by Bryan Wood
“But I’m not angry,” I said.
“Have you ever listened to yourself?” Charles asked. He said, “I can hear it in you and it’s plain as day. If I tell you what or who you’re angry at, it won’t be nearly as profound as if you figure it out on your own. You need to look inside and find it. It’s right there.”
I told Charles I didn’t even know I was angry, and I had no idea where to look.
Charles said, “Do you know what you need to do? You need to get a huge stack of paper and just start writing.”
“Write about what?” I asked.
“Write about everything, write about anything, or just write about nothing; whatever you want. Write every word you feel, as you’re feeling it. Whether it’s composed and structured, or just a bunch of words dropping on a page, just write. Put a pen in your hand, and let everything flow through your arm and onto the paper in front of you. Don’t do it on a computer, don’t type. Just go old school, use a pen and paper. There’s something fundamentally soothing about using your own hand to write that allows it to flow more naturally and honestly.”
“Ok, I’ll try it,” I said.
Charles said, “Don’t just try it, do it. I write all the time. Usually it’s stupid nonsense that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but to me…to me, it’s pure honesty. It allows me to let go of everything. Then I can go back and read it, and I see what’s really been hiding from me all along.”
Charles looked at me and said, “I believe you can do this. You just need to believe the same thing.”
Charles and I spent the better part of the next hour and a half talking about life and reality. I honestly don’t know what happened during that time, but Charles made me want to dig deep down within myself and bring out my best again. There was something about that conversation that made me realize not only that I could do this, but I had to. I had no choice but to at least try.
My Las Vegas weekend ended, and I returned home. The days that followed were filled with recollections of my conversation with Charles, and I could not seem to shake the feeling that it was time to do something about the path my life was taking. Of all the things Charles and I had talked about, two specific parts were called to my attention, over and over again.
I can still hear his words as if they were spoken just yesterday, “If you try to do only for yourself, you’ll only get so far in life. If you reach out to touch other people, you can fix your own soul…”
I was also very intrigued by Charles claim that I had anger towards something or someone, but I had no idea who. I was interested to learn if I really could identify this, through writing, as he suggested; however, there was also a very significant part of me that was afraid to try any of this. What if I did face my fear, and I could not conquer it? What if I failed at this, as I had at every other step of the way to that point? I felt like this was my last hope, and if this failed, I would have nothing left to hold on to and nothing worth holding on for.
These were the thoughts that invaded my every waking moment for days. Unlike the many other thoughts that had worked their way into my mind over the last three years, these invaders were not unwelcomed. These thoughts offered a glimmer of hope.
Late one night after work, I was in my bed, wide awake, and just staring at the ceiling fan whirling above me. I could only think of my most recent panic attack, which occurred at work earlier that night, and nothing else. After conceding to the fact that I was not going to be able to fall asleep, I found myself in the kitchen with two sleeping pills in my hand. That very moment was when my epiphany came. All of my thoughts, good and bad, collided, and I realized, for the first time, exactly what I needed to do. It was almost is if that magical light switch had finally been turned on. I needed to face my fears, and I knew exactly where I was going to begin.
As I looked at the pills in my hand, I remembered the journal I had written every day while I was in Afghanistan. I realized then that the best way to look towards the future was to have a better understanding of my own past. I knew exactly where the journal was, buried in an old footlocker in the back corner of my garage. I was about to take Charles’ advice and begin writing once more, but I knew the place to start was by reviving old memories, no matter how painful they may be. That is how I came to be on the cold cement floor of my garage, reading an old journal into the late hours of the night.
I sat for a long while on the floor, after I finished reading, just letting my entire thought process settle. I started to look inside myself and reflect on who I was, where I was, and how things had become this way. I saw the wall I had built around myself and the barriers I had placed between me and every single person I knew. I clearly saw how I was keeping everyone out, all while holding in everything that was causing so much pain. This could not go on any longer, and it had to come to an end. I had been running from a problem that never went away, and it was never going to go away. I had run so long, I was completely exhausted. For all my running though, I had not even come close to outrunning any of these problems. I had only worn myself down and made them much worse. I was done running, and win or lose, I was ready to fight to get my life back.
Chapter 6 – Finding Peace
AFTER READING MY JOURNAL, I had the immediate urge to begin writing. I had no idea what I was going to write, but I just wanted to start right away. I had no lined paper in the house, so I grabbed a stack of plain, white paper from my computer printer and sat down at the kitchen table. Thankfully, I did not have work the following day, since I was going into my days off. Although it took a little bit to get going, once I started I felt like I could not stop.
I wrote page after page of feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas, and anything else that came to mind. That first weekend alone, I filled nearly fifty pages with notes, scribbles, and doodles; however, I continued to write at least once a day, every day. Some days, I would only find time for ten minutes, while other days, I would spend up to three hours writing. As time went on, something amazing started to happen. In the beginning, it took a conscious thought for me to write; I had to think about each thought I was going to transfer from my mind to the blank page in front of me. Eventually, I seemed to develop a sort of “autopilot,” where I could start writing and just let my mind go as the words just flowed onto the paper.
