said about such spiritual consolations, of course—that they are irrational and “deserve no
trust. Experience teaches us that the world is no nursery.” I agree—the world isn’t a nursery.
But the very fact that this world is so challenging is exactly why you sometimes must reach
out of its jurisdiction for help, appealing to a higher authority in order to find your comfort.
At the beginning of my spiritual experiment, I didn’t always have such faith in this internal
voice of wisdom. I remember once reaching for my private notebook in a bitter fury of rage
and sorrow, and scrawling a message to my inner voice—to my divine interior comfort—that
took up an entire page of capital letters:
“I DO NOT FUCKING BELIEVE IN YOU!!!!!!!!”
After a moment, still breathing heavily, I felt a clear pinpoint of light ignite within me, and
then I found myself writing this amused and ever-calm reply:
Who are you talking to, then?
I haven’t doubted its existence again since. So tonight I reach for that voice again. This is
the first time I’ve done this since I came to Italy. What I write in my journal tonight is that I am
weak and full of fear. I explain that Depression and Loneliness have shown up, and I’m
scared they will never leave. I say that I don’t want to take the drugs anymore, but I’m
frightened I will have to. I’m terrified that I will never really pull my life together.
In response, somewhere from within me, rises a now-familiar presence, offering me all the
certainties I have always wished another person would say to me when I was troubled. This is
what I find myself writing to myself on the page:
I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with
you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it—I will love you through that, as
well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to
lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am
stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.
Tonight, this strange interior gesture of friendship—the lending of a hand from me to my-
self when nobody else is around to offer solace—reminds me of something that happened to
me once in New York City. I walked into an office building one afternoon in hurry, dashed into
the waiting elevator. As I rushed in, I caught an unexpected glimpse of myself in a security
mirror’s reflection. In that moment my brain did an odd thing—it fired off this split-second mes-
sage: “Hey! You know her! That’s a friend of yours!” And I actually ran forward toward my own
reflection with a smile, ready to welcome that girl whose name I had lost but whose face was