Stop Being Mean to Yourself Page 10

  “I want to see your notes,” she repeated firmly. “Anything at all you have written that pertains to this book.”

  My hands shook as I fished through my suitcase and dug out my file.

  “I don’t have a lot,” I said, handing her some papers. “But here they are.”

  “Read them to me, please,” she said.

  I put on my glasses, then struggled to read my almost illegible writing.

  “Stop Being Mean to Yourself is about a journey into self-love. It’s about having compassion for others. But it’s about learning to have compassion for ourselves, too.”

  I paused. “Oh,” I said. “At the bottom of the page I have one more thing scrawled.”

  She looked at me, waiting.

  “It’s an awfully big adventure . . .”

  chapter 9

  Finding the Key

  Before the birth of written language, ancient civilizations documented and preserved important communications and messages by carving pictures and symbols in stone. These pictures and symbols expressed ideas rather than words, as writing does now.

  Although Egypt graduated from etching symbols in stone to writing on papyrus almost five thousand years ago, much Egyptian art still consists of symbolic one-dimensional drawings. These pictures are not just intended to capture a particular scene as the artist saw, interpreted, and then rendered it. They are symbolic pictures—sacred art meant to communicate a specific message or story directly to a person’s heart and mind.

  On this day, in Giza, Essam and I went shopping in the village. I needed a few incidentals—some fruit, a music tape, some aspirin. I had also been instructed to buy four white candles to bring into the pyramids with me while I meditated. When I finished shopping, Essam took me to meet another of his relatives, a doctor who is also a perfume merchant. We took tea with the doctor and visited for a while. Almost abruptly, Essam stood up.

  “Please come with me now,” he said. “It is time for you to get your pictures.”

  I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but by now I trusted Essam. He had become more than a friend. He had become a teacher and a guide for this part of my Arabian expedition.

  I had no idea, as I followed him to the car, that today would hold a key to a mystery I’d been trying to unravel for years.

  I have spent a fair degree of time in my life looking for keys—car keys, house keys, garage keys. Keys.

  I have spent more time looking for one key in particular—the key to the mystery of life.

  It was as if there was a big locked metal door. On one side of it was pure, true edification and wisdom, supreme knowledge of why we’re here and how to he happy and fulfilled while we’re here—enlightenment.

  I, however, was on the other side, locked out, spinning my wheels, futilely searching for the key.

  Over the years, I had been to therapists, doctors, and healers. I had used homeopathy, kinesiology, acupuncture, and acupressure. I read books and had written some of my own. I regularly searched through magazines, clipping out articles, looking for clues to the key. I had attended workshops. I talked to people. I talked to God. I practiced the tenets of the faith I was raised in, and believed in—Christianity. Then, I exposed myself to the other great religions of the world.

  In my youth I had tried alcohol and drugs, thinking they were the answer. I had used and abused LSD, cocaine, heroin, and morphine. I ingested marijuana, alcohol, barbiturates, and amphetamines looking for the answer in mind-altering, chemically induced spiritual experiences.

  Later, I looked for the answer in relationships. Then, I thought possibly the answer was to avoid romantic relationships.

  I tried Gestalt therapy, Transactional Analysis, hypnotherapy, prayer, and meditation. And over the last twenty-three years, I had been an active participant in more than one twelve-step program.

  I used affirmations. I listened to tapes. I felt my feelings. I monitored my thought process. I served others obsessively. Then I redefined service, so that I was serving joyfully, rather than compulsively. I struggled to love myself. I learned to be assertive. I dealt with my glaring codependency issues, my sense of nonexistent self and my clinging-vine dependency.

  I then marched dutifully forward into the grinding work so many people have come to love and know as family-of-origin work. I began the grueling and eternal process of detoxifying—or healing—my repressed and embedded emotional blocks and correlating limiting beliefs, these so-called barriers to wisdom, fulfillment, and enlightenment that I had accumulated since time immemorial. Hooray, I finally found and healed my inner child. I nurtured her. I loved her the best I could. I even had a fuzzy teddy bear, God bless John Bradshaw, stashed in the closet in my library.

