I came across this unfinished bit of writing tonight and felt it should be posted.
After we let go
The simpler we make our lives, the more abundant they become.
- Sarah Ban Breathnach
I had swallowed it hole—the idea that complexity equals success. The ability to discuss complex ideas implies intellectual success. The ability to manage hundreds of details without mistake is perceived as organizational success. The number of things we can get done in a day reflects successful time management. Breadth is favored over depth and busyness is mistaken for worth.
In this way, I could say that five years ago I was far more “successful.” I was editor, designer, and staff manager at a national publication with 34,000 readers. I edited and co-wrote a few books and led workshops across the country to inspire people to reconnect to their truth. I was married to and worked with a brilliant, creative man who never lost my interest or passion. We had a cabin and 15 acres in the country and a modest sized home near Burlington. I spent half the week with my two kids whose dad lived 16 miles away. My life was intense, complex, and never boring. The only problem was that I was falling apart.
To maintain my indispensability at work took at least 60 hours a week, sometimes more. To be what I thought my husband wanted required a careful management of my behavior. To maintain the intensity of our love affair required constant attention. To be the mom I wanted to be required never saying no and proving, without doubt, that I was a good mom. Once or twice a year my husband and I found the peace and simplicity we sought in the woods. Those few weeks of silence and beauty sustained us for the rest of the year. But after a while holes began to appear in my life. I got into small car accidents. I injured myself routinely. My hair began to turn gray and my bright light began to fade. My circle of friends, always small, shrunk more as I had no time to see them. And my husband became more and more distant.
At my workshops I felt my self, my truth, my wild soul shine like the sun. But upon return I would sink right back into the habits of complexity.
One day, after having studied the Enneagram for a while, I came upon a truth: I create intensity (a.k.a. complexity) to feel alive. I create stories about my life that are romantic and dramatic and then work to live into them. One story had me as the selfless, unconditionally loving person. Another had me as the perfect partner and lover. In a moment I saw how I was willing to do anything to maintain the story of my life as I wished it to be. I was willing to exert whatever effort to be the person I imagined myself to be. I wanted to be “myself” but denied the full breadth of what that meant.
I claimed to want simplicity, but when it came down to it, life needed to be “super special” to be worth my time. And, my ego had a very particular view of what “super special” meant. With this awareness created by the Enneagram the “gig was up.” I had uncovered the basic distortion of life that my ego maintained was reality: “Life is a waste unless I am seen as unique and special and my experiences are intense.”
After that realization, I could no longer maintain the story as I had before. I started letting it go. And it was scary. I did not know how to live without it. So, I lived day-by-day, moment-by-moment, trying to hear my truth underneath the story my ego had developed. The end of my marriage began with me speaking my truth more and more. “No, I don’t want to publish five books this year. It is too much for us.” “No, I am not willing to work 60 hours.” I dug my heels in and asked for real change. I tried to talk about the Enneagram because I began to see how his life was also caught up in a story that was not serving his desire to slow down. Finally, one day, after another new project was introduced, I said, “I would rather live in a shack then continue living at this pace and with this complexity.” And with that he left. Our marriage was over. And after another year our working relationship too.
I have come to realize that grief is less about missing the actual thing or person that is gone, but missing the person you had been in its presence. And the grief is not a thought, “Oh I miss being his wife.” Or “I miss being the Editor.” The grief is a sense of vacancy, of disorientation, of floating though your days without the anchor of “I am _______.” I did not miss my husband or my work as much as I missed the sense of knowing my place in the world. I had been Ann O’Shaughnessy, writer and editor, who received hundreds of letters a week from grateful readers. I was the woman other women envied for my role as the artist’s wife. The fact that he chose me proved I was special. The growing number of subscribers proved I was special. The books I published and sold were tangible proof of my worth. By losing all that, I lost the solid oak tree my ego leaned against to feel comfortable. Without the proof there was nothing but me and the intense discomfort of not knowing who that was.
The past two years have been a continual process of letting go. I have had to let go of all the definitions I held about what success and my own sense of myself as “special” means. I have had to celebrate the beauty of ordinariness all the while digging through and tossing out the stories I held to be true about life:
- Relationships aren’t good unless you feel “in love.”
- Life is not worth anything if you aren’t working hard to realize your potential.
- If you aren’t working really hard you are going to fail.
- To rest and relax and do what you want is selfish.
- If you aren’t stressed out with busyness people will think you are lazy.
- Telling the truth is not worth it if it invites conflict.
- To be valued you need to be the best, most unique one.
- To make yourself indispensable by giving selflessly is the only way to be loved.
- Other people get what they want.
- Other people are happy.
- Suffering is a required component of growth.
And I let it go…
The process of letting go led me to a place so empty it threatened to swallow me. I walked in this barren land for a year, resisting the urge to hop on some intense train ride to feel alive. By leaving behind my story and disempowering my ego, I removed the framework that held up my sense of self. And it frightened me. But there was no going back. Many nights I prayed to be able to operate as I had, to have the fierceness of my ego to guide me. Letting go of my habit to create tragic romantic stories to live by left me with real life to contend with and there seemed to be nothing romantic about it. I struggled to find a reason to live. The emptiness pulled at me daily. I did not worry that I would actually killed myself, but I faced each day trying desperately to create the will to live.
