Living in Process: Basic Truths for Living the Path of the Soul

By Anne Wilson Schaef PhD DHL

Life is a process. We are a process. The universe is a process. Everything is a process and in process. Schaef teaches us an action philosophy that will reconnect us with our deep, long-forgotten spirituality filling our souls and setting our spirits free.

Drawing on inspiring real-life stories, the experiences of professionals worldwide who have participated in her Living in Process training, and her close association with native peoples from around the globe, Schaef shares her evolutionary model for maintaining our balance in the midst of lifes seismic upheavals. With her inimitable wit and charm, she guides us to a larger spirituality and a rediscovery of our personal power. For Living in Process is a moment-by-moment revealing of and reveling in, our life as mystery honoring its challenges, truths, and joys.

This is mindfulness at its fullest I am inclined to hold Living in Process very near to my heart and soul until I have absorbed every morsel of truth.
NAPRA ReView

A penetrating vision One of Americas most sagacious and perceptive writers on the souls challenge to find a way of being in the world.
Wendell Charles Beane, religious historian and
former chair, University of WisconsinOshkosh

A vital and precious guide A plea for honesty, love, compassion, and respect for the human inner process.
Frederick Franck, author of The Zen of Seeing
and To Be Human Against All Odds

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532030536

Anne Wilson Schaef PhD DHL

Anne Wilson Schaef, PhD, DHL, is internationally known as a speaker, consultant, and seminar leader. She has published sixteen books and numerous articles, and her work has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. She has been speaking and writing on the New Paradigm for many years. Today she devotes her time to leading Living in Process extended residential trainings and writing. She currently lives in Montana.

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Copyright © 2018 Anne Wilson Schaef, PhD, DHL.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Pamela Burch for permission to reprint Woman of the Corn, from The Grandmother’s Message, by Standing Feather. Copyright © 1996 by Pamela Burch. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Grateful acknowledgement is also made to HoriZons published by Community Aid Abroad, and Mary Graham, for permission to reprint excerpts from Viewpoint: Mary Graham: A Kumbumerri Perspective by Saskla Kouwenberg, HoriZons, Summer 1993, Vol.2, No.3, pp. 7-8.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3052-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3053-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017914394

iUniverse rev. date:  04/09/2018

Books by Anne Wilson Schaef

Women’s Reality

When Society Becomes an Addict (New York Times bestseller and nominee for Best Political Book of the Year)

Co-dependence: Misunderstood, Mistreated

Escape From Intimacy

The Addictive Organization (co-author)

Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much

Journal for Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much

Native Wisdom for White Minds

Laugh! I Thought I’d Die (If I Didn’t)

Meditations for People Who (May) Worry Too Much

Beyond Therapy, Beyond Science

Living in Process

Meditations for Living in Balance

Becoming a Hollow Bone

There Will Be a Thousand Years of Peace and Prosperity and They Will Be Ushered in by the Women

Daily Reminders for Living a New Paradigm

Living in Process Revised and Updated

ENDORSEMENTS FOR NEW EDITION OF LIVING IN PROCESS

"Living in Process is the foundation work all leaders and human beings need to do to thrive and prosper in a disruptive world.

This is the leadership book that extends a fresh invitation which will transform the way we pay attention, make choices, and take full responsibility of our own lives.

What Anne does so brilliantly is that instead of offering you ‘a path to…’, she has designed a narrative of beauty, possibility and free will, where she holds space for you to see your own path, with great simplicity and depth. She does the magic work of inspiration, allowing us to source what matters the most to live our lives as whole-spiritual beings.

Living in Process is a work of art in the making and the call to action our world needs right now."

Ina Gjikondi

Director, Executive Education & Coaching

The George Washington University

Center for Excellence in Public Leadership

This work is cathartic. It is presented simply but is oh so deeply complex! Schaef’s gentle and loving voice is like a benevolent teacher, carefully and patiently encouraging a shy student to take the confident step - and own it. Thank you for unlocking the universe’s permission to be free from the status quo. Love + Light + Wisdom = Humanity. God Bless You. Reading your book was like you are letting me in on a secret about myself.

