This sample quotes pages 154-159 from Get Free from the Chains of Pain. The "I Am" pain stems for struggles to discover and know who you are; what you can fulfill in this life. How can we actualize our potential. My endeavors focus on spiritual realizations. Often this entails realizing deep pain, until able heal and share transformative power. During this particular semester, my spiritual studies and practices focus on Jewish mysticism where I originally planned on exploring Israel during the summer. The pain from naively jumping into practicing Jewish Kabbalah severely encumbered. I was no longer myself and prayed for any way out, a way to refrain from my "I Am" responsibilities.

The "I-Am" Pain

... One problem I failed to realize. What would happen when I neglect the time demanded for my prayer meditation? What about my comfortable habits? When the semester ended, I would soon find out what heavy pain feels like again. Pain motivates and inspires, making me who I am. Pain can allow growth and progress. Experiences of pain and healing transformations provide needed compassion. Great artists connect with this inspiration through every real brush stroke. To heal the "I Am" pain means I have to be myself again, an individual full of intense positives and negatives, hoping to one day shower people with an abundance of the positive vibrations.

As summer break starts, I store my desk, books, clothes, and dishes at my friend's house to continue with my plans. Without diligent, long-suffering preparation, I lack funds for a plane ticket to Israel. Budgeting demands material sacrifice and creativity to pay for tuition and also travel. During the feel-good mood of the semester, I choose to use limited savings for a vacation. For one of the first times in my adult life I would take an easy path. Of course I still want to learn something, but opening up to a new culture and budget traveling in an unfamiliar foreign place meant too much work, especially if learning words of a new language. I'll take my savings and visit friends in various states, my mother in California, and my new friends in Mexico and Guatemala, along with my favorite ancient pyramids and some of minor sites missed last summer. Yes, this summer would be wonderful. I'll just enjoy myself.

On my first stop I visit my younger brother at his university. Being on the quarter system, he is still finishing final papers and preparing for exams. The limited time we spend together consists of buying milk, ice cream and things. He seems to know many attractive female students at the grocery store. Getting ready to graduate in a year, my younger brother really focuses on meeting the right woman to marry. Half his time appears to consist of friendly get-to-know dates. Excited to see all of these different women, I start thinking about meeting a potential wife. Maybe I should reestablish my priorities. With my brother busy for the next two days finishing his school year, he recommends the seven-screen discount theatre. This reality is very different for me. Normally I watch only educationally-based foreign films that play at my university.

One movie especially triggers "I Am" pain. A character proceeds through a mountain of pain and effort before reaching the light necessary to experience some true fulfillment. The dramatic, realistic story allows me to empathize, sharing pain with the character. Thematic movie pain allows me to understand that I spent the last few months deceiving myself about this issue of pain. Pain in life is real. As a human with certain spiritual and artistic capacities, I am responsible for experiencing a degree of pain. With tastes from depths of bitter pain, I can share the sweet heights of happiness.

Yes, thoughts, feelings, and actions can prepare for successive transformations to actualize the fullness of my potential. Learning this transformative power to heal requires ups and downs, something like our body healing illness. Cells can remember healing antibodies. The body experiences a particular flu virus, or the measles or mumps and develops immunity. Hopefully life brings knowledge and growth, rather than experiencing the same mistakes again and again. Why be caught in the same chain link of pain. Get free and realize precious jewels in the necklace.

As a human, I want to survive, learn and age. Certain suicides, depressions and psychosomatic illnesses consist of sinking into a gully too deep to get out of. Why be chained to thoughts and feelings that sever wings of freedom, the freedom to responsibly be who we are. By realizing our capacities and sharing transforming pain, we learn who we really are. The development and sharing of my particular talents requires some heavy-duty pain.

