Chicago: Winter… Many Moons Ago.

I just graduated from college and I’m terrified. I’m no more ready to take care of myself or take on the world than climb Everest. I live with my college sweetheart in a dilapidated cockroach-infested apartment building on Chicago’s near north side – affectionately known as the Gypsy Hilton. Bobbi is infinitely more grown up than me. That’s why I chose her.

I sit on the couch, somewhat stupefied, having just gotten home from my job as the only male in the customer service department of Playboy magazine. Our office is in the same building as the Playboy Club. Beautiful women surround me everyday, yet I am miserable. A lifetime of tenacious self-loathing has reached critical mass and has begun to weigh impossibly heavy on me. Intense anxiety pours through my body and mind, and I begin to panic. I want to run away, or better yet, crawl out of my own skin. I need to escape from this horrible, horrible feeling. “Help me, I’ve got to get out of here!” Who am I talking to? What do I expect? The panic is excruciating. I assume the fetal position, and then…

Poof, like magic the feeling is gone. What the…? Where…?

I begin to take stock of things. I look around. Yep, this is my living room all right. Wait a second. Something’s not quite right here. I don’t… I don’t feel like “me” anymore. Where is my inner judge? Where are my incessant, destructive self-limiting thoughts? Wait a second… where is my life-long anxiety – that horrible sensation in my body/mind? Where am I?

Gone. Now I’m really scared.

I’m sucked into the vacuum created by the loss of my “self.” I free fall into the void of not knowing. Terrified and confused I try to make sense out of what has just happened. I must still be “me” because I can remember things… like the name of my first grade teacher, Mrs. Lebow. See, I’m still me. I must be. Who else would know that? And I can recall my phone number. Yep, got it. And I’m sure that this is my apartment; these are my things; and that Bobbi will be home any minute.

But I don’t feel like “me” anymore. In fact, I am devoid of feeling altogether. And then I realize that I’m pretty much devoid of thinking, too. Bobbi’s late. I always worry when she’s late, convinced she’s been in an accident, or worse… she is cheating on me. Yes, that’s it. But now… now somehow I don’t care. What the? Did someone slip me some drugs or something? Is this a bad acid trip?

No. I am told that what I’m experiencing is called a psychotic split. My essential, or true self – my spirit – can or will no longer take the abuse dished out by my conditioned, or false self – my fear-based ego. And so, it is opting out, leaving me sans ego, sans personality, sans identity. Emotionally, psychically I am a blank slate – tabula rasa. I have unconsciously given myself a new beginning – a do-over. In one foul swoop I’ve wiped away years of conditioning and, along with it, years of body knowledge. All my “knowing” is gone. Yikes! I’m not sure of anything anymore. Maybe that’s good. A lot of what I think I know makes me hate myself. Talk about the best of times and the worst of times. I immediately begin psychotherapy.

Fifteen years pass… Los Angeles: Winter

It’s 6:30AM and I’m at a meeting of the Inside Edge, a group of forward thinking, spiritually-minded individuals who regularly meet at this ungodly hour to network and share high-minded ideas. I’m here at the invitation of a very gifted woman, a singer friend who is the musical inspiration for the morning.

Following a good breakfast and a thought provoking guest speaker things rap up, I thank my hostess and rise to leave. Another woman, who I have never met, hurries toward me. “You’re a walk-in, aren’t you?” she says excitedly. “Why yes,” I admit. “I’ve come with my friend.” “No, no, not that kind of walk-in. You’re a star seed.” “I’m sorry, I’m a what?” I ask incredulously, having no idea what the woman is talking about.

“Well,” she continues, “you aren’t afraid of death anymore, are you?” Whoa, now things are really getting weird. “No, actually, I’m not.” “And you did have a nervous breakdown, didn’t you?” “Well, yes, actually I did.” “That’s when it happened,” she announces triumphantly. “What happened?” I ask, starting to get a little freaked out by her. “That’s when you became a star child.” “A what?” I snap. “You’re a star child, young man,” the woman chirps. “You’re here to help others overcome their fear of death.” And with that she vigorously shakes my hand, wishes me good luck, and walks off. WTF?

Another year passes… Los Angeles/Chicago: Fall/Winter

I’m still searching, still in therapy… still confused. But I know one thing for sure: I can no longer bear at least one vestigial aspect of my mutilated self-image – my life-long asthma. So, one night while meditating, I propose a deal with God. I tell Him that I will never again doubt His existence (something I am perpetually prone to do), if I can get rid of my asthma. I think this is pretty presumptuous of me – expecting God to work a miracle on my behalf (that is, if He exists at all). But I am at my wit’s end, at an impasse in my spiritual search and desperate to be rid of this chronic respiratory nuisance once and for all.

Weeks pass… and nothing. Then one day I run into an old friend who I haven’t seen in awhile. I quickly become aware of an incredible yet inexplicable change in her. At a break in the catching up I ask if anything has happened that would account for what I am sensing. She enthuses that six months earlier she had not been feeling particularly well, and so had decided to see a “healer”. “Within a month,” she crescendoed, “I felt better than I ever have.”

Well, I may not literally be from Missouri, but I might as well be. This is plenty to swallow. Yet, I can see with my own eyes that something remarkable has taken place in my friend’s life. So, I ask for the healer’s name and number; the air of mystery and magic is simply too much to ignore. Besides, maybe this chance meeting has something to do with my deal with God. I make an appointment for the following week.

