anything for the terrible congestion that made my face look swollen – to a calm serenity. Suddenly, the questions that I have been asking myself forever seem to be unraveling, and one day not too many days ago, I realized that for days I had felt something that I can only call contentment. I say that hesitatingly, because it is not a natural state for me, and that is the only word I have found that comes even close to something I can tie to the feeling.

Yes, I have been happy here, but happiness is a fleeting emotion that cannot withstand the deep questions and soul-searching; it is a state that suspends itself when confronted with deeper questions about who I am and what I want from my life, not to mention how I’ll fund that journey. Contentment, on the other hand, seems to have appeared as a magic carpet that both happiness and sorrow have landed upon and yet keeps them and me afloat: it is not an endorphin-rush high with an inevitable crash, instead it is simply realizing that I have asked for this, all of it: the time to soul-search, the capability to look deep, the words to bring the feelings to light, and the ability to recognize what I am doing is incredibly important to whomever I become in the future. I do not have to suffer for my revelations; I can simply have them, know that my fears and walls have served me in the past, and now I have the time to examine those walls to see how they were built, and dismantle them, one brick at a time. There is contentment in that, even at the times that it is painful; even when what I uncover is not something that I can be happy about in the moment. Instead, I can recognize that unleashing these demons that have been eating at me for years – self-doubt, self-criticism, perfectionism – will ultimately lead to more happiness and contentment in the future, much like  ripping off a band aid to allow the wound to heal in the open air.

I have been going back and typing up my journal, and one of the overarching themes from the past year is exhaustion. I am tired of living a life that doesn’t feel like mine, I am tired of being unable to say no, I am tired of hiding who I am, I am so very tired. 

In Boquete, I have found a place to rest. I have found a place to stay put awhile and write a book where I unburden myself not only of the last year, but also of the years that preceded it: all the pain I caused myself and others, all the fears I lived by, all the times I put down what I wanted and needed in favor of what I thought I was supposed to do, despite the fact that no one said out loud that I was supposed to do it. It seems that I perhaps have finally run out of steam: that finally, after all my running, escaping, and searching, I have found something worth standing still for. As Isabel Allende so aptly named it in her book, it is the need to tame the sorrow so that it will not harass me; it is the point where I can look at what has dragged me down and finally let it go, to sink to the bottom as I ricochet to the top, no longer held underwater by old burdens, ideas and emotions. It is realizing that I can stay here if I want to, and bask in the gentle swaying comfort of this place forever, and that maybe – just maybe – this place has become an inner sanctuary that can now always be my home wherever I am, instead of a mythical land that I am always striving to reach. 

Love and run-free kisses,

Morgan

The Search for Self Worth

“Crazy people don’t sit around wondering if they’re nuts.”

It’s a line from Proof, the play I’m currently in where I play the older sister to a potentially crazy potential mathematical genius, and daughter to a mathematical genius who truly was crazy. It is my job – my character thinks – to gently or not so gently convince my sister to move to New York now that our father has died, so she can be near me, where I can watch her, take care of her and get her help…because I think she’s crazy.

“I think you have some of his talent…and some of his tendency toward…instability,” I tell her.

I am undermining, condescending and even somewhat manipulative. I talk down to her, tell her what’s best for her, try to interest her in the mundane and materialistic world that I want to pull her into, and I treat her like a child who cannot possibly know what is best for herself, even though she’s 25.

Call it what you want. As of last Friday, Mercury Retrograde ended, which is one of three periods a year of a three-week window where astrologically Mercury appears to be moving backward in the sky. According to astrologists, the ability to communicate effectively moves backwards with it.

Whether or not this is true, it’s been a hell of a couple weeks for me. Not only did I find myself misunderstanding and misunderstood, I found myself fumbling around in my head, trying to figure out what my actual perceptions were and what my ego was insisting was the truth – how I was protecting myself and whether I was simply refusing to take the blame for something – many things – that were or weren't my fault.

I know that seems vague, but really the issues at hand weren’t what was at the root of the problem, it was my feeling about them. Was there something wrong with me? Why was I finding it so hard to find my footing; to acknowledge my own role in these situations and yet still be able to recognize that despite my faults I was an ok human being; that these faults did not completely define me?

