I have a friend. I’ve known her since high school. We dated in high school in fact, which puts her in the rare category of an ex-girlfriend who actually became a true friend and is still in my life, decades later. For me, that’s a category of exactly one human (although I hope I can grow it to two).1
This friend and I, we have good conversations. Most often after months of silence. One of us will casually say hello, or perhaps drop some big news (“I just moved, my partner might be leaving me, and I’m working on myself and my capacity and bandwidth as powerfully as I can, so that my own evolution can be of real service to others, and I’m oddly completely ready to take more clients on and really launch this coaching practice to its next level, now of all times, but gosh the tension is high and the money is tight and this sure is a lot at once, how are you?”), and then before you know it, we’re knees deep in a text exchange about the meaning of life.
I think it’s always been this way? We see things just differently enough that everything feels like a disagreement and every statement a possible blunder, a categorical mis-step that can’t be recovered, but I’ve learned that usually it resolves quite neatly when we unpack the nuance and better define our terms. Definition creates reality.
Not infrequently, this friend asks me for perspective. I started my Tibetan Buddhist path ahead of her, and so in some very mediocre ways I can occasionally unpack my own experience in ways that are useful to another. We also both have unruly minds, which gives us a lot in common.
Yesterday she said she’d been thinking about something I’d said once. That our thoughts create our reality. She had some concerns about the idea. She pointed out that such an idea can be - and often is - readily manipulated into a stance of victim blaming. And that it’s not very useful or constructive, for instance, to tell someone with an anxiety disorder that their intrusive thoughts will “come true.”
So I want to unpack this a bit, as someone with a slew of ‘disorder’ diagnoses myself, who for years took all my thoughts and feelings quite seriously, and who is also passionately committed to radical self-responsibility and creative and spiritual liberation.
There’s an oft-quoted, loosely translated statement attributed to the Buddha, “with our thoughts we create the world.” Yes and no. The original didn’t use the words ‘thoughts’ or ‘world’ at all, as it turns out.2 Now I’m not a scholar of Pali so I’m not going to get into the weeds here. But I do know a thing or two about creating.
…
Hang on. You know what? I can feel myself doing a thing. Hiding behind the castle walls of my intellectual mind. I’m calling myself out on that right now…
Before the emails from my partner, this topic seemed like a good idea. How creating requires intention, and with intention comes tension. How having a vision of an end result, and that vision not existing yet in our current reality, literally puts us into tension. And the job, as creators, is to hold that tension well. To hold that creative stress and resolve it by moving towards our vision. I can say a lot about that. If I do it with stories, it might even be interesting.
But I don’t want to start lecturing into the void about creative tension right now. Not at the expense of acknowledging reality as it is. I mean, I do want to. I’m inclined to. It would be more comfortable to talk about the structure of reality, and draw you pictures, and give you premises to consider, than to bow to feeling my feelings today. But it would also be an attempt to resolve my tension psychologically. To collapse into the game of resolving my wounded identity in order to feel better. And that’s not actually the work of a creator. So I’m not going to go there. I am not going to explain a thing. I never finished this post and now it’s past the time I usually go live, and I just need to see what comes out, even if it’s not much, and let that be okay, and let that be enough. This is the place where done is better than perfect. And real is better than pretend.
I’m amazingly stable, given everything going on. I’m heartbroken and in a new town and a new home and my stuff is all still in boxes or not even here yet and you know what? My sobriety is fine. I’m in no danger of picking up or acting out. My abilities to perceive and interact with others is fairly well regulated. I’m not misinterpreting or blowing things out of proportion or flying off the handle in reaction or spinning out and exhausting myself internally and getting undressed and hiding in bed talking myself down, only to have to get up and get dressed and start my day over again fifteen minutes later. I’m not blaming, shaming, complaining or explaining. I’m posing no danger to myself or others. I’ve been to meetings, I’ve been making regular outreach calls. I’ve meditated, eaten pretty good. I even showered yesterday! I’m walking through a major transition and I am OFF ALL OF MY MEDICATIONS and I am not in crisis. This. Is. Amazing.
