The Discomfort of a New Skin

Hello, invisible audience,

Long time no write. Let’s just say it’s been a hell of a year for me, one filled with a lot of introspection, grief, pain and growth. If I haven’t lost you yet, I may lose you soon; this is a post about showing my new self, and she’s a little bit different.

I’ve had a series of epiphanies in the last six months or so, and they culminated in a need to escape to somewhere that I could hear myself think. That place ended up being Yasodhara Ashram, a yoga retreat and study center near Nelson, British Columbia, on Kootenay Lake. It’s beautiful here, and a good place to contemplate life’s bigger questions with other people searching for the same thing. At the same time, it’s exhausting; you’re in it, all the time, everywhere you look and whatever you do. An intentionally spiritual community like this one is focused on seeing what is behind the everyday and mundane; the people here are looking for meaning in the smallest task and the largest life questions, and I am no exception.

The ashram is set up in a way that makes you confront your coping strategies, reassess your communication tactics, and to teach you to watch your interactions as if from afar. If you’re working with someone and their leadership style rubs you the wrong way, why? Why are other peoples’ stratagems antagonizing you? What does your reaction say about YOU?

Needless to say, the types of questions that come up are worthwhile, and shed everything in a new light. I bawl my eyes out or at least wipe tears off my face nearly every day.  Fortunately for me, this is not a strange thing at the ashram; someone told me when I first arrived that anyone scared off by tears would leave almost immediately.

I love it here, and I also hate it. I keep waiting to get to the bottom of all the emotions I feel and why I feel them, but I’m beginning to realize that this whole personal growth thing is a lifelong challenge. As much as I don’t ever want to stop growing, I look at the residents of the ashram – people who have been asking themselves the hard questions for years – and I catch myself thinking, “They’ve been doing it for so long, haven’t they reached the bottom of their well of life’s questions yet? Could there really be that much MORE to look at; a whole lifetime’s worth?”

Well, the answer is yes. Of course the questions change over the years. Of course life becomes different as you go. Once you uncover one emotional barrier, dig it up and break it apart, you realize it was just covering up a bigger, deeper one. While I enjoy all the things I have learned about myself and can see how that knowledge has enriched my life and my relationships, it sometimes seems like I will never get to a point where I will be comfortable with who I am.

One of the things they stress here is the ability to love and accept yourself just as you are at this moment; not the person you wish to become, but who you are, in all your humanness. This seems to go against my very nature. I have realized that I berate myself for things I don’t know; I expect myself to perfectly perform tasks I have never even tried before. It’s amazing I’ve ever tried anything new. I think this is the reason I haven’t written you in so long, invisible audience. I am uncomfortable in this new skin I’ve been growing into, and I don’t know how to present the new me perfectly, in a way that will make her loveable and appreciated, in all her humanness. I don’t know how, so I officially give up. Here she is: the new Morgan. This one has had a hard year, and found it almost impossible to talk about. This Morgan just realized how little her life’s choices have had to do with what she really wanted, and a lot to do with what she perceived others expected of her. This Morgan is unsure where her future is going to lead her, and terrified and exhilarated at all the possibilities. The new Morgan wants your support, but doesn’t know how to ask for it. This Morgan wants to emerge, but is still apprehensive at the thought of stepping out into the light.

A couple days ago, a friend of mine was found alive after going missing on a family hiking trip. The fear and grief of thinking he had slipped, possibly hit his head, fallen into the lake and drowned made me realize yet again how short life truly is, and how important it is to live your life authentically. The miracle of finding him alive – although beat up and still with a long way to go to recover – has strengthened my resolve to let my new self emerge while there is still life to be lived. So here she is, invisible audience. This Morgan believes that life is a miracle, and every day needs to be treated as one.

Love and miraculous kisses

Morgan

Leap, and The Net Will Appear

There was little else I could do. I had a book to finish, and its end was inevitable. I was not forced by anyone but myself, but I had to come back just the same – perhaps I had to come back even more because I was the only one making me.
So I did. I left Mexico and leaped back into my life in Washington. I have seen friends and family, gone to funerals and concerts, and fought in vain against trying to spend money. Because, you see, it’s hard to make money when you’re working 12+ hours a day trying to publish a book with the thought that you will be paid in the future for all your hard work.

I’m glad I came back, but there was a point a couple days ago when I bent double with the momentousness of what I had just done. On that morning, I took one final look at my book’s proof and pressed a button to send an email asking who in town wanted to carry it. I nearly threw up when the confirmation came back that it had sent. What was I thinking??? Despite the fact that I keep coming back to Chelan, I try to keep a low profile while I’m in town, but that was immediately blown out of the water. I was going to have to go around asking who wanted to sell my book, asking people who have known me – or my family at least – for a long time. There went anonymity.

I can’t quit this job. I can’t leave this business, because I am this business. Certainly I can escape, but it’s not like someone will take me out to lunch, lament the fact that I’m leaving, then hire someone to take my place.

I have been fighting a panic since I hit SEND. It is the kind of panic that comes from knowing that you have just stepped firmly on the right path, your path, and there is no going back. It is the panic of someone who has always had a way out, who has always been good at follow through but not long-term commitment, and I am afraid, utterly afraid, that I will fail.

It has all led me to this: the jobs in retail, graphic design, my journalism degree, my travels, my Spanish, my sales experience. I know what I’m doing, and anything I don't know I can learn. I know the steps I need to take to succeed. I have started taking them. Now I stand on another ledge, however. It’s the ledge where I commit to all the things I need to do to sell my book and sell it correctly. It is where I decide that I will not be wishy-washy about my writing, and use this book to launch a name for myself. This is the point where I decide that I can actually do what I set out to do when I left my job in Bellevue almost 2 years ago. This is the point where I have to start acting like I belong here, and that will take courage; courage I still have yet to muster up. As I said, I am at least aware of the steps I need to take to get me there, and the first steps have already been taken. Now, however, I’m staring at empty space and I have to have faith that the step is there and sturdy and can hold me, whether I can see it or not. I have to have faith in myself, and despite all my talk, many times that is the hardest thing for me to find.

I have learned recently, however, that you have to start acting like the change has taken place before it actually does: you have to act like you’re going to make it before you will. So here’s to the actions that speak louder than words, and to the Zen saying, “Leap, and the net will appear.”

Love and leaping kisses
Morgan

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