Let me be clear here: I am not hearing voices, I do not see people who are not there, and I have yet to have anyone tell me that I might actually be courting mental illness. Yet in my own head, I was the sister that I talk down to in Proof. I am Catherine, struggling to find footing, vacillating between truth and fiction, between fighting for normalcy and fighting against lunacy, and finding both sides to be a slippery slope. I found a part of me telling me that there was no way what I was saying or thinking or even feeling could be true; that I am incapable of anything; that I am, in fact, crazy for thinking that my life might work the way I’ve been living it: that it is crazy to believe that I can live a happy productive life in any way, shape or form that I choose.

In the last week, I’ve found myself stuck there: my brain insisting that I am wrong, worthless, while my heart screams that the world is what I make of it; that the world I want does exist, and even if it’s not coming about in the easiest and most comfortable way possible, it is coming about nevertheless.

The other day I went for a long walk that turned into a series of short jogs interspersed with walking. I’ve been wanting to run for awhile; run, or swim: some more active form of exercise than the long periods of walking I’ve been doing. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that my epiphany came about as the result of the release of some endorphins, and it reminded me that it’s my job to take care of myself and do the things that make me feel good, physically and mentally. I was fighting with these two sides of myself as I came back up a long hill, trying to figure out what the problem was, and finally, even though it’s been there all along, even though I had been staring at it in the face, alluded to it constantly and even acknowledged it to some extent, the answer finally showed itself in full glory: I think I’m crazy because I don’t think that I am believable: because I don’t believe me. And I don’t believe me because I am lacking the self worth to believe that I could possibly have anything good to say or offer, even to myself; because, unlike what I had previously believed, low self worth doesn’t mean only that I am lacking in the confidence to know that I are lovable regardless of what I am doing, it also means that I don’t think that my ideas, thoughts, feelings and intuition are worth as much as everyone else’s...not even to me.

(Writer's note: before you panic that I am losing all perspective, please read my last post, Writer's Tourette's, about how I write about my feelings as they happen as a way to release them.)

By realizing that self worth is at the root of the issue, I have finally realized that the answer is not in asking again and again if I am justified in feeling the way I do, but instead in taking the steps to develop the self worth that will help me know that at a deep visceral gut level, without having to ask.

I can now look back at a lot of my life and see it: see this lack of ability to trust myself in situations where I might have been right; perhaps not in how I handled it, but right at least in my feelings about the situation in the first place. I would cast about for the opinions of others and ask them if my view or feeling was worthwhile; made sense; didn’t seem crazy. Every time, they said yes: that I had a reason to feel as I did, that I was right to take the step I had taken, that I had a right to my own happiness. And yet, I still found it hard to believe.

This is not to be mistaken with an egotistical need to always be right. I think for most of my twenties I angrily insisted that I knew the right way that everyone should live and would tear someone down for disagreeing with me. I don’t think I’m there anymore…most of the time, anyway.

I would like to think that the phase I have been in -- where I am struggling to see where the bullshit lies and what I actually believe -- is a step between the angry, Always Right Morgan and the Confident Morgan who can fully accept responsibility for what she did wrong, but also know what she did right, and why neither of those things really matter in the long run of who she is, only how she acts and evolves.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I’m a work in progress. What I know today is that something set me free on that walk: it was knowing that the answer was no longer in asking if I am crazy, it is asking what I can do to improve my self worth to the point that I know when an idea I’m entertaining is the stupidest thing I could possibly act on, the best way I could handle the situation -- not for anyone else, but for me -- or somewhere in between. 

It is being able to trust the gut feeling and the logic, and knowing that it will work out for me if I follow it, because my ideas, my gut feelings, are worth just as much as everyone else’s, and because – ultimately – they need to be worth even more to me.

Love and self worthy kisses,

Morgan

A Matter of Perspective

Last week I wrote about how uncomfortable I sometimes feel when I don't know what role I'm supposed to play in a dynamic or a relationship; what, specifically, I am supposed to give. I got a lot of really great and supportive emails from friends, telling me that they have always simply enjoyed my company, and also that my description of my new (straight) male friends was hilarious, since I basically stated flat out that I very rarely considered the kind of cooperative, thoughtful and respectful attitude my new friends have to be normal compared to my other male friends.

But you know what? That's a lie. The more of my friends I thought about, the more interactions I remembered, the more I realized that it's not true: that for a really long time, I have been surrounded by men that are respectful, capable and helpful, but I was too busy focusing on the the douche bags to notice.

