Spiritual Autobiography
Michelle Lee Garrison Hough
A.
PHYSICAL ROOTS
I was born in Joplin, Missouri, a town situated in the
area of the United States known as the Ozarks.
This area spans Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas. It is more like the South than any other part
of the Midwest. Even though I moved to
NYC when I was 24, I know that my spirituality and my identity were greatly
influenced by my regional origins.
1. Physical Setting: Before
I describe my ancestry and how it is a uniquely Ozarkian heritage, let me tell
you a little about the topography and the natural setting of the Ozarks. Nature is a persistent theme in my spiritual
journey, and I connect with nature to find spiritual solace and unity. Most people think of Missouri as a plains
state, but the corner of Missouri where I am from is hilly. The Ozarks are a very old mountain
range. There are a lot of lakes, streams
and creeks. My father’s home is a large,
log style house on 160 acres of land in a wooded valley. There is a small, stream fed lake near the
house with a little waterfall that runs into a stream. The stream winds around the property and
connects to a large creek. There are a
lot of cliffs nearby. Eagles, owls,
hawks, heron, deer, raccoons and all sorts of other animals are a regular part
of the landscape. This beautiful natural
setting was a sort of womb for me when I was growing up. I now live on a dead end street in a very
woody area of Croton, NY. We are very
close to the Croton Dam, and also the Croton River and the Hudson River. There is a nature trail to Silver Lake at the
end of our street. Even after 18 years
of my adult life spent in an urban, cosmopolitan setting, I feel like I am now
back in the environment that is second nature to my soul.
2. Ancestry:
My ancestry in the US goes back at least four generations on each side. I have Irish, English, Scottish, German,
French and Native American ancestry. The
Native American ancestry is from the Cherokee tribe. My father’s maternal great-grandfather was a
Cherokee healer, or medicine man. Both
his great-grandfather and his grandfather are on the Cherokee rolls, listed in
District No. 10 at the Cherokee Nation Headquarters in Talequah, OK. My mother also has Cherokee ancestry, but it
has never been documented. She knows less about her ancestors than my father
knows about his. This ties into the
Ozark region, because the Cherokee had to cross through that region on the
Trail of Tears on their way into the Cherokee Territory in Oklahoma. Many of them changed their surnames to appear
European, so that they could buy land and lead more prosperous lives, rather
than being forced into the Cherokee Territory.
There are a lot of other tribes associated with the area, and the most
common is Osage. When I was growing up
most people would say that they had Native American heritage, but my father
didn’t document ours or get involved in Native American Fellowship Circles
until I was an adult. Now I am very
interested to learn more about Native American spiritual practices.
B.
IDEOLOGICAL ROOTS
1. Protestant Christianity: My
mother raised me in the Lutheran Church.
I was baptized and confirmed as a Lutheran. I also attended a Methodist church with her
and her second husband for part of my childhood. My mother’s grandfather was a Baptist lay
minister. She was raised in the Baptist
church. My father was also raised in the
Baptist church. My paternal grandfather
was a Baptist preacher for part of his life.
In my early adolescence, my father started his own church. This was part of the big charismatic
Christian movement of the 1980’s. His
church was called Praise Place. My uncle
who is a musician led the worship and there was a full band. For several years, I would go with my Dad, my
half-sisters, my Aunt, Uncle and cousins and sing, clap, dance and play the
tambourine. I got involved in praise
dancing, and did this with a small group of women to open a concert for Phil
Driscoll. This was the beginning of my
discovery of connecting with the Divine through movement. Praise and Worship was the cornerstone of the
church, and it was attended mostly by Protestants, but a group of nuns from the
Sisters of Mercy order also regularly attended for the worship. The sisters danced in the aisles. One of them became very close to my
family. It is worth noting that she was
the pastoral care director of a local hospital for many years, and my father
used to volunteer at the hospital to pray with patients. My mother has also been a hospital volunteer
for more than 40 years.
When
he decided to give up Praise Place, my father started attending a Unity church,
and then a United Church of Christ congregation for several years. He dedicated himself to the cause of
welcoming homosexuals back into Christianity and educating others about
homosexuality and the Bible. This was also a large influence on my
spirituality. As a teenager and young
adult I started hearing a lot about our God being what my current pastor calls
“a God of radical inclusivity.”
I
now attend and do some work for a Lutheran church. My husband was raised Presbyterian. When we moved to Croton we wanted to find a
church we could attend as a family, to add some religious structure to our
lives. We both feel that we were nurtured
and educated in important foundational ways through attending church as
children. I also wanted to find a
community of people I could commit to, as part of my spiritual practice. It is the commitment to community that is
important to me, more than the suitability of the particular group to my
beliefs, which are rather unconventional.
