Where Every Journey Must Begin

I'm not sure we can begin on any journey, let alone a journey of maturation and transformation, without ourselves. Imagine going on your summer vacation and remembering everything but yourself! One of the kids asks, "Where's Dad?" Mom chimes in, "He left himself at work." That's not a great start to a vacation.

In the same way, if we're really ready to be transformed, it will involve the whole of who we are. We can't leave anything behind. If someone comes to me for soul care and says, "I'd like to flourish in my relationships...I just don't want to lose my greed and control...," we're not going to get very far.

But we're sometimes not even aware that we're alienated from ourselves. Today, we know that this self-alienation is at the root of all trauma. When we're in pain, we disconnect. We numb, avoid, distract, and busy ourselves. And the shallow self-improvement projects we do try don't really help.

Poets, pastors, and psychologists have long said that we can't really begin until we return to ourselves. The late priest and poet John O'Donohue wrote:

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back.

Gradually, you will return to yourself.

Long before him, the 13th century poet Rumi lamented how we become entrapped in our own egos, writing: "So come, return to the root of the root of your own soul."

And even earlier, St. Augustine of Hippo mused on his own self-alienation in his Confessions, challenging his readers saying, “Do not go outward, return within yourself. In the inward person dwells truth.”

How do you experience this inner disconnection? When did it begin do you think? And what are you afraid might happen if you leave behind your ways of coping and re-engage?

In returning and rest you shall be saved; 

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.

(Isa. 30:15, NRSV)