In a mass communication theory class in college, the teacher spoke of The Marketplace of Ideas: essentially, every idea, outlook and point of view is available for us to peruse, but we tend to go looking for information based on what we already believe to be true, therefore strengthening our case and proving that we're right.

It doesn't have to do with just men, either. Recently I was discussing codependency with a friend of mine, and she told me that she knew she was codependent when she realized that if 100 people told her how wonderful she was and one person told her she was stupid, she would believe, listen to and internalize what that one person had said because it came closest to what she thought about herself in her own mind. It made me realize the same thing: that for all the wonderful, supportive, helpful friends I have, having a conversation with one person who misunderstands me will send me into a tailspin of self-doubt and disbelief. Because I was so focused on being afraid to hear that kind of feedback, I would find myself much more capable of glossing over all the great things people had to say and instead waiting, flinching, for the blow that would come and prove I was right -- that no one understood or supported me.

I saw what I wanted to see, invisible audience; my reality was the one I created. Not only am I guilty of judging all men as equally incapable, I would take the capability out of their hands to better prove my point: I would take a capable man and reshape his role with my disbelief that he could possibly be anything but a video-game-playing meat-no-vegetable-eater, then gloat with glee when he became what I told him he was...right before I lamented self-righteously that there were no good men out there.

For all the great friends' boyfriends and husbands, all the amazing fathers out there that I know, one idiot douche bag who won't take out the garbage was enough to send me running to the hills, screaming that all men were like children and not a single one could put the toilet seat down to save his life, let alone wash a dish or avoid peeing all over the seat. 

I don't think it will come as a surprise when I say this has been a tough week for me. It's tough to realize that you've been making your life harder than it needs to be, and I've been having a lot of those realizations lately. Two small pieces this week made it hit really close to home. One, a Panamanian friend of mine asked me if I had left a boyfriend behind when I came here. "Wow, you must REALLY like to be alone," she said when I answered no: no, I hadn't had a boyfriend when I left; no, I did not have one here. The second came the next day, when an emotional man talking about his alcoholism said that his daughter had told him, "Dad, you're supposed to raise me, not the other way around."

I had to stop myself from sobbing -- stop myself from letting the hard knot in my chest over my heart rise up into my throat and come out in a keening wail. At first I didn't even know why it hurt so badly, and then I realized why: I don't actually want to be alone, but in the reality that I had created in my own head, my only choices were be alone, or care for a man who was less of a man and more like a child: in my own head, there was never any equality or autonomy; instead, all I did was give, and all he did -- whoever he was, the poor pre-programmed sap -- was take.

Someone was recently talking to me about the idea that the Universe will give you what you need, if you just ask for it. This person was talking about what a load of crap that was -- that it was delusional and ridiculous. While I don't necessarily agree with him, I am also unsure how much of it is actual serendipity, and how much could be a simple change in perspective. If you believe there are jobs, you'll look for a job like there's one out there for you -- leading you to a job that you optimistically think could be the one. If you think that you'll never be happy, you won't be, because you'll be so busy focusing on the reasons you're not happy that the potential for happiness may walk right by.

Most importantly for me, if I am focused on what is missing, I'll have to focus on the people that it's actually missing from. With that sort of concentration on the problem, I'll never see the responsible, respectful, mature and toilet cleaning solution, even if he's staring me in the face; even if he's offering me a scrub brush as if it were an olive branch.

Love and perspective kisses
Morgan

The Pattern Part 2

Author's note: I wrote this whole post without having realized that I already wrote a post about my pattern this month. They are radically different, come to different conclusions about why I do what I do, and yet ultimately both are important parts of my pattern and have led me to make the same decision. Understanding them and how they fit together is slowly leading me to a better understanding of myself. Yes, to some extent they may be arguing opposite sides of the same point, and yet that is the beauty of being human: not always hanging on the logical, and instead reacting to and living with emotional responses.

Anybody who knows me knows my pattern; I’ve written about it, talked about it, and lived it for a really long time. Save up a bunch of money. Often, sell a car or the promise of a first-born child for extra cash. Pack everything into a ridiculously small (for the amount of time I’ll be gone) or ridiculously large (since I have to schlep it myself) backpack, depending on how you look at it. Go. Adventure. Peruse. Find the beauty and excitement in each new day in a new place. Be wowed by simple differences, by people with different cultures and practices; eat new foods and stand on the tops of new vistas or swim in new lakes, rivers and oceans.