Sharon I. Nelson

CEO

Civically Re-Engaged Women(CREW)

Parity Activist,

and Equalizer

We are an addicted society in crisis. Beyond opioids, we are also addicted to racial hatred and bias against other forms of difference—religious, national origins, gender, sexual orientation, abilities, non-western cultures, and the impoverished. But the most vile addiction we face is that to violence and guns. We need help now because traditional solutions are ineffective.

The re-release of Living in Process could not be more timely and more needed. Decades ago, Dr. Anne Wilson Schaef illuminated a path of healing and learning towards recovery. Her approach is a blend of psychology, personal experience, indigenous spiritual approaches, and serious self-reflection that opens up a gateway for those ready for solutions. My hope is that today people will suspend beliefs and politics to embrace her concept— Living in Process. It is the only way out of our current state of the despair of addiction; we need a place to turn and we need solutions. Schaef has shown us a way through life for those of us filled with hope AND brave enough to try.

Irma McClaurin, PhD, activist anthropologist, speaker, consultant, coach, award-winning writer, 2018 co-chair of the Seneca Falls Revisited| Then & Now Conference & Retreat and founder of the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Living in Process calls and inspires us to develop our full human potential through new ways of living and being.

Rebecca S. Fahrlander, Ph.D.

Adjunct professor of psychology and sociology, writer, and world traveler

CONTENTS

Endorsements for new Edition of Living in Process

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

CHAPTER 1

THE EMERGENCE OF LIVING IN PROCESS

CHAPTER 2

Understanding Process

Growing Up In A Process World

Content And Process In Groups

Learning And Teaching As Processes

Relationships

Parenting

Reality Shifts

Illnesses And Accidents

Implications

CHAPTER 3

RETURNING TO SPIRITUAL WHOLENESS

Science And Living In Process

Bridging The Body-Mind-Spirit Split

CHAPTER 4

BASIC TRUTHS FOR LIVING IN PROCESS

I Am The Bank

Basic Truths For Living In Process

Honesty

Noticing

A Garden Of Noticing

To Notice, We Must Learn To Be In Our Bodies

Alone Time

Participation

Passive Participation

Wholeness And Context

Willingness To Take Responsibility

Staying On Our Side Of The Street

Knowing

Being Responsible For Ourselves

Owning Our Behavior

Dualism

Moving Beyond Dualism

Soul-Level Healing

Seeking, accepting, and following it through as far as we need to go

Willingness

Ancestors, Spirits, And Angels

Trusting – Relinquishing Our Illusion Of Control

CHAPTER 5

WHAT WE KNOW AND HOW WE KNOW IT

Learning, Thinking, And Decision Making

Knowing

Levels Of Truth

Learning

Searching For Cues

Thinking

Interpreting

Negative Thinking

Making Up Stories

Being Objective

Decision Making

Creating Drama

CHAPTER 6

SOUL-LEVEL HEALING

Tolerance For Insanity

Healing And Participation

The Technocratic, Materialistic, Mechanistic Personality

The Technocrat

Materialism

Mechanistic Science

Dysfunction

Preliminary Healing

Deep Processes

Doors

Deep Processes Are Unique

Honoring Our Process

Sound

Staying In The Present

Deep Process Opens Doors

The Relationship Of Deep Process To Living In Process

Healing Old Wounds

Community

The Path To Healing

Sacred Trust

CHAPTER 7

THE SPHERES OF PROCESS

Sphere Of Self

Sphere Of Family And Relationships

Sphere Of Community

Sphere Of Society And Nation

Sphere Of The Planet

Sphere Of The Universe

Sphere Of God, The Creator, The Great Mystery

CHAPTER 8

BEING AN INDIVIDUAL

Learning Our Path

Excuses

Being Wrong

True But Not Honest

Being Clear

Help

Paradigm Shift

Paradigm Shock

Solitude

Intimacy

CHAPTER 9

RELATIONSHIPS

Our Primary Relationship

Living Our Process In Human Relationships

The Seven Relationships

Ways Of Being That Foster Good Relationships

Making Love

Intimacy In Relationships

CHAPTER 10

THE FAMILY

Styles And Fashions In Parenting

Authoritative Parenting

Laissez-Faire Parenting

Scientific Parenting

Benevolent Dictator

Self-Centered Parenting