When I would go into that autopilot mode of writing, I would reflect on the advice given to me to “put a pen in your hand, and let everything flow through your arm and onto the paper.” I was doing just that, and it was showing its first signs of success.
Ninety percent of what I wrote during the following two or three weeks was just gibberish and meaningless. The other ten percent though, that proved to be the window I was looking for. I do not think it is entirely necessary to focus too much on what I wrote, as much of it is the basis for the very book you are reading now. There are many things I wrote that I will never share with anyone; those things will always be mine. However, one important line seemed to reveal itself with a regularity that started to bring everything in my life back into focus. I found myself continually writing some variation of, “How could I (fill in the blank)?”
“How could I have witnessed death, and then just walked away like nothing happened?” I wrote on one occasion. “How could anyone just go on enjoying anything while knowing that those people are still suffering?” I indicated about myself on another page. “I had a machinegun in my hand, but I did nothing as I watched children, practically still babies, being led away by strangers. How could I have just stood there and done nothing? Fuck orders, I did nothing,” I wrote on yet another.
This theme became extremely common, and I realized I was not just angry; I was furious. I was furious at all sorts of things, but most surprisingly, I was angry at myself. I had somehow allowed the sorrow I felt for the things I had seen, to turn into some sort of guilt. That guilt then transformed itself into blame, and it all happened without me ever realizing it. I was blaming myself for everything I had witnessed. I was also vi
ewing every feeling of misery, discomfort, and fear I experienced in Afghanistan as being some sort of punishment, which I was being forced to endure, as a result of that guilt.
I did not look at the fear of rocket attacks and bombings, the humiliation of head lice, the discomfort of mice crawling over me as I tried to sleep, or any countless number of negative experiences as being beyond my control. Instead, I felt as though they were my punishments, the consequences for anything my mind felt I had or had not done. I never, not even once, stopped to process any of these experiences in a healthy, constructive way. I just bottled them away, and I subconsciously justified them to myself as something I deserved, for things that were never my fault.
None of this was ever a conscious thought. I never decided to think that way, and none of it was a choice. It all happened, completely on its own, by trying to ignore everything that I had experienced. I always felt like I would deal with those feelings and emotions when I was ready. The only problem with that rationale is that I never was ready, and I probably never would have been without someone forcing me to confront it.
After weeks of writing, I pored through my piles of paper, and I realized that the last three years were spent punishing myself for something that was never my fault. As I had that very thought, a realization hit me for the very first time: none of this was my fault. I spoke the words out loud, “It’s not my fault.”
I repeated that phrase over and over again, and I felt a weight being pulled from on top of me. The death, poverty, suffering, abuse, and misery I had seen were not my fault, and I was so very wrong to have ever loaded any of that guilt onto myself.
Although I made this realization, I knew this was only the first step in a very complicated solution. Saying it was not my fault, and truly believing it, was a great step forward, but a feeling like that does not have a light switch, and it could not just be turned off like a glowing bulb. I decided that every day I needed to take small steps towards putting everything back together. It was going to take a constant conscious effort, a lot of self compassion, and a tremendous amount of willpower, but I knew it could be done.
My first step was to make a list of the things I needed to improve in my life, and I prioritized them. The first thing I desperately wanted to work on was myself, on the inside. I knew any lasting improvement to my life needed to be made from the inside out, and not the other way around. I was always looking for some magical answer to come from someone else when all along I was the only one who could start the rebuilding process. This time, I knew I was ready, truly ready, to do what I needed to do.
Within a few days, I scheduled an appointment, and shortly after found myself seated once again in that familiar office, waiting for my counselor to enter the room. She was still using the same scented candle, and the familiar odor of clean laundry was immediately comforting.
She entered the room and enthusiastically announced, “Bryan, I’m so glad you’re back.”
I started to apologize for giving up and not returning, and she quickly interrupted, “Who cares about that? You weren’t ready then, and only you know if you’re not ready and more importantly, when you are. Are you ready?”
I replied, “I am.” I continued, “But before we get started, I want to give you something. I have something that I want you to see, and that’s all I want for today. Next time we’ll start talking.”
Looking puzzled, she said, “Ok. This isn’t normally how we do this, but if it makes you more comfortable, that’s fine.”
I handed her a pile of papers, a handwritten compilation of my thoughts gathered over the previous weeks. I also handed her my journal, and I told her, “If you read this, I think you’ll see exactly where I’m coming from, and we can get started on an even keel. I think you will understand me.”
A week later, I returned, and I began to open up in a way that was intimidating, embarrassing, and at the same time absolutely liberating. I went twice a week for several weeks and never missed a session. Some sessions were fraught with sadness, some with anger, and some with fear; however, each was an important step towards finally being free.
