Montaigne’s Heiress

So I wanted to talk about something that I discussed with my therapist today.  I hope that this might be of some use to other people.

As you all know I’ve been accepted on a language teacher training program in London.  The program starts on August 4, and so I have approximately two weeks to move overseas.  While I’m incredibly excited about the transition, my new life, the prospect of travel…  I find that I haven’t been preparing for the trip.  Or, no.  I have been making preparations, but the only preparations that I’ve been making are ones that don’t require my getting out of my chair.  So I brought this to my therapist, hoping to find an answer as to why I haven’t been preparing and why I’ve been procrastinating as much as I have.

One of the things that came out almost immediately was a story that I have already posted on the on the board about an experience that I had when I was 12.  Or, I should say, I talked about this with Stef on the Sunday show about two weeks ago.  To make a long story short, I was all set to go on a mountaineering trip when I was 12.  I was extremely excited about the trip, and did all the research I could, but I was unwilling to make the physical preparations.  Mother later used this as an excuse to cancel my trip.

I can see the obvious parallels between the situations, as mother canceled my mountaineering trip two weeks before I was due to leave.  I am now two weeks before I’m due to leave for London.  This, however, is not necessarily the parallel.  What the therapist said to me, and I quite agree with him, was that I seemed (and seem) to be waiting for someone to give me outside motivation, whether positive or negative.  I did this with Stef on the Sunday call and show, in a much less egregious way.

I keep waiting for someone to burst into my bedroom and tell me that I’m not going to go to London.  I keep waiting for someone to e-mail me and tell me that my acceptance on the course was a mistake and that I won’t be going after all.  I keep waiting for someone to come into my bedroom and clean it and set up all of my stuff to pack and to finance the expedition. Or… that’s what I’ve been acting like. I’ve been acting as though someone is going to come along and take all of this out of my hands, and make the preparations for me.

That is, I keep waiting for someone to take care of me.  I keep waiting for someone to come to me, as one would do with a child, and to aid me.  I keep waiting for someone to take me by the hand and walk me through the scary bits of moving overseas.  I want this.  I want someone to help me.  I want to help that I didn’t get when I actually was a child.  I want someone to have walked me through the scary bits then.

I’m reading, on and off, a book by Nathaniel Branden.  It’s called “The Art of Living Consciously.”  In it he repeats a much-used anecdote of his.  This anecdote, which I’m sure you’ve heard already, consists of his telling a patient in session that there is no one coming.  That there is no one on a white horse who is going to come into her life and sweep away all of the ills and make things magically better.  There is no one coming.  But yet, I have been waiting for someone to come.

Though of course I appreciate the numerous friends that I’ve made here, and though I appreciate the lucidity of Stef’s arguments, and though I’m in greater debt than I can fathom for all of the advice and care that he’s given me, if the truth be known, I’ve had to do the heavy lifting in my own life.  Nor is this something that is peculiar to me.  This is true for everyone in the FDR community.  It is true of anyone who is ever changed their life or rethought their principles based on something that they’ve heard or read – or changed based on reason and evidence.  It is they who take the arguments and apply them in their own lives. No one can apply reason for them.

So there’s no one coming from the outside.  But what if someone comes from the inside?  What if instead of sitting waiting for someone to come and take charge of my preparations, or indeed of my life…  Well, what if I come?  What if I am there for myself in the way that no one was there for me as a child?  What if I take my life in hand, and what if I am kind and gentle with myself, but still firm and still fierce about protecting the things that bring me joy or that will bring me joy, in the ways that no one was when I needed it the most?

So Stef and my therapist have come specifically to tell me that no one is coming.  This is not a bad thing.  Because they’ve also come to tell me that I should come for myself.

So tonight what I started doing is cleaning my room.  I booked a plane ticket to London.  I listed some of my stuff on Ebay.  I’ve been making piles of things to sell, things to give away, and things to take.  I’ve written this post.  And it feels good.  The only times that I felt tension tonight are times when I haven’t been on task.  When I haven’t been working towards my own happiness.  When I haven’t been working towards my own goals.

So I’m posting this both to see if my dear friends have any advice or questions for me, or if you have any more insights, or to see if this helps if any of you who are struggling with procrastination.  I’m not saying that this is the magic bullet, because certainly I haven’t spent all of tonight doing nothing but working towards my goals, but I have gotten more done tonight than I have in the past week. I definitely needed a kick in the pants… and I have a feeling like another thing or 3 is going to come down the pipe and knock me for a loop, but… cross that bridge as it appears, eh?

Thank you all, so incredibly much, for being there for me.