Empty-Vessel Parenting

The Little King/Queen Approach

Perfect-Parent Parenting

Summary Of Parenting Styles

Process Parenting

Before We Have Children

Choosing Parents And Families

Context And Needs

Elders

Doing Our Own Work

Training Our Parents

CHAPTER 11

COMMUNITY

Living Community

Social Communities

Work

Materialism

The Joy Of Work

Organizations

Spiritual Communities

CHAPTER 12

SOCIETY AND NATIONS

Control And Punishment

Illusionary Society

Economics And Money

Societal Colonization

Beyond The Tmm Society

Living In Process Society

CHAPTER 13

THE PLANET

Technology, Money, And Materialism

The Environment

The Christian Church And The Environment

Big Business And The Environment

Living In Process And Native Wisdom

CHAPTER 14

THE UNIVERSE AND BEYOND

In Summary

Appendix

DEDICATION

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This book is dedicated to the Creator of All That Is.

It is dedicated to a planet longing for us to reconnect

and participate with its process.

It is dedicated to all those beings

wanting to become whole and to those that are.

May we learn from one another.

PREFACE

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T his book may be a bit more difficult to understand than my previous books since it offers a spiritual way of living and healing that is not common knowledge in our present culture. As you read, remember that the information is about operating in a completely different paradigm than the one we are used to living with on a daily basis. Often, when we are faced with something entirely new to us, we try to fit it into what we already know and hold on where we feel comfortable.

I hope you will not do that with this book. Please read it with an open mind. I suggest reading through one time to get the overall picture. Then, give it a second, more feeling-level reading. After that, you might want to go back to specific parts that need more time to digest. The book is in the experience of reading it not just the information/content.

This is not a self-help book or do-it-yourself book. You will not be able to read it and walk away recovered from what I am calling the Technocratic, Materialistic, Mechanistic Personality. You will not even know how to do your deep process work, or how to live in process. All of these processes take time and work and only happen in context.

For example, say you want to learn Tibetan meditation. You can read all the books written on that subject. However, if you really want to know Tibetan meditation and the surrounding rich lore of living that path, you will have to seek out a teacher or teachers and spend years unfolding into it. So it is with this work.

Or, imagine that you have just laid your hands on Sigmund Freud’s first publication about psychoanalysis. Do you believe that you can read the book and then lie on the couch and do your own analysis? I doubt it. One must walk a path and have experience with a practitioner to truly know it. So it is with living in process. Healing from the Technocratic, Materialistic, Mechanistic Personality is a process, not an event. Understanding deep process can only come from experiencing it. Learning to live in process is a lifelong pursuit.

Many people come to this work believing they already know about deep process because of their own experiences with one form or another of psychological or spiritual work. So far, our experience is that none have actually known it. This work is not rebirthing, breathwork, Heller work, rage reduction, core energies work, quantum release work, or OshoTantra. Yes, we use mats – the similarity ends there.

It is all right to not understand. That is how we learn. If we knew everything, we would not need to be on this plane. This material plane is our schoolroom. Yet, understanding is not knowing and this work requires knowing through experience.

Living in Process is not psychotherapy nor does it come out of the mechanistic, scientific model. It is not a religion. It is spiritual and reaches back beyond the religious for its spirituality. It is definitely not related to anything I have studied, and I have studied both psychology and theology.

