Blog: Several Tries at Transformation
After reading Jeanine Landy’s “Seeing Clearly Through Cracked Lenses” I drafted several potential topics for this essay and settled on a series of events in my life that involve angst, substance use, finding direction, and earning community seen after cracks in the status quo of existence showed perspective and change. During my second year at university I ran for office in a student government election. It was the first time I put myself out there for something I thought I wanted. This fit with the Political Science degree track I reluctantly agreed to. I was following suit with the people in my not chosen circle of dormitory mates; we ran on a ticket together. I wasn’t guaranteed a win, and I did not win the election. This inciting incident and disorienting dilemma presented a scenario of loss and there was no place for me in the community I thought I belonged to. The short-lived political career was my only pastime and vice other than drinking and smoking. Luckily, I floundered only briefly because I was soon after invited by a classmate to join a student run theatrical production. I was asked to stand on stage and juggle while people moved around me. I lost what I thought I was working towards, the election, but gained what I didn’t know I really needed. For participating in this performance I was welcomed into a community that became my home and identity for the next 8 years.
Both sides of my brain and my full person were welcomed. I learned my interests are diverse and my talents are many, and appreciated. My creativity blossomed. Losing the election led me to my tribe; there was an early social network system called Tribe that we used to communicate and connect with like minded souls. There were more like us, like me!
The organizational aptitude and leadership qualities intended for formal student government were on display and grew. During the early tenure in my new community I intertwined my knowledge of political systems into the circus. I wrote a Constitution, and made hippies utilize parliamentary procedure. We grew, supported and challenged one another, fought, loved, learned, laughed, and inspired others. This led to other transformational experiences such as teaching and performing circus arts to marginalized communities in prisons, inner cities, and on Native American reservations. Our found community would gather around the campfire for ritualistic practices of storytelling and supporting one another after the day’s overwhelming undertakings. Our primal connection grew as our mission became clearer: sharing laughter to those in need, and what we could do to sustain that pursuit. Our community was lucky to have found each other, and we came to know that not every person is lucky enough to have the freedom we did. Leaving a prison after teaching and interacting with inmates is quite humbling. I was free to go and do as I pleased. Because of their actions, the inmates were not leaving that day, and some would never see freedom again.
Despite my freedom and clarity in mission I fell victim to myself. Creativity is hard to maintain and I relied on substances to inspire and to pass the time without feeling the depression that had only ever been quelled by finding purpose with the circus. My community then moved on and I didn’t. As Canty describes Shariff Abdullah’s Breakers & Keepers I reverted to the former, disassociating from nature and community. I followed traditional career paths, made my way up various company ladders, sought material wealth, and lost myself along the way. My worldview had previously changed for what I thought was the permanent but I did not trust my intuition to stay on a path that honored my skills, personality, and purpose. Like Hesse’s Siddhartha, although I knew I could proceed down an honest and righteous path, I had to learn more lessons, in my own time. The new dark perspective I developed out of disassociation and resentment colored my former entertainment partners as the ones doing it wrong. I would derogatorily call them dirty hippies and liberal losers, not contributing in the right way while I was making money, paying more in taxes, and not being a burden on anyone or the state. Positively, I was learning to be more self-reliant, but created a scenario pitting myself against others because they were doing things differently than I. The anger and dissociation that developed from losing my purpose and not living in community had put me in a self-fabricated duality of me vs. them.
Because I had previously seen glimpses through the cracks and negotiated disorienting dilemmas successfully, finding community, purpose, being of service to others, and expanding consciousness, there was a glimmer in me that knew that I could find my way again. I began taking small measures to ensure I could see the light if it were to shine on me again, and it did in the unlikely form of being laid off from a job and career I was miserable in. I was now free to pursue the practices of meditation, yoga, and travel that had been so pivotal to my wellbeing post election loss. As my mind let go of the dualistic anger it held against others, my worldview shifted as I again found community, and met like minded people in a yoga teacher training program, and hopefully more like minded souls studying to become a therapist. Today, I am inspired, and inadvertently taught lessons as I engage and observe others who are humble, honest, and calm. The same people angry me would have looked at as soft, or losers, have become my friends and mentors.
Hindsight can be a powerful perspective affirmation. Digging one’s feet into the sand can also teach difficult lessons, and once the feet are freed perspective can be actualized. Seeing how long and nonlinear my process has been I know working with clients will take patience instilled in myself and encouraged in them. Because healing and change come from within the help of a therapist can aid clients seeing through the cracks of what looks like cemented consciousness. I like the phraseology from 12 step programs that everyone needs to find their own bottom. While many will not necessarily experience the physical desperation of a drug addict, one’s personal recognition that they have reached their wit’s end is a palpable and valid dilemma with potential for a transformational experience. Ushering clients to self-recognize their path and lean into change is also transformation in action. Lessons may be taught repeatedly until steps are taken to integrate what is learned from the new perspectives and evolve. A door closing or crumbling can make way for a new door to open as I saw losing the election in university, falling victim to myself and substance, and when laid off in 2023. These experiences will enable me as a therapist to humbly work with clients to sift through their past for a productive present and future of broader perspectives and positive change because I have, and am doing the same.