EAT PRAY LOVE. On the penultimate page of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book EAT, PRAY, LOVE she says (I’m paraphrasing), “My (Elizabeth Gilbert’s) thoughts turn to something I read once, something Zen Buddhists believe. They say a The oak is brought into creation by two forces at the same time: the acorn, which grows into the tree, and another force: the future tree itself, which wants so desperately to exist that it draws the acorn into existence, guiding the evolution of nothing to maturity. In this respect, say the Zens, it is the oak that creates the very acorn from which it was born.” Elizabeth Gilbert goes on to say, “I think about everything I endured before I got here and wonder if it was this me from the future, this happy, balanced me, who pulled the younger, more confused and struggling self through those difficult years. It was the acorn full of potential, but it was the future me, the existing oak tree, who said all the time: Grow! Change! Evolve! Come and meet me here, where I already exist.”

Several years ago, my wife, Susan, and I went through a dramatic phase where our physical, emotional, and financial well-being was threatened. And even though I hadn’t read EAT, PRAY, LOVE at the time, looking back, I see that it was this future me, this future Susan, this future existing oak tree telling us to grow acorns. Exchange! Evolve! Come meet me here, where I already exist.

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Our story begins when Susan and I got married. I was forty-six years old at the time, and it was my first marriage. He had told Susan that she knew what she was looking for and that he was willing to wait until he found it. Susan told me that she liked to experiment; it was her third marriage. Shortly after we got married, we decided to retire. I was an architect and had worked ten hour days at my own small business for most of my working life and was ready to rest. Susan was a massage therapist, and while she loved her job, she was ready for a change, too. Our plans were to move to a small mountain town (Julian, California), build our dream home, and live a simple life.

Well… things don’t always go as planned. Before we could start construction on our mountain home, Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer and she went crazy. Ever since Susan was a little girl, she had been afraid of dying of cancer and, now that she had been diagnosed, she was certain that her days were numbered. I jumped, trying to do what I could: keep all the hospital and doctor appointments, massage her to sleep when she was stressed, trying to listen and not force my logical opinions on her emotional behavior (sometimes that was hard). . .. very hard), and generally just trying to let her know that she wasn’t alone.

Susan had always embraced the natural approach to health and was torn between wanting to continue on the natural path to treat cancer or switching to the more traditional methods of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Susan was anxious to get the cancerous growth out of her breast as quickly as possible, so she decided to have surgery (to remove the tumor) and then skipped radiation and chemotherapy in favor of the holistic approach of natural foods, supplements, meditation and psychotherapy. .

Around the same time, my sister Beth informed us that she was filing for divorce from an abusive husband. Susan and I had no idea that her husband was abusive, but we quickly discovered that he had a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality. In public he was the nicest person, but behind closed doors he became a violent and angry man who took it out on his wife and their four children. What else could Susan and I do but jump in with both feet to help?

Meanwhile, our dream of building our retirement home in the mountains had almost come to a standstill. We were building the house ourselves, going to all the doctor appointments, court hearings, lawyer meetings, helping my sister with the mountain of paperwork it took to get through a divorce, and trying to protect her and the children from their father. abusive, there just wasn’t much time left to work on the house. But finally, after three long years, Susan and I moved into our mountain home. It was one of the happiest days of our lives… except we didn’t have much time to enjoy it. A few months later, the Cedar Fire (San Diego, California, 2003) tore through our small community. Hanging out until the last moment, trying to do what we could to save our home, we finally evacuated when a thousand-foot wall of smoke and flame was a hundred yards from our back door. The Cedar Fire turned seventy percent of the houses in our neighborhood into six-inch layers of ash. Our home was one of the seventy percent.

Susan and I were devastated: the house of our dreams and the beautiful forest that surrounded us were gone. We had no idea where we were giving up to live and to top it off we were still dealing with Susan’s cancer and helping my sister get a divorce from her; the divorce ended up lasting a frustratingly long four years. And oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we didn’t have a dime. Somewhere along the way, we had invested our retirement money in the stock market, and after an initial gain that felt good, the market (late 2001) began a crash that ended in the biggest crash since the Great Depression. . Our retirement money, as well as our house and forest, were gone.

What helped Susan and me the most during this difficult period in our lives, not only to get through it but to come away smiling and feeling stronger from the experiences, was that we tried to see these events from the perspective of what I call the big picture. overview of life We try not to get caught up in the overwhelming emotions of the moment, we try to step back from the anger, the worry, the frustration, and we try to see the experiences for what they really were. And what we found was that by taking a step back we could see ways that we could learn from the experiences, ways that we could help others going through the same experiences, and ways that we could laugh at the experiences. Things are when you look for humor in life. It’s also amazing how hard it is to feel sorry for yourself when you’re trying to learn, help others, and laugh.

You will notice that I used the word “try” when I said: “We try to see events from the point of view of the big picture of life.” It was very difficult at times, at least it was for me, to take a step back from an experience when I was overwhelmed with anger, frustration, or worry; the last thing on her mind was to step back and see the big picture. But when I was able to untangle myself from the overwhelming emotions of the moment and step back into the big picture, I was able to see what was really going on and then learn, help others, and be happy. The results were definitely worth the effort.

As Elizabeth Gilbert says (see the beginning of the article), “I think of all that I endured before I got here and I wonder if it was this future me, this already existing happy me that balanced me, who brought up the younger me, more confused and struggling during those hard years? I wonder the same. Was this already existing future me, this already existing future Susan pushing Susan and me younger, more confused, and struggling forward during these difficult times? Telling ourselves, “Grow! Change! Evolve! Come meet me here where I already exist. Take a step back and realize that there is another force at work here: the future me, the future Susan, and the future oak tree that so want to exist.” .that we are pushing you to be, guiding your evolution from acorn to maturity”.

I tend to believe that future me and future Susan got me through those tough times. And in an effort to help, future me and future Susan made me and Susan younger and struggling, aware of the bigger picture of life so we could walk away smiling.

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