  I connected with and learned to take care of my body, understanding its intricate connection to the soul. I was on estrogen therapy for hormone replacement and vitamin therapy for nutritional support.

  After my son died, I stayed with my grief, every gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, mind-shattering moment of it. Then I worked through my grief, finally accepting the lifetime handicap of the loss of my son.

  I went on to peruse the Course in Miracles, where I learned with Marianne Williamson’s help about the magic of love in all its myriad shapes and forms, diligently remembering that love also included saying “no” and sometimes “get away.”

  At last, I opened my heart.

  Then, climbing the ladder of spiritual growth, I put my foot on the next rung. With the rest of the nation, I read, spellbound, Betty Eadie’s Embraced by the Light, awestruck by the mystery of life after death.

  I loved that book. But I still didn’t understand the mystery of life before death.

  I was still looking for that key.

  Over the years, as a result of my search, my values had changed. Whereas I used to fantasize about gold and diamonds, I now accumulated and treasured beautiful rocks—lapis lazuli, shimmering crystals from the Himalayas, amethyst, rose quartz, watermelon tourmaline. These were now my precious gems. I used oils and aromatherapy. I chose my colors carefully. I avoided polyester like the plague.

  But sometimes, in the middle of the night, I still wondered, should I just give in, join the rest of the world, and start taking Prozac?

  I knew I wasn’t alone in my search. Most of the people I knew were on a similar quest. They were looking for the key. Some purported to have it, hut they charged so much for their seminars I wasn’t willing to attend.

  The year before this trip to the Middle East, I spent three months traveling to sacred sites around the western United States. I soaked in some of the most potent, healing, mineral-laden hot springs in this country. I visited the vortexes of Sedona, the ancient Anasazi village in Chaco Canyon, and the blessed New Mexican church, the Sanctuario de Chimayo. I gazed upon rocks and ruins and waterfalls and rain forests, absorbing that energy into my soul.

  I should have been glowing in the damn dark.

  It felt as if I was in a tunnel. Occasionally, I would get glimpses of light. But in those moments I felt more blinded than I did embraced by it. Most of the time, I couldn’t see what I was doing or where I was going. I didn’t understand what this entire excursion was all about.

  Many of the therapies, people, ideas, and resources I stumbled onto over the years had genuinely helped. While some endeavors were feel good activities (they felt good while I was doing them but didn’t affect me that greatly overall) and a few schemes, such as using drugs, had impaired me (I had to later spend time and money undoing the damage I had done to myself), most of these undertakings had caused a permanent, beneficial change in me and in my life.

  But I still couldn’t find the key.

  I couldn’t unlock the door and get in that room.

  I couldn’t find enlightenment.

  Sometimes I’d think I’m almost there, I’m on the edge of it, I’m so close to a breakthrough I can feel it. Then I’d make a run at that door and bam! I’d crash headlong into it and fall in a cr
umpled heap on the floor. The door was still locked. At least it appeared to be. On the other side, a few feet away, just out of reach, were the treasures I sought. But I couldn’t quite get to them.

  I wasn’t necessarily depressed, but my spirit ached. Sometimes it was a dull, agitating pain. Other times, it was closer to anguish. I was so grindingly dissatisfied. Life could be so disappointing. Here we were, approaching the millennium, this glorious, exhilarating time that so many people were buzzing about. But it didn’t feel all that spine-tingling to me. It felt confusing and at times debilitating. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get the millennium—at least not what it meant personally to me and the people I knew. I didn’t get what this entire undertaking was all about. I didn’t get enlightenment.

  At times it seemed like the harder I worked to gain understanding, the less I understood.

  Maybe tomorrow, I’d think. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find that key. It seemed as if enlightenment was always one day, one step, one therapist, one book, one healer, one something away—no matter what I did. I was becoming weary and skeptical.

