What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up?

I met with my therapist yesterday. (Warning: Praise of my therapist, to the point of being sickening, will probably occur in this post.) We had a "big" session. I could tell it was big by how uncomfortable I felt during most of it. I knew I was, however lightly, bumping up against some things that I manage not to touch very often; things I need to bump up against and push through in order to live a happier, more fulfilling life.

The session began with a discussion about my unhealthy habits, particularly how I eat and the fact that I don't exercise. I came to realize that the main reason I eat is for pleasure--the immediate, no-strings-attached, no-work-involved, pure pleasure of eating something that tastes good. One of the many things I love about my therapist is that she leads me through issues so that I come to realizations myself rather than just telling me her opinion; this is exactly what she did when she asked me what the "medicine" of food was "treating" in me. I realized it's the general dissatisfaction, malaise, depression, boredom, etc. that I feel about my life, especially my job. So that's how, after a half an hour of intense therapy, I came to actually understand phrases like "emotional eating" or "filling a void with food." I truly never "got it" until yesterday. I thought I did, but I didn't.

My therapist and I discussed how I wasn't living the life I was, in her terms, "put here to live." She told me how I was here in this world to do something, and that my heart would tell me if I would listen to it. I found it hard to accept that I could actually be worthy of a "calling" (and am still working that idea around in my head)--but she explained to me that everyone has it, it's just whether or not they can listen for it. She said, "Imagine the rainbow without the color blue. It would be a completely different thing. That's the world without you."

She encouraged me to completely and fully fantasize about my "dream" life. What I would be doing, where I'd be doing it, how it would feel...imagine myself as if I were actually living it. Then, the hard part--start taking steps toward it, even little baby ones. One of the things we talked about was my fantasy of living on the beach, writing personal essays for a living, walking along the shore contemplating the big mysteries in life. "There are people who live that life," she said. "What's the difference between them and me?" I asked rather pathetically. "They're doing it," she said.

She noted that she felt that along with my fear of failure and anxiety about change lurked a darker force that she labeled "an ugly little troll that lurks in the backround and says 'why bother?'" I immediately recognized the troll and told her I instinctively felt that I didn't even want to talk to the troll (yes, we laugh at this stuff in therapy too, but still honor it) and she agreed that we shouldn't give him any energy. Instead she said, "just kick it away." Then she taught me a cool Sufi thing where you pretend to spit over your left shoulder, and it symbolizes getting rid of bad energy and the like.

So my homework this week is to fantasize. I feel naturally drawn to two areas: my writing, of course, which is what's fed my soul for as long as I've known how to do it; and my experience with Hope and my desire to help others who have gone or are going through similar experiences. I want to keep an open mind that these aren't the only two areas of myself that I can explore in my fantasizing, though. In many ways, I feel that these two aspects of my life/personality/experience do define me, but in other ways, they restrict me. I know there is more to who I am and I want to explore that too. And yet, the fact that those two things immediately draw me in must mean something, right? I don't know. I'm still working it out.

I do know that this is what I need to do to break through my general unhappiness and disappointment in life. I need to find a path in life that excites me, that feeds my soul, that provides a fulfillment that tastes better than Oreos or pizza rolls. If I don't, then the best I can expect for the rest of my life is more of the same.