I have tried to give information about Deep Process. I have introduced it, discussed it, given examples, and explored the range of it. Yet, what it truly is will probably remain hidden in the mists of the unfamiliar until you have worked with your own deep process for many years. Even then, sometimes, I feel I know less and less instead of more and more, as I do it.

Yet, our deep processes are powerful tools for healing and connecting us with the infinite.

LANGUAGE

We are limited by our use of language. I have had to use the language that I know and we all know, and it is often less than adequate. For example, the term deep process may feel familiar and known. In this context it is not.

When we are trying to communicate something new, we are criticized if we coin new terms and try to make up words that fit, and, on the other side of the coin, we are criticized for giving new meanings to old terms. In the face of this, I do as I please and do the best I can.

Some of my language needs to be noted before you read this book.

I rarely use but. I substitute and. I do this for two reasons. The first and easiest reason is that often everything before the but is either discounted or a lie – for example – I really like you but … The second and more important reason is that but sets up a dualism of either this or that. Since I am trying to encourage us to move beyond dualisms, I substitute and. The use of and in such a sentence throws us into an entirely different mind-set and creates different experiences in our bodies. Try it – you might like it!

In another category, I often use and for emphasis. You will see it stressed at the beginning of sentences. Pay attention to these sentences.

Both of these usages expand our universes.

Another term that I use often is wait with or waiting with. My copy editor kept saying waiting for what? There is no for what. That is the old paradigm, the old way of living. When we are alive, we are always in a place of anticipation.

Waiting with is active waiting. It is just that, alert and not expectant of what will come. Waiting with is a skill that is slowly learned and much valued.

A third term that bears notice is the use of static as a verb. The TMM culture tries to static the processes of the universe. There is no better way to say it. The current dominant culture is much more comfortable with facts than it is with processes. Processes are so out of control.

So, there we have it. I invite you to lay aside your preconceived notions, what you think you know, your comfortable assumptions, and come with me into the adventure of learning to live in process.

I have decided not to disrupt the book with footnotes or references. If you want more information about my sources contact me. Many of the native elders quoted are now gone from this plane and most do not or did not want to be contacted. I will be happy to be of assistance when I can – [e-mail]. I may repeat myself from time to time. You, the reader may not need to have that point repeated. For some reason, I needed to write it again. So, please, bear with me. More will be revealed.

Lastly, I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances I have changed the names of individuals and places, I may have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations and places of residence.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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M uch and many have participated in the evolution of this book.

Special thanks go to my boss, the All That Is, whose work I do faultingly and faithfully to the best of my ability. I know in my living that I get help from realms beyond my knowing and I give thanks for that.

I am grateful to our Mother, the Earth, who sustains all life and my life on a daily basis. I am grateful for Grandfather Sky, and the sun for that energy that sustains all our lives. I am grateful to the Great Mystery for being more than I can comprehend so I can continue to grow toward it.

I give thanks for this life and the possibility to live it.

I give special thanks for my family and the ever-expanding circles of it throughout the world. Roddy, my son, is always there for me. Pete, whose title changes daily, stands tall with support and has typed and retyped to pull the book together. Jo Potter and many of the International Living in Process network have proofread and edited and supported me at every turn. I want to particularly thank the trainees in the South Pacific, North America (particularly Boulder Hot Springs) and Europe for their help. Bobbi and Kerri have kept the office going and all the people in Butte and Arkansas who have lent support. And thanks to Karuna Sanctuary, an inspirational retreat center in Australia, where I was nurtured as I completed this book.

Cheryl Woodruff, as my editor on the first edition and friend, had had to work on this one. My first rendition of this book was right brain, poetic, folding and refolding back on itself. She helped make it more linear so those not familiar to this work could be introduced to it. Ballantine produced a lovely cover. And, the demand for a new edition became obvious when it was selling for $300-$500 a copy!