  I wondered. Was I engaged in a legitimate truth-seeking expedition that was leading somewhere? Or were all these activities mere busy work, an experiment in futility, some sort of punitive endurance test on a cosmic treadmill?

  Over fifteen years ago, when I was already well immersed in this quest, a trusted friend told me that the secret to life was simple: there was no secret. That didn’t sound right to me. There must be one, I thought. I knew there was a key, although it promised to remain eternally out of my reach. Now, after all these years of searching, I was beginning to wonder. Maybe my friend was right. Maybe I was looking for something that didn’t exist.

  This day in Giza, I would find the key to unlock that door.

  Essam hailed a taxi, and we wove through the streets of Giza plaza, making our way to a small shop located behind a hospital. We were in a part of the city I had not yet seen. The sign in the shop’s window announced that we were at Nile River Papyrus. Essam told the driver to wait for him, then he escorted me inside. It was a tiny, narrow store. Almost every square inch of the walls was covered with Egyptian art that had been hand-painted on papyrus.

  “I will leave you here for one hour,” Essam said. “Look around. See if any of the pictures speak to you. Remember, if you find any pictures you like, do not pay the marked price. Half, and no more. I will tell the shopkeeper that, too.”

  After speaking for a while in Arabic to the man behind the counter, Essam left. The papyrus merchant, a thin man who appeared to be in his early twenties, asked if I would like to see a demonstration of how papyrus was made. I told him I would. So he began to tell and show me the story of this ancient art.

  In a land where few trees grow, the papyrus plant flourishes. About forty-six hundred years ago, ancient Egyptians discovered that if they cut the inner portion of the papyrus stalk into razor-thin strips and soaked these strips in water, the strips could then be woven into flat sheets. After pressing and drying the sheets under something heavy, like a rock, the Egyptians could then make the same markings on these sheets that they had been, until now, dutifully carving in stone. Unlike rocks, these sheets could be rolled, stored, and easily transported. The ancient Egyptian civilization had stumbled onto a way to record, preserve, and disseminate ideas and information. Lighter than stone, papyrus paper revolutionized their world.

  The shopkeeper showed me how the thin strips of pith, the inner portion of the stalk or reed, were sliced, soaked, then woven into a flat sheet. He showed me how the woven sheets were pressed and dried. Then he showed me the finished product—the ivory-yellow parchment-like sheets called papyrus. He explained that papyrus can be drawn or written on using oil colors, water colors, coal, ink, a typewriter, or gouache (a form of water-color paint). He showed me how easily the sheets can be rolled and stored in a cylinder.

  “Go ahead. Look around,” he said, when he finished his demonstration. “See if you like any of our pictures.”

  I walked to the far end of the store. Vibrantly colored pictures of all sizes covered the walls. The pictures were vastly different from the art I was used to looking at—art that expressed an artist’s rendition of a particular scene or a portrait. These pictures were simple one-dimensional drawings, but they were hauntingly profound. Many of the pictures were implanted with hieroglyphic symbols. Because of the large number of drawings and the difference in this art form, it took me a while to focus.

  Gradually, I shifted from looking at everything at once to studying the individual pictures. I saw many drawings of the pyramids and the Sphinx. I noticed an intricate astrological wheel with ancient Egyptian symbols. It was beautiful, but when I studied it, I thought about a friend of mine. It didn’t really speak to me. I continued to look. Soon, I saw my first picture.

  It was a simple drawing of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child in her arms.

  Mary wore a flowing blue gown. A golden halo encircled her head. The blue in her gown was of an indescribable shade and hue. The child she held was barefoot. A golden halo encircled his head too. Both of them wore golden crowns.

  I wasn’t now and had never been a member of the Catholic church, but Mary had become increasingly important to me over the past years. Her gentle spirit, tender ways, and magnificent healing power had helped my heart to heal in a time when little else could touch me.

