How Did I Get Here?: Navigating the unexpected turns in love and life

Introduction

I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered Don’t have a friend who feels at ease Don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered Or driven to its knees.

—Paul Simon, “American Tune”

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 Somehow our plan for how we intended things to turn out seems to have been replaced by a set of circumstances we could never have imagined, let alone wished for: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 lives. 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.

“Last month my husband told me he wants a divorce. After fifteen years of marriage, it’s over. I can’t believe I am losing him, that our family is being torn apart. The house, our friends and the life we built—it’s all going to vanish. I am so furious at him for destroying my dream. What am I supposed to do now? How can this be happening to me? How did I get here?”

“I’ve been dreading going to work for a while now, and I finally admitted the truth to myself: I’m miserable because I hate what I do for a living. I don’t understand how this can be happening—I spent years in medical school studying to be a doctor, and I have a really successful practice. This is what I planned to do since I was a teenager, and I’m good at it. But I just don’t want to do it anymore. I’m really frightened—I can’t start over at fifty-six with two kids in college. How did I get here?”

“I just bought my first house, but it’s thrown me into a deep depression—I’m forty-two years old and still single, and here I am living alone in this beautiful home. This is not the way things were supposed to turn out for me. I was supposed to be with the man of my dreams and have had children by now. How did I get here?”

“From the outside, my marriage looks perfect. I have a wonderful, successful husband and two terrific kids. But I feel like I have this awful secret—my husband and I haven’t had sex in two years. Somewhere along the way, we lost our passion. Now we’re living like two polite but celibate roommates. I’m too young to have no sex life. How did I get here?”

Perhaps as you read this now, the same question resonates with something inside 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. 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 a book 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.

It is a book about how asking and answering this question will release you from the fear, confusion and grief that so often keep 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 to renewed 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.

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 helping 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.

Let me tell you a story:

Many years ago, when I was just beginning to teach seminars to small groups of people in Los Angeles, a friend of mine invited me to meet someone he called “a very unusual man.”

“This guy may seem eccentric,” my friend explained, “but he has a real gift—he can look at you for just a minute, and tell you your purpose in life.”

I was intrigued by this claim, and being a student of metaphysics and spiritual growth, I decided I had to pay a visit to this interesting fellow.

“You won’t be sorry!” my friend promised.

The next evening he drove me to an apartment complex near the ocean where I was to wait with dozens of other curious seekers for my two-minute encounter.

The moment arrived, and I was ushered into a small room in which the mystical seer was seated on a couch. He was dressed in a dark and well-tailored suit ornamented by a shiny gold pocket watch. To be honest, he looked more like a dapper, well-fed English gentleman than someone who could see into a person’s destiny. He asked me my name and welcomed me, all the while peering intently into my eyes.

Suddenly, in a deep booming voice, he blurted out, “Rhinoceros!”

“Rhinoceros—what does that have to do with my purpose in life?” I thought to myself. “What is he telling me—that I should become a zoologist or move to Africa?” I was completely perplexed and began to wonder if my friend had set me up for a practical joke.

“Excuse me?” I replied. Perhaps I hadn’t heard him correctly. He did have an odd accent. Maybe he’d said “Philosopher,” and I thought I’d heard “rhinoceros.” I could relate to that answer. Now my mind was racing. “Rhine” something. Could he have said “rhinoplasty”? Wasn’t that the term for a nose job? I’d always liked my nose. Did he think I needed plastic surgery?

“Rhinoceros!” he exclaimed again, interrupting my reverie, this time with a huge smile. I shook my head, trying to indicate that I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, and got up to leave when he practically shouted, “The horn! The horn of the rhinoceros! That is what you are, my dear.”

I sat back down. “Please explain what you mean,” I asked.

