Before
BRATTLEBORO — I am broken. There are countless other ways to express it, but that's the expression that feels right.
“I am off track” makes me feel like a corrective course is easily available.
“I am lost” suggests that an inner compass could easily be located.
“I am stuck” just wants for some easily applied emotional grease.
So instead, I am broken. Not that the idiom isn't extreme, but I am taking small comfort in the fact that “irrevocably” has not turned those first three words into four.
I'm trying to believe that the reason for my state is less important than the fact of my state. I had something. I lost something. And in the process of that loss, I broke.
Not that you would necessarily know unless I told you, which I probably did at some point in the last few months if we even casually locked eyes.
I'm told that my curse is the gift for which some of my broken brethren strive: I can compartmentalize like no one else and keep on functioning. I can decry an inaccurate newspaper headline about me. I can talk a student off a ledge. I can interview a hero on a syndicated radio show. And in the process, I can just generally plow forward at a rushed pace.
But then I get a free second. And I pause. And being broken washes over me.
An earth-goddess-of-an-acquaintance casually mentioned the Esalen Institute in Big Sur to me a few weeks back and, without doing much research, I booked this trip. I was told it would be healing, which was all the convincing I needed.
There is a sea lion on a rock right in front of me. I think that there is a salient metaphor in there somewhere onto which someone reading this might cling and then feel healed, even if, for me, it is just a real live sea lion on a rock right in front of me!
Day one
“He makes jokes, but he is in a lot of pain.”
With this one sentence, I was disarmed. But that was toward the end of the day.
Everything leading up to that comment caused me to react as a wide-eyed, nervous child. The van to Esalen picked me up, and I was excited to lay my eyes on the other passengers to see what these folks would be like. If the van was any indication, I deduced that I would most certainly be in a gender minority, as I was the only male of the 9 passengers.
The ride along the cliffs from Monterey to Big Sur would have been so much more Zen if one of the passengers would have shut the hell up. Even better, if that passenger not had been me.
I was thinking it, too, as in, “Ken, stop talking! Hey, look! You're talking again. And then there you go again with the talking!”
I was nervous.
Arriving at the Institute shut me up some. I checked in and dumped my stuff in my room. It was already dinnertime, so I proceeded directly to the Lodge for an extraordinarily hearty and locally grown meal.
Within seconds of filling my plate, I was transported back, tray-in-hand, to the horrid school game of “Where do I sit?”
I was informed that I had sat down with a group whose members were starting a month-long, work-learning program, and this dinner was their orientation/welcome. Not my table. So I skulked away, head bowed.
I saw an empty spot next to an ethereal, waif-like woman, and was prepared to be dazzled by her chakra. She never looked up from her food. Not once. So, much like high school, I ate in silence quickly.
I left dinner to check out the famous, healing mineral baths for which Esalen is often known. The website reads “clothing optional,” and I learned that was code for “F.Y.I.: Not one person will be wearing clothes. At any point. Your comfort with this is optional.”
Pretty soon, it was time to start my five-day workshop, “The Courage to Be You: Letting Go and Moving On.”
Mary, the facilitator, is a licensed clinical psychologist, around 75 years old, and - Holy cow! - is she a spitfire! She will call you out in a heartbeat, a fact I quickly learned for myself.
The crux of this night was an activity where you had to pick someone else in the room with whom you wanted to spend time, grab his or her hand, and sit down.
I froze. So many people moving around (17 women and one other man, incidentally). Suddenly, it was me and one other woman who did not have hands in our hands.
She looked at me, shrugged, and took my hand. That “okay, whatever” raise of her shoulders just killed me.
Then we had to go around one by one and talk about our process, and Mary would cut right through to how the process mirrored that person's life. I was third to last and was hoping time would run out first.
But it was clear that, no matter how long it took, everyone was going to share.
My turn was long. Mary kept pushing, confirmed by the fact that she at one point said, “I know I keep pushing you.” Somewhere in the sharing, I made a joke, a harmless quip, and that's when Mary told the group, “He makes jokes, but he is in a lot of pain.”
The laughter from my joke died immediately.
After the session, Mary beelined it right to me. I said a lot. She said a lot. She just seemed so confident about what this week will be for me. In the moment, it was convincing. Fifteen minutes later, less so.
Day two
For the record, I am trying. I am trying to be present. I am trying to go deep. I tried to dance when the music played.
And lest you think that the dancing and music was a metaphor, it was real. It's how Mary starts a session, to give our inner child a chance to play so that our inner parent can focus during the work of the hours ahead. A remix of Irene Cara's “Flashdance … What a Feeling.” Seriously.
The crux of the day was spent identifying and addressing our defenses, those coping methods that we have always put into place. About 30 were listed, and we had to identify our top three. We then had to talk to them and try to convince them to take a holiday.
My three (entertainer, perfectionist, and intellectualizer) doubted I could live without them and scoffed at me a little, but, ultimately, it was an insightful exercise.
At the end of the day, we did a partner exercise with back-and-forth statements revealing various truths about our lives and then acknowledging the sharing with a look into our partner's eyes and a simple “thank you.”
For Partner 1, I looked away. I met Partner 2's eyes for 7 seconds or so. Partner 3 got a good chunk of the minute, but I was laughing on the inside and grinning like an idiot on the outside.