One of my closest friends in recovery, who has seen me through everything since I first walked into a queer ACA (adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families) room more than four years ago, is frankly impressed at how well I’m doing. I am too. But I am not surprised. This is the result of years of hard work. This is the fruit of doing my steps four times, in three different programs. This is the fruit of learning to take radical responsibility for the ways that I contributed to my own suffering (and that of those around me). This is the fruit of diligent exploration in somatic therapy into applying mindfulness and meditation techniques and deep inner parts work, to becoming a hospitable environment for my own being to exist, in all its complexities. This is the fruit of pushing back against medicalizing and pathologizing every emotional experience I have, and learning from my own experience what serves me and what does not, and what’s within bounds and what crosses a line. This is the fruit of more than six years of work in the creative orientation, mastering inner alchemy and creative tension and taking fierce, radical responsibility for my own experience. Not as an accusation but as a point of departure for even greater experiences, I own this truth: I CREATE MY OWN REALITY.
One response to that can be the victim-blaming that my friend pointed out above. It’s easy, from the sidelines, to go there, yes. I’m not even going to get into trying to debunk that view. I don’t have it in me today. I just want to say, then, that there’s ANOTHER way to see that premise that’s far more exciting. Just think - if I created all THAT? The “mental illness,” the addiction, the desperate pursuit of accomplishments and the devastating losses - if I made all that up, then what ELSE could I make up? If I were doing it on purpose now, with intention and awareness? How much creative power is there in this universe, really, for me to align with and tap into?
The answer is, a lot. There’s a lot of it. A mind-boggling amount of it. An infinite amount. There’s this funny paradoxical collision that happens between the different paradigms of my world. Traditional recovery, on the surface at least, has its foundation in powerlessness. It’s baked into every Step One. “We admitted we were powerless…” and that admission, that surrender of the illusion of control, opens the door to redemption. Being a creator, on the other hand, assumes great power. And that admission of power, of responsibility, that surrender of the illusion of “it’s not my fault” into “oh, I am doing this. What else could I do instead?” That opens the door to greatness.
My first sponsor shared something with me towards the beginning of our work together that his own sponsor had once said to him. “If you settle for your wildest dreams,” he said, “you’ll be selling yourself short. You don’t even know what to dream for yet.” I think he was keying into that bridge.
I don’t have the clarity of mind right now to impressively weave these two (apparently) contradictory approaches together here. To point out that the fourth column of the fourth step, in which we own our part, is amazingly similar to the premise of creative power, for instance. I could say a lot about that. But I’m running out of time and I’m not particularly invested in trying to convince anyone of this anyway. (This is not a lecture, Play, I have to remind myself once again. But I can do such impressive mental gymnastics, my monkey mind replies. No.) But I have learned, and am still learning, how to hold them both at once. I’m powerless over the fact that I have an ego. I have a wounded identity. I have a history. I always will. Those parts, those stories, those wounds, they are never going to completely go away. But I’m also completely at choice and at liberty to identify with the larger, more transcendent part of myself - my connection to the Divine, to Source, to higher consciousness, superconsciousness, God - call it what you will. That choice is always available for me. And each time I make it, I get the chance to uplevel my being, my functioning, my vision, my actions, and everything I create.
Sometimes I have to make that choice over and over again, all day. Sometimes that’s what it takes. But I’m here for it. Because it means not giving my power away.
Not actually a footnote: My partner informed me this week that she won’t be investing in couples counseling with me. I’m not sure if this truly signals a ‘final’ decision on her part about the relationship, but it felt that way to me, receiving this news. Is this 90 day ‘don’t make any big decisions’ relationship sabbatical already over, just 19 days in? I don’t really know. I’m not in a hurry to seek clarification. I’m not sure clarity is available anyway.
Not knowing, for me, is part of this moment. Being willing to dwell in the unknown is part of holding creative tension, too. Which is what I am practicing in all this evolution and stepping out. So I am steeping now in even more unknowns. I am heartbroken. Disappointed, but not that surprised. Also - those three emails totally derailed me. This post never got finished, for instance. I’ve had to give myself grace.
And, I didn’t start this blog to write about a breakup. I have a bigger story arc that I’m trying to wrap my words around here beyond the blow by blow of this interpersonal transition. So maybe this will seem abrupt, but I am now switching back to my intended topic. Or at least, trying to.
