Barbara De Angelis - How Did I Get Here?: Navigating the Unexpected Turns in Love and Life

I dont know a soul whos not been battered
Dont have a friend who feels at ease
Dont know a dream thats not been shattered
Or driven to its knees.

Paul Simon, American Tune

A ll of us find ourselves, at one time or another in our lives, facing the unexpected. We arrive at places we never planned to be, confronting obstacles we did not expect to encounter, feeling emotions we did not expect to feel. We dont recognize the destination at which we find ourselves as one we chose to travel to, yet, inexplicably, there we are. Somehow our plan for how we intended things to turn out seems to have been replaced by a set of circumstances we could never have imagined, let alone wished for:

• A relationship we thought would last forever ends, and we are suddenly and painfully alone.
• A job we counted on vanishes, and we feel lost, with no purpose or direction.
• Our health or that of a loved one, which has always been good, becomes threatened by illness or disease.
• Events beyond our control destroy our financial well-being.

Or perhaps a moment comes when we see our life as it really is instead of seeing it as we want it to be. To our great dismay, we realize that it is time for a change:

• Our relationship has become passionless, and sex is something we remember doing months or even years ago.
• Our job has turned into something we are utterly bored with or, worse, that we dread.
• We have the house, the family and the business for which we worked so hard, but somehow we feel a sense of deep dissatisfaction and disconnection.

What is happening? We are standing face to face with what amounts to a gapthe gap between where we thought wed be and where we actually are, between our expectations of what we hoped would happen and what has actually happened, between the life we planned and the life we inhabit.

What makes these moments so difficult and disturbing is not simply that we are facing problems or emotionally rough times. Each of us has braved, battled and survived many challenges in our lives. Whats different about these particular experiences is that along with the pain there is a sense of bewilderment, a sort of shock, a disconnect between what we thought we knew to be true and what is actually occurring. We feel as if we are waking up as a stranger in our own lives. We dont recognize the landscape, the emotions, the circumstances as anything vaguely resembling those things we had expected. And so we find ourselves asking: How did I get here? No immediate answer comes to us. It is the presence of this question and the absence of answers that plunges us headfirst into a spiritual and emotional crisis.

Last month my husband told me he wants a divorce. After fifteen years of marriage, its over. I cant believe I am losing him, that our family is being torn apart. The house, our friends and the life we builtits all going to vanish. I am so furious at him for destroying my dream. What am I supposed to do now? How can this be happening to me?How did I get here?

Ive been dreading going to work for a while now, and I finally admitted the truth to myself: Im miserable because I hate what I do for a living. I dont understand how this can be happeningI spent years in medical school studying to be a doctor, and I have a really successful practice. This is what I planned to do since I was a teenager, and Im good at it. But I just dont want to do it anymore. Im really frightenedI cant start over at fifty-six with two kids in college.How did I get here?

I just bought my first house, but its thrown me into a deep depressionIm forty-two years old and still single, and here I am living alone in this beautiful home. This is not the way things were supposed to turn out for me. I was supposed to be with the man of my dreams and have had children by now.How did I get here?

From the outside, my marriage looks perfect. I have a wonderful, successful husband and two terrific kids. But I feel like I have this awful secretmy husband and I havent had sex in two years. Somewhere along the way, we lost our passion. Now were living like two polite but celibate roommates. Im too young to have no sex life.How did I get here?

P erhaps as you read this now, the same question resonates with something inside you. Perhaps it is a question that has not yet been formed into words in your consciousness. Perhaps it is more of a feeling, an unnamed anxiety, an undefined restlessness, a confusing sense of discomfort with your life, your work or your relationship. Something doesnt feel quite right, but you dont know what it is.

Or perhaps there is no mystery about what is bothering you. Perhaps like the people quoted here, you, too, are facing an unexpected turn on your life journey. You remember starting out with a clear idea of where you wanted to go, but now you look around at where youve ended up, and its nothing like what youd expected. This is not the way you thought things would turn out. This is not the way you thought youd feel about your husband or wife, your marriage, your job, your life. Whispered to you from the depths of your being, you hear the question:

How did I get here?

This book is about that question, and it is a guide to help you discover the answer.

It is a book about the power this question has to profoundly transform your life and your relationships.

It is a book about recognizing and understanding these significant transitions, turning points and crossroads on your path, so that you can move through them with less fear, confusion and guilt, and more grace, dignity and vision.

It is a book about the suffering you unknowingly create for yourself and the price you pay in work or relationships when that question calls to you from within and you ignore it. It is about how to find the courage to ask yourself that question and to pay attention to the answers you receive.

It is a book about how to avoid getting stuck in places and phases that are meant to be temporary and how to use those places as a springboard for regeneration and rebirth.

It is a book about how asking and answering this question will release you from the fear, confusion and grief that so often keep us trapped in the past or stagnating in the present and will free you to finally move forward into a life of more purpose, joy, true contentment and renewed passion.

What do you do when you realize that your old map has taken you in a direction you no longer wish to travel? What do you do if you come to a fork in the road and dont know which way to go? How do you map out the next part of your journey? How do you redesign the blueprint of your life? How do you begin again?

How Did I Get Here? is about finding your way to renewed hope and happiness from wherever you are. It is about opening these doorways into personal transformation that often come disguised as dead ends. It offers you ways to take charge of your circumstances by first assessing where you are, how your map got you here, and dealing with all the issues that come with finding yourself at unexpected places, whether in your outer world or your inner world. It acts as a navigational handbook, guiding you through the thick jungle of thoughts and emotions that we must often pass through in order to emerge on the other side of a powerful rebirth. It will help you to understand the map youve been using, and invites you to craft a new one by moving beyond the question