But then Partner 4 came along with an undeniable earnestness, and I gave in, let go, and looked in her eyes for the entire 60 seconds. It was incredible, forging a connection that deepens the truths shared and enhances the gratitude of your “thank you.”
By Partner 6, I was looking forward to that first minute.
Day three
First thing this morning: a warm-up exercise in which we had to partner up and get back into the eye-gazing, at which I am now an old pro. Then the taller member of the pair was instructed to say “Please” and the shorter member was to respond “No.”
As a tall guy, it was my role to beg “Please” over and over again, always meeting with a resounding “No.”
By the fourth or fifth “Please,” I had completely thrown myself into the exercise, really trying to trigger a “Yes.” My partner sensed this, and her “No”s were drenched in compassion, even if the answer didn't change.
Then Mary changed the rules, and the taller member of the group had to add “Stay” after “Please.” This exercise was one for the entire group, not specific to me, but there's no possible way it could have hit closer to home.
From my first “Please stay,” I was desperate. I am not so delusional that I didn't know which answer was coming my way, but damned if that didn't keep me from trying. Every “No” was a brick wall on which my head made no dent. It was maddening.
My partner knew exactly what was going on, and her eyes welled up with tears, getting more and more full with every “No.”
Other stuff happened today. By that phrase, I mean tons of other stuff, as that was a warm-up exercise. But nothing else mattered.
Please stay.
No.
Day four
So I walked out today. I'm not proud of it. But I did it anyway.
This morning was a literal laying on of hands. In groups of three, pallets were laid out in front of us and volunteers were sought.
I went first.
I sprawled out on the pallet on my back and had to make eye contact with my two partners kneeling shoulder-to-shoulder on my right. It was very “Ken reciting his Haftarah looking up at proud, beaming parents.” I was then instructed to turn over on my stomach, and then hands were everywhere for a while. A long while.
Then it was time to turn over on my back. I was instructed to have a conversation out loud with a person with whom I needed to talk.
I did not utter a word out loud, but I swear I had a conversation with all of the related imagery quite loudly in my head. After the conversation was over, I had to open my eyes, lock eyes with my proud parents - er, partners - beside me, and then stand up.
I stood up, got dizzy, and just bolted from the room. I found some grass, crumpled to the ground, and got horribly lost in that imaginary conversation.
We ended the day with a trust walk. A purple scarf was tied around my head, and one of my workshop peers led me around the Esalen grounds in silence for 15 minutes - 15 minutes in a strange land, on a patch of grass situated on top of a towering cliff, with the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks, blinded by a scarf that clashed horribly with my ensemble.
Not my comfort zone, but I gave in and let myself be led by an incredible partner who put fragrant leaves under my nose, pointed my face to the sun, put a stick in my hand, and had me bang some bells.
There was a childlike wonder to it all. Far, far more difficult for me was when we switched roles and I was the leader. The responsibility was enormous.
Day five
Today was our last full day, and breakthroughs were on the agenda.
I'm not fooling myself to think that my life is going to change dramatically due to these last five days, but there were pinpricks of awareness that poked through my opaque blanket of hurt.
I'm exhausted, and I suspect tomorrow's entry will be a doozy.
Also, Mary called me a “dumbass” at one point today, which was kinda awesome.
After
Is change possible?
Or is change a farce we buy into until the circumstances around us thrust us into another landscape, convincing us that we have changed when, in fact, it was the details that changed and not us?
I've learned this week that the only way that I am going to move forward is if I first believe something is amiss (“I am broken.”) and then have the desire to change it (“I do.”)
I now know more about the way I respond to situations and my own defenses. Mary had repeatedly said that even if you don't respond to situations differently, you'll never look at your responses the same way again, and I have already had proof that that assertion is true.
I now know that the past really is unalterable and my desire to change it only throws me back to the land of the broken.
And, although this one is going to take a lot of self-reminding, I now know that contemplating that which has not yet happened is a luxury of someone who knows he will be there to experience that which has not yet happened. That someone does not exist in this world and is most certainly not holding this pen.
It's one thing when you walk away with this revelation after a screening of Dead Poet's Society; it is quite another when you connect this future-gazing to current pain.
Again, I am not so delusional as to think I could be remade in five days in a foreign land. But I also am not so jaded that I can't recognize that this time away has been a gift, and to refuse that gift would be to say that I don't want change. I do, and I think it's possible not only for just me but also for anyone who needs the idea of change.
There's still so much for us all to do! I'm looking to the future, but I'm doing so while moving forward.
And that's something.
As for the parable of the sea lions, it turns out they really were symbolic.
I watched them for days in Monterey, post-Esalen, trying to discern their meaning in my journey. Was it my Odyssean voyage through the “sea”? My Tarzanian quest to be the “lion”? Or perhaps my attempt to live the contradiction between different realms?
Finally, I turned for guidance to a waiter at a local restaurant with a huge resting rock of sea lions right outside the window.
I asked him how those sea lions relate to one another and the world, deciding that all the meaning of this work in my life would be found in his answer.
My sage waiter replied, “Yeah, dude, those aren't sea lions. Those are harbor seals and mostly they just sit around, sleep, and bark when something gets in their way.
“Dessert menu?”
Perspective and a plan are great things indeed.