To state that another way, I feel like the commitment and continued
community involvement are the enriching objectives, rather than a strong sense
of religious identification.
2. Paganism: In contrast to the
Protestant Christian religious practices I was raised with, I also grew up with
a lot of Pagan elements thrown into the mix.
From a very early age I heard my mother and grandmother talk about astrology. I continue to have a strong interest in
astrology today, and I was always very intrigued by the integration of
astrology into church practices in medieval Europe. The medieval and Renaissance eras fascinate
me, and the congruence of Pagan practices incorporated into a developing
Christianity are a big part of the attraction.
Superstition was also commonly revered by my mother and grandmother,
which they attributed to Irish and Scottish origins. My husband’s parents are first generation
immigrants from Scotland and are very superstitious. My mother practiced witchcraft when I was
growing up. She was somewhat secretive
about it, but I saw her practicing it several times. She used to cast a circle before she would do
her spells, and when I saw her doing this she asked me to get inside of the
circle. I believe that part of this is
wrapped in with her mental illness.
Nonetheless, knowing that she believed in it at one time had an effect
on me. She also talked to me a lot about
psychic phenomena and dream analysis, and I have a strong interest in both of
those. I have worked on developing my
psychic abilities, telepathy in particular.
I find that during periods of rapid spiritual growth, I remember my
dreams more often, and they are filled with rich symbolism. This has been true for me since early
childhood. My mother and I both believe
that we come naturally by some psychic abilities, but neither of us has spent
much time focusing on those abilities. I
see that changing for myself in the future.
3. French Literature: From an early age, I
was very attracted to French language and culture. It all started when the family of my
childhood best friend had a summer exchange student from France. I was very impressed and impressionable. So my mother let me have a French girl stay
with us the following summer, and my 15th summer I spent a month in
Paris with her family. By that time I
was hooked and excelling in my French classes, so I did another summer exchange
program in the Ivory Coast while still in high school. I lived with a French family there, and they
offered for me to come and live with them again once they moved back to Paris,
so I took them up on it. In college,
because I tested out of so many credits and wound up in graduate level courses,
I ended up majoring in French. My
professors were very encouraging and advised me to apply to graduate programs
in French literature. I studied and
worked in France for a total of three years.
My French family was in some ways the “good parents” I never had, the
family environment that stabilized me, and my proficiency in French and
adaptability to that culture gave me self-confidence that I hadn’t found
anywhere else.
I
ended up with an M.A. and all of my coursework completed for a Ph.D. in French
Literature. It was funded through
scholarships and stipends and it gave my young adult life a purpose and an
outlet for expression. My area of
specialty was medieval literature. This
is very spiritually relevant for me because medieval art, architecture and
literature are infused with religion, mysticism, devotion, symbolism and
intuition rather than rationalism, which came to dominate Western thought
following the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras. The linear method of thinking and structuring
our lives that dominates thought today was not followed in the middle ages in
Europe. In college and graduate school,
I felt that God wanted me to be some kind of a spiritual teacher and I thought
that I could do that through teaching French literature and medieval literature
and philosophy. I was close to finding
my path, but I clung to the French because I didn’t know any other way to get
graduate school paid for and to find something I could do without a
struggle.
The
most important thing I took away from studying literature was an ability to
relate deeply to all kinds of texts. I
especially love extracting spiritual teachings from literary texts, which has helped me in reading and learning
from the sacred texts we have covered this year in the ISIS program.
4. Philosophy East/West:
During my undergraduate studies, I took a philosophy course called Philosophy
East/West that sparked my lifelong interest in Asian philosophy and
spirituality. I was particularly drawn
to Buddhism and some of the Vedic teachings in Hinduism, and I loved reading
the Bhagavad Gita. I drew a parallel
between Jesus Christ and Krishna. For
me, Buddhist teachings and many Hindu and Yoga teachings made scriptures from
the Bible come alive.
5. Law: When I was 25 and
working on my Ph.D., I started getting very concerned about my career prospects
in academia. While I wanted to teach
medieval French literature, I was aware of the relatively low income that
non-tenured professors earn, and I also saw graduates from my program having to
struggle to find jobs in universities that were in locations that I found
unappealing (i.e. North Dakota). I was
living in NYC and because of the high cost of living, I started thinking about
other career options. I talked to my favorite
professor and advisor about applying to the law school at NYU, and he said he
would recommend me. My department was
very supportive of me making this switch.