My writing changes from a daily habit back to my best friend. Writing unfolds the pain and allows inspiration to bring me through:

May 31, 1990 9:30 PM

Upon these lines I leave an imprint, like a spider transforms the web after the inspirational wind of a movie. I again awaken to the dreams in my life and to the responsibility of how I will live. For too many months I've repressed who I am, ready to stop and say, “Okay, take me as I am, for I will grow no more.  Sorry, I'll strangle the body because the air around me is too impure. I will not breathe the poison around me!” I now realize how frightened I've been. These emotions must be overcome. I must not be afraid to feel, to eventually heal. I will be alive and breathing when I write, able to transmit powerful rays of life like spears of experience reaching from my depths to another person's depths, ready to awaken hearts and minds to live life more fully. I realize how nothing else really exists except growth, so I'll grow and give thanks.

To discover who I am requires time for pain and confusion, a time to put aside self deceptions from the past months. I choose not to accept the feel-good drug of avoidance anymore. As a human, these experiences allow me better understand the necessity to love and appreciate every person for what they offer. Aware of pain is real. Sharing our capacity to heal is a primary responsibility in life. How many people repress or subvert pain through a drug, whether actual or figurative. My responsibilities consist of vividly connecting to pain around me, which intimately links to pain in my blood and genes. Pain is what we heal or attempt to heal day by day. Determined to experience who I am I will do what's necessary to continue my spiritual growth and progress.

As I continued visiting places around the United States, the pain begins to unfold until I realize what I need to do this summer. Next, I'll visit my uncle and cousins, before heading to New York City:

June 2, 9:18 PM

As if a teardrop of blood runs across the faces of my relatives, it lands in our collective memories. Tiny cousin, I feel like releasing the tears for you.

I can feel the pain in my relatives. How can I express enough of the love and joy I experience with them? A silent tremor shakes from depths of each bone as every vein struggles to circulate the blood of life. How will my uncle and cousins answer the call? How deep can we taste of our family heart? What about the family of humanity? Do we walk forward, backward, or do we just grow older, thrown into the trauma of private dial tones? Where, what, how can we do more? I hang up my eyes like a telephone, almost afraid to see and hear how we're breathing with society. Within this breath is despair and cravings for more. For what makes humans move, touch, and feel? When I'm with family, I feel like I'm in another world where I can speak with the heart. Where can I witness such sincerity, except within family bonds? The enduring love within families is priceless, for within this garden I am accepted and can always grow.  

Next, I head to Manhattan to visit a fellow traveler I met traveling in Mexico a year ago. I stay uptown by Columbia University. Some students already left, yet many graduate students are still around. The intellectual intensity in the air makes me seriously question my summer plans. Standing on the steps of the library, I distinctly know that I would not travel back to Central America. I have to go to Israel. Yet, due to my limited finances I do not allow myself to entertain this possibility.

Heading downtown through the parks I am unable to decide what's best for me. I go to the top of the Empire State Building for some clarity. I peer into sections of this city, attuned to painful situations in the lives of other people. Coming up here only enhances my confusion. Sure, money might shelter many of the affluent, yet is it right to be completely sheltered from the surrounding pain? How can anyone observe the pain and suffering and tell me that their life is pain free? By saturating my confusion with pain, I hope for some resolution and make the right choice for my future.

June 4, 4:13 PM

Finding no secret in New York, I'm even wondering why I'm here. Why am I visiting here? This is a mean and harsh city. Sure, if I can properly maneuver, the power of the city and people can and will inspire. In a very real way, I can only feel disgust! I'm disgusted with the self and with a tangled mountain of emotions that I can not organize or begin to scale. Who wants this shamble of a person? Who wants a freak, a weirdo? My heart stops me, wanting to speak of a time to enjoy, to tell me this is a transformative activity meant to teach me. I will learn from what's happening right now. The light of wisdom will appear as I endure this cycle.  

I try to keep myself busy, always focusing on education. One morning I visit the Tibetan Museum on Staten Island.  

June 6, 1:04 PM

Real! Nothing is real. The images of life are but illusions. The rounds of existence from the wheel of life are samsara. Round and round I go. In and out and in and out, nothing in the dream reflects what is real.

