Where Am I Going?
Introduction
I was a weird kid. Some days I wanted to own a horse. Other days I wanted to be a horse. Every day I wanted my little brother to be a horse. I wanted to wear purple cowboy boots. Then I wanted to be an astronaut. Then I wanted to be the president. Then I wanted to be the president’s astronaut. I wanted to wear white cowboy boots. I got breasts. I got acne. I got acne bigger than my breasts. I asked odd questions like: Why don’t cows have armpits? If God dropped acid, would he see people?
The only person in my family who took me seriously was my maternal grandfather, whom I called Papi, which itself is odd since Papi is the Spanish word for Daddy, and he wasn’t my daddy, nor was he Latino. Papi had many careers throughout his life, some of which people found strange. He owned a construction company and built buildings, he was a professor and taught science, he owned car dealerships and sold Chryslers, and he was a pilot and wrote the manual for the B-17s. He was also a trained physicist, but he never worked in that field after August 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
If the church doors were open, Papi was walking through them. He was a devout Christian, but he was never allowed to hold any leadership positions in the church he attended because he believed in evolution. He continued to go to the same church anyway.
Galileo was found guilty of heresy by the Inquisition in connection with his new book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, in which he made the case for what he knew to be true: the Copernican notion of a sun-centered universe. Based not on faith but his own physical observations, Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543) had theorized that, rather than the earth being the center of the universe, as had long been perceived, in truth the earth moved around the sun. Because of his endorsement of this theory, Galileo was placed on house arrest for the rest of his life.
On the bottom of the print Papi had written in bold black ink:
The need for truth—and the fear of truth.
Unlike Papi, I have had, for the most part, only one career—advertising—so I haven’t had the benefit of his wide-lens perspective. Still, the odd questions left over from childhood managed, over the years, to slip into the crevices and parentheses of my life, sparking what would become my own personal “meaning safari,” a series of trips to some especially unusual places, normally on the other side of the world, where it was certain something strange would happen. I will never forget waking up in Katmandu and not having any idea who I was. None. Zero. Zip. I don’t mean like Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity or one of those soap opera stars who gets bumped on the head and can’t figure out who she is. No, I’m talking about something far worse: waking up to the horrible reality that I had no idea who I was or what my life meant. I was stuck in the middle of a meaningless existence. And I wanted out.
My disorientation in Kathmandu triggered more questions, all of which collided into one central question— Is this it? Shouldn’t life be about more than just working, trying to make money, buying stuff, and traveling? What if there’s more to life than what we experience with our five senses? We know there are tones of music too high to be registered by the human ear. Aren’t there also colors beyond our perception? Just because I can’t hear the notes or see the colors doesn’t mean they aren’t real. What else could be beyond our earthly perception? Or is this really . . . it?
This question began to dominate every action, every decision, every thought, and every moment in my life. Was I the only one who felt this way? I asked my friends and discovered they weren’t asking questions even remotely like this one. I talked it over with my husband, who took the question personally, as if I were implying that there was something missing in our marriage.
I wondered if my mother had ever pondered such a thought, so I called her.
“Mother, it’s Michelle, and I need your help. I have been doing a great deal of thinking, and I have been asking myself, ‘What if there is something more to life than working, raising the boys, being married and playing golf?’ ”
“Good Lord in heaven! Elizabeth Michelle, are you day-drinking again?” Mother asked, as if day-drinking were something I did frequently. “Sugar, you are standing in tall cotton. Everyone wants your life. My Lord, Michelle, you are married to a doctor, and a handsome one at that. You have two good-looking boys who are healthy; you are a partner at the largest advertising agency in America.”
“Mother, we aren’t the largest advertising agency in the United States, not even in Texas,” I said, trying to get in a word edgewise.
“Well, you would be if you worked harder. Your problem is that liberal church you go to,” she said, as if liberal were a cuss word.
“Mother, we are Methodists,” I said defensively.
“Well, thank goodness you aren’t going to one of those big pop-culture, mega-Christian churches where all they talk about is success and happiness,” she calmly said.
“Yes, God forbid we should want those two things,” I sarcastically shot back.