One of the new rivers I've found nearby to swim in.

Often on purpose, I then take this to an extreme, in an attempt to suck every last endorphin, pleasure and moment of joy out of it. I call myself a travel addict, and this is why: I go seeking the hit, overload on the hit the way you would a meal that’s just too good to stop eating, and wind up comatose and lamenting your inability to know when to say when. I do this on purpose so that when I go home, the everyday will be welcome; the lack of new and exciting will come with a sense of peace, and I’ll be able to work on settling in without having to listen to the small voice in the back of my head that says, “But, I like it out there in the world.”

This is perhaps not really that big of a confession to make anymore, but my pattern was all about going to get what I needed and hoping, desperately, that this time it will be enough: that the 3 months backpacking through Australia would exhaust me enough that I would never need to do this again; that diving in the underwater caves on the Yucatán was something so amazing that it would tide me over for the rest of my life; that a summer in a hiker’s hut in the Alps working for a quickly degenerating alcoholic and beautiful views above the clouds from the summit would help me to realize that what I really wanted and needed was what was waiting for me at home: the chance to live a normal life, where these adventures are only part of the package, not the whole shebang.

I know, it sounds ridiculous to even say it. It sounds ridiculous to think that I could saturate my need for the unknown and the new adventure once, and never have to do it again. It sounds ridiculous, and yet somewhere in there, I thought it was the only way to do it, based on one small assumption: that I could not support my travel habit if I didn’t live in the States and have a job that would pay for it.
I kept coming back because I thought I had to; that that’s where the money was made. I kept coming back because I believed what everyone kept saying and what was implied: that there’s no way to make a living outside the States, that there’s no way to make a living without benefits, 401K’s, that life is not worth living without the creature comforts that are wanted and expected in the States. Ok, no one said that last one to me, but it’s apparent in the everyday there. In Boquete, I have seen perhaps one stroller; most women carry their children on their hips, without diaper bags. Most Panamanians don’t have cars, and therefore the public transportation – while fun, colorful and entertaining – is much more advanced than in a town of the same size in the States. It’s true that you can live on a lot less down here, but you also need less: there are fewer smartphones, two-car households, new fancy anything, multiple heavy bags of vegetables for sale at the local markets for more than $6. It is a relief to me because I live better here on less money, with fewer gadgets and a simpler way of life, and, despite what I’d always heard and always said, I’ve found work: more than I can do, and more than enough to sustain me while also giving me my time to write and continue to explore; jobs that could go with me if I left.

I was always looking at my pattern the wrong way, invisible audience. I thought the answer would come in figuring out how to fit into an American society; in getting a job that didn’t eat the life out of me, despite the fact that anything revolving around working for someone else outside of my own hours always has. I thought that my travels were a way to recharge, and yet I could never understand how people thought they could rejuvenate in the two-week window they would get a year at a corporate job. I had it all wrong not just because I was trying to work for someone else, but because I was trying to live a life I had never really wanted.

I am blessed, however, with an inability to stay in any single situation for a long amount of time if I am unhappy, and therefore I would escape again – even as I berated myself – almost every year, searching once again for the joy that I always found with little more than a backpack, a pair of tennis shoes and something to write in. I had my pattern wrong because I always believed people when they told me I was escaping, when in reality I kept running TOWARD my future, my joy, and my happiness, only to find it, get a hit and decide that I now had the strength of character to go back and try again: try to fit into a culture and a way of life that had never spoken to me, that I found confining and chain-like.

Even though I decided it awhile ago, and, in fact, on some level knew it before I left, I have realized that breaking out of my pattern has nothing to do with ending my desire to be abroad. Instead, it has to do with finally letting go of the idea that I am supposed to fit in the American box. Breaking my pattern has nothing to do with going back to a life that I ultimately always want to escape from. It has everything to do with running toward the life I have always wanted without apology, regret, or looking back. It has to do with closing the door once and for all on all the ideas I’ve had on the way I’m supposed to live, and finally wholeheartedly embracing who I’ve always been, and the truth that most people probably knew about me before I did. That’s right, invisible audience: breaking the pattern has little to do with going back, and everything to do with embracing the new adventures.

