A Journey to the Center of Me

My journey started about five years ago or so. I was separated from my wife, and trying to get her to move back in with me, while I was seeing another woman. Now, you are probably asking, James, why would you be asking your wife back into your life if you are dating another? That was my exact question when the reality of what I was doing hit me. I went and found a therapist, that was Dale.

Therapy, that word by itself brings up so much imagery in your mind, right? Lab coats, painted cinder block walls, stale air, that cartoon where the Doctor tries to switch Bugs Bunny and a chicken. Of course those are all extreme and somewhat funny, which is what my mind does when faced with the unknown, brings up some obscure cartoon reference. I guess they are a bigger part of my life than I want to admit, but that is another story. Dale however, did not start working on my mind, she started with my spirituality.

That is right, spirituality. What I have learned in my own journey, is that maladies such as the following I suffered:

• Drug addict.
• Sex addict.
• Cheater.
• Liar.

These are often symptoms of a childhood trauma not properly dealt with, and can negatively impact your spiritual being.

Over my life I noticed a sort of darkness, a blackness, slowly tainting everything. No matter what did, or what I bought, the drugs I took, the people I slept with, nothing could stop this slow overtaking of my being. Instead of feeding my spirit, I denied it, and basked in earthly pleasures that left me not only hollow, but right near my diaphragm, a big black ball of anger and hate. Picture dark and nasty storm clouds, black, swirling with turmoil and destruction, that was my chest.

That was a sign that my spirit was sick. While I neither believe in destiny or fate, you need to be true to yourself, even if that self has been twisted by life. We have problems in life when we deny ourselves and are not true. I don’t mean like a liar, but denying ourselves because of peer or social pressures. Sacrifice your inner self so you can live in the material world. Who has not done that? However, I constantly go back to the well without filling it back up—and eventually it ran dry, that is where I was at.

So we started working on this big swirling black ball that was basically in the center of me and over my heart chakra (I am still learning chakras). I have hemispherical spastic cerebral palsy and a i'm survivor of severe bullying by my schoolmates because of that abnormality. Bullying however, eats away at esteem, and takes away belief in yourself. When you have no belief in yourself, you do not live, you survive. Just surviving does not allow you to live to your fullest potential.

In my experience, the difference between who you are, or have been forced to be to survive, and who we are meant to be is how we get spiritually sick. Those are the things that lead to depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and why medications for that stuff have limited, if any, success. A physical cure, for a spiritual problem.

When I went to Dale, I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, sex addiction, PTSD, bipolar, and a few other terms I am sure I have forgotten. Dale started bringing me back to myself. The world can separate you from your inner being. When that happened to me, I became a victim of a cold world.

• You can start to believe that your happiness lies in more stuff.
• Sadness grows despite happiness around me.
• I became reactionary, instead of proactive.
• I placed blame on everything and everyone else.
• I felt lost.

It was somewhere around six months to a year that Dale, an empath herself, called me out as one. It would be years before I accepted it. This is my story.

*Part two coming soon*