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by Duane O'Kane
I was depressed. Very depressed. Fifteen years ago, it seemed that life itself was conspiring against what little life I had left. Everything that I had identified myself with was slipping away from me. Going, going, almost gone.
My alcoholic father had committed suicide a few years earlier. As his only son, the prospect that I may be doomed like my father was all too real. My hope of having a father to guide me in life disappeared.
My integrity as a family counsellor working for the BC Ministry of Social Services was being severely compromised, as I observed myself and my colleagues concocting new and better ways of doing half the work, while attempting to be paid twice as much. Our focus was on politics rather than people. My pride as a family therapist evaporated.
My real passion at the time was music. I had released records with some good numbers on play lists, but there was nowhere to go without a record company to back me up. My music career ended.
The straw, however, was the turmoil in my relationship. I had become a facsimile of a man in a long-term relationship. I was ashamed at how desperate I became for her acceptance and love. The relationship ended. My hope of having love in my life, not to mention my self-respect, ended with it.
I feared that with the loss of my father, my profession, my music career, and my relationship, I was losing myself. I didn’t realize that the only thing left after losing everything else was myself. What appeared to be the end of a book was really just the end of a chapter. Sadly, many of us close the book at the end of this chapter not realizing that there are some very important developments about to take place in the story.
When we default to what we consider our fate, we close the book, not realizing that our destinies are waiting to be revealed. We close the book thinking that we know the ending, when we really have no idea what is in store. We have no idea that our calling is to remember something that we have forgotten. We have no idea what is at stake when we want to avoid a little pain.
The question “Who are you Duane?” was all that remained. Everything else was out of the way. The conflict inside of me was so loud that it was difficult to sleep. In my case, I was tempted to believe that I was worthless. I contemplated that this may simply be my fate. This pain can be overwhelming.
We don’t realize how important the struggle to answer this question is in giving birth to our soul that is hiding in the pages ahead. That internal wrestling match is critical to the evolution of our consciousness. Without the difficulty, there would be no birth.
We live in a culture that is allergic to understanding the purpose of the human dilemma. In fact, we approach the dilemma as something that we must rid
ourselves of as quickly as possible.
Many aboriginal cultures build this rite of passage into the very fabric of their rituals and training to enter the matrix of our true identities. The young person is thrust into the unknown, in effect being given back to the universe to answer this very important question. “Who are you?” Very few of us realize the answer, because we are too busy trying to avoid difficulties, rather than learn from them. We are too busy trying to figure out how to be comfortable and identify with what we think we need, rather than with who we are. We are too busy avoiding the unknown at all cost, buying into the promise of control, attachments, and strategy, instead.
All graduations are preceded by a crisis. Attempting to resolve the crisis through avoidance, denial, and addictions keeps us in a perpetual state of adolescence. This, perhaps, aptly describes the western world’s level of consciousness.
Initially, opening the book again and turning the page is painful, because we are letting go of what we think we have to be, in order to find happiness. In my case, my father’s death uncovered many questions about myself. Was it my fate, like my father’s, to fall into despair and give up? Professionally, was I simply part of a bureaucratic machine, content to measure my value by my paycheque and looking good? In my music career, did I require fame and fortune to feel good about myself? In my relationship, was my worthiness as a human determined by whether she loved me or not?
The aspect of myself that wanted to default to fate would want to have my father back, to get a better dental plan at work, to figure out how to produce another album, and, of course, to get her back. That would be my fate. I would be tempted to flip the pages back, rather than forward, trying to recover my lost self.
In my clinical depression, I was only concerned about how I was going to get it all back. I didn’t know that there was something beyond all of my pain and identification with external sources of satisfaction. If anyone had told me (and they did) that this experience was good for me, I would have told them that they were crazy (which I did).
The person writing this article would have had nothing to write about had I not had an opportunity to keep my book open and stay in the mystery of what was yet to come. I decided to look beyond my attachments and trust that there had to be something else beyond the agony I experienced. Making the decision was not easy, but once I decided to take the first step forward, turning the next page became simple. This was a time for blind faith and a willingness to see the universe as a friendly place, regardless of how I interpreted the previous chapter. This was a long, overdue walk.
Keeping the book open kept me in the question, rather than in the certainty of what I thought the answer was. In my belief in fate, I was not asking any questions. I had only my definite belief that I was worthless and that my life was over without it having given me what I thought I needed. In my willingness to walk towards destiny and the openness of the question “Who are you?” the question leaves space for the universe to answer.
In our adeptness in sidestepping these final chapters, we also sidestep our calling in life, our purpose, our true passion, and our true identity. I turned the next page, and the next, and the next. Each step revealed who I truly was and what I was here for. Ironically, the suffering that results from betraying our soul’s call far surpasses any trite pain we may experience walking into this unknown.
Duane O’Kane is a registered, clinical counsellor and the founder and director of Clearmind International, an organization with centres in Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, London, Dublin, and Sweden. Duane and Catherine O’Kane co-facilitate The Awakening workshop and a registered counsellor training program. info@clearmind.com, 800-210-0372,
www.clearmind.com
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