Stop Being Mean to Yourself Read online

  Master Huang recited a series of liturgies in Chinese. Stumbling over the words, the participants repeated these sacred Chinese phrases. Master Huang then told the participants that their names were now officially recorded in the Book of Life and that they had just received their Tao. He went on to say that just as the candles on the altar burned brightly, so did the light within each of them. Those people who had received their Tao, including the nineteen-year-old girl, returned to their chairs.

  Carefully, so as to be understood with his Chinese accent, Master Huang then gave each participant the Three Treasures. He traced the Three Treasures to their biblical origins. Then everyone in the room took a vow of secrecy concerning these Treasures.

  Before the ceremony ended, Master Huang told each participant that he or she had now received the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven—in the afterlife and in this world. Their karma had ended. Reincarnation would cease. They had reached and achieved the state the ancients called enlightenment.

  It was a sign of the times, a gift of the times.

  Now, lying on my bed in the hotel room in Casablanca listening to the prayers of Ramadan mixed with the howling winds, I knew I had chosen to be here—in the Middle East—at a spiritually powerful time. This wasn’t an accident. It was time for me to remember, and trust, why I was here.

  When my friend Angelo had cut my hair, he had called this excursion “an adventure.” But it wasn’t a dare-devil trip. It was more than that.

  Sometimes in life, we feel led to do things that don’t seem rational. This trip was one of those things. People had scowled and said they could not understand why I would want to go to the places I was going. There had been times it sounded crazy to me, too. But I had scrutinized my motives and talked to a few trusted people, who agreed. Although it appeared crazy, it wasn’t. I was willing to do anything and go anywhere to find the story—the story for this book and for my life. And I knew I could find that story in the Middle East.

  This trip was a leap of faith.

  THIS WAS A BUSINESS TRIP. This was a personal trip. But this was a destiny trip, too,” I said to the woman interrogating me in the airport in Cairo. “I had all sorts of illusions about this trip. I had dreams about traveling to the deepest parts of Africa, on safari. Maybe I’d learn something from the Pygmy tribes, some magical secrets to life. Or maybe I’d have a grand revelation in the pyramids about the mystery of life after death.”

  “Is that what happened?” the woman asked, her eyes penetrating my soul.

  “What I learned about,” I said, “was the mystery of life before death.”

  chapter 3

  Gunfire

  Just as people report hearing a sound like the rumbling of a freight train before a tornado passes by, I heard the rumblings of the vortex that picked me up from my home in southern California and carried me across the northern rim of the African continent long before it hit. I knew for years that I would someday venture into Africa. But I didn’t know it would be Algeria until the month before I left.

  “Go to France. Go to Italy. Go to Greece. But don’t go to Algeria,” my friend Maurice had warned me on Christmas night when he learned of my plans.

  His warning wasn’t news. I had read the travel advisory issued by the United States government. Terrorist activities were rampant. A number of foreigners had been kidnapped and killed in recent years. Traveling there was not advised, and Americans who chose to be there anyway were instructed to have armed protection. I would be a woman traveling alone, with no guns or bodyguard. Yet I was drawn there. I knew I had to go. I also knew I’d be safe. I couldn’t explain this to Maurice. I didn’t try.

  “I’m not kidding, Melody,” Maurice had repeated. “It’s dangerous. You could be killed. They’re in the midst of a civil war.”

  “Maurice, don’t fuss. I’ll be fine,” I had said. “I’ve lived most of my life in the midst of a civil war—mine against myself . . .”

  Now, in Casablanca, I checked out of my hotel room, hailed a cab, and headed for the airport to catch my flight to Algiers. It was 6:00 A.M. The cab was dirty. It stunk. The upholstery on the seat was ripped to shreds. The cab driver looked as if he had slept all night in his car.

  “You won’t like Casablanca,” my friend Maurice had said. “It’s a dirty seaport city.”

  Maurice had been right about Casablanca. For just a moment, as I boarded the airplane, I wondered if he was right about Algeria, too.

  A few months before this trip, I had visited an old Chinese healer in Pasadena, a gentle Buddhist monk who used few words. He worked on my energy, my chi, for a while. “You’re moving to a new level,” he said. “That’s all you need to know for now. Go through the motions of taking care of yourself. Sit with the pain, and all your emotions, the best that you can. Do your daily disciplines. And be gentle with yourself.”

  Video games, the kind that come with a computer, often have different levels of play: beginner, intermediate, and master. When you move to a new level of play, it doesn’t get easier. It becomes more of a challenge. The playing field is larger. The action is faster and more complicated.

  In Aikido, or any other martial art, there are many different levels, or dans, of skill. Each time a student moves to the next level, he or she has to pass a test. And when the student reaches that new level, it’s not easier. He or she is required to use all the skills acquired so far, plus learn new ones. The new level is more complicated, more difficult, and more of a challenge. And however accomplished, the student begins anew as a student at the new level.

  The place where a martial art student practices is called a dojo. That means place of enlightenment. Some people say our lives are our dojo.

  I had moved to new levels before.

