Embodying Soul: A Return to Wholeness
Section 2: Chapters 11 & 12
Dear reader: I was a competitive cross-country runner in my teens, and I have many fonds memories of those times. But it’s also a time I look back on and wonder — what was I really trying to prove by bringing my body to such points of pain? Did I really enjoy it? Or did it become a kind of addiction—an addiction to ambition, one that took me away from my Endless Curiosity for quite some time.
Enjoy!
Chapter 11: Defining Ambition
After we fill ourselves on knowledge, the three of us — my soul friend, my wolf, and I — stroll back to the precipice. The landscape has changed substantially in our absence. The park bench still remains, my open suitcase on top, so I place the piece of stained glass from the Museum of Universal Truth and Cosmic Knowledge inside. The River of Forgetting still rushes below, but the field of wheat has disappeared and in its place blades of grass have grown in a uniform bright green color, no higher than two inches, each blade standing immobile despite the gentle breeze. The grass carpet stretches down wide fairways and around small streams. Two parallel rows of colorful flags delineate a route through the grass.
“What we have here seems to be a hint of what one of your chosen paths will be,” Rasa says, laughing with delight, as if even she did not expect this transformation. “It looks to be quite an ambitious path indeed! Sëri, why not give it a try?”
I look down and note that I am standing behind a bright yellow strip painted on the grass, with the word start just beneath my feet. Somewhere in my consciousness I hear someone shout, “Ready, set, go!” With my feeling state alone, I run from the starting line until anticipation changes to exhilaration and desire, followed by a sense of power and the sounds of crowds cheering. But suddenly fatigue sets in, then desperation mixed with sadness and an undertone of anger. At the finish line, all that remains is relief and exhaustion.
Breathing heavily, I reflect on these emotional states. “Rasa, you called this an ‘ambitious’ path. But ambition should feel powerful, accomplished, and triumphant, should it not?”
“Well, that would depend on your definition of ambition. Perhaps you might locate some books that can provide definitions to ponder.”
I quickly conjure up three sources from the Earth Realm, where the word ambition originated. “Here we are,” I say victoriously. “First, the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary is “A strong desire to do or achieve something.” According to Merriam-Webster, it is “An ardent desire for rank, fame, or power.” And Dictionary.com — a digital dictionary — calls ambition “An earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment.”
I flick my wrist to make the books disappear, and catch Rasa grinning. “Okay, I’ll play this game,” she says, conjuring up a book of her own from the ether, entitled Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, by David Whyte. She opens the book and reads, “Ambition is a word that lacks any real ambition, ambition is frozen desire, the current of a vocational life immobilized and over-concretized to set, unforgiving goals.”
This definition of ambition more closely matches the feeling state of that race than the ones I found. “Is it possible,” I say, a sense of foreboding coming over me, “to skip over this path somehow and try slower, gentler, more inclusive paths instead?”
My friend winks and replies, “You are becoming more and more human every moment, focusing on the difficulties, missing the gifts! Of course, you can make any changes you wish; this is your life. But no one can outrun the lessons you must learn — whether or not you actually run, they will catch up to you.”
Taking a different view, I say, “I read a few books about running while we were in the museum. Other people truly enjoy running. They even speak about their pursuit of a runner’s high. Their energy seems to come from a more genuine place.”
She nods and replies, “You are speaking of the difference between ambition and passion. Two humans could be doing the same activity, but for one it is a passion while for the other it springs from ambition. The person working from passion will find that energy to be a bottomless resource, sourced from the soul. The person working from ambition, however, will find they must continually feed their fire with self-discipline, sourced from the ego.”
I cringe, imagining the many harsh forms an ego’s discipline is likely to take. We sit together for a moment as I attempt to make peace with this information. Then, she brightens and says, “I have an idea. Let us review a couple scenes from your next life before you conclude that this runner’s path has no value for you.”
“That would be a great help,” I reply. “But how do we — ”
Before I can ask how it is possible to watch a scene that has yet to happen, Rasa waves her hand and suddenly there appears before us a leathery bus seat. I laugh at how out of place it seems in the beauty of the Soul Realm. “Where did you get that old thing from?” I ask.
“Trust me, it’s more comfortable than it looks,” she replies, grinning as we cozy up together on the worn seat. An engine roars to life, and the seat begins to bounce and sway gently. She waves her hand again and a screen appears before us, making it clear there is much more for me to learn about the magical possibilities of the Soul Realm.
