Not to brag (and I’m not sure this is really something one would ever brag about in the first place) but if it’s out there and in English, I’ve probably tried it. And technically speaking I shouldn’t even limit it to English. I’ve tried a few things in Portuguese. What’s the ‘it’ you ask? That remedy, that discipline, that modality, that unexplainable thing it ain’t cool to admit you’ve done at the Ivy League mixer. So it’s not pretty, but it’s true. I’ve logged some 15,000 hours ‘in search of,’ spanning thirty years and four continents. My search has included but is not limited to: ways to become less neurotic, to become less of a romantic, to develop my emotional intelligence, get over childhood conditioning, get out of my own way, find my place in the world , be successful in love and relationship, become more evolved, and so on. Malcom Gladwell suggests something nearly alchemical happens right around the 15,000 hour mark – you become an expert of sorts. So I suppose in an unintentional way, I will declare myself one – in the ‘searching department’ that is.
Whether the drive was due to particularly odd/searching parents or my own sensitive nervous system and an anxious mind, I found myself at a young age with an emotional sensitivity that for a good long while felt more liability than asset. And I was trained early– for good and for bad – to look outside myself for something that might help me have a smoother relationship between me and me. At birth my parents assigned me a Christian Science practitioner, by age seven I asked Santa for my first mantra, by 12 I had begun taking weekend workshops on personal growth. By 27 I indoctrinated myself into the traditional halls of Yale. By 32 I was a Classical Acupuncturist. Freak show? Maybe so. Perhaps just an over-the-top-existential curiosity.
The point: at my darkest hour, if somebody told me the sure fire way out of my predicament was to ditch my clothes and run naked around Balboa Island backwards under the full moon singing ‘God Save the Queen’ in Castilian Spanish, I’d have done it.
And I’m not joking.
Oh, and one last thing you should know about me: I hate, and I do mean hate, the spiritual expert. You know that person. They have a really regal air about them. And from the way they tell it, they know what’s what. Every time I hear somebody start speaking in that ‘wise’ voice and assert their authority about how they know EXACTLY what it is I need, that is the moment I stuff my fingers in my ears, and run screaming in the opposite direction. As in my experience, these puffed-up opinions don’t make for the best of advisors in tough times. So I want to assure you I am not this person.
Instead I am the person who would rather like a dog splay open every one of my flaws like a belly to be inspected. The only authority I have is that I’ve tried a lot, stared down my dark places, and just want to save a fellow traveler a little (ok more than a little) time, effort and money.
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