  Fifteen years ago, I was six years into a marriage to an alcoholic. In the process of frantically trying to do everything right, which then meant controlling everyone and everything but me, I lost myself. I disappeared. In the mush of believing lies and lying to myself, my spiritual, mental, and emotional powers waned into nonexistence. I became a vindictive, victimized, passively irate amoeba. I didn’t leave the house for years, except to go to market.

  That changed—or at least began to change—in one moment when I stopped pointing at everyone around me, screeching, “Look what you’re doing to me,” and instead began looking at myself.

  In Aikido, a nonaggressive martial art I would begin studying years later, my sensei, or teacher, talked about the golden ball of power each of us has in our solar plexus—a golden ball that radiates in a wide arc around us. Although I didn’t know about this golden ball of power back then, I started to see the first glimmers of its light.

  I spent the next five years learning the lessons at this new level. I learned I could stop trying to control other people and instead take responsibility for myself. I learned I could allow others to live with the inevitable and consequential results of their choices and destiny. Rather than torque my head off my neck and implode my insides obsessing, I learned I had options—letting go, detaching, becoming peaceful. I realized I no longer had to let others control me. Hallelujah! I was free. Well, almost. But at least I added a little light to that golden ball of power each day.

  I added the word “no” to my vocabulary, too. I learned I didn’t have to let others lie to, abuse, or manipulate me for their own conscious—and sometimes less-than-conscious—motives. I began to feel my emotions even when others preferred I didn’t. I discovered I no longer had to stay trapped in relationships or situations that made me so wretchedly miserable. I got to have a life, too.

  Slowly, over those years, I began to live it.

  Ten years ago, I moved to a new level again. I divorced my husband, took my two young children—Shane and Nichole—by the hand, and began my family and life anew as a single parent. I jumped into my career and wrote a book about what I had learned at the last level, a book called Codependent No More. That’s that, I thought, dusting off my hands and turning in the manuscr
ipt. I have solved that problem.

  But to my surprise, along with this new dimension of life came a new dimension of lessons. Some were invigorating, some challenging, some confusing. And one—the sudden death of my son in 1991 from a ski accident—broke my heart.

  I found out there was more life to live than I had ever imagined. I also discovered there were deeper places in me that needed healing, cleansing, and renewing—places I didn’t know existed, either. Often the old lessons, the lessons of the other levels, reappeared in different shapes and forms or wearing a disguise. Whenever that happened, I wondered if I was doing something wrong, and I doubted the insights I once thought I had.

  I didn’t yet understand about levels.

  Now, the energy in my life had begun to shift again. It would take months before I would really see and believe what the Buddhist monk from Pasadena had said. I was moving to a new level. This trip was an initiation, a test. It would be a review of the lessons of the past, in all their shapes and forms, and a portent of things to come. While some of the lessons would be obvious, many at this new level would be more subtle. Finding each one would be like solving a mystery.

  The flight to Algiers was a short one, about two hours. As the plane swooped down to land at Houari Boumedienne Airport, I was struck by the pronounced natural beauty of this harbor city. Algiers, or El Djazair, was nestled in the Sahel Hills between the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean. The sea was bluer than any water I had ever seen. The surf was gentle; waves barely feathered its smooth surface. Old French tenements and European housing dotted the hillside. The fertile landscape looked like a patchwork of green velvet.

  I was nervous when we landed. I didn’t know what to expect in a country torn by revolution and terrorism. I disembarked the plane, prepared for the worst. I found the airport strangely quiet and calm—different from peaceful. I immediately recognized the feeling.

  I was in the eye of a vortex.

  I anticipated that passing through customs would be an ordeal. It surprised me when the officers—young men in their twenties—smiled and welcomed me to their country. They were friendlier than customs officers I had encountered anywhere else in the world.

  I grabbed my backpack and exchanged some currency. As I headed for the front door of the airport, intending to hail a cab, one of the young men intercepted me. He guided me into a side office and left me in the care of a young woman with shoulder-length chestnut-brown hair.

  I gave her the name of the hotel where I intended to stay.

  She called to verify my reservations. Then she told me to wait in her office until the hotel shuttle arrived. Half an hour later, she escorted me outside to the parking lot and the van. Other than milling pockets of armed guards, it looked like a normal airport anywhere in the world.

  As we pulled onto the highway leading to downtown Algiers, I stared out the window with a mixture of curiosity and fear. The roads were almost deserted. I tensed each time we passed a barricade, remembering the travel advisory issued by the U.S. Department of State: “Danger to foreigners is extremely high. Substantial armed protection is recommended. Airline terminals and ports are particular targets of terrorist activity. Avoid regularly scheduled commercial flights. There is a terrorist campaign being waged against foreigners. Daily violence since 1994. Over 100 kidnappings of foreigners. Adequate protection is not possible. Roadblocks are common, as well as false roadblocks set up by terrorists as ambushes. No overland travel recommended. Terrorists threaten to kill all foreigners who will not leave the country.”

  I didn’t know about the seriousness of the unrest when I first decided to come to Algeria. The travel advisory had concerned Wendy, who works with me in the United States. It had worried me, too. I had considered rearranging my plans. But when I discussed my plans and the potential problems in Algeria with my daughter, Nichole, she felt the same way I did—if I trusted my instincts, I would be fine.