A scene unfolds of a large yellow bus rolling down an interstate highway through sparsely populated towns. Fields of wheat, corn, and beans fly past the windows in a blur. Only an occasional green exit sign points the way to a fast food restaurant, gas station, or rest stop.
Inside the bus is a group of about twenty-five children dressed in various layers of green, as well as three coaches and a scruffy driver wearing a baseball cap, who appears grateful that all the noisy teenagers are sitting in the back. They are playing music on what I hear the children call ghetto blasters. I find the girl who is me, a petite brunet with blue eyes and a ponytail, about sixteen in Earth Realm years.
She is hunkered down in a leather bus seat, like I am now. Next to her, also like now, is a red-haired companion. They share snacks and stories and once in a while joke with the people behind or in front of them.
Once the screen fades to black, I remark, “It’s comforting to know that I will have an abundance of friendships on my ambitious path. Thank you for showing me this.”
“Oh, there is more! And even these are simply two scenes of hundreds available to choose from,” replies Rasa.
A new scene flickers onto the screen. There, legs outstretched in the middle of a game field, are four girls: girls dressed in brown, blue, black and white, and a girl that is me, wearing green. The four will be competitors in a few moments, as indicated by the papers they hold in their hands, but now they laugh and commiserate about sibling squabbles, prom dress shopping, and homework. I notice something expand in my soul body as I immerse myself in this moment with her and feel compassion unexpectedly on a path defined by its fierce ambition. As the scene fades, the feeling of compassion remains.
“The power of the human experience never fails to surprise me,” I say, placing a hand over my heart.
Rasa looks at me, her eyes, like mine, full of tears, and replies, “You will forget this once your journey is underway. But this knowledge will be available to you again when you look past the curtains of right and wrong, beyond ‘should I have’ or ‘shouldn’t I have.’ Remember this: When humans seek differences and competition, they will certainly find them. But when they seek unity and cooperation these are available, too.”
Still feeling the warmth of friendship and compassion I say, “It does seem that this ambitious path offers some truly soulful gifts.
“Indeed,” she agrees, as we both stand up and the bus seat vaporizes.
Chapter 12: Following the Course of Ambition
By early high school, I had settled into a vanilla kind of life. I was nice but nothing special. I was a good quiet obedient girl, but a girl who would likely not be remembered for anything. I got awards for being a book return champ though not for much else. But I was safe, not a threat to anyone; nor did I incite anyone to threaten me. Ironically, this unflavored existence stirred up my emotions rather than settling them.
“She’s boring, Fear,” Guilt grumbled. “If she’s going to take up space on this earth, she ought to at least try to make something of herself while she’s here. Anyone can get good grades. And reading books will take her nowhere. She needs to do something! Fear, our girl needs some ambition!”
Fear replied, “But she truly is an outsider, Guilt. Being seen is risky. People could feel uneasy around her, or worse, judge her!”
“Being unseen is risky, too, Fear. Think about it,” Guilt drawled.
Fear thought about this, envisioning what it would be like for me if my life stayed vanilla. His heart began to pound. “You may be right,” he finally said. “What if she can’t stand out in the real world, where there is not enough love, security, or opportunity to go around? What if she remains an outsider? But ambition is also dangerous!”
“Are you kidding?” Guilt replied, sneering. “It’s being an outsider that’s dangerous! Listen to me. An ambitious path, one approved by Authority — running! — could cover up the fact that she’s an outsider.”
“Well, she does have her mother’s endurance, as well as her father’s drive and commitment, to draw from,” Fear acknowledged as he drummed his fingers on his chin, and Guilt knew he’d succeeded.
As children, we trust and love unconditionally. But by the time our parents, society, and our own Fear and Guilt implant their voices within us we believe the world is a barter system that functions by the principle of scarcity. Ambition, we are told, is the key to surviving in a finite and conditional world. At the same time I, like most girls, received this additional warning about ambition: Be sure to stand out but fit in; be inspiring without making others uncomfortable; push boundaries but remain well within the rules of society. The inference is that once girls get too ambitious we are a potential danger to those around us, too assertive, disruptive, annoying, a crazy bitch in the making.
To choose an ambitious path was a risk, but one Fear deemed less risky than the possibility of being left behind. Fear handed me a plastic water bottle and said, “Drink up, my girl.”
“What is this?” I asked, looking at the bottle.
“That’s ambition,” he replied.