This morning as I sat outside in the yard, drinking local organic coffee and writing in my journal, a line came to me that I can't get out of my head:

If I want something different from what I've always had, I have to do something different than what I've always done.

You guessed it: I’m staying.




Love and new life kisses,
Morgan

The Word for What I Struggle With: Codependency

Anyone who has been reading my blog for any amount of time knows the demons I wrestle with: my continuing need to validate my actions and choices to others; my fight to validate my own decisions that are made purely for my own good; the need I have to explain, over and over again, why I’m doing what I’m doing, in the hopes that eventually I will be able to explain away the fear I feel, and, often, the judgment.
It’s not a new term for me, but it is only this week that it has become apparent how well it fits me. There is a word, a term and a condition that describes what I have: it’s called codependency.
This is not my need to do what I need to do; it’s my struggle with trying to make others understand why I do it. Codependency is not the “selfishness” I have spoken of that I am trying to embrace; it is the thinking that makes putting myself first is a bad thing. Codependency is not the part of me that craves the adventure of traveling abroad, but it IS the part of me that makes those decisions partially so that I can escape the opinions of others about what my life should be.
Basically, codependency is trying to control people, situations or even impressions so that I look good; so that I look perfect; so that I look like I have it all under control. It is also the thinking that the whole world would topple if I weren’t there to hold it up: that if I am not there to help someone take care of themselves, they couldn’t do it for themselves. It is the idea that if I don’t do it myself, it will never get done…or done as well as I want it to be done.
I recently looked up the definition of codependency, and I found several versions, all of which  apply to what now looks like insanity in my own past: a need for others to tell me that I am worthwhile, because I don’t have the ability to know this myself. A need to show a perfect front, even as I am crumbling inside. A need to give and give until there is nothing left. Blaming others for not understanding, even as I refuse to take responsibility for my own actions, my own lack of boundaries, for my own life. It is the part of me that has said in relationships in the past, “I will show him that I am worthy of his time and attention by putting up with all the bullshit he gives me, because that’s how you prove that you really love someone.”
Codependency and empathy are closely related. Both have to do with being incredibly sensitive to other peoples’ needs. With empathy, you pick up on the feelings of others. With codependency, you take it one step further: you try to fix whatever the problem is, regardless of whether it’s your problem to fix or not (and usually, it’s not your problem at all.)
I first heard the term codependency years ago. Since then, the term, the idea and the steps to reverse its effects have been an important part of my life, even if I wasn’t always able to label them for what they are. Even if it’s taken me until now to write about it, I am so much better than I have been, and it’s only through the healing process that I have come to where I am today: the point where I realize that there’s a word for what I have been struggling with, and a way out. The way out is doing what I’ve already been doing: purposely making decisions every day that have nothing to do with anyone else but me; realizing that the scope of my life should not be about other people, their problems or solutions, but about me, and MY problems and solutions.
Now, I realize that the reason I do this – pick up other people and their opinions – is because I am hiding from myself. What I call emotional sobriety has nothing to do with others; it has to do with recognizing that I am trying to focus on another person and how I could help them or be of use to them because there’s something uncomfortable in my own life that I want nothing to do with. It feels like the pain will be so great that facing it will kill me. Instead, I focus on someone else, and find myself to be temporarily reprieved, much like someone who will drink away their sorrow, just for a moment of peace.
Now, I realize what this is, and I purposely turn my attention back to myself. I recognize many of my codependent tendencies, and when I see them coming – see myself casting about for someone to fix, or somewhere else to look – I look at myself instead. Often, dealing with whatever I’m avoiding is painful, but every time, it’s short-lived. It turns out that dealing with the pain is easier than burying it. It turns out that getting to know myself is infinitely better than psycho-analyzing others, over and over again; it’s more rewarding, fulfilling. It leads to important discoveries, and changes to my thinking that are leading me toward my own happiness. Most importantly, getting to know myself is about no one else but me. 

The Pattern

I have a pattern. I’ve had it for years – probably since I was in Spain in 2001, and I found that I had to escape on a regular basis in order to feel normal, or, better yet, to feel anything but overwhelmed in the process of a year abroad that started right after 9/11, where I was trying to learn Spanish in Andalucía, where Spanish is not spoken, but chewed.