Support is always multidimensional and multilevel, and I want to acknowledge that my awareness and gratitude extends in all directions and all levels.

Last, but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to those people who agreed to read the manuscript for possible endorsements. Thank you so much for your time and energy.

Gratitude is a living, healthy, expanding and growing process and I experience it in every moment – even those that are not much fun, for they provide healing, learning and growing when I am open.

INTRODUCTION

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I t is with great pleasure that I sit down to write an introduction to the new edition of the book Living in Process .

When this book was first published (November, 1998), my editor told me that it was fifty years ahead of its time. The same was said about its companion book, Beyond Therapy, Beyond Science (which I had wanted to call Beyond Science, Beyond Therapy). At that time, very few people were willing to look at the systemic issues of the society and the planet. Indeed, those who were willing were considered brave or foolhardy. And, there were some who could see the handwriting on the wall or When Society Becomes an Addict, which was published in 1987, would never have become a New York Times bestseller. In that book I likened the American culture (indeed Western culture) to an active alcoholic. Somehow, that book struck a nerve and still does for many.

Perhaps the only problem of being fifty years ahead of one’s time is that the book goes out of print when it could have helped some of us see the issues and moved to correct them much sooner. And, as I always say, Time is a process and life is a process.

Perhaps, years ago, we were somewhat more willing to identify the problems than we were to look at solutions, and Living in Process is definitely more about the solutions. Just as Beyond Therapy, Beyond Science looks at the reasons why our approaches to healing are not meeting our needs to heal and suggests why, Living in Process moves beyond the problem and looks at the underlying beliefs, assumptions, and behaviors that keep us, individuals and a society, from becoming who we can be and points toward solutions. Perhaps we are now more ready to consider solutions. We can only learn what we are ready to learn. Our old approaches, beliefs, assumptions and sciences have not helped us become a healthy species or planet.

Hopefully, we are now ready, not only to challenge our divisiveness, diseases, beliefs, assumptions and thinking patterns, perhaps, just perhaps, we are ready to move to our reality of wholeness and that everything is a process and cannot be and should not be static. Our science is finally embracing this reality. We need a change in beliefs.

Living in Process is our reality, an approach to healing, and a more effective way of being with our reality.

We do not need to cling to the past. We need to build on the past, especially our past mistakes, and move on to becoming who we, as a species and this planet, can be.

Chapter One introduces us to the concept of living in process and how I grew into this work. Chapter Two gives us an opportunity to understand that there are cultures which are process cultures and explore processes such as teaching and learning, relationships, parenting, reality shifts, illnesses and accidents from a process perspective. Chapter Three invites us to return to spiritual wholeness by examining our current scientific beliefs, the body/mind split and some current belief systems that inhibit our understanding of process. Chapter Four explores a wide variety of cultural inhibitors to our living in process. Chapter Five reexamines how we know and what we think we know as well as the way we learn, our thinking and our decision making. Chapter Six moves us into soul-level healing. We explore our tolerance for insanity in Western culture, the relationship between healing and participation, an exploration of the Technocratic, Materialistic, Mechanistic personality and dysfunction, preliminary healing, deep process work, living our process, and the relationship between deep process work and living in process. Chapter Seven explores the spheres of process – self, family and relationships, community, society and nations, the planet, the universe and the Great Mystery. Chapter Eight looks at what it means to be an individual, what holds us back and what we need to grow and heal. Chapter Nine explores all levels of relationship from a process perspective. Chapter Ten explores the role of the family from a process perspective. Chapter Eleven offers new ways to look at and think about community. Chapter Twelve Focuses on the process of societies and nations. Chapter Thirteen explores the process of the planet. Chapter Fourteen moves into the exploration of the process of the universe and beyond and gives us a summary of Living in Process.

Happy reading! Perhaps this book can add a piece to the puzzle.

Let me know what you think.

Anne Wilson Schaef, Ph.D.