I drank the liquid down, and, along with a runner’s jersey I borrowed from the school locker room, I stumbled into the blinding, blaring, dog-eat-dog arena of competition. In this arena, even second place was considered a loss and no matter what, no one dared to quit. Praise was heaped on those who pushed through pain, overcame obstacles, and disregarded weakness. In no time, I was jostling elbows with the best runners in North Dakota. No longer a bystander or outsider, I was doing something worthy of attention and approval, which arrived in the form of ribbons, medals, my name in the paper, and my name read over the Monday morning intercom.
Like many runners, I was soon addicted to running, not to the activity per se but to the hamster wheel of ambition, praise, validation, belonging, needing, competing, and around again, an addiction complete with cravings, seasonal withdrawals, and a one-pointed attention on nothing but the next fix.
I was on fire — soon in more ways than one. A red rash spread all over my body, from my legs to my torso to my back to my arms. My doctor told me that embarrassment would not kill me and neither would the hives, that since I was neither feverish nor having trouble breathing there was no reason to quit running. But the hives were ugly and embarrassing, so I tried to hide them beneath my warm-up clothes until the very last second.
For each race, we’d take off at the sound of the gun in a tornado of arms and legs amid shouts and cheers. I’d slide into my signature springy stride, my ponytail bouncing rhythmically against my back. I’d go through my mental checklist: drop my shoulders, let my arms swing loosely, clench and shake out my hands. I couldn’t quit — not once I’d landed, in my green jersey, in third place, just in front of black and white, and behind brown, who was right behind blue.
“No pain, no gain. Quitters never win, and winners never quit!” Fear would say, egging me on by repeating quotes from the cat posters hung up in my bedroom.
I couldn’t quit, not even in races where I “hit the wall” and experienced sheer agony. Even then, when my brain disassociated from my body, when I felt trapped in quicksand like a slow-motion horror film, when my mom’s face on the sidelines told me that I looked exactly how I felt, I’d force myself to stumble over the finish line and collapse into my coach’s arms. I wouldn’t think about quitting. I’d just think, “Wait’ll Dad hears how I did today; he will be so proud of the reputation I’m building for myself.”
I began describing myself as the determined driven runner others told me I was. Never mind shin splints, pulled muscles, side aches, blisters, or hives. Never mind the truth that I acknowledged only in the quiet, lonely stretches of the races — that I didn’t enjoy running nearly as much as I let on.
But by this time I no longer remembered that ambition was something I initially nurtured to combat my feelings of unworthiness. Now I told myself I was a naturally competitive person. When someone described me as ambitious, it filled me with pride and made me wonder if I could achieve even more. So I pushed on and on.
Soon, though, my running life came with new, unexpected problems. One of my teammates didn’t like me, because she’d been running longer and I had beat her on my first race. Another schoolmate didn’t like me because she was friends with that teammate, and she told me I was a show-off.
Guilt clucked his tongue and said, “Keri, you are not supposed to be showing off. Humility is a virtue.”
Fear said, “Before, you may not have been seen, but you were not disliked, either. Now that you’ve put yourself out there you’ve created enemies! Perhaps you should go back to being invisible.”
“Fear, it is too late for that. I have a reputation to uphold,” I answered.
Today, having long ago set aside my running shoes, I have no regrets about my time as a runner. Through running, I learned about teamwork, training, and the intimate connection between the mind and body; I made many friends, and found and challenged my limits. But it’s equally important for me to acknowledge that through running I began to believe that my body had no value other than the doors it opened for me, that my body was a currency to trade in my pursuit of whatever abstract thing — acceptance, accolades, love — I wanted most at the time. I projected onto my body the insignificance I feared for myself. As my ambition inflamed the deeper tissues of my body and mind, I became less concerned with uncovering my desires and dreams and more motivated by paths that rewarded me with tokens of self-esteem. I became less excited about a moment for what it was and more focused on measuring the moment’s potential to raise myself up in society. Instead of a free-swinging, powerfully wild child who followed her heart and curiosity, I became someone who cared more about what others thought of me — just as likely to hold back love for others as to give it, as likely to judge them as to befriend them. In general, our society views ambition in a positive light and as a resume-worthy characteristic. But its common definitions state its intended goals of success and increased status, rather than revealing what it might cost to attain these things. To me, determining the value of ambition in our lives is simple: if our ambition, and the actions that stem from it, inflame and separate us from others and our truest self, then it is a poison not a nutrient.
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