Finding Your Way To Renewed Hope and Happiness
When Life and Love Take Unexpected Turns
By Barbara De Angelis Ph.D.
Copyright 2005 Barbara De Angelis
All of us find ourselves, at one time or another in our lives, facing the unexpected. We arrive at places we never planned to be, confronting obstacles we did not expect to encounter, feeling emotions we did not expect to feel. We don’t recognize the destination at which we find ourselves as one we chose to travel to, yet inexplicably, there we are. Somehow, our plan for how we intended things to turn out seems to have been replaced by a set of circumstances we could never have imagined, let alone wished for:
* A relationship we thought would last forever ends, and we are suddenly and painfully alone
* A job we counted on vanishes, and we feel lost, with no purpose or direction
* Our health or that of a loved one, which has always been good, becomes threatened by illness or disease
* Events beyond our control destroy our financial well being.
Or perhaps a moment comes when we see our life as it really is instead of seeing it as we want it to be. To our great dismay, we realize that it is time for a change:
* Our relationship has become passionless, and sex is something we remember doing months or even years ago,
* Our job has turned into something we are utterly bored with, or worse, that we dread.
* We have the house, the family, and the business for which we worked so hard, but somehow, we feel a sense of deep dissatisfaction and disconnection
What is happening? We are standing face to face with what amounts to a gap–the gap between where we thought we’d be and where we actually are, between our expectations of what we hoped would happen and what has actually happened, between the life we planned and the life we inhabit.
What makes these moments so difficult and disturbing is not simply that we are facing problems or emotionally rough times. Each of us has braved, battled and survived many challenges in our lives. What’s different about these particular experiences is that, along with the pain, there is a sense of bewilderment, a sort of shock, a disconnect between what we thought we knew to be true and what is actually occurring. We feel as if we are waking up as a stranger in our own life. We don’t recognize the landscape, the emotions, the circumstances as anything vaguely resembling those things we had expected. And so we find ourselves asking: “How did I get here?” No immediate answer comes to us. It is the presence of this question and the absence of answers that plunges us headfirst into a spiritual and emotional crisis.
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Perhaps as you read this now, the same question resonates with something inside of you. Perhaps it is a question that has not yet been formed into words in your consciousness. Perhaps it is more of a feeling, an unnamed anxiety, an undefined restlessness, a confusing sense of discomfort with your life, your work, or your relationship. Something doesn’t feel quite right, but you don’t know what it is.
Or perhaps there is no mystery about what is bothering you. Perhaps like the people quoted here, you, too, are facing an unexpected turn on your life journey. You remember starting out with a clear idea of where you wanted to go, but now, you look around at where you’ve ended up, and it’s nothing like what you’d expected. This is not the way you thought things would turn out for you. This is not the way you thought you’d feel about your husband or wife, your marriage, your job, your life. Whispered to you from the depths of your being, you hear the question: “How did I get here?”
This book is about that question, and it is a guide to help you discover the answer. It is a book about the power this question has to profoundly transform your life and your relationships. It is a book about recognizing and understanding these significant transitions, turning points, and crossroads on your path, so that you can move through them with less fear, confusion and guilt, and more grace, dignity, and vision. It is about the suffering you unknowingly create for yourself and the price you pay in work or relationships when that question calls to you from within, and you ignore it. It is about how to find the courage to ask yourself that question and to pay attention to the answers you receive. It is a book about how to avoid getting stuck in places and phases that are meant to be temporary and how to use those places as a springboard for regeneration and rebirth. And it is a book about how asking and answering this question will release you from the fear, confusion, and grief that so often keeps us trapped in the past or stagnating in the present and will free you to finally move forward into a life of more purpose, joy, true contentment, and renewed passion.
What do you do when you realize that your old map has taken you in a direction you no longer wish to travel? What do you do if you come to a fork in the road, and don’t know which way to go? How do you map out the next part of your journey? How do you redesign the blueprint of your life? How do you begin again?