[e-mail]

Chapter 1

THE EMERGENCE OF LIVING IN PROCESS

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L iving in Process is a book about living – spiritual living and living spiritually. We all have the opportunity to live completely, fully, wholly, joyfully, and serenely with our spirituality expressed in every facet of our lives. Deep inside we resonate with that promise, yet may have lost our way back. This book is an invitation to journey into that deep movement of the all-encompassing spirituality that exists in each one of us and feels in tune with that life force within and beyond us all – whatever we may choose to call it or however we may choose to approach it. Each of us has the possibility to move into our spiritual wisdom and link with the oneness of the all. We only have to remember and reconnect with what we have forgotten and moved away from.

Many cultures of the world have no word for spirituality. In these cultures spirituality is in the living. It is so integrated into life that it needs no separate designation. Yet, many of us have lost that integration as we try to cope with our lives. Living in Process is the reintegration of the spiritual into all that we do and all that we are. By segmenting ourselves and our lives we have reduced the spiritual to a very small corner of our lives. Living in Process is about the relearning of living our wholeness.

After over four decades of working with people around the world, I have come to see that all human problems are ultimately spiritual. They result from our splitting off and compartmentalizing our spirituality or not recognizing it at all. Since we are spiritual beings, our solutions to our problems must come from and contribute to our spiritual wholeness. All healing is based in our spiritual wholeness. The secret of living a whole life is accepting and being wholly who we are as full spiritual beings.

However, at the end of the twentieth century, we find ourselves estranged from our oneness in God and ourselves. We cannot embrace the fullness of spirituality without accepting the reality of life as a process and participating in the process of our lives. We cannot be observers in our own lives and expect to know and experience our full spiritual selves. We must first acknowledge our role in the process that has created our present reality, and accept our role as active participants in all of life’s process, in order to move in the direction of healing. We must see how our current worldview has contributed to where we are in our lives as a species and in so doing be ready to move to new ways of being and living.

I am always being asked to define Living in Process in some convenient shorthand. There is no simple definition. You cannot freeze process – even in words. Can you define flowers blooming, the setting of the sun, or hold a rainbow in your hand? To try to form a definition is to make these experiences static and separate them from the dynamic qualities of growth and change that is their essence. The definition is in the experience, not in the abstract concept.

What can we really define? Something that may not seem as complex as a process, like a butterfly, even defies the kind of defining that many cultures traditionally rely on. Even an entomologist would most likely fail to define what a butterfly really is. She could pin it on a board, take serial cross sections of it, and maybe even discuss how its major systems function, and yet, would we really know what a butterfly is from all this? I doubt it.

It is my hope that reading this book will not only give you information about what Living in Process is, my fond hope is that the reading of the book itself will also provide an opening door into the experience of Living in Process. Pure information is useless without experience to ground it. Life is not an abstraction. Living must be grounded in experience.

It is not that I am against defining things per se – although I am skeptical of destructive artificial limits we construct for ourselves. Definitions can, at times, be useful. What concerns me is that the kind of rational, reductive, systems-oriented analysis we rely on so much today also dissects us, separating our experiences from our emotions, our heads from our hearts, and our souls from our beings. Many of us have become so numb that we are accustomed to and accepting of this kind of fragmented, post-modern, disconnected thinking and being. Living was not always like this and it does not have to be.

I want to share my own journey in coming to live my life in process as an example of learning about Living in Process.

When I was in the fifth grade, I knew that I would be doing healing work when I grew up. I had no name for it at that time. We lived in the Ozarks and were very poor. My only interactions with healers were a very occasional visit to the doctor in dire emergencies, and the everyday healing work that went on with my great-grandmother who was a Medicine Woman. Her healing work was so integrated into our lives that I took it for granted, and only in the past year did I realize that she was, indeed, a Medicine Woman.

