“Fingers crossed the plane will crash” to “I love this lucky lifetime”

Back in my twenties, I used to get on planes kinda sorta hoping they would crash.

It was always the plane back home that I hoped wouldn’t make it. The one to my destination was different. I wanted that one to land safely.

But when I climbed back aboard to go back to the life that I didn’t want to be living, there was a voice in my head that went, “A crash wouldn’t be so bad.”

It’s like Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage. When he experienced his first bout of depression in college, he wasn’t actively suicidal. But he sometimes stepped in front of buses hoping they wouldn’t stop in time.

One of my shamanic clients has shared a similar sentiment. He talked about finishing a vacation in Europe, boarding his business class seat to head home, then thinking, “Maybe I’ll go to work tomorrow or maybe I’ll kill myself instead.”

No passion. No great despair. Just a simple, “You know, being dead is very much an option I’m open to.”

Now, with this backstory, I want to tell you about a shamanic experience I had earlier this year.

I switched up my normal protocol and did a two-on-one ceremony (two guides, one Keely) instead of the group ceremonies I usually do. This change meant that I was allowed to talk for the ENTIRE medicine journey since there was no one else I’d be disturbing. So I did. I talked and talked and talked.

And do you know what I said?

Nay, not what I said, but what I shouted? “I LOVE THIS LIFETIME.”

“Oh my God,” I kept gasping, “This is the luckiest lifetime ever. How am I this lucky?”

Then I’d shout it again: “I LOVE THIS LIFETIME!”

That’s a little different than, “Hopefully my plane will crash before we make it back to DC,” dontchathink?

It’s why I’m writing a “How to Human” book. Because, in this oh-so-lucky lifetime, I’ve experienced both sides: I’ve been so miserable, so down and out, so hopeless that I passively yearned for death (the first memory I have of feeling that way was in elementary school, by the way. I sat on my childhood bed and prayed with childlike faith for God to please kill me because obviously there had been a very real mistake in sending me here).

And, I’ve also been so completely satisfied by the human experience that I sat in ceremony and shouted, “THIS IS THE LUCKIEST LIFETIME, HOW DID I GET SO LUCKY?!”

Do you know what shifted? What enabled that kind of transformation?

Learning how to human.

Learning that each unique bundle of nature and nurture who walks this planet has a PERSONAL well-being formula.

And, if you’re not following your PERSONAL well-being formula, good luck enjoying this lifetime.

Oh and, by the way, your personal formula may not look like your mom’s formula, or your dad’s, or your brother’s, or that entrepreneur you follow on Instagram, or…

There will be commonalities, sure. Human needs are human needs.

But there is no one-size-fits-all formula. Just ask any parent who has more than one kid: does everything that works for kid 1 work for kid 2?

The real point of this book I’m writing is a perspective shift. A perspective shift towards hope.

Maybe you’ve struggled with chronic depression since you’ve been a teenager. Maybe you crouch over the toilet dry heaving at least once a month when your anxiety overwhelms you. Maybe you spend eight hours a day beating yourself up over what you eat.

That doesn’t mean you’re going to be stuck feeling that way forever. You can board planes hoping they’ll crash in one decade, then shout “I LOVE THIS LIFETIME” in the next.

I’m going to start collecting stories of people who have made that kind of shift. If you’re in that camp, if you have a “I used to hate being a human but now I love it” tale to tell, please let me know.