I enter Stephanie’s house on a cool, crisp autumn morning, not knowing what to expect, but feeling slightly taken aback when a pretty woman in her late twenties introduces herself to me. She has the disposition of an elf, laughing loudly and often. She quickly gets down to business and asks the purpose of my visit. Timidly, I reply, “I’d like to get rid of my asthma.” She laughs a wonderfully loud belly laugh, and then looks at me very seriously, as if sizing me up. “Alright,” she announces, “We can do that.”

Her certainty quickly becomes my disbelief. “Oh really,” I mock, “How can you be so sure?” Stephanie gently turns to me, and with a “Glinda-the-Good-Witch” enchanted sort of smile, says ever so matter-of-factly, “Because you are ready to give it up.”

Within ten minutes she is finished examining me (using muscle testing), and rises to remove a single bottle of homeopathic pills from one of her cabinets. Putting the tiny glass vial in my hand and my hand on my abdomen, she briefly re-tests. Then, giving an affirmative sort of grunt, she speaks, “In addition to this, I want you to pick up some Bach Flower Remedies. They’ll treat the asthma from the vantage point of your personality.”

Whoa! What the heck is she talking about?

I am in a daze as I leave Stephanie’s house, and really certain of only one thing: This has to be the most bizarre approach to healing I have ever encountered. I am totally unconvinced of its merits and doubly doubtful of any favorable results. But then I remember my deal with God, my friend’s story, and the transformation I witnessed in her that spirited me to Stephanie in the first place. I decide to go to the homeopathic pharmacy, buy the remedies, and begin the simple two-week regime.

Because late autumn usually signals the end of my asthma “season,” I am unsure of the effectiveness of Stephanie’s program until mid-winter, when I travel to Chicago to visit some old friends – friends who own both a cat and a dog. I sleep soundly the first night in their home; oddly, not even thinking about the animals nor the fact that under “normal” circumstances I would be having an asthma attack by now, unable to sleep without medication. The next night proves the same, and by the following morning it finally dawns on me what has happened. I go over to the animals and begin to pet and play with them, and to my utter amazement, do not wheeze, sneeze, itch or twitch one single bit.

I am filled with joy – I mean real euphoria. I thank God. I thank Stephanie. Then I cry. And then I remember what I promised in return: I will no longer doubt God’s existence.

Thirteen years pass… Los Angeles: Winter

I’ve been in private practice as a metaphysical counselor for seven years. Not only have I immersed myself in spiritual thought, I have made a livelihood out of it. By now, I am convinced that some amazing, unknowable intelligence exists from which I am inseparable. This omni-present genius created me (and everything else), animates me (and everything else), and co-creates with me (and everyone else). I’m finally comfortable in my own skin, having spent eighteen of the last twenty-nine years in some sort of therapy, mentorship, personal growth seminar or alternative school. Two years ago my self-help book, “When You Reach the End of Your Rope, Let Go!” was published, chronicling and systematizing my spiritual journey from breakdown to breakthrough.

I find myself at a weekend-long class taught by an unusually gifted healer. During one of the breaks, I pull Mary aside and tell her the story of my breakdown and of the woman who approached me so long ago at the Inside Edge. She listens poker-faced, with the wisdom of a woman who has heard just about everything. She smiles knowingly and says, “One of your other-dimensional selves saw that you weren’t going to make it. Your Pleiadean self stepped in and took over this dimensional ‘Geoffrey.’ That’s why you feel so different, and that’s why you are no longer afraid. Your guides are very powerful, indeed. It is good to meet you. There are many of us here.”

Look, I’m as big a skeptic as the next guy – none of this airy-fairy stuff for me. That said, this is what I know: I grew up in a house where I didn’t feel safe or loved. I met the world head on, and the impact knocked me unconscious. When I came to I wasn’t sure of anything. A lot of that was a blessing, as I had been so sure of my own worthlessness for so long. With a clean slate I could paint all sorts of new ideas onto the canvas of my consciousness, without having to battle the screaming fear and paralyzing doubt that characterized my former self. I made a deal with God. I didn’t pray in the traditional sense. I made a declaration: If You take my asthma away, I will believe in You. Holding up my end of the bargain has been a life-long process, but it has changed everything. Now I help others help themselves. That’s what I know. That’s what I know.

Fifteen years pass… Los Angeles: Winter

I sit at my computer, typing away at this “Thank God I…” story. It’s been twenty-three years since I first hung out my shingle and began offering back the gifts that came along with the breakdown/breakthrough. I’ve come to realize that the “fear of death” I am here to help people overcome is not only their physical death but, perhaps even more importantly, the death of their egos. I realize, too, that telling my story has become an important part of that work because it gives others hope. If I turned lemons into lemonade, they can, too.

Because of the “gift” of my abusive childhood and the subsequent life-crushing toxic consciousness with which it left me, I speak the language of hopelessness, fear and anger fluently. Having undergone a complete breakdown and subsequent rebuilding, I find that I am positioned to help others transcend their fear and pain – their identification with ego – and reach the inner peace that comes with connecting to their true, spirit-based selves. Having reached the end of my rope; having made that deal with God; and having done my best to keep my end of the bargain, I now move through life a little more gracefully, with a strong working personal philosophy: I am you.

Wow… What a ride. And on and on it goes. Thank God I had that nervous breakdown!