So when I was accepted to NYU Law, it was ranked #4 in the country. I decided to get my J.D. and become an
international business lawyer. This was
a huge switch, from the more free form, creative, intuitive work that I had
been doing in academia, to a field that is dictated by logic, rationalism, and competition. In a way, I wanted to prove to myself that I
could excel in that area (and then discovered that I could not excel in something I did not love). I worked in
that field for five years, living and traveling both internationally and
domestically. Spiritual lessons that I
took away from that period are how to work with the energy of conflict through
cool-headedness and logic, seeing the value in meticulous work as a form of
service and discovering that ego and intellect are truly not the best tools for
peaceful resolution. I saw the limits of
ego and intellect, and that’s probably the most important lesson I learned from
studying and practicing law.
C.
HIGH POINTS
I
think it is useful to highlight both the high and low points in one’s life in a
spiritual autobiography, so I will briefly describe the way I see mine.
1. Traveling: I have mentioned that I
like to travel as a means of exploring not only the outside world, but myself
as well. I don’t feel like I have
traveled as much as I would like to during my life, but the times that I have
been able to have provided me with some great life lessons. As mentioned above, as an adolescent, I
participated in exchange programs in France and in the Ivory Coast of
Africa. I traveled throughout Europe
during the three years I spent in France as an adult. I also worked for a law firm for one year in
London and I loved traveling for work and pleasure when I was there. I met my husband when we were both traveling
alone in the Caribbean, and we like to visit new islands together each time we
go. I spent a few weeks in Costa Rica
with my husband after we got married and I loved speaking Spanish while there. I have also practiced Spanish in the
Dominican Republic, Spain and Mexico. I
am working on my Spanish again now. I
have not been back to Africa since the time I went when I was 17, but I plan to
go again in the future. My eldest son is
currently obsessed with geography, maps and flags, and he has grand plans to
travel to Madagascar, the Seychelles and South Africa with me. My husband travels to India for his job and I
hope that I am able to spend some time in India before I die. My father’s wife is from Beijing and she goes
back there yearly. At some point we all
hope to go to China together as a family.
I feel that travel is a concrete way to spread one’s wings spiritually
and in every other way, and it has made me more open to the beliefs and
traditions of others.
2. Achievement: I have never thought of
myself as an achiever and I have an innate resistance to competition, but I
feel like the personal achievements in my life have given me a sort of
spiritual boldness that is still developing.
Self-confidence is a recurring struggle for me and so it helped me to
see that I could get into top ranked graduate programs, such as my Ph.D.
program which was ranked number 3 in the US, and my J.D. program which was and
still is top 5. My first job coming out
of law school was for one of the best firms internationally, referred to in the
UK as a “magic circle” firm, and it is also one of the better firms in NYC. I am grateful that I did those things, simply
from a confidence and boldness perspective.
Currently the way I am gaining boldness is through slowly mastering yoga
asanas that are difficult for me. I
don’t consider it an “achievement” to be able to do a headstand, for example,
but it is simply a way to keep setting goals and relating those goals to my
spiritual path.
3. Family: The greatest spiritual
teachers in my life are my family members.
I got married to my husband Jamie in February of 2006 and our first son
was born in November of that same year.
We conceived on our honeymoon, and we had thought it might take a long
time. Our second son was born 18 months
after the first. So we discovered we
were fertile, and now that we have two we are grateful and feel no need to have
any more children. Marriage and
motherhood are more challenging than anything I have ever done, and there is no
better way for me to be constantly reminded of the importance of my spiritual
growth and consistent spiritual practice.
Mindful, compassionate parenting is a goal that I try to keep in the
forefront of my mind, and I learn so much through my failures.
D.
STRUGGLES
1. Intrafamilial: My
parents divorced when I was 3 years old, and both remarried and divorced
again. My father is now on his fourth
marriage and my mother lives alone. The multiple marriages and divorces created
a lot of upheaval in my life. I have two
half-sisters with whom I am close, and I am so thankful for them. My mother is mentally ill. She has rapid cycling bipolar disorder. It is something to note from my background,
and it has had a significant impact on me spiritually. I am her only child and we didn’t know her
diagnosis until my early thirties. She
has been hospitalized multiple times for her mania and depression. I love her very much, but I was abused in
many ways growing up. I do not blame
her. It is simply a fact. Seeing her suffer awakened compassion in me
at an early age. I am grateful for
that. Friends of mine hear some of my
family struggles from growing up, and they wonder how I can be “normal.” It’s a good question. I don’t see myself as someone who fits within
the cultural norm, actually. I feel like
the amount of instability and dysfunction I witnessed growing up has given me a
much broader awareness and sensitivity than I would have otherwise had. Again, I am grateful.
