You’re about to read Chapter 20. Want to start this story from the beginning? Go here.
I just had one of the most impressive meditation sessions of my life.
Which is saying a lot, since it is literally my job to meditate (which means I do it a LOT).
But it’s true:
Somehow, for me, Lesson 20’s suggested meditation morphed into fourteen imaginary conversations. And I am transformed.
Don’t quit before the miracle
No kidding, before I sat down on that cushion, I was considering quitting this whole “quest.”
Katherine meant it when she warned at the beginning of Week 3 that things were going to get intense.
And while I have dutifully showed up for every exercise, I have also been getting tired.
Digging around in the past is not my idea of fun—I’m really more of a “what now?” type of gal.
Plus, after connecting with so many IRL support systems yesterday, I started to wonder if this Calling In “The One” work is really necessary.
I mean, I’m no stranger to self-help, and I am already taking so many appropriate actions.
Is devoting hours each day to yet another form of healing truly useful? Or am I perhaps, say, distracting myself from the fear of running my own business?
Turns out, the answer is yes. To both.
It’s not easy, but it is simple
I am so committed to being better.
Not because I’m not good enough already—I’m already perfect, whole, and complete, exactly as I am.
(And so are you!)
No, I want to be better because I can be. And because the better I am, the better equipped I am to help others heal.
I understand that my life purpose is to be of service.
For me, that concept comes from yoga, and from recovery, and Christianity, and Buddhism, and basic human decency. (More or less in that order.)
It is such a simple idea—to think, speak, and act with love, all the time, in order to benefit others.
And it is so hard to actually accomplish.
But there is nothing more worth trying.
And for me to best be of service, it’s true that I need to face my professional fears. I have a gift to offer for which there is great need. I need to put myself out there.
But this blog and the book its about are not a distraction. They’re an offering too—a piece of a larger puzzle whose image I don’t yet see.
Lesson 20 in (very) brief
So, yeah, I’m not quitting this yet. But it’s also 11:14pm and I did just spend ninety minutes in an energy-intensive state.
Therefore, I’m going to skimp on the summary of Lesson 20, and not just because I am at a loss to define “individuation.”
(Which, why Katherine would title a chapter using a term she doesn’t explain the meaning of is beyond me.)
Suffice to say, if we don’t fully separate ourselves from our parents, problems ensue.
Lesson 20 in practice
Holy hell if Katherine doesn’t quit it with the deeply probing journaling assignments…
Yesterday we got a mild reprieve, just a few questions to follow-up after the art project.
But Lesson 20 brings back the probing in full force.
I wrote down answers to SIXTEEN ESSAY QUESTIONS, and it would have been more if I’d included stepparents.
The idea was to get clarity on what our parents’ experiences and hopes have been, and how those expectations have potentially affected us.
And as much as I favor transparency and vulnerability (clearly, since I have yet to delete the photo of my artwork from Lesson 19), I’m electing not to share any of my answers here.
Partly because, as previously mentioned, I am exhausted. And mostly because my answers are largely speculative and much more about my parents than me.
(And while I don’t technically require my parents’ blessing to publish my speculations about their inner experiences, I’m not comfortable going there just yet.)
But the journal prompts aren’t the important part anyway—they’re just fodder for the meditation.
Meditation is an unpredictable adventure
The meditation assignment was structured and clear.
I followed the instructions exactly, but then things took a turn.
First I set up the scene according to plan—I imagined my dad sitting across from me, and I encircled us in a figure eight of bluish white light.
(I really appreciated the energy setup: an infinity symbol creates two distinct segments—individuation!—but also maintains connection due to the nature of the structure.)
Next I had a conversation with him using the prompts I’d been given: Forgive me for any of my failures you’ve perceived; I release you from further obligation to me, etc.
(Honestly, I could go into way more detail on all this but now it’s almost midnight and I’m on a deadline.)
I ended up crying a lot (surprise!), and went on to repeat the process with my stepmom, my stepdad, and my mom.
Then I expected to be done, but, nope, Tyler—aka my first love—showed up and took a seat in the infinity loop across from me.
Because I do energy work on the regular these days, and energy is weird, almost nothing in meditation surprises me anymore. So I just welcomed him and launched into conversation number five.
And after him came someone else, and someone else after that.
More and more men, most of them exes, all of them people with whom I had unfinished business.
In exhausted conclusion
NINETY MINUTES LATER, that business is all finished now, and holy goodness I am tired.
Have you ever had FOURTEEN emotional conversations in a row?
And then tried to write a blog post about it?
In other words, there is much, much more I would like to explain about what this experience entailed.
It seems especially important to share what I realized while I was talking with Paul.
(Semi-cryptic reminder for later: The intersection of infinity is the best we can hope for, and that’s not bad.)
And I do want to tell you all about it. But right now I just can’t. I’m spent.
I CAN, however, go to sleep with well-earned peace—and also relief that tomorrow’s chapter title includes the word “release.”
Love > fear,
Christina
Want to know what happens next? Proceed to Chapter 21.
Missed what happened before? Go back to Chapter 19, or start from the beginning.
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