I am beginning to understand how closely tied fear and anger are to self-loathing, to shame and regret. My own search for a spiritual life began in earnest when I moved to upstate New York, bought a cabin on a mountaintop and wrote “Running To The Mountain.” I’ve told that story in books and blogs and have no need to repeat it. I suppose it was the fear I had been living with that sparked my urge for something more peaceful, more meaningful. I did not know how hard the process would be, how long, taxing and complex. I suppose I had the fantasy of the perfect life that so many people have when they think about spirituality – or buying a farm, or going off to a monastery.

The people on farms and in monasteries know better. Spirituality is not about where you go, but who are and who you want to be. For many years I dealt with fear in a medical context – therapists, analysts, MD’s, pills and medications, prescriptions, etc. That approach did help me sleep and get through the day, but it also meant I never had to deal with the reality of who I was. So I turned to a different kind of healing – spiritual counselors, naturopaths, massage, chiropractic, shamans, meditation. Here, I find the approach for me and began to move closer to where I want to be. Lately I have been hearing a lot about self-love and about shame. Shame is a trauma symptom I gather and I have only recently become aware of how much shame I carry, how many regrets and sorrows. So the next chapter for me is to understand self-love. My teacher at the moment has told me that I need to love myself in the same way that I love Maria, and only then will be able to love her fully, love myself and other people and get to the next place I want to be. I know what she means.

I do not love myself in that way. I never though to connect them. But it is a big idea. Thomas Merton, a strong spiritual influence in my life, also wrote frequently about self love. It was essential, he wrote, in the spiritual context, essential to getting close to God or each person’s idea of what God is. Merton understood, as most truly spiritual people do, that this is a personal decision, and everyone makes it in his or her own way. In our culture, people beat other people over the head all the time with their ideas about what God must be. I am still looking.

It begins with self-love, the only real antidote to fear and judgment. I have begun in this way: when I look back at things in my life that I regret, that make me ashamed and comfortable, I stop. I did my best. I did what I could, as almost every human being does. I forgive them, I forgive me. There are always many voices out there to tell us what we did wrong, how we failed, how we betrayed and abandoned, messed up and stumbled, what we need to fear and beware. There are so few telling us that we are good and beautiful, true and important. I see that I have to be that voice for me. I am the one that counts.

How many times have I picked up a phone in panic or sent out a frantic e-mail. I don’t do that anymore. I talk to me. Without self-love, I am hollow inside, my love is a reflection and a reflex, but how true and genuine can it really be? I am learning to smile when I think of me, and when I look back on this precious hero journey into the soul.

This morning, out in the pasture, where I go at least once a day to check on the animals in between chores, the donkeys came over to say hello to me. Donkeys are intuitive, they read us and our emotions, they sense what we are feeling. They watched and waited.  Lulu, imperious and aloof, stood back. Fanny brayed softly, hoping to charm me out of the carrot in my pocket. Simon wanted some attention, an ear rub, a neck scratch, even a hug and a kiss on the nose. These intuitive creatures look right through to me. And I  closed my eyes and imagined them all saying to me in a chorus, you are good, you are beautiful, your light shines brightly.