Allow me to locate myself within the poetry of emotion, words to repeat the surroundings of the Tibetan Museum: a house on a hill, as if in the middle of a disappearing Staten Island. Is this all an illusion or a dream to perfect and share? I feel at once abashed, then like the lotus blossom floating upon this murky pool. A large gold fish comes up for air or else a mosquito. Tibetan prayer flags wave in the gentle breeze. This is apparently extremely peaceful. If I wave these flags in my mind, will I awaken to my quest and to my questions, Scot? As if a sign, the maintenance man clears around the lotuses with a net that skims the surface of the murky water.

Later I arrive uptown at the university campus.

6:33 PM

The mind spins pointlessly without displaying truth and without a future to hold on to. The future appears empty, how seriously, so seriously. Seriously how, for each step towards a mode of feeling truth, towards creating circles of inspiration, I find perpetuated suicide notes instead. Should I force a mountainous decision without a stream of motivation? I sit with the students and tell myself to write, yet I lose the force of inspiration and almost all purpose, saying should I, should I, what? Should I work? Should I travel? Should I move ahead? Where am I being led? Will these strange contemplations change me? And if so, in which way?

9 PM

I write left-handed and heavy hearted, as if I revert back to years ago. I can remember writing so fast and not knowing which direction to go in. Slowly. Slowly, so I can build my castle again from scratch? No never, never, never, never! In observing my writing, I feel like I'm a youth again. I do not feel mature with answers even for the self, from the self. I feel more like I'm holding on to whatever I can scribble, as if I can make unresolved answers. Unsure about destiny, I'm excited about nothing. This is totally opposite to how I felt a month ago when I was looking forward to the future, etc. etc. TIME, HELLO! How do I answer the call for the future? Fear, fear! I'm afraid. I did not take the chance to go to Israel, and now I must live with myself. Just as I originally planned, Israel perfectly lines up with my religious studies. Now I'm left without a destiny to go forward. I ache. I long to go, to push forward! But wait, let me look at my example of being nineteen and traveling alone through China. Wow, that was difficult. And now I'm saying this in New York City. This is where I started my exploration, where I bought a one-way ticket and flew to Hong Kong at nineteen!

Despite the moments of insight, I continue my plans and go to Seattle to visit a friend from high school, who works up there this summer. The so-called capital of the Grunge movement has its many cloudy, dreary days. Pain from my friend doesn't relieve my situation. I know that I am beyond any type of vaction right now. Even when exploring the museum and other locations in Seattle, the pain of my uncertainty keeps me in confusion. I just don't know what I should be doing! Spending over two months of not really being myself seems to have limited my options.

Entering a bookstore and browsing the travel section, I pick up a budget traveler's ”bible” to Peru. This is it! I'll go to Peru and explore ancient Inca sites. Immediately reviewing the cost sections, I realize I have an unused credit card. If I really budget, I could explore this country. This is what I write in my journal.

June 11, 8:08 PM

I love life and the way that the credit system works! Receiving a credit card remains one of the best decisions of my life. I can tabulate $1000 to my name along with the $800 saved from the school year. What a great system! Great, great, great as every entrepreneur must know! For some people this can be a risk. For me, I'm investing in my knowledge. Once I grow from my experiences and possess the knowledge, no one can take this value from me! 

I spend the next few days in Seattle reading about places I could visit. I am so excited about camping in the hills and trekking to the mountaintop temples. After a few days I fly to Baltimore to visit my father and his wife.* (See the footnote below) A part of me wants to explore Peru, but another part of me knows where I need to go. Ideas about Peru provide me with temporary relief, yet pain accompanies thoughts of this decision. Something else needs to be accomplished this summer.

