Here I am ... alone ... once again

Here I am ... alone ... once again ... there is a pattern.

I’ve been here dozens and dozens of times in my life. When I get to this place my problem seems to be; I follow my own advice. I do things my way. It simply doesn’t work and I know it; but I do it anyway. I feel like a failure when this happens.

There are times when I feel so desperate lost and alone. There are times when everything seems to overwhelm me. I don’t think I can go on for another moment.

I notice someone walking on this path; he is up ahead of me. This person “seems to know” his way around on the path. I watch ... It’s obvious that he has walked his walk before.

I approach him. We talk. He asks if I need company on my journey. I say “yes.”

There is one thing that I know for sure, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. When I say “yes” it is a relief, a weight is lifted off my shoulders.

We sit down together and talk some more. I tell him just how desperate lost and alone I feel. He suggests to me that we could quiet our minds if we closed our eyes and turned our thoughts inward. He told me just to let my feelings be what they are; feelings. Don’t analyze. Just notice. Just sensory input about the world I seemed to be lost in. He said “ride them like a magic carpet.” They don’t define you; they simply define the path you will need to follow to get through all this stuff called your life.

It was then that I noticed there were parts of me that I have never ever connected with. Instantly I knew that they had always been there; I just had no idea what they were for or for that matter what I could do with them ... if I did.

As I sat there quietly reflecting I sensed a deeper part of me and as I was to come to know, it was this part of me that remembers the truth of who I am.

My friend told me that we all have that place deep inside. He also said we have a journey we need to make together ... and if I were ready, we need to go.

A simple ok seemed to work and we were up and off on my journey. Then it struck me that we were up and off on my journey ... this person was With me. He told me that With is an important thing ... that we would be practicing it along the journey ... With! I had no idea what he was talking about but ...

As I walked with my new found friend I could feel the various missing pieces of me beginning to come home from their hiding places, and taking their rightful place within me. Those missing parts are beginning to fall into place, as if some giant hand is now beginning to put me, me ... the jigsaw puzzle, back together again.

This felt very good.

NDT: GROUP HANDOUT