I did not know exactly what being a healer meant, or if I would heal like my great-grandmother, nor did I have to know what form this work would take until I needed to know. I continued participating in my life as fully as I could in all spheres – academics, social activities, sports, creative arts, church, and family – and trusted that I would know how to follow the path that would lead me to the places I needed to be.

Just before I entered high school, I happened upon the term psychiatrist. I was clear that the work that I would be doing was not just physical, yet I intuitively knew that the physical would be involved, so I took the courses in high school that would prepare me for entering college as a pre-med student.

I was accepted at the university of my choice with a full scholarship and pursued my pre-med studies, working in our local hospital every summer. College was much like high school, with a full life and many adventures. I continued to enjoy dating, singing, sorority, dorm life, athletics and became active in the YWCA and the United Student Christian Fellowship. These activities resulted in my holding national offices and being a student delegate to worldwide events. My boundaries grew and exploded as my world expanded exponentially during those years. I had many opportunities to discuss ideas and concerns with world leaders in theology and politics. I trusted what the Great Mystery wanted me to do. Not pushing for closure on my knowings has been important for me. I accepted that knowing was a process and that I would not know until I knew. The process always unfolds as it should if I will just let it. In the meantime, my responsibility was to put one foot in front of the other, participate fully in my life, and be the best person I knew how to be.

I do not want to give the impression here that life was always rosy. It was not. I struggled with boyfriends and intimate relationships. I questioned everything I had been taught in my Methodist upbringing including the existence of God. I was passed over for honors and recognitions that I clearly deserved because I was not politically savvy. Pain was well known to me. Yet, I was not good at suffering and had a steadfast belief that I was one with God even if I was having difficulties with God definitions.

When it was time to apply to medical schools, I could not do it! I had some rational excuses – I did not want to become what I saw most doctors become, I did not want to focus on physical illness and physical pain and ultimately I knew that the truth was that my process was to be different. At zero hour, the dean called me in and said that she was going to recommend me for a Danforth Fellowship (nicknamed the Danny Grads), and I intuitively knew that this was my answer. I disregarded the fact that this was a very competitive fellowship and that many applied and few were chosen. I knew that this was what I should be doing, and it was! I took a year out from my academic work to be sent to another apart of the country to develop as a person, grow spiritually, and be of service to the campus. This year was just what I needed to know that medical school would not give me what I required to do my life’s work. I applied and was accepted to a doctoral program in psychology.

I approached graduate school as I had grade school, high school, and college – with complete trust that I would get what I needed – and I had fun, as usual. I loved the courses and in my naiveté, a week before I discovered that this little test the department head had mentioned when he interviewed me was the comprehensives, I decided to go to New York City to the theater and enjoy myself as it was much too late to cram for any test. Since the comprehensives were based upon the courses we were taking and I was doing well in them, I passed with flying colors.

At the end of my first year of my doctoral work, I decided to take a year out and go to seminary in New York City. My rationale was that every educated person should know what they think theologically. My gut said, You need to do this and you do not have to know why. I loved seminary and I did New York with a trip to Europe in the middle of the second semester. My horizons continued to expand. I studied with the theological greats at Union Theological Seminary and the contemporary psychological greats at Columbia and Teacher’s College Columbia. It was a great year. Let me point out that I did all these things with seemingly no money. Everything just fell into place as I trusted it would, and I always worked hard supporting myself throughout all my education and all my life.

At the end of the year, I married, went back to graduate school, and had my first child. I still seemed to be moving ahead in my life’s process, and I was not sure what that was.

The next year, I did my internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, mothered my child, and helped support my husband as he continued his theological studies. I continued to feel I was on my path and living my process. Then, as I look back, I believe I had a three-year detour. I took a job as a school psychologist to support my family while my husband completed seminary and did his internship. I enjoyed the work, loved being with my daughter, and enjoyed my life in a relative way, and my feeling was that I was somehow off my path. Little things just were not right. It never occurred to me to stop, pray, go inside, and connect with the ground of my being. I went to church every Sunday, was soloist in the choir,