“Do you want me to fly over there and wash your mouth out with soap? Michelle, you know what I mean, for Christ’s sake. You went to a Christian university! You have had a test on every verse and chapter in the Bible. You know that Noah was a drunk, that David committed murder because he lusted after a woman, and that Jacob broke all Ten Commandments. The Bible is full of real people with real problems. Success is hardly mentioned in the good book.”
“Mother, could we focus on me for once,” I said, pleading.
“Here is my advice to you. Put your big-girl panties on and deal with the fact that you don’t get everything you want in life, but you get enough. And after you make dinner for that tall drink of water husband of yours and clean up the dishes, get on your knees and thank the good Lord for giving you everything you have in your life, and beg his forgiveness for having these kinds of thoughts.”
“Yes, Mother, God is the one who was putting in those fourteen-hour days so I could make partner.”
“Listen, I am glad you called, because your daddy and I had a discussion about you just the other day. We have a question we would like you to ask yourself,” she said, taking a deep breath.
I knew it! Here it comes, the reason why I called. My mother will put my feet on the right path. That is what mothers do; they are wise and only have our best interests at heart.
“When are you going to go see a plastic surgeon?” she asked, in a matter-of-fact voice.
“What?” I screamed. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
My mother is beauty-queen beautiful and movie-star striking. Her jet-black hair and high cheekbones come from her Native American heritage, and her blue eyes come from Papi. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me, “Michelle, your mother is drop-dead gorgeous; do you look like your father?” I could afford to buy a small piece of real estate, like Montana.
“Do you have any more questions?” my mother asked.
“Yes, just one: When am I going to meet my real family?”
It is hard to comprehend a turning point when you are living through it. We are too close to our own lives to gain perspective, and perspective comes only with distance and time. Today I have both, and I now understand that, by the time I had that conversation with my mother, I had already begun the journey that I would later acknowledge to be the beginning of my inner transformation.
The question Is this it? led me toward self-discovery. Not in a self-centered, 1960s sort of way, where all I cared about was “finding myself”—inner transformation is about discovering your own truth, that deep understanding of who you are and what you can become because of that knowledge.
Many people are crying out for a direct experience with God, the Universe, or whatever you choose to call him. This direct experience urges us past faith into understanding. A common denominator among those of us who have direct personal experiences with a Higher Power is that we put serving others and being compassionate at the top of our priorities. Self-knowledge (and the humility that comes with it) is the only way to transform society, because once you take the time to figure your crazy self out, you realize that you are here to serve something other than yourself. A journey that begins and ends with oneself isn’t a spiritual journey at all.
Inner transformation will deliver you to questions about a Higher Power and concepts like immortality that not too long ago, at least in the public eye, were usually the exclusive domain of learned theologians and philosophers. But the Internet has given all of us immediate access to what was once information available, for the most part, only to those industrious enough to seek it out in the halls and libraries of universities or under the direct tutelage of Jesuit mystics or Buddhist monks. Now we can Google questions, debate on blogs, and download books in an instant onto the apparatus of our choice (without anyone else seeing us do it).
However, because of this abundance of information and the freedom that we have to talk about the thing we call God, what he or she is or isn’t, what we believe or don’t believe, or all the different views of this “energy field,” the Universe, Great Spirit, or Higher Power, it’s easy to get distracted by debates over things that do not matter. Like the name we give to this eternal being. Call him “Fred,” if you want. It doesn’t matter. Get past the name and get into what God is to you and what you are to God, or Fred.
The glue that once held our society together is dissolving. Many of us are stranded, trying to fathom what our lives mean after all the changes we have gone through. We are left standing in the rubble after an earthquake or trying to pick up the pieces after a divorce, when we finally decide to stop asking why this situation is happening to us and start looking for meaning in our pain. We are not able to control the forces or people that cause suffering, but we can determine what the pain and suffering do to us and what we become because of it. The answers are within us, not outside us, and those answers will give us insight into what’s next for us in our own inner transformation process.
Lasting transformation happens from the inside out. Some people think change means taking a different job, moving to a new city, getting married or divorced, or having a child. But true change happens only when we figure out our own answers to our own unique questions. If we don’t experience an inner transformation, then there will always be a dimension missing from us and from our society, since we are all small aspects of the big picture. Our superficial society is the reflection of our inability to reconcile our inner and outer lives. Only if we transform internally can we bring peace to the world.