No matter what, I'm determined to understand what I need to do. Though I fill my day exploring museums and historic sites in Baltimore, I feel compelled to go back to Washington, DC. and the inspirational places I once visited when planning my trip to Asia. DC is where I experienced the pain and inspiration that directed me to backpack in Asia for six months. I'll seek this same inspiration and revisit where I planned that independent excursion. I even go to the restaurant in Georgetown where worked to earn the money for my first major excursion. Most importantly, I will return to the mall that stretches from the Capital to the Lincoln Memorial. This is where inspiration can flow. I need to think clearly. I used to spend countless hours at these museums and parks.

Back in DC searching my soul for guidance, I see an exhibit in the Air and Space Museum that triggers the inspiration I was waiting for. This exhibit presents information on ancient Egyptian astronomy. The deities portraying the cosmos stimulate profound memories. I remember the pyramids, ancient temples, mosques, churches, monasteries, and people that I had met two years prior. I traveled in Egypt two and a half months, of which I studied artifacts in Egyptian museum for five full days. It was during this time that I finally looked at my finances and realized I had enough money to cross the Egyptian border into Israel. I planned on going to Jerusalem for a week, yet never got to Israel then. In route to visit two desert monasteries along the Red Sea, a near fatal accident left me in a coma for thirteen days.

Thoughts of my last attempt to visit Israel provide me with necessary inspiration. It's finally time for me to go to Israel. In the similar way the tribes of Israel had to cross their desert to the Promised Land, I will cross over my desert of understanding. I'll climb Mt. Sinai to where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments. I'll explore sacred sites and learn of the living Jewish religion. Soon my studies could be placed in the context of Israel. I might not know exactly how, but I would get to Israel. I would even go back to the same bookstore where I bought my first budget guidebook for Asia. This is where I can get my travel book for Israel! I will walk around the same statue and sit by the foundation where I once set my goal to travel to Asia.

Sitting in the same place as I had years ago, I look through the travel section of a NYC newspaper and plan my budget. By purchasing an airline ticket with my credit card and sometimes staying in my tent, I could spend my summer in Israel. Though problems could arise, I will take the risk to learn and grow! I write:

How the world changes, for now I'm sure about my future! Though I have limited funds, I have a strong will and my camping supplies. I know my inner strength will increase to meet the challenges placed upon me . . . I might struggle to view a pure moon or deviate when sliding through the days, yet with freedom to choose I will find my way. I will awaken. At times, I feel naked without the strength of resources, a babe unable to understand the contents of Mother's milk. Oh, how I sometimes sink in shallow waters calling “Scot, please come home.” Though I often stumble, God always comes through. 

After going to California and organizing my backpack, I fly back to New York. Manhattan is totally different than it had been a week previously. I know who I am and what I can do for my personal growth and development. With focus on my goals I can absorb latent energy lingering in the streets. I will learn and grow! I will allow truth to inspire and guide my experiences! I will take the necessary pain within Israel and the Sinai. Back on top of the Empire State Building with a plane ticket to the Middle East in my pocket, I am empowered towards my chosen course. Though I feel overwhelming inspiration for this excursion to Israel, I know pain and frustrations will occur. Israel is a country full of pain. Rife with conflict, people in Israel clash with their histories. I will do all possible to open up and feel this tense environment, especially those distinct, contradictory spiritual demands within the primary Abrahamic religions. Now more myself again, I am prepared to experience pain, knowing this inner pain and its resolution can develop into spiritual growth.

This section shows how we sometimes refuse the pain crucial for our personal growth. Will we discover our potential? I originally make a clear choice to go to Israel, prepared to accept the pain required for my spiritual growth; however, because of fear and other elements I rejected the inspiration. Inner goals and personal progress often include the resolution of pain. By proceeding through requisite steps we can awaken realizations of the "I-am." Pain often circulates in our blood and family situations. Based on particular circumstances and personal capacities, we might consciously choose to accept or avoid the pain. Regardless, responsibilities are always involved. Unless on drugs or engaging in some other fabricated illusion, we'll almost always connect to the pain necessary for personal growth.

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