How Did I Get Here? is about finding your way back to hope and happiness from wherever you are. It is about opening these doorways into personal transformation that often come disguised as dead ends. It offers you ways to take charge of your circumstances by first assessing where you are, how your map got you here, and dealing with all the issues that come with finding yourself at unexpected places, whether in your outer world or your inner world. It acts as a navigational handbook, guiding you through the thick jungle of thoughts and emotions that we must often pass through in order to emerge on the other side of a powerful rebirth. It will help you to understand the map you’ve been using, and invites you to craft a new one by moving beyond the question “How did I get here?” to: “What are my choices”? “What do I do now?” “How do I move forward?” “Where is it that I want to go”?. And it will support you in discovering the answers.
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I’ve always said that my books don’t come “from” me but “through” me, for that is my experience. I don’t choose the topic I am going to write about; it chooses me. It is as if a book compels itself to be written, calling to me from wherever books come from, thrusting its way into my awareness exclaiming: “Here I am! Pay attention to everything I have to say, and write it down carefully.” For me, writing a book has always been my answer to that call.
How Did I Get Here? is just such a book, born of a powerful, insistent voice that demanded to be heard. Its message is for me, for you, and for many of the people you know and love. It is a guide for all of us on the path of self-discovery in these changing, turbulent times. It is the most important book I believe I can write, and one to which I deeply relate, for it has emerged from my own very eventful journey, a journey characterized by frequent and revolutionary transformation, both personally and professionally.
I have not had an easy life. It has been riddled with disappointments and disillusionment, barraged by loss and betrayal, and besieged with far too many occasions for sadness and despair. I’ve been forced to learn how to navigate through the unexpected again and again….and again.
I know what it’s like to have the person you love walk out on you, with no explanation, never to return. I know what it’s like to lie in bed next to someone who used to love you, and feel him cringe when you try to touch him. I know what it’s like to have shared a dream with someone, and helplessly watch that dream shatter into pieces until there is nothing left. I know what it’s like to work hard in your career to build something you believe in, only to have someone come along and try to destroy it all. I know what it’s like to lose the comforts and abundance you waited so many years to enjoy, and wonder if you will ever have them again. I know what it’s like to come face to face with circumstances and events that seem horribly unfair, as if you are being singled out for extra suffering by some Universal Power. I know what it’s like to feel your heart sink as you realize that, once again, you are going to have to start over, and not be sure that you have the energy, the courage, and the faith to begin one more time.
I have known all of these challenges, and more. And so you see, it was for my own emotional survival that I’ve had to become an expert at change, to define and understand the mechanics of personal transformation, to figure out how to go through profound transitions without falling apart or going crazy. Whenever I’m interviewed about my career and am asked who or what has had the most meaningful influence on my work, I always give the same answer to the great surprise of the interviewer: “Painful Experience–it turned me into a transformational specialist.” In no way do I think of these hurts, heartbreaks, and challenges as mistakes. After two decades working with hundreds of thousands of people, I’ve come to know with total certainty that the opposite is true: my life has been “transformationally eventful” for a reason.
In the pages that follow, I offer you everything I’ve learned about harnessing your own natural courage and using it to navigate through whatever you are facing on your journey. Changing, transitioning, and transforming in life aren’t things that just happen to you. They are skills you can actually learn and master. Instead of feeling like a victim of circumstances, and wishing or praying that the challenges you’re facing will soon be over, you can actively participate in the process you’re going through, and use it for tremendous growth, insight and awakening.
This knowledge is what has sustained and liberated me, and it is the heart of the message that permeates this book:
It is not how you deal with what is expected and hoped for in your life that
ultimately defines and elevates you as a human being.
Rather, it is how you interact with the unexpected,
how you brave the unanticipated,
how you navigate through the unforeseen and emerge,
transformed and reborn, on the other side.
At first it is disconcerting, even disturbing, to find yourself in circumstances you did not expect, let alone desire. However, once you get over the shock of being in an unexpected place in your life, you have a precious opportunity to explore all the new pathways that place has led you to. Unexpected destinations are that harbor you didn’t know was there. They hold the promise of unexpected experiences, unexpected wisdom, unexpected awakenings, and ultimately, unexpected blessings. Finally, this is what this book is about-moving forward and seeing the future with new, hopeful eyes.
This is what will reveal your true strength, your true greatness. This is what will make you wise. This is what will give you the experience of true passion, true joy, and ultimately, true freedom.
