Dozens of books on mindfulness. A few dozen more on Buddhism. Meditation groups. Meditation retreats. I tried to enlighten my way past my medicine problem. And to the credit of those pursuits, my illusion of self-will (and I) narrowly survived medical school.
Dialectical behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy. Acceptance and commitment therapy. I mastered and taught their repetitions through residency. I thirsted for autonomous control of my mind. If I could just control my thoughts, I figured, my feelings wouldn’t matter. I could make myself be happy. I had to.
The best realizations always ache. Real bad. Truth hurts.
When I realized I wasn’t going to figure out my life (or what had happened to it) on my own, that epiphany steamrolled me. And it should’ve hurt. A part of me that had led my life for years was about to die. But it had to die, so I could live. That’s when I waived the white flag and went to therapy.
We’re not striving for autonomous independence. We’re not climbing to the top of Mount Self-Sufficiency. We’re aiming to attain the best understanding of who we are, so that we may grasp our needs and take responsibility for what we can, then be healthfully reliant on others for the rest.
In the ledger of my life, going to therapy was an stark admission of failure. But in that admission (and subsequent death), I see clearly how that moment was the beginning of aliveness. At the time, it sure as hell didn’t feel like it; therapy felt like a torture chamber. But deep down, below the aches of my ego, I understood surrender was the next step toward wholeness. It was just necessary, as all those books on Buddhism had once been.
To livin’ a life we love (and taking the next necessary step),
Ryan Fightmaster, MD
(Get free access to my 7 Days of Aliveness course—a jumpstart designed for the mid-twenties me that idly sat for years waiting to know what to do next—by signing up HERE.)