The pattern is recognizable and firmly entrenched, to the point that it was the introduction to my yet-unpublished book, Confessions of a Travel Addict, and also the introduction to this blog, which I created long ago with the idea that it would be the marketing arm of the book when it was published.
Over the years I have questioned the pattern, I have denied the pattern, and I have grown angry with those who asked me about it. “What are you running from, Morgan?” people would ask me. “Will it really help if you leave?”

Yes, god dammit. Even if I didn’t say it aloud, I would think it, angry that they even asked, and yet unsure as to why: why I felt I had to escape, what exactly I was escaping from, and how on earth to break the pattern at all, even as I saw myself play it out, over and over again.

The pattern is simple: go travel, rejuvenate, remember why I am so in love with life, remember the miracles, the joy of being in a new place, experiencing new things, meeting new people. Get to a point where I become comfortable with the idea of going home, and go. Take all that newly-minted enthusiasm and joie de vivre and try to apply it to my life; try to slide back into something that tells me what I am supposed to do and who I am supposed to be based on someone else’s standards, and slowly but surely begin to hate it. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Here are the subtle parts of the pattern that I did not realize were there: the need to put physical distance between myself and anyone who needed anything from me. Travel gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself, only socializing as much as I wanted to, spending as much time as I wanted alone, far away from anyone who might miss me, love me, or want me near them. It gave me the opportunity to simply walk away from people that were pulling the very life out of me, whether I wanted them to or not.

This is not to say that I am constantly surrounded by soul-sucking humans. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I am surrounded by people who want to be near me, who appreciate me and love me, and I have not been able to separate that genuine human interaction from the people who would take from me until I had absolutely nothing left to give. The part of my pattern that I did not recognize until now is that the answer is not in finding those who don’t need or want me in their lives, it is learning to stop giving when my quota has been reached.

It is rarely one person. Instead, it is a multitude of pinpricks in my life vest: each one is small and insignificant, until I realize that I am no longer buoyed. Instead, I am using all my energy to stay afloat, even as more and more come to me for the smallest measure of help; surely, I think, I have just a little bit more to give.

I have found something in Boquete that I have not had as far back as I remember. It is a desire to stay. As usual, I have found myself connected with people who pull pinpricks of my energy away from me; who do not understand that they can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and that the camel is old beyond its years and worn from taking on all those tiny straws. For once, however, I don’t want to leave. Instead, I want to gently move those people out of pinprick range; I want to say no, gently and firmly, realigning my life with what I want and need instead of realigning my surroundings again, again and again, in search of the perfect situation, where I am not required to give, and I do not have to take.

That situation will never come. There are people everywhere. Everywhere, people give and receive; give and take. The part of my pattern that was unsustainable was not in the leaving to rejuvenate, but in the thinking behind it, that my life would always be a chore, and that the only way to survive it would be to escape, regroup and come back. I thought the weakness was in needing to leave in the first place. Now, I see that the real strength lies in realizing when a life I have created is unsustainable; that the answer lies in carving out my space wherever I am instead of needing to extract myself and exist on the fringes, where I am safe, unnoticed, unneeded. Not only is that not actually a possibility, but it's a lonely place to be. By distancing myself from everyone, the ones who genuinely love me as well as those that would use me up, I am distancing myself not only from the unhealthy interactions, but also from the healthy ones, that would not be about taking from me, but that could literally feed me, my energy, my person, and yes, even my joie de vivre.

I am not sure if this seems like a huge discovery to you, invisible audience, but it has quite literally changed my world. It’s a little scary to think that I have created this pattern, and that the way out is to change not my location, but my situation. It means that I will no longer be able to blame others if I can’t say no; it means that I am responsible for me, and contrary to what I’ve done most of my life, I have to say no to others and yes to me.

You would think that, the way I’ve been treating it, “no” is a word much larger than it is; you would think that it has the ability to stop or start the universe. You would think that I somehow thought that my saying no when others wanted me to say yes was something that could bring the world to a screeching halt. The truth is, as egotistical and ridiculous as it sounds, that is always how it’s felt. In the past, the only time that it felt ok to say no was when I was completely at the end of my rope; when the only choices were no, or my own insanity. Even then, I couldn’t always choose myself.

