Discovering yourself with ‘Something more: Excavating your authentic self’

I taught myself early in life to dream big, to be different from the women in my family and to live a life of distinction. It was not surprising, therefore, that I became fiercely determined to go around the world, not as a useless socialite, but as an archeologist.

Ah, the romance of it! I often imagined myself digging in the ruins of Pompeii, examining artifacts in the excavated city of Troy, or engaging in a scholarly discussion with fellow archeologists aboard a freshly dug Viking ship. Nothing thrilled me more than thought of stumbling upon artifacts that carried with them myths and history.

My sleeping hours were often visited by images of civilizations buried and long-forgotten. Painstakingly, I began to fashion my life around this grand destination. I wanted to be among the world’s celebrated archeologists.

However, the allure of this dream vanished when I fell in love. No, not with a Casanova who dashed my dreams. Not even with some male who hinted I should be conventional to complement his conventional existence. It wasn’t like that at all, because I fell in love with myself.

Blame it on Sarah Ban Breathnach. Blame it on her book, Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self. As a self-professed archeologist who believes any document could be a clue to gold and glory, I got hooked. I picked the book, deciphered it and went into an internal dialogue.

Something more? Definitely, I wanted more.

Where’s the dig? It says my authentic self. Good Lord, is there such a thing?

I went through the blurb but when I returned the book to the shelf, I found myself muttering despite the price, "I must have you. I must have you. Wait till I get you." So I became the owner of this jewel of a book and my life turned around 180 degrees.

Franz Kafka said, "A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." Conversely, it must also be a spade to turn and loosen a soul’s hardened soil or perhaps a brush to remove dust and cobwebs that dull inner reality. Something More served all these as I devoured its pages.

Reading the book strangely felt like I was coming home to someone vaguely familiar, to someone both disturbing and comforting. I felt the author was leading me to something. A psychological gimmick? Well, I could play along. Little by little, it became apparent to me that Sarah was leading me to the path of my self. I impulsively tried to escape, to run away. In one desperate attempt to hide, I accidentally dropped the book under my bed. Good riddance! But I couldn’t just throw a book away. Contritely, I reached for it under my bed, locked my door, flopped on the pillows and read.

The book asked so many things from me, like preparing envelopes for my personal "digs," getting myself a big drawing book, plenty of old magazines, glue, a pair of scissors, a journal, old photos, and tons of patience. Despite my silent protests, I did what I was told. I sorted, cut and pasted pictures on the drawing pad. I sketched, did watercolor pictures, and wrote witty phrases. I rummaged for old photos, and laughed at how I looked in them. My bedroom became a chaos, but I was amazed with what I finished. A surprisingly revealing collage of who I was, who I am, and who I am to be.

Following Sarah’s lead was at first difficult, but her candor and gentle prodding encouraged me to act like a professional archeologist in search of something more. With her precise instructions, I acted out my archeologist tendencies. I prepared my site, marked it, and prayed for serendipity and luck to show up. Then I began the trek back to myself, petrified but determined, anxious but hopeful. What I unearthed astounded me. I found a woman who was host to dramatic conflicts of good and bad, truth and lies, beauty and ugliness, hope and despair, victory and defeat. The woman I found resembled me, but she was unknown to me. I decided to get to know her better, I diligently performed the activities in the book. I examined artifacts from childhood, patched the broken dreams of my youth, looked real hard at who and what I am now, and wrote site reports. It was a very different experience, tedious, nevertheless, liberating. The time I spent knowing myself led me to several epiphanies, and the greatest of all these is the discovery that the authentic me is good, beautiful, and deserving of respect, attention and love.

The journey was long and fraught with grief, denial and anger. I grieved for my broken dreams, for wounds which I thought were healed and gone. I got angry at those who caused me pain, those who rejected me and violated me. I went through phases of denial, refusing to acknowledge the imminent death of beliefs I desperately clung to, and refusing to let go of useless promises. My amazing grace came through stories of the courageous women in the book. With them, I faced and acknowledged all ghosts of the past with admission, contrition, forgiveness, grace and gratitude. Like them, I emerged stronger, wiser, expectant, and more confident in my womanhood. I will always love Sarah Ban Breathnach and her book for this.

From dreaming of journeying outwards, I turned my effort into journeying inside. From wishing to make earth-startling discoveries, I concentrated on unearthing treasures from within and found something more. Really, there is something more, and the good news is, I do not have to dig at my neighbor’s backyard or commission expensive expedition to experience it.

I still muse about my dream of becoming a real archeologist. However, I still have so much to learn, unlearn, and so much to mend and celebrate about myself. Sarah Ban Breathnach is right; my authentic self is "one of the last unlooted sources of the miraculous and the spectacular." In this very intimate journey I found that I am as vast as the desert of Sahara, as lovely as Babylon’s Hanging Garden, as mysterious as Atlantis, as intriguing as the lines of Nazca, and as rich as the city of El Dorado. Only a blockhead will not fall for her.

And finally, I found gold.