  I hadn’t encountered any problems obtaining my visa from the Algerian Embassy in Washington, D.C. They seemed glad to have me visit their country. They had not been nearly as concerned as the U.S. State Department.

  When asked if it was accurate that travel in Algeria was extremely dangerous and that a number of foreigners had been killed, the male voice on the phone at the Algerian Embassy had replied, “Oh, it’s not that dangerous. Yeah, people get killed, but people get killed anywhere. It’s not that bad.”

  When we reached the hotel, uniformed guards stopped and searched the shuttle. We then passed through a barricade manned by armed guards into a cordoned-off area. I noticed that a high, barbed-wire fence surrounded the entire hotel. The shuttle dropped me off. Crossing the walkway to the hotel entrance was like crossing a moat into a fort.

  A man in a uniform searched me again when I entered the hotel. As I walked to the reception desk, I looked up and around. The hotel was new, modern. I could see all the way up to the tenth floor from where I stood in the foyer. But something was missing. I filled out the registration form, gave the woman my credit card, then looked around. That’s what was missing—people.

  I scanned the area looking for the stand containing pamphlets and flyers for tourist attractions, the kind commonly seen in hotels. That was missing, too. I motioned to the woman behind the counter, an attractive dark-haired woman in her early twenties.

  “I suppose there’s no day tours?”

  She shook her head, avoiding my eyes.

  “I was hoping to look around,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  She turned and walked away. I took the elevator to the ninth floor, let myself into my room, and flopped down on the bed. I wasn’t a guest in a hotel; I was a hostage in an almost empty fort. There was nowhere to go, and no one to meet. I looked around the room. There were no tour books, no magazines, no guides to this city. I walked to the window and opened the curtains. I could see a small speck of harbor through the tiny window. I had now traveled halfway around the world to sit in my room.

  Shots rang out, shattering the air outside the hotel.

  Maybe it’s for the best, I thought, closing the curtains.

  I called down to the front desk and scheduled a massage. When I arrived at the health club, the young woman sitting behind the desk directed me to a large room off to the side. I went in. A girl, maybe eighteen, stood in the corner.

  “I’m here for my massage,” I said.

  She just stared at me.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Massage?” I said.

  She just looked at me. I started making rubbing gestures at myself, to try to show her what I meant. I started rubbing up and down my arm. Then I rubbed my shoulder, and my legs.

  Her eyes widened in horror.

  “Massage,” I said. I continued rubbing at myself, trying to establish communication. It wasn’t working. She edged around me, then began backing out of the room.

  This has gone far enough, I thought. I took off my clothes and lay down on the table.

  After a skittish massage, I walked around the hotel for a while, then returned to my room. I turned on the television. There weren’t many choices for stations. I turned it off and started paging through an English translation of a Middle Eastern newspaper I had picked up at the airport. I read an article about the latest fatal act of terrorism here. I also read with some interest a story about governments of other countries now allowing journalists and priests to act as spies.

  Hmmm, I thought.

  I thumbed through the rest of the paper, then put it down. I sat on the bed for a while, then sat on the chair for a while, then went back to the bed. I looked at the walls. I looked at the furniture. Then I picked up the phone and called Wendy, back in the United States, the woman I work with.

  “How’s the magical mystery tour going?” she asked.

  “The only drama I’m going to find here,” I said, “is a grinding internal one that lies somewhere between jet lag an
d menopause.”

  By the time I hung up the phone, it was getting dark outside and cold inside. I was acutely aware of my aloneness. What was I doing here? What had I possibly been thinking of, coming here? A strong wave of self-loathing and self-contempt replaced any sense of adventure, any sense of feeling right about being here, and particularly any sense of being guided.

  When I had told Nichole I was writing a book about how to stop being mean to yourself, she had just smiled. “Oh, I see,” she said. “It’s going to be a mystery.”

  Well, she was right. It was a mystery. So was this trip and what I was doing here, in one of the most tortured, perilous, hot spots on the globe. Did I really believe someone would just knock on my door and say, “Hey! I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been waiting for you to come so I could show you around and tell you my story”?

  I ordered some tea from room service, ran some hot water, and took a bath. Gunfire rang out intermittently outside the window. I put on a sweat suit, crawled under the covers, and went to bed.

  I had almost dozed off when I heard a knock on my door.

  That’s funny, I thought. I can’t imagine they’d have turn-down service. Maybe it’s room service, and they want their tray back.

  Go away, I thought. Let me sleep.

  The rapping continued.

  I got up, stumbled to the door, and looked through the peephole. A man in his middle twenties stood outside the door. He glanced nervously up and down the corridor. I latched the chain lock and opened the door a crack.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “My name is Mafateh,” he whispered. “I work at the hotel, in another division. The girl at the front desk is my friend. She said you were asking for something. I think I can help.”

  I scanned him through the crack in the door. He wore a dark blue suit that looked like a hotel employee uniform. With his hiked-up pants and chubby cheeks, he had an Arabian boy-next-door look. His eyes were gentle. He looked frightened, but safe. I unlatched the chain, opened the door, and let him in.