Women's Empowerment Stories ...

My Reinvention
~ Susan Heller Fisher

It was July, 1996 and my family and friends were cruising around Alaska. My husband and I were in the throes of marital discord but the trip was already booked and paid for. Standing alone on the porch of our stateroom, I contemplated jumping into the frigid, sparkling water and swimming to shore, away from a life that was causing me so much heartache. I realized, as I contemplated jumping overboard, that what I truly needed was to find a way to heal myself without having to escape from my life as it was. I just wanted the pain I was reeling from to go away. That was the pivotal moment that propelled me forward to create a new, richer, more meaningful and sane life.

I was forty-three years old, feeling miserably unappreciated and stifled in my job as an early intervention teacher. My marriage was failing and I was breathless from loneliness. The faces of my two teenage daughters clearly reflected back to me my own pain and suffering.

Step one of my reinvention was to find a therapist which turned out to be the easy part of my transformation. Then came the hard part which was doing the work I had to do to change. Every time I needed to be brave and try a new way of living and communicating, my life experience taught me to believe that a new and more realized self would be on the other side of the portal I was walking through.

The most profound learning was that I could be my own best friend if I would allow myself to be once and for all. My wise therapist helped me to see that my life was like a mirror shattered into a million glistening pieces. I cherish the effort it has taken for me to pick up each and every shimmering piece, creating a stunning mosaic of the myriad shattered pieces of my life, integrating them and becoming whole. I was the phoenix rising from the ashes of my former life and it was stunning!

Where to start my reinvention? A seven month separation from my husband was a soothing balm for my psychic and emotional wounds because I needed to separate him from all for the other pain I was feeling. The truth is that my husband and I had lived together quite contentedly for about fifteen years and then all of the conflicts and tribulations we had endured individually such as the death of our parents and as a couple, business setbacks, lifestyle discontentment, finally brought us to our knees. We no longer recognized ourselves; we had become strangers to each other.

Oh, to have my own bedroom, which I had never experienced before because I shared a bedroom with my sister, college and graduate school roommates and then and finally my husband. Part of my reinvention was changing the space I lived in, putting up drapes, adding plants, pillows and baskets. The changes were small but profound for me because I joyfully and artfully created a safe space for me and my daughters, a place holder for us to heal within as women on our own. Our home had been a war zone fraught with tension and sorrow for so long and now I was free to make more honest choices for my life and create a sacred space for my daughters to learn to make healthy choices for themselves.

I began the real and, at times, painstaking task of finding the authentic “me” and letting go of all of the masks that I had been shabbily wearing for so many years. I was so tired of being someone’s wife and someone‘s daughter, sister, cousin, friend…my role as a mother never compromised my sense of well-being because my children have always been measurably honest, so I have always felt like the best of myself when I am with them. During the time of our separation, I worked on myself in therapy to understand that I was already whole and all of the roles I played that made me feel so splintered were the many parts of me that I had to ‘bring home” and integrate into the “one of me”.

The next phase of my reinvention was to secure a new teaching position that was a complete change from what I had been doing for seventeen years. I felt anonymous and invigorated in my new position as a high school special educator. It was a struggle to move sadness out of my way to find the will and courage to let go of a life of stifling certainty and to embrace a newly emerging life with boundless possibilities.

The most compelling part of my transformation involved facing and interacting with my daughters when they were so aggrieved by our separation. I felt so responsible for their pain. Compassion for the two of them and for the first time, for me and my husband, brought a deeper understanding of how much we had all suffered. Time alone helped me calm down and find a powerful voice deep within. I told my older daughter that I understood how she was feeling and she looked at me with her soulful eyes and said, “What do you understand? Your parents were never divorced.” What I did not tell her was that my parents, her Papa and Gram, went through exactly what her parents were going through but they did not have the courage to give each other some breathing space.

Retreating into silence, a deep and enveloping compassion for my grieving daughter was fully expressed within me as I began to understand how she was feeling. I mustered the strength to encourage and support my sixteen year old daughter on her intended path to become an occupational therapist, an intention she set for herself when she was nine years old. Although I knew not having her father in her life the way she was used to hurt her so deeply, I also knew that my love and an ever stronger and healthier mother to help her persevere where her dreams were concerned would enable her to triumph over her own pain and fears.

Therapy took me out of crisis and yoga helped me do the inner work to integrate the scattered parts of me into a whole and healed self. It was sublime to finally know that there was only one of me and no “others”. My work as a teacher and my learning of yoga crystallized my intention to merge the two so I went to White Lotus Foundation and I have nurtured one of the loves of my life which is teaching yoga to women who are on the path to healing as well as hyperactive and autistic children. The give and take is that they keep me young and make me laugh and I share my calm and peaceful space with them.

What is the most profound aspect of my reinvention? My awakening to the truth which was that I was doing too much, working too hard, expecting too much, relaxing too little and not sleeping enough. I learned, through practice, to make time for myself every day, to do yoga, meditate, read and sit in my chair while I lovingly and refreshingly do nothing. I have learned how to be still. I am still struggling with my ability to be completely honest because I do not like confrontation but the more honest I am, the more aware I am when I am not being honest about what I want to do, where I want to be and who I want to be with.

My husband and I reconciled and we learned how to tell each other what we needed because we learned that we were not mind readers. I secured a tenured teaching position in middle school and I have become actively involved in introducing programs about tolerance, peer mediation, yoga and upstanding. I have known for a long time that my work with teaching children compassion and acceptance is my destiny. I am blessed to work for administrators who provide me with a blank canvas to create and express my convictions, as well as offering me the opportunity to put my intentions into action.

So, where am I now at fifty-five years of age?

I am physically healthy and I live a yogic life with my husband. I have a small and thriving yoga practice with loving and devoted students. I say yes to what I want to do and a resounding no to what I do not want to do. I have shed many acquaintances, deeply appreciate the few and beloved friends that are in my life and nurture my relationships with my husband, daughters, family and friends.

I feel like the icing in an Oreo cookie, sandwiched between my daughters and my husband on one side, with the other half of the cookie representing all the other important people and parts of my life. I do not take people’s words personally as much as I used to and am learning that detachment means freedom from obligations, dishonesty and a lack of self-acceptance. I have learned to eat more healthfully, am blessed to have a family I adore, a job that always interests me and a sane and nourishing family and friend life.

I am no longer in pain, bliss comes ever closer and more vividly into view as I remain on my path experiencing new, more subtle and, at times, challenging mental and emotional tests that take me through the portals I need to pass through as I evolve. There is always more for me to learn and my setbacks are not so disappointing and overpowering. Whereas at forty, I was so despairing of my marriage, my job, my social alliances and my interior life; at fifty-five, I have a nourishing interior life as well as a phenomenal and fulfilling marriage going on its thirty-third year.

Nothing is perfect and there is so much more for me to learn as I am ever-changing. My evolution is gradual and reflects my lifelong commitment to myself, my family, my ideals and my community. My reinvention has been slow and steady and is the part of me that I am most proud of because I lifted the clouds that were covering me and I found the ever-present sunshine within and all around me. I joyfully await all that is meant to be for me and I continually set my intention to nurture my expanding and more constant sense of equanimity, compassion and joy.

~ Susan Heller Fisher

Touched by Susan’s story? You can email her at lotusowl@aol.com