Ashes Ashes We All Fall Down

I think I fired my speech pathologist. It all started when I thought I might be going out of town a few weeks ago. I cancelled my appointment, just in case, and even though I ended up staying in town, I didn't bother to reschedule. I had another appointment already set for the week after that and I fully intended to go, but then I started writing and reflecting on how so very unhelpful she is and by Sunday night, the night before my appointment, the thought of having to sit in her cold corner office, listening to her complain, made me queazy. I clicked on the reminder email they'd sent me, scrolled to the bottom of the page and merrily clicked on the cancel button. Are you sure???!!!???!!!! The fact that the swift click of a button was freeing my shoulders of tension told me yes, yes I was sure. I selected the yes-I'm-sure option and the appointment transformed into a pile of wrinkly dust.

It wasn't just that she treated me like I'd killed her childhood cat (that first day I came back after the silence), it was that every subsequent visit was filled with a lot of complaining and not a whole lot of healing. One visit she bitched about her job and made comments about the stuck-ness of her situation. Another time she whined about her poison oak and how the meds she was taking for it were making her fuzzy. All interesting stuff if I gave a shit, lady, but you're my doctor and I'm the one who needs your help... I am not paying a million dollars for a less-than-half-assed speech therapy session just to be forced to listen to your problems... go get yourself a damn shrink. (There, I feel better now.)

The decision to not go back to her was not made lightly, despite her obvious shortcomings. I considered the possibility that I was running away from (and therefore sabotaging) my own recovery (it certainly wouldn't be the first time) but I quickly concluded that, this time around, that was not the case. Granted, I was having some difficulty with the whole recovery process, but I am quite sure I wasn't subconsciously (or consciously for that matter) trying to ruin my own life. After all, difficulties are part of the healing, as there is a lesson and an opportunity in every obstacle. (It's possible that I'm just deluding myself, but the fact of the matter is - delusion or no - the prognosis is the same.)

I returned from OHI (and my month of silence) intending to stay the course, as it were (I'm hereby reclaiming that phrase and renouncing its Bush-ism-ness). I planned to stay on the vegan diet (it really seemed to be helping my overall health), exercise every day (or at least 5 times a week), keep alcohol, caffeine, refined sugar and salt out of my sight (and, therefore, out of my belly), meditate more, and implement all the things I had learned at OHI. After I quit my job and the sketch comedy show, I had all the time in the world to focus on healing, to implement new routines and form new habits. Instead, I found myself doing none of it. The story I began to tell, as to why I was having so much trouble, goes something like this:

I do really well in a structured environment. I was always a very good student, a good team member, a good restaurant manager or server or bartender. With structure, I know where to be and when. At OHI I had no trouble getting up at 6:45 every morning. Every morning I drank water upon waking, then juiced and drank wheatgrass, and then headed to the 7:30 exercise class. After that I went to breakfast, then morning classes, lunch, afternoon classes, dinner, evening classes. Even free time was relatively structured because there were certain things you "had" to get done (E's & I's, for example). Back home, without the comfort of the structure at OHI, I am at a loss. With no job or rehearsals scheduled, with no deadlines of any sort I feel like I have plenty of time to get things done, so of course I procrastinate and got absolutely nothing accomplished. Without structure, I am overwhelmed by the amount of lifestyle changes I'm trying to implement, so I unwittingly retreat into the safety of old habits and methods of coping. Weeks have passed and I haven't done any of the things I had intended to do, and I am beating myself up about it too, which isn't constructive or helpful in any way. I've given up so many things in order to heal, yet I am becoming all-too skilled in the art of avoidance and I am inexplicably apathetic toward the things that are instrumental in my recovery. I am in a rut.

Something had to change - of that I was sure - but I didn't know what or how or who or when. I started telling that story, putting it out into the universe, and it didn't take long for the solution to present itself...

I met someone who dabbles in astrology, and she asked me to give her the date and time of my birth. Shortly thereafter I received a 23-page interpretation of my astrological chart and as I read through it I was overcome with emotion. The sheer truth of it all was enough to turn my vague interest in astrology into a ravenous desire to know more. I wanted everyone I knew to read those pages because they contained the truest explanation of 'me' that I'd ever seen; those pages articulated things I felt but never understood, things I experienced but could not put into words; those pages gave me back my power...