Coffee with Chuck

Three years I checked myself into a mental health facility. It was there that I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Hearing this diagnosis threw me for a loop. I thought my life was over. However, I came to realize my life was the furthest thing from over. I realized it was just the beginning. As I reflect on who I was back then, I don’t know who that person was. I was anxious, mad at the world, and did not want to be here anymore. Today I am thriving. The anxiety sometimes comes, but I don’t let it consume me. I have made peace with the world. And I am grateful for every day I wake up. It took a lot of work to get here. It’s cliché, but you have to do the work. To get where I am today, it was the toughest battle I have faced in my life. There were days when I just wanted to give up. But I didn’t give up. I came to understand that Rome was not built in a day. Another cliché: You gotta trust the process. I now see that change in marginal. You just don’t wake up and instantly feel better. It would be great if things worked that way. Life would for sure be easier. Mental illness is like any illness; you have to find the root of the issue, treat it, and then you begin to heal. I have been healing for the past three years. I have learned a lot in this process of healing. One major thing I learned is that when you begin to start healing, you never stop healing. With healing, you have to unlearn everything you thought you knew about yourself and the world. It took me a while, it took months for me to begin healing because I was at war with myself. I thought I knew it all. Being an intellectual, I  thought I  could simply think that I am happy. Like, if you are so smart, why can’t you make yourself happy? I have learned that for me, healing is not an intellectual practice, rather it is a spiritual journey. My healing began when I was at rock bottom. One day, early on living with my diagnosis, I was down bad. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I saw nothing. I saw that I am just a small ripple on this planet of water. I saw nothing. I was nothing. I had nothing. I was just skin and bones, walking around with no reason. Arriving at this conclusion was powerful for me. I then knew that I needed a reason to live. We talk a lot about purpose being a reason for living. But in this neoliberal world, we have been conditioned to think our reasoning for living is our job. I needed a different reason. I needed a purpose that is 24/7/365. My purpose does not go home at 4. I need to live in my purpose. How do you find your purpose? Well, you have to find who you are. No, not in the sense of a BuzzFeed personality quiz. But something more real. Something so real that it may scare you. I am talking about how you have to ask yourself not just who you are, but what you are. What is your essence?  What is Charles? To answer these questions, you have to search for your knowledge of self. Now your knowledge of self is different from everyone else. However, we all share the fact that we have something special in us. You may call it your conscience, God, Allah, Krishna, or the Universe. This special entity guides you through the world. When I had no knowledge of self, I couldn’t access this gift. I was distracted by superficial and materialistic things. I thought partying, money, and attention would bring me joy. Obviously, these things did not make me happy. When I began to search for that knowledge of self, the distractions began to go away. I begin to hear the gift. The little voice in my head became louder. I started to have conversations with this voice. And in those conversations, I came to realize what is important to me. What is important to me is not my job. Being an academic is my day job. It is not my title. PhD is just 3 letters behind my name. It is not how much money I have. It is not the things that I have. It is something intrinsic. What is important to me is laughter, smiles, silliness, hugs, celebration, and memories. Knowing what is important has given me my purpose. And my purpose is to love. It is to see God in everything and everyone. It is to see the humanity in everyone. It is to reflect the divine. Having this purpose has helped me heal so much, and it will continue to aid me in my journey of life. I want to let you all know what has helped me get here. My faith in a higher power has been instrumental. Therapy, meditation, prayer, and exercise have been transformative. But more than all, it has been my loved ones. I want you to know that you are loved. You are more than enough. God is the loudest when we are at our lowest. Listen to that voice and trust it. You are almost there, hang on. Your life is about to change. And that change begins now.