Ch. 11- AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE. Going Deeper into the Awareness of “Patty” by seeing the End of the Ego. (Volunteering in Thailand).

Ah, Thailand.

I taught English here for three weeks in exchange for food and a free stay in a small village. It was both beautiful and hard.

This place met me with one of the deepest fears. You see, healing is like unraveling layers of an onion. As I mentioned many difficult states I experienced, each one was because I reached a place in myself where I was stuck. Somewhere where I had a mental model of how life should be and attaching to something. Thailand, brought me to the end of my fantasy dreams and brushed me up against the brink of the fear of death.

I had just left India feeling deeply at peace—ready to simply live. Thailand arrived like a thief in the night. I felt as though I had completed a dream…and suddenly had nothing left to do in this life.

Imagine achieving the biggest dream you could ever imagine—like an Olympic athlete winning a gold medal at 21 years old. That’s how it felt.

And then: now what?

I felt purposeless. My ego was quite literally at its edges. It saw its own limitations. It couldn’t invent another goal for me to chase. I was in my Master’s program for my favorite subject—something I had postponed for nearly ten years. I had traveled the world. I had left everything behind.

The ego recognized something terrifying: dreams have endings. And it could no longer convince me to create another one.

I didn’t want more ambition.
I wanted peace.

So there I was—single, alone, sick with a fever, lying in bed in a small Thai village—struggling with myself and an intense need for purpose. I had experienced profound love and peace. It had been an extraordinary journey.

And it was over.

Grief began to seep in, but this time it was for the realization that my bucket list, my dreams, were ending. I made a mistake in thinking that traveling would “cure me”. It certainly was meant to happen and it certainly brought me healing - that was the paradox. I had to go to see that.

I knew there were more people to meet and more experiences ahead—but I didn’t want them. I had seen how fleeting they were. I saw how I had wrapped my identity around the world I created. I had been searching for home outside of myself, and I couldn’t bear to turn inward.

When traveling, I witnessed myself taking me everywhere I went. It didn’t matter where I was. I was beginning to understand that happiness is an inside job.

And yet—paradoxically—every place still had to happen for me to reach this realization. I didn’t have to go anywhere…
But somehow, I had to go everywhere to learn that.

Sometimes the universe gives you exactly what you want—so you can see that it won’t work in the way you think it should.

I had been trying to rid myself of an emptiness I’ve carried since childhood. It was dressed up in confidence, but beneath it lived a quiet terror: if I ever sat still long enough, it would surface.

Thailand itself was beautiful. I would absolutely return someday.

Physically, my body shifted here too. Sugar was in almost everything. The teachers drank a lot of beer after school, and I was swept into the rhythm of village life. The food was incredible—fried noodles, sweet coffees—and I kept feeding my senses.

Until my psoriasis flared across my legs after five years of remission.

I gained weight. I began to feel depleted. My immune system collapsed.

One night I fell asleep with my mouth open and a dusty fan blasting directly onto my face—classic. I woke with a fever and sore throat and something inside me finally said: I’m done.

That first week, I felt unbearably empty.

I can’t fully explain what happened—but spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically, I was at a low.

Not sadness. Not happiness.

Just numbness.

It was terrifying because it was different than the others - I was now reach another deep layer of my pain but in a different way.

I felt purposeless. Hollow. I wanted to beg for a tear—anything to move the state forward. But nothing came.

Because I was becoming more aware through spiritual practices - I was gaining alot more insight on these interesting states I was experiencing. On a deeper level, I began to see patterns in myself that I didn’t like.

I realized how often I lusted after people romantically, dreamily. I sought connection everywhere to feel worthy. It wasn’t until India that I saw how much of my life had been driven by a need for attention and validation.

As a child, I didn’t feel at home. I was often left out. My home life was frightening, and I didn’t want to be there. I became hyper, but that only pushed people away. Layered on top of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, all of this embedded itself into my nervous system.

I was afraid of people deep down, but longed for connection at the same time. I was a cookie cutter disorganized attachment style.

My personality never knew how to resolve this contradiction. So I became the push–pull girl in relationships. I wanted closeness—then recoiled. I didn’t know who to trust. I didn’t know how to love.

When I left everything behind and landed sick and alone in Thailand, there was nowhere left to look but inward.

I saw the pain. The emptiness. The hunger for love. The way I tried to fill myself by lusting after people, places, and things. I tried to make my life look good because I felt bad inside.

The universe showed me the deepest layer of the pain.

When I truly saw this, I was horrified.

I didn’t realize I had been living this way.

It was another dark night of the soul - except I was at ground zero of realization.

I couldn’t go back to functioning like that—I had seen too clearly—but I also didn’t know how to move forward.

Then came the fear of death.

The basement box of fears blew open. I became terrified of getting seriously ill and dying in Thailand. That fear expanded into thoughts of aging…of my body eventually disappearing altogether. A friend of mine had died suddenly. At any moment, it could be me.

What was the purpose of my life?

I searched for meaning relentlessly.

I remembered my teacher’s words: Be here.

But how do you stay present when being here hurts?

I had always been skilled at checking out. These experiences felt like they were forcing me to stay.

I remembered looking into my guru’s eyes in India when I asked her my purpose—and she met me with loving silence.

The mind wants to know everything.

And slowly, I began to understand that instead of fighting the water, I had to float—even in the storm.

I had to loosen my grip and let life do what it was going to do with me anyway.

How could I stop it?

I knew I still wanted to help children. I knew I still wanted to be a mother.

But my big dreams of the ego…… were fading.

What once filled my entire body began to dissolve—leaving behind an empty space.

And I had to learn how to be okay with that emptiness…

Without trying to stuff it.

I beautiful lesson.