I don't often accommodate the urge to tell stories or rehash the past, as the past, in large part, no longer exists. However, my deepest intention has become geared over the years toward preserving the learnings gifted to me—most of them having been delivered during what, at the time, felt like the most challenging days of my life. It is one such learning that I wish to share with you in this greatly condensed story.
Those of you who have already read about how life prepared me for the work I now do will already be aware of the time spent in my youth locked down in a so-called "recovery community." By my own analysis during those days, I viewed myself as having taken every possible wrong turn and having arrived in a place and condition that best fit my mother's description of "hell." My perception was that I had utterly failed, and I faced the reality of that failure every day when personal time was allowed out on the lawns of the facility where I was confined. Sitting alone, there was time to think of every little thing I could no longer access, every person I could not touch, and every pleasure now out of reach. My mantra became, "What a failure you are, Dwayne," and so, such was life from that perspective.
Day after day, I sat on that lawn, under the giant oaks, feeling sorry for myself, thinking only of what was missing, what had been lost, and the ever-present sense of aloneness. It took weeks, but eventually, I noticed a young female who also occupied the same space on the lawn each day. She spent her time there singing the same little tune and hopping about as if her life were perfect and bright. I didn't know her name, so I quietly called her Robin as I observed her behavior.
There we were, in the same place, with the same view. I couldn't leave at will; evidently, Robin was being held there as well because she never left. She remained there, just as I did, but always with a song in her heart. Over time, I began to recognize a slow but steady change in my perceptions. The grass began to appear more lush and green. I hadn't noticed before. The rays of sunlight seemed to dance through the leaves of the giant oak trees, and the breeze would often join in. The view was not changing ... I was! Something inside me was shifting ... my thoughts! Robin was becoming my friend and teacher in small ways that were affecting my vision.
Then came the day when I understood why Robin never left this locked-down facility that I had viewed solely as a place of confinement. As she had every morning before, Robin greeted me and the morning light with a cheerful song. Hopping across the lawn, the young girl had spotted a juicy worm; with great enthusiasm, she took it and fluttered to a low-hung nest in the giant oak tree where three open mouths waited, eager for breakfast. At that moment, I was gifted one of the most significant lessons of my life: Robin had found contentment in her environment, despite being held there, unable to fly away, and she did so because she had embraced a vision—her purpose. Robin was becoming a mother, and that sense of purpose and vision of possibility had become her song.
In that moment, tears streaming down my face, my life's trajectory shifted! That giant oak tree marks the spot, and my memory marks the time when I began to see that something new, something fresh, and something worth living for was pressing its way into form through me—something was trying to be born. Thus, transformation and an opening to what sought to express itself became my purpose! Had it not been for a direct experience with toxic substances, a period of confinement, that lawn, those trees, and a sweet little mother robin, a different outcome may have developed. But the source of all that is, or ever will be, had aligned every event in perfect order; the result was the work that is now my life. I am honored to the highest possible degree to now have an opportunity to share those results with all who seek. Thank you for being a part of this grand and wonderful journey of discovery!
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