Eating the
"I"
William
Patrick Patterson, student of The
Fourth Way, has written a personal story of transformation called Eating the
"I."
I love that image! We're constantly
eating ego, constantly chewing on, "How does it show up?" I'm much
better able to do this than I used to be. I can't always get out of
the grip, but I try to stay with it, to ask, "O.K., what's my ego
doing? What defenses are up?" And I'm better at loving myself
regardless of what I observe. The sweetest example is an incident
that occurred years ago. I woke up early one morning and could all
but see a little gremlin popping out of me, saying, "I'm no
good!" It wasn't a dream – I was in that just-waking-up stage where
a long-forgotten part of me finally felt free enough to show
itself.
Most people interacting with me probably find me much the same as
I've always been. The difference is in what happens internally
when my patterns come up. I sort for understanding differently. I experience
myself differently. I'm more open to my foibles. I'm much more forgiving of myself. This was brought home to me when talking to an
Enneagram
Four who said,
"The same old stuff comes up again, and I hate seeing it time after time after
time."
These patterns may show up forever. You
have to love yourself anyway!
My old habits aren't showing up as
automatically, I'm not judging myself as harshly, the struggles aren't as difficult, and
I'm less hooked most of the time. But, for as long as I live, my
Nine worldview will
still have some influence over my reactions. All the struggles, all the
resistances, of course, are very Nine-like – to "forget" myself
until I was in my thirties, to see myself as my idealized image of
"the good girl." Much of what's showing up now is what I'm really
feeling. I've also become aware of how distractibility can keep me
from my own focus. In fact, the most important and visible
manifestation of my dawning awareness was to find my voice.
When I first read
May Swensen's
poetry, my
reaction was awe. She was uninhibited, free, playful, experimental with
form, experimental with words, both intellectual and emotional.
She didn't care what people thought of her! She was born early in the
century, the same age as my mother, yet was writing these poems when I was being told, "Now, don't be
ugly" (a
Southern term). Under Swensen's spell, I started writing
poems I wanted to write, no longer constrained by how others might
judge me for having written them.
Here's how I envision transformation: a shift
occurs. It may be a tiny shift or it may be a really big one. It's a
constant recycling, but I don't see it as the same old things coming up over and over. And the recycling isn't always about "eating" something new. You
may be chewing the cud at a different level or with another relationship or in another
situation. Some thunderbolts, some minor shocks, some, "Oh, isn't that
interesting?" insights.
A
friend asked me about ten years ago where I thought I was in the process of transformation. My
answer hasn't changed. I'm in
it. That's the good news.
But there are countless lessons left to
learn. I once
gained new
awareness about myself as a complainer. It was a difficult learning and I fought it,
then I got it, and immediately when I got it, I saw myself the very next moment
complaining about something! But I was able to laugh and to be a little charmed by
it, in the way I was charmed by the part of me that said, "I'm no good!" If there were some end point
to this self-discovery
– I don't think there is, certainly not
in a lifetime, but if there were
–
and if we were to describe Transformation
Time metaphorically as one week, I might be as far as Day 3, but
maybe not.