“You are the horn of the rhinoceros, the part that boldly sticks out and precedes the body. The horn goes first, you see. The horn is strong, courageous, relentless. It explores the unknown and the dangerous; it pierces the barriers; it removes all obstacles in the path of the rhinoceros so he can travel safely and with greater speed. The horn confronts the problems on the path, and lets the body of the rhinoceros know about them. It helps him change direction, protects him from harm. The horn is the teacher, the body the follower. The horn gets scarred so the body can be saved from calamity. The horn discovers the truth on the path so the body can move forward in freedom.”

I listened with fascination to everything he was telling me. According to him, this was my purpose in life, to be the horn of the rhinoceros. I thought I understood part of what he was describing. Even in those early years of working with people, I had a sense that my own experiences were going to be the core of the knowledge I had to offer others. I remember thinking that what he said resonated with something I felt inside, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that something was. Still, I was glad I had come to see him. As I thanked him and walked toward the door. He waved his finger at me with great emphasis, calling, “Don’t forget—you are the horn!”

I didn’t forget, but I didn’t completely understand, either. Little did I know that my career as “the horn” was just beginning.

Over the next ten years, my destiny as a teacher unfolded in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Along with writing, lecturing and creating television shows, I founded a large personal growth center in Los Angeles to which people from all over North America came to participate in transformational seminars. One evening just as a weekend seminar was coming to a close, I was approached by a man in the class.

“I want to give you something,” he began. “It’s to thank you for everything you did for me and all of us this weekend, but even more, to thank you for everything you’ve gone through in your own life. If you hadn’t been brave enough to love so deeply, and to try again no matter how much you’ve been disappointed, you would never have learned all these lessons you’ve taught us. If you hadn’t taken so many risks, and weren’t willing to be so honest, I wouldn’t be standing here right now feeling so inspired. I saw this in a gift shop and for some reason it reminded me of you—maybe because you had the guts to go through so much first so you could teach us about it.”

He held out his hand, and in it was a small silver-gray object made out of pewter. It was a rhinoceros.

Shaking my head in amazement, I took the rhinoceros from him. All at once, the words of that unusual man flashed through my mind like lightning, words I hadn’t thought of for years:

“The horn goes first.”

Standing there in the seminar hall, looking back on the many years that had passed since my visit, I suddenly understood that the curious man I’d met had been a remarkable visionary after all. He had indeed seen my future and known my purpose. Everything he’d said about the rhinoceros horn accurately described the reality of my life. Time after time, I had undergone painful, often dramatic personal lessons and then, through my work, shared the wisdom I’d uncovered so that others wouldn’t have to experience the same disappointments; I had lived boldly and courageously, and had many scars on my heart to show for it. I taught not in spite of the experiences in my own life, but from the experiences in my own life. Rather than disqualifying myself as a teacher because of the less-than-perfect scenarios in my personal history, I was deeply grateful for them, using the wisdom and clarity I gained to design emotional maps I could pass on to others, guiding them through the complex and challenging labyrinths of life’s difficult times.

The pewter rhinoceros has been with me now for more than fifteen years. It sits on my computer stand, the strong little horn proudly turned upright. It has kept me company in my many solitary hours spent writing, contemplating, creating. It is looking at me right now, reminding me of who I am.

Some facts I’ve learned about the horn of a rhinoceros:

It is reported to have powerful medicinal, even magical properties, and because of this has been an object of great value for thousands of years.

It was used to detect the presence of poison, and thus to protect the one who owned it from harm.

And if by chance it breaks off, it grows back as good as new.

Why have I shared this story with you? Because whether you realize it or not, you, too, have a “rhinoceros horn.” It is the part of you that has started over even after you have failed. It’s the part of you that has loved even after you’ve been hurt. It’s the part of you that plunges ahead into change even though you may be terrified. It’s the part of you that feels your way forward in the darkness even though you may not be sure exactly where you are going. It’s the part of you that is your courage—courage to question, courage to be willing to hear the answers, courage to look within, courage to pick up this book and hope that what you read will teach you more about yourself.

I honor that courage in you. 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 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.

Offered with love,

Barbara De Angelis

Santa Barbara, California