  She has the lightness and love of the angels and the healing power of her Son.

  Her energy calms and soothes me, yet sometimes takes my breath away.

  I feel completely and utterly safe when I am in her presence.

  I feel quietly empowered, confident, and strengthened.

  I also feel understood.

  She is the feminine side of the Divine.

  This picture spoke to me.

  “I want that one,” I said.

  The young man took the picture of Mary and the Christ child off the wall and placed it on the counter. I continued to look around. Soon, another picture attracted my interest. It was an intricate weaving of people, hieroglyphics, and animal-like creatures. It was long and narrow, about five feet wide and two feet high. I liked it but I didn’t understand it, so I moved on. Something about this picture pulled me back. Noticing my interest, the merchant began telling me its story.

  “This picture represents Egyptian mythology about life after death and how one enters Paradise,” he said. “When you die, you go before a council. At that time, your heart is removed and placed on one of the pans of a balancing scale. A feather is placed in the other pan. If your heart weighs the same as or less than a feather, you are allowed to enter Paradise. If not,” he said, scowling and shaking his head, “your heart is fed to the dragons.”

  I studied the long, narrow drawing. Now that he had explained the story, I could see it clearly. All four scenes were there: a figure sitting before the council, this same figure standing next to the balancing scales, this figure being led to a door, and finally the ornate room representing paradise.

  For thousands of years, this ancient culture had known what it had taken me most of my life to understand.

  When I was twelve years old, I already had a burgeoning problem with alcohol. From the first time I sneaked a drink from the bottle of Jack Daniels stashed in the back of the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink, I had a problem—although I didn’t see it as a problem at the time. All I could see was that I loved the warm tingling glow as the fiery juice slipped down my throat and kicked into my stomach.

  It felt good.

  This particular summer, I was headed to a Baptist Bible camp in northern Minnesota. I had attended this camp before. These people were serious; they meant business; it was more Bible than camp. But this summer I would be prepared. I carefully filled seven tiny perfume bottles—one for each day of the week—with whiskey. Then I tucked the bottles into my rolled-up socks and carefully stashed them in my suitcase.

  I breezed through the first two days of camp
. I had to attend, as all participants did, many church services and lectures. But I also had the comfort of the sun, the fresh air, the lake, the boats, the swimming—and my seven perfume bottles filled with Jack Daniels. On the third day of camp, while I was dutifully building a Popsicle-stick house during arts and crafts, two senior camp counselors approached me. They hovered over me, giving me that look. Then, they showed me the perfume bottles they had confiscated from my room. I instantly knew the party was over.

  The counselors marched me to a sink and forced me to watch while they poured my whiskey down the drain. Then they led me into a small room, a room way too small for three people to be in I thought at the time. We sat in a circle on metal folding chairs. With great solemnity, the counselors informed me that they were extremely disappointed in me. That wasn’t news. I was extremely disappointed in myself, too. I had been for a long time. Then they gave me the Coming to Jesus Option. They felt, they said, obligated to telephone my mother immediately and inform her of this serious and flagrant violation of camp rules. However, they also saw fit to give me a loophole. If I were willing to march to the altar during a special church service—in front of all my junior-high peers—get dawn on my knees, confess my sins, and let Jesus come into my heart, they wouldn’t feel quite so obligated to call my mother.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it.” Even though I had to do this in front of my peers, facing the wrath of God somehow seemed more palatable and less frightening than facing my mother’s ire. A quick shake of the dice told me God would be more forgiving.

  At church service that afternoon, I slunk up to the altar, knelt, and was saved. I asked Jesus to come into my heart. I said how sorry I was for all the things I had done. In retrospect, I think what I regretted most was that I had been caught.

  Everyone cheered and clapped for me. We sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and “For God So Loved the World.” Then we made big posters out of colored construction paper that boldly announced “JESUS IS IN YOUR HEART.”