12 Find yourself and become who you are!

Peter came down to stay for a few nights this weekend. I mentioned him last week-the friend who has just made a break from Brighton to make his way in London so as to get some space between himself and a difficult relationship but also as a way of demonstrating to himself that he can be an independent adult and stand on his own two feet. When he moved away I sent him a copy of 'The Alchemist' by Paul Coelo. It had been recommended to me by a friend and I'd just finished reading it. It's one of those books that 'changes peoples' lives'. An allegorical tale of a Spanish shepherd who dreams of finding treasure by the Egyptian Pyramids. He gives up everything in search of his dream and the story follows him in his adventures and shows how, through his meetings with an Alchemist, he learns the secret of true happiness. Peter had just finished reading the book and had been energized by it. For a long time after his break-up he had lost interest in the idea of relationships. Or rather, I think, he had lost his hope in the potential of relationships. I think he had made the fundamental mistake that most of us make when we first fall in love- believing that if we love someone unconditionally enough then all will be well and we will be loved in a way which is reciprocal and which dovetails perfectly with our own emotional needs. In the storybook this happens and everyone lives happily ever after. When real life kicks in, and love isn't returned, it's a devastating blow because you have given your heart away but it comes back to you-'return to sender', battered, bruised and neglected. That's where Peter was when he went to London- or rather round about 12 months into healing those wounds. But something happened this week. Maybe it was the combination of making a success of his move to London and just enjoying the freedom of having lots of sex with lots of guys and also reading this book which suddenly enabled him to feel a passion towards another guy. A passion he thought  he had lost forever. He told me that there was something in the book that had given him permission to open up and be himself that previously, would have made him feel vulnerable but now he felt he had a greater internal strength because of his newfound confidence. He said that he felt the key to all this was getting an understanding of himself and that this had only come about after a long hard struggle facing up to who he was and getting to see the links between the upsets in his past and the walls he had built around himself, closing him off from a meaningful emotional life. He felt that all his life he had been aiming at becoming an emotionally and financially independent young man. And now , for the first time in his life he was feeling that he had arrived, "It seems as though the way to happiness is finding yourself and becoming who you are" he said.

I couldn't agree more!