A word that came up often in my sessions was the word “free,” because it is all I really wanted. I felt like I was being imprisoned by fears and emotions that were crippling at times. I said it many times already, but I was faking every smile, forcing every laugh, and hiding behind every joke. They were all a mask to cover the real emotions to which I had become a slave. They were feelings and memories that were keeping me locked away from who I really was.
I told her about the strange smell from my footlocker that only I could smell. Anyone else to whom I showed the footlocker could not smell a thing, but any time I saw its contents, the odor was so powerful it was like I was still there. I could still smell the Afghanistan air just by looking at the contents of an old box. I told her about the nightmares, the panic attacks, and the horrible memories. I explained how at random moments, while lying in bed, I could still feel mice crawling on me. I knew they were not there, but in that foggy moment between being awake and being asleep, I could feel them. The sensation would snap me fully awake, only to repeat itself time and time again. I described, in detail, the horrible images of death, poverty, beatings, suffering, and fear to which I had bared witness. I shared everything, even my feelings of guilt and blame.
The process of reconciling with myself was not quick, it was not easy, and I cannot pinpoint any one magic moment that made me say: “Aha! This is it.” Looking back I can see the progress was steady and consistent, even if it did not always feel that way at the time. The counselor who I had once doubted and swore could never understand me, proved to understand me just fine, and she more than dispelled any doubt I had. She guided me through the process of healing and forgiving myself. She helped me work on issues on the inside and then helped me to establish a plan to begin fixing things on the outside. Moving forward was not accomplished only in the comfort of an ideally scented office alone; it was a constant challenge which I faced every day.
I started off by improving my life alone, focusing on “me.” I got back to reading for pleasure again. I always loved learning and reading, and a trip to the local book store kick-started this hobby once again. In no time, I found myself spending hours on the couch reading new and interesting books, learning about life again.
I then examined my lifestyle, and I realized, there is no other way to put it, I was living like shit. I had become lazy, and I was eating horribly. I essentially survived off of soda, frozen dinners, and drive-through restaurants. All of this needed to change. I bought a series of books about nutrition and health, and I navigated my way to a diet plan that worked best for me. I am not going to begin to advocate one health style over another; I just found one that worked for me. I cut out almost all of the meat and dairy in my diet, all of the soda I was drinking was replaced with water, and I began increasing my fruits, vegetables, and alternative sources of protein. I was amazed at how quickly and profoundly this change in diet changed other aspects of my life.
I went to a local sporting goods store and bought a pair of running sneakers. I very reluctantly began running. The first few runs were really more of a hellish jog, but I pushed through. Over time, my pace grew faster and faster, and my distances grew further and further. I stopped filling myself with garbage, and my eating habits did not even resemble what they once were. Within weeks I saw the old me coming back, more and more every day.
On one particular day, I just started jogging. I made a left turn from the end of my driveway and ran. I had no goal in mind, no set destination, and no plan. I felt my heart rate climb, and the sweat began to build on my brow. The air rushed past as I ran faster and pushed further. It was not until about thirty minutes in that I realized I was not tired. I felt like I could go on forever. I looked at the sky, and I listened to the pounding of my feet on the pavement while I thought, “I cannot believe I am actually here.” I wanted that feeling to never end. It was during that jog wh
en I decided to go back to another enjoyment in life I had long given up on: training in Jiu Jitsu. Being alive never felt so amazing!
Where my time was once spent eating nothing but processed food and watching television in seclusion, I was now eating right, reading, working out, doing Jiu Jitsu, and always writing. I had come to accept the power of writing, and throughout this process, I never stopped. I knew by then how truly beneficial writing could be, and I have never given up on it.
There were a lot more steps involved in bringing myself to a better place in life, but that really is not the point I want to convey. What I want to get across is that I found a way to identify the true root of all my problems. Even in the face of my own stubbornness, my own reluctance, and my own doubt, I still found a way. Once I did that, I was able to devise a plan to tackle those problems, one by one, until they were all at a manageable level. What was truly amazing was the fact that I only really needed to work on myself, from the inside. I had a plan to start repairing my friendships, my relationships, and my family, but I never needed to move forward with that. Once I had me fixed, everything else just seemed to fall in place on its own.
As I mentioned earlier, I have always loved reading. I would just go to a book store, and I would randomly buy a book about a subject in which I knew absolutely nothing. I would start reading until I felt satisfied with the topic and then move on to the next. I started doing this once again, and while shopping online, I found a book about reality and consciousness from a Buddhist point of view. The topic immediately intrigued me, and I started reading everything I could get my hands on.
As I delved deeper into this new topic, I began to truly appreciate the impermanence of life, as well as suffering. Nothing lasts forever, and everything changes. For the good, the bad, and everything in between, everything changes and moves on. I was finally moving on also, and I felt better than I had in years. I accomplished my goal of reaching that small, yet elusive word; I was finally free.