Note: This post is categorized in "EMDR & Recovery" because it was written during the EMDR process.  It is also categorized in "Escape Route" because many ex-fundamentalists can probably relate to the incessant sensation of "never being good enough."

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Let's go back to what I was saying in my previous post...about binging on sugar and the agonizing journey of learning to like myself in spite of it.

The idea that I can't look like Kira Knightly or refrain from a calorific indulgence for more than a few weeks time - it bothers me.  With enough suffering and superficiality, I suppose it's technically possible.  I could go to the gym 3 hours a day and avoid all events involving food that actually tastes good. But my past has shown me that sacrificing sane behavior for vain ideals has never ended favorably.  At some point, I have to chose between chasing perfection and having an actual job with real-life friends.

I have this automatic fantasy that tricks me into thinking I can be more pure, more clean, or more "spiritual" if I do or don't do certain things...if my body looks or doesn't look a certain way.  In these moments, it never occurs to me that I am seeking self-acceptance, a sense of Ok-ness, an inner-knowing that I'm one with the Universe.  I don't know how "personal growth" and "vainly enhancing my image" get mixed up for me.*  And like an amnesiac, I can't seem to remember that changing my outsides has never - not once - made this inner restlessness better.

*maybe it's the whole "being a meditative yogic buddhist is cool" trend going on right now, accompanied by a generational wave of Spiritual Gangsta apparel and vegan-inspired culinary dishes. (Amazingly hysterical video about using the guise of “spirituality” for ego-enhancement that made me laugh so hard I peed my pants)

Below are four problems with the idea that lasting Ok-ness (goodness, purity, cleanliness, spirituality, acceptability) can be achieved by doing something (getting skinner, gaining muscle, making money, living minimally, being sexually desirous, abstaining from sexual experiences, collecting 38,200 friends on social media, winning awards, doing more yoga, recycling, and so on):

1. The unconscious craving for inner-acceptance and inner-peace cannot be satisfied with external rituals or measuring sticks.
   • That's like giving a thirsty child salty pretzels.
2. These mental measuring sticks are ever-growing, always discovering someone (or something) better to compare me (or my life situation) to.
   • The bag of pretzels is infinitely bottomless, and induces further thirst.
3. When chasing measuring sticks, one runs the risks of confusing popularity with progress and self-absorption with self-improvement.
   • The pretzels are coated in LSD, which distracts the child from his own dehydration.
4. Even if driven by popularity or vanity, the measuring sticks continue move, which means you can be popular as fuck and still hate yourself.
   • Even if drugs are fun, he's still really, really, really thirsty.

For me, the journey of true progress (developing a still heart and sound mind) must come from unlearning old stuff and relearning new stuff.  The idea that I can control my sense of peace and well-being by being enviable or scrupulous is a giant fantasy - an addictive, life-slaughtering fantasy.  It steals my presence; it starts the hamster wheel.  The minute I take a bite of this illusion, I've pretty much resigned to hate myself until I spit it out.

This can be scary sometimes - spitting it out.  I fear my unexplored appetite for just about everything: food, sex, rebellion, sloth.  If I accept not being skinny, will I gain 80 pounds and explode?  If I accept not being rich, will I take naps all day and never work again?  If I accept not being spiritually perfect, will I have sex with everything that moves and steal from poor people?

Luckily, there's something that jolts me awake from this nightmare: the powerlessness of failing miserably (hence the sugar binge).  In such moments, I'm faced with the realization that fulfilling an ever-growing check list of ways to "earn" my own approval (or peace, or spirituality, or whatever) is an absolute impossibility.  Once I throw in the towel and get on with liking myself as-is (this usually requires a bit of reading, writing, and/or the listening ear of another human being), the fear stops.  The illusions dissolve.  The duality dies.  There's no more resistance.  I am connected.  I feel happy.

This, I believe, is what is meant by "surrender to win."  I surrender to Reality...it is the most spiritual thing in the world.  So, when it comes to fantasy or humanity, I choose the reality of my humanness...despite the discomfort of not living up to the spectacularly ego-enhancing vision I have of myself.

For today, I choose being Rachel, a shamelessly regular, unspecial, imperfect human...not because I embody self-love, balance, wisdom, or grace.  To the contrary, I choose it because my insanely foolish quest for fantasy burned my life to ashes, and Reality is all I have left.

Being exceptional is so overrated.  Cheers to the unspecialness of the human experience.

Cheers to reality...and the humbling power peanutbutter m&m's.