A bit of background
I didn’t start the journey to the center of me to resolve some long standing trauma. I wasn’t suffering any great stress that was stopping me live my life. Strangely, quite the opposite.
In my mid forties I had achieved my life’s goals, I was financially secure with a reasonable income, I was married to a great gal and I was in pretty good health.
But there was something not quite right. Like living in The Matrix – it all seems fine but there is something gnawing away at you that makes you want to peel away at a corner of something and have a peek.
For me it was an awareness, often pointed out by by others, that I lacked emotions. It was true, I had happiness, anger or frustration as my trio of feelings … and that was it.
In many situations where none of the three would fit I just had nothing. An old school friend once told me that he had asked me, when we were teens, “How do you feel about that?” He couldn’t remember the situation but it was something traumatic enough to ask. My reply? “You know, I don’t feel anything at all.”
Interestingly enough I don’t remember that conversation at all … and that says something.
I also had no passions. My life’s goals were met, I hadn’t made any new ones, I didn’t even have any hobbies. I wasn’t a couch potato by any means. I still had to work and I still enjoyed doing stuff but I was coasting along on the current of life with no particular desire to grab hold of the rudder or the oars.
So I decided that my passion would be to discover myself. To figure out why I was the way I was and perhaps become someone who could experience a fuller range of emotions.
As I stood by the starting line I didn’t feel any anguish although I knew there might be plenty to fear. Instead I felt a sense of excitement. I was Christopher Columbus, off to discover a new world and not greatly concerned that it might kill me.
The only problem was … where to start … or even how to start?