After speaking with my mother, I knew she was right about some things. I had a great life, a wonderful life—on the surface. But I wanted more. I wanted a deeper understanding of myself, and I knew I wanted my life to mean something.
I began working on an earlier version of this book and, in doing so, discovered I had a chapter that no longer fit. A friend suggested I make that chapter, which encouraged “creative burial” alternatives and planning one’s “exit strategy” in advance, into a separate book. Great! I thought. Now I can take a vacation away from the disturbing questions spinning around inmy head.
As I traveled around the country to research the book, interviewing family members who were mixing their loved ones’ remains into pottery or blowing up their ashes in fireworks displays, it occurred to me that our society approves of a good laugh and is embarrassed by a good cry. Many of the memorial events I witnessed seemed to be exercises in absence rather than presence, avoidance rather than confrontation, the “virtual” instead of the “real.” How we approach death is how we approach life, and those missing the direct experience with death are the same ones missing the direct experience with life.
Author and funeral director Thomas Lynch has said, “The ultimate undertaking is life itself.” As I began to attempt to make sense of dying and the dead, I realized I needed to make sense of life and living.
On the book tour for Exit Strategy, I encountered a lot of other people who were experiencing similar moments of disorientation. To my surprise, most of the people who came to my book readings did not want to discuss shooting their ashes into space, or turning their loved ones’ ashes into diamonds, or what to do with the dead at all. Like me, they wanted to talk about what to do with the rest of their lives. They too were drawn to questions about spirituality, hoping to find meaningful answers. It seemed we all agreed these newfound feelings were changing our lives—because once you begin to ask deep questions of yourself, you activate and open a dormant part of your brain, and like Pandora’s box, it is a part that may never be closed again.
I had spent most of my life hiding behind masks, trying to be everything to everybody, even if that meant being someone other than my authentic self. Spending time with other people while researching and writing Exit Strategy, and wondering about their lives, gave me the courage I needed to examine my own life. I discovered I was entering a period in my life that I call the Age of Meaning. This is not to be confused with other, historic “Ages,” nor is it based on how many times you have rotated the sun. Rather, it is the time in your life when you finally “wake up” and ask questions that propel you to discover who you were born to be, leading you to an understanding of your life’s deeper purpose.
We are all writing the story of our lives, hoping that, before we arrive at the end of the story, we will have found something deeper, richer, and more meaningful. We want to know that our lives are not wasted. That our lives matter, that we matter.
This book is about my journey and what I have learned while passing through seven distinct and life-altering stages of inner transformation: the Wake-up Call; Denial and Fear; the Search for Deeper Spiritual Meaning; the Dark Night of the Soul; Spiritual Surrender; the Clarity Moment; and Where Am I Going? This book is a road map of my own individualized approach to inner transformation. However, each spiritual journey is as unique as each human on the planet—what worked for me may not work for you in exactly the same way. My intention is to help you along your own path, freeing you from the obstacles that are keeping you from setting off and offering guidance when you feel alone. But this is your journey. As the Buddha said, “Don’t believe me, don’t believe anybody, don’t accept anything based on tradition. Don’t believe anything based on the fact that your community believes this or your country believes this or the people who are around you believe this.” Find what works best for you.
Here’s what I know after going through the seven stages of inner transformation. When I am hiking on a Saturday afternoon with my family, I pause and look upward. I see the mountains and they are red; the sky is blue. The clouds are white. The birds flying overhead are black. The air of the desert fills my lungs and I take long, slow, deep breaths and see my boys in front of me. The question of what’s truly meaningful never enters my mind now. I know I am meaningful. The whole universe is meaningful, and I am meaningful because I’m a part of it.
Whatever has happened in your life up until now, whatever you have believed in, hoped for, or dreamed of, is in the past. A new meaningful life awaits you. You have the opportunity to clearly see it. I have written this book as if the two of us are about to walk through a gate into a deeper experience of life’s meaning. All you have to do is open the gate.
