Katherine and I were chatting about how it’s easy to want that egoless, boundaryless, total fantasy-like connection with your spouse (or boyfriend or partner, whatever).  And then we followed up with reasons why this desire is absolutely impossible and unrealistic and destructively persistent. 

Nonetheless, I still had to battle the Miniature Fundamentalist living in my head.  Instead of using the Bible to keep me boxed into a Christian model for living, my ego insisted all my problems could be arrested using the 12-Step model. 

Kathy, the young ballerina, is being mentored by her older, wiser dance teacher about what to expect when her first period comes. Never mind where Kathy’s mother is, or if she even has a legal guardian – what’s important is her teachers’ enthusiasic interest in Kathy’s private parts.

I proudly ran 1 mile today.  No, that was not a typo for the number 11. Why workout if you’re only gonna do it for 15 minutes?  Mostly to be able to tell judgey people, “I workout,” or “I go to the gym,” without lying.

Sometimes, when I feel like a black cloud of disgust, I trick myself into dressing like an adult instead of hiding in oversized sweatshirts and pants from Walmart by asking: What would someone with an overgrown self-esteem do?  This forces me to blow dry my hair, put on mascara, and floss.  Surprisingly, when I don’t dress like person experiencing homelessness, I tend to feel a little more “sparkly.”

The Tao Te Ching - as translated by Stephen Mitchell - truly brought me home.  It gave me a foundation upon which to heal from past spiritual abuse.  When I use the term God today, I am not referring to an anthropomorphic power or personified diety.  I am referring to the egoless Life Force that glows from within each of us, but is also beyond all of us.  

Today, I got mad that I had to walk all the way across the hallway to throw something in the trash.  Yup, sure did.  Last week I told my husband we should get the "big ones" for our kitchen, referring to the curbside garbage and recycling cans.  My laziness astonishes me.

These destructive behaviors weren't choices.  They were automatic, primal forces.  I was both driven and asleep...driven by addiction's persuasiveness, and asleep at the wheel of my life.  I was powerless to change without the aid of an entire village.

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.

"Not-measuring-up" is one of my specialties.  What I'm not good at is accepting my humanity and life's realities without truck-loads of abusive mental commentary.  Because of this, I am practicing not having a perfect body, perfect sobriety, perfect spirituality, perfect image, or painless experience...and liking it.