My attention returned to the present moment as I arrived at my favorite Turkish restaurant. I was carrying a massive bouquet of yellow flowers. Every Sunday, I'd walk past the park on my way to breakfast and buy myself the prettiest bunch on offer. This week the farmer had the largest, most magnificent sunflowers I'd ever laid eyes on.
I sat down and pulled a book from my bag: The Obstacle Is The Way, by Ryan Holiday. It was a modern handbook on stoic philosophy — something I'd become increasingly interested in over the past few years. I flicked through the book and glanced over some of the highlighted passages.
People turn shit into sugar all the time — shit that’s a lot worse than whatever we’re dealing with. I’m talking physical disabilities, racial discrimination, battles against overwhelmingly superior armies. But those people didn’t quit. They didn’t feel sorry for themselves. They didn’t delude themselves with fantasies about easy solutions. They focused on the one thing that mattered: applying themselves with gusto and creativity.
Ryan Holiday
Okay, so I hadn't exactly applied myself with 'gusto and creativity' when my life had come crashing down around me six months earlier. I didn't have the energy for that. I didn't suddenly perk up and charge fearlessly into the unknown like a warrior, fixing all of my problems with grace and aplomb.
But I did focus on putting one foot in front of the other and taking it one tiny step at a time. Some days were harder than others, and just getting out of bed and going for a walk was a success. Other days I'd stay up past midnight, furiously working on a solution to one of Rick and Brennan's problems, knowing full well that I was breaking the rules of 'routine' that my psychologist had laid out for me.
Some days were good, some days were bad. Some days I'd cry, other days I'd laugh. Some days I'd slip into despair, and other days I was euphorically in love with my life. I'd miss a workout, go to sleep in the wee hours of the morning, guzzle coffee late into the afternoon or consume mountains of sugar with friends on a road trip up the coast. I certainly wasn't perfect, but I refused to give up on myself.
My psychologist told me not to do any 'stressful inner work' because it might trigger another downswing, but I casually ignored her advice. I can be very single-minded when I want something, and I wanted to be free of myself. I wanted that more than anything in the world. It was the desire to end all desires.
I spent a few weeks compiling a list of questions that would bring my shadow to the surface of my consciousness. Questions like, "What do you fear losing the most?" and "Where in your life are you playing the victim?" I wanted to see myself exactly as I was — no illusions, no polish, just truth. It was an exercise in integrating the five levels of truth into my life, as laid out by Neale Donald Walsch...
Tell your truth to yourself about yourself;
Tell your truth to yourself about another;
Tell your truth about yourself to another;
Tell your truth about another to another;
Tell your truth to everyone about everything;
Neale Donald Walsch
Getting to the uncomfortable truth was important. I wanted to confront the demons lurking in the dark cave of my mind, waiting to attack when my life's external circumstances reflected my own shame back at me.
It was heavy work, which often sent me spiraling back into depression. I'd draw a shadow demon out from the swampy depths of my unconscious and stand there, sword at the ready, prepared to confront it. The demon would launch an attack, conjuring painful emotions that I wanted to forget. It was an excruciating exercise in internal alchemy — sitting in the pain until I could neutralize it, and eventually transform it into love.
Every time I dissolved a demon, my internal transformation would leak into the outside world. The magic started returning to my life. I'd make a new friend, come across an incredible opportunity, or have a brilliant idea that I just didn't have access to before. The more I learned to love my shadow — to embrace every part of myself that I'd been taught to loathe or hide — the more magnetic I became. All that energy I spent resisting myself was suddenly freed up. I began to remember who I was before the world told me who I should be.
The struggle against an obstacle inevitably propels the fighter to a new level of functioning. The extent of the struggle determines the extent of the growth. The obstacle is an advantage, not adversity. The enemy is any perception that prevents us from seeing this.
Ryan Holiday
Day by day, my condition began to improve. The highs and the lows of my illness began to even out, and I found my stable footing. Every Monday, I'd hold a 'money date,' where I'd drink wine and spend time managing my personal finances. I'd save aggressively and transfer the majority of my income to my business bank account. Week by week, I watched my debt reduce until one day it disappeared.
Bipolar or not, I vowed never to get myself into a situation like that again. When I was in a healthy mental state, I would manage my businesses' money well but completely ignore my own personal finances. I always came second to the business, and I'd spent years feeling like a depleted mother who was constantly giving and giving and giving until I had nothing left to give anymore.
Having to dig myself out of a financial hole was a blessing for me. I began managing my money better and improving my financial literacy. I started putting myself first and showing myself and my money more respect.
Each time, you’ll learn something. Each time, you’ll develop strength, wisdom, and perspective. Each time, a little more of the competition falls away. Until all that is left is you: the best version of you.
Ryan Holiday
I also began playing with new labels and new ways of seeing myself. I'd call myself an artist instead of an entrepreneur, a woman instead of a girl. I'd spent my twenties growing up in a masculine world surrounded by male friends, in a male-dominated tech industry. As a result, I'd developed a value system that reflected very archetypically masculine ideals — the idea that my financial and career success determined my worth; that bigger was better; that I needed to 'lean in' and aggressively compete; that I had to work and hustle and grind twenty-four-seven to 'deserve' my success.
Fuck that! I wanted to measure my life by the joy I bought to myself and others, and my ability to continually grow into the most authentic version of myself. I wanted to learn and create purely for the love of the process — not with an attachment to an outcome, a financial agenda, or to show the men in my life that I could play on their level. I wasn't sure why I felt such a need to prove myself to men, but I suspect it had something to do with a deeply internalized misogynistic belief that I wasn't as capable, skilled, or worthy as them. When you walk through life feeling like your feminine perspective isn't valued in a masculine world — and worse, it's laughed at, patronized, and belittled as being whimsical and cute — well, that probably had something to do with it.
But I was just so sick of living in this paradigm and playing this game. I was sick of placing other people on pedestals as if their positive opinion would finally anoint me into the Kingdom of Good Enough.
I decided to hand-carve my own bespoke paradigm, with six foundational pillars: Courage, Integrity, Wisdom, Creativity, Freedom, and Love. Equipped with these core values, I made a plan for myself: I was going to set up a home base in Colombia, surrounded by friends and nature and sun and good coffee. I was going to start learning Spanish again, so I could engage more in the local culture. And I was going to get out of debt, then spend my days creating whatever brought joy to myself and others.
Six months later, I was well on the way to achieving those goals. Once I paid off my debt, I finally had time to focus on my passion projects. My cost of living was so low in Colombia that I only needed to work a couple of days per week to live very comfortably. I'd saved myself, and the universe had saved me.
All great victories, be they in politics, business, art, or seduction, involved resolving vexing problems with a potent cocktail of creativity, focus, and daring. When you have a goal, obstacles are actually teaching you how to get where you want to go — carving you a path. “The Things which hurt,” Benjamin Franklin wrote, “instruct.”
Ryan Holiday