It sounds ridiculous, unless you’ve done it. It sounds crazy, unless you’ve ever managed to catch yourself giving everything you have, everything you are, until you are shaking and exhausted, dizzy and spent, all because someone else wanted something, and surely, that one little thing wasn’t too much to ask of you. And perhaps that one little thing isn’t too much to ask, but on top of the rest of the requests, the needs and seemingly small pieces of straw that others want you to carry, there is enough to be too much. The answer for me, now, in these cases, in no longer to run, to fall back on the pattern that to this point has kept me alive, but to say loudly, emphatically and with no amount of kindness, speaking as much to myself as to anyone else, “Fuck you. That’s enough.”




Love and hell no kisses,
Morgan

A Year in Review Part 2

Yesterday I wrote a little bit about what was happening a year ago, and how it affected me. I included a letter that I wrote to my dad, and I got an amazing response from some of you, invisible audience, who chose to make yourselves visible to lend support, encouragement and your own stories to my family and me. Thank you.
I talked a lot about then, but very little about now. Now, as I said, I am living in Panama, writing a book. The actual process of writing – which brings joy and meaning to every single day here – is helping me to unravel the things I have been through over the last year, to realize what part I play in my own story, and how my role needs to be different.

Selfish. It’s a word that I have to relearn, in a new context. Coming to Panama felt selfish. Going to Canada last summer felt selfish. Doing things that I need to do, regardless of what others want and need of me, feels selfish.

And they are. Making decisions based solely on what I want and need is a selfish act. My mistake is not in admitting to being selfish, but in considering selfishness to be a bad thing.

I cannot take care of others if I have not taken care of myself first. It is not my job to be a martyr, to give and give until I have nothing left. There is only one person responsible for me and my ability to take care of myself, and that is me. Not only can I not expect others to do this for me, I shouldn’t. It’s not their job, just as it’s not my job to take care of anyone else at my own expense.

In my original letter to my dad, there was a line that I removed when I posted it on my blog.

Originally, I wrote:
“I know my role, but I want you to know: if it were in my power, if I could change it, fix it, take it away, or even take it upon myself, I would do it. I would not hesitate for a single moment, if it meant you would never wake up depressed again.”

I took out the line first because I realized that I have learned something essentially important in this last year: that it is never my job to take someone else’s experience from them, no matter what that is: depression, sadness, or even joy. Once I started thinking about it, however, I realized that I did take it upon myself.

I have been told many times in my life that I am sensitive, too sensitive even. It’s true: I am sensitive. I can also feel others’ pain. Part of the reason that I felt I had to leave last summer was because I felt Dad’s pain so thoroughly that I started to get depressed myself. I found myself reflecting his symptoms back at him, and struggling with them, too. Recognizing this has been a huge step for me. I can let myself get flooded so much with someone else’s feelings or emotions that I start to feel them myself, whether it’s panic, fear, depression, or even enthusiasm or joy. Realizing this has made me realize that there is another possibility: I can pick up on someone else’s state of mind, and just let it go. I don’t have to take it on.

There’s a more important lesson that has come out of this, though. When I read through my letter to my dad and found that line I had written in October, I realized that I had taken on his pain, and it didn’t lessen it for him at all. Instead, my action doubled it: I could take it on myself, but that did not diminish what he felt. I was sharing it with him, but not in a way that lightened the load. I tried to sacrifice myself for him, and instead caused both of us to suffer instead.

This is what I’m here to learn, invisible audience. This is why the book is not finished. My entire life I have been picking up on the people around me, and thinking it was my job to fix it, lessen the pain or heal someone’s wounds, without realizing that I was not actually helping them. All I was doing was hurting myself so we could stand next to each other: both in pain, both bearing open wounds; theirs legitimate, mine self-inflicted.

I need to say here that, despite all the soul searching I am doing, despite the sometimes tough days that I have when I realize that I have inadvertently been making my life much harder than it needs to be, I am incredibly grateful, and ecstatic to be figuring this out. I love where I am living and what I’m doing, and I am grateful for the chance to do it. So please, take any part of my writing that appeals to you or helps you, but don’t for a minute think I am suffering in my revelations. I am here to learn something, and I’m learning it. When I look around, I literally see rainbows, I watch lightning storms roll in and cause the lightning bugs to blink furiously in response, I go for walks up dirt roads lined with fragrant pine trees, and I stand on stages, looking out into darkness, and hope that my performance touches someone. It is not always an easy existence, but it is a fulfilling one, and I am infinitely grateful to be having it, because it’s just mine. All the feelings I have around it are – finally – just my own.

Love and all my own kisses
Morgan