2. Health: During the past five
years, I have had some health struggles that have caused me to go deeper
spiritually. During my first pregnancy I
contracted Lyme disease, and it wasn’t discovered until months after the
birth. In my ninth month of pregnancy, I
had Bells Palsy, which is paralysis of the facial nerve. On the left side of my face I still have
residual nerve damage, so my facial expressions, and most importantly my smile
as I had always known them are impaired.
This has been very difficult for me.
I also developed a heart problem as a result of the Lyme, but after
treatment with antibiotics it went away.
My heart is now perfectly healthy, I believe. The neck and back pain
that I had with the Lyme are also mostly gone.
There is a little bit of nerve damage on the left side of my body, but
for the most part I am very healthy. I
have migraines every once in a while that I feel are tied somehow to the fallout
from the Lyme, but they are less and less frequent. Getting sick was of course a reminder of my
mortality and of the importance of self-care.
An important thing to note is that all of my health issues have been on
the left side of my body. I have learned
that in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine the left side is associated with Yin,
the feminine side, creativity and intuition as opposed to the right side, which
is Yang or masculine, the rational mind and the intellect. When I first got
sick and had the Bells Palsy, I prayed to God, “I want to be healed from the
inside out,” and now I see that prayer request as a lifelong journey.
E.
FINDING MY DHARMA/LIFE PURPOSE
1. Surrender to God
I
am at a point in my life where I have truly turned over my life purpose to
God. It all began when I prayed that
prayer about healing from the inside out.
I feel like I had to surrender before I could move forward again. Surrender is an important spiritual theme for
me. I struggle with it on a daily basis.
It is very difficult to let go and trust that everything is my life is
in God’s hands. But I am learning that
this is the truth.
2. Spiritual Practice
Spiritual
practice is essential for me in maintaining my relationship with the Divine and
receiving Divine guidance. It helps me
to find my path and stay on it.
a. Prayer: I
speak to God for some amount of time every day, as a way of expressing
gratitude, communicating worries and fears and asking for help for myself and
others. I sometimes start with the Lord’s
Prayer, saying it slowly and then meditating for a few moments on the
particular circumstances in my life that fit each line of the prayer.
b. Meditation: I
try to find time to do a little sitting meditation every day, but it is hard
for me to maintain a routine. I have had
some training in Buddhist and Yogic meditation practices, so that is how I
meditate. Sometimes I chant for a few
minutes before getting started. To me, meditation is a quiet time to empty out,
and then receive love and wisdom from God and/or my higher self. It also a way to awaken to presence and
higher consciousness, and to calm and heal the nervous system from the impact
of stress. When I fall back on my
practice, as I have done recently, I notice that I become enslaved to more
anxiety, compulsion and negative thoughts.
c. Yoga: I
discovered yoga when I was 25, but I have only consistently practiced it for
the past three years. By consistently I
mean a minimum of three times per week. I practice in groups and classes, and also at
home. My home practice has become very
important for me. The goal of Yoga is
union with the Divine and with ourselves.
The spiritual teachings as well as the physical practice of yoga are keystones
for my well-being. I used to love
dancing as a form of worship and spiritual expression. Now I find that outlet through yoga. My
favorite forms of yoga are Vinyasa and Ashtanga, because I love sun salutations
and flowing sequences. I also draw from
Kundalini yoga for meditation and energy balancing. I plan to get certified as a yoga teacher to
obtain a good credential for teaching meditation and so that I will be better
able to help people find and maintain a healthy mind/body/spirit
connection.
d. Writing: I frequently journal and blog as a spiritual
and mental health practice. Historically
I have written poetry and articles about spirituality. I used to write a local column about holistic
and spiritual practices and teachers.
Writing helps me to wake up to my creativity and receive messages from
the Divine.
3. Walking the Path
I have a better sense
of my dharma now than at any point in my life.
A major breakthrough for me has been learning to accept and trust my
spirit, my heart and my intuition. My
commitments to yoga and interfaith practices, the work I have done for my church
and for a local volunteer chaplaincy program have been major steps on my dharma
path. Allowing myself to be who I am
without fear and follow my creativity is also a big part of walking my dharma
path. Upon completion of the ISIS
program and yoga teacher training, I hope to offer services as a spiritual
coach, interfaith minister and yoga teacher.
I am very excited about opening up to my dharma in this way, helping
others to connect with the Divine in themselves and others, through meditation,
yoga, mindful movement, writing, specific personal development exercises and
spiritual exploration. My own path has
been shaped by those very elements and I am excited about eventually bringing
that experience into a professional framework to benefit myself and
others.
