AN IMPROMPTU FAQ, PART I
CONTEXT
An ongoing Mirror Session participant (and now very close friend) recently asked me a series of very powerful questions about myself + the history of my process. It wasn’t until revisiting my response to her (a day after sending it) that I realized the universal relevance of the stories + the insights I had shared.
It became apparent to me that these were more than just good questions, they were gifts. They evoked a wisdom stored beneath the surface of my logical response. Because of this, I have chosen to begin sharing some of those questions + my responses with you here.
I can still feel the existential resonance + honesty of this first question in my chest + in my gut. My friend noted that I had ‘pretty much allowed myself to dissolve, without knowing what would happen’ when I did.
She wanted to know why I would take the risk. Why would I go there? And what was the most valuable thing that I learned about myself along the way?
This was my intuitive response.
TRANSCRIPT
You asked me why I'd choose to open myself so fully to a course without awareness of its end. This is a very good question. The answer, in my own case, was that I’d exhausted every other option I could find. Contextually, I had been engaged in a lifelong pursuit of Knowledge, Truth, and Purpose - of Fulfillment.
This pursuit consumed me, every minute of every day.
After successfully achieving everything that I could think to (knowledge, reputation, professional success, financial success, a business of my own that allowed me to work remotely + choose my own clients, approval from my parents, and etc.), I was surprised to find myself (still somehow) disappointed, unfulfilled.
I hated to admit it, but I knew this in my gut: whatever I was searching for did not in fact exist atop these mountains I'd been climbing my whole life.
In desperation (and a fair amount of existential rage), I decided to 'turn everything off.' I dissolved my business (only short months after launching it), committing myself to 'doing whatever it takes for as long as it takes' in order to connect to something more authentic, true, and lasting in my soul.
Whatever I was searching for, I determined that I would find it at all costs. Of course, having exhausted all my best ideas + having no real sense for what ‘it’ even was left me hanging from a rather thin + shaky inner edge.
I deleted all of my social media accounts. I did everything that I could to erase myself from the internet entirely. I removed myself from family + from friends. My intention was to purge, to start from scratch.
I wiped the slate clean. I thought it might take 90 days to find what I was after. (It did not; it took much longer.) But I did find it, eventually - and it did sustain. I continue to hold ‘it' inside me to this day.
The most valuable thing I learned throughout this process was that everything I’d lived through could be kinder than I’d thought. I recognized my hand in complication: how the pressures I’d endured were of my own reflex design.
I realized that this path could be much smoother than I’d made it. I found 'shortcuts,’ made adjustments - I slowed down. In time, I learned to simplify my life + I improved the way I met it.
It was this very simplification that would later become my WholeSystem Human methodology, and remains the fullest focus of my work.