Going Homeless to Find Home

"This is a therapy issue" were the first words out of my fathers mouth. "If you need help in paying for it, I am happy to help."  It was meant to be supportive, I think. I had told him I had the overwhelming urge to leave my job, my man, and my home to live as a homeless person. It wasn't something that just happened over night. It had been gnawing at me for months. Six months, eight months, maybe even a year I tried to think of ways to do it with out loosing everything I had built and enjoyed. Maybe he was right, maybe I was crazy, but the thought didn't leave my soul. He even talked to family friends about it, and had them call me to convince me not to do it. Nothing worked. I'm not even sure that I wanted to do it, to be honest. I just knew it was something I had to do, and I didn't even really know why. So I left my job, left my man, and found a friend to rent my house for four months. I bought a HD camera and started on my way with a oversized back pack. The first couple months were completely depressing. I felt both lost and confused. Who am I? What am I doing ? I spent much of my time in homeless shelters, sleeping in camps, sometimes a couch of someone I knew, and most often monasteries. I cried a lot. I thought why would I leave Hollywood  at 26 when I was working in a company that was deemed the future of the industry, living in a castle in the Hollywood Hills, and had a boyfriend that would have supported almost anything I did. And yet,  I wanted something more. I kept joking before I was going to close friends that I think it was supposed to be a honeymoon with god, but I didn't really know what that meant, and when I was starting the journey I didn't feel particularly in love, or happy. I was depressed, sad, and confused. I didn't know what was happening at the time, but I can see now quite clearly that I was letting go of a false self. A self that is based on situational identity. This is my family, this is where I grew up, this is my education, this is my job, my friends, my home, my money. Blah blah blah. But, I gave it up, so who am I now? Often we can not find our true self until we have completely lifted from our attachments to the false selves. Then the pain started to lift, a fog of ego fears that were running circles around my soul didn't have much of a place anymore. It was somewhere in the middle when I ended up in northern california in Mount Shasta. I remember sleeping hidden in a bush in my super sleeping bag, feeling a bit cold, and waking up with snow on me. The mountain peaked in the early morning glory, as had I. My new self was emerging. It was a clearer self, a self that knew no boundaries, but had a foundation. A self that loved parents but wasn't dictated by them. Appreciated money, but wasn't defined by it. Enjoyed life, but wasn't attached to the exact way it should progress. This self was more solidified almost a month later while staying in a Buddhist monastery in Mount Shasta. We meditated three times a day, much of my time I was just starring at a wall. But, one day something happened that confirmed all I needed. You could call it a glimpse of enlightenment, a taste of nirvana, a kensho, or just a  groovy state of mind. But, all I really remember is feeling completely at one with the moment in a state of a bliss and peace so deep I have never experienced it before. And, I knew in that moment beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was home. That was what I had been looking for the entire time, and yet I didn't know it until that moment. I had indeed needed to go homeless to find my true and everlasting home.