“Ok, but I’d still like to know how you explain JC?”

“I’m not sure what you mean?”

“You can’t tell me it’s coincidence the celebrity I’ve had a crush on for like three fourths of my life just happened to show up the same week I did? I know money can buy you anything but even I can’t imagine how you pulled that off.”

“I understand you won’t believe me but sometimes the universe does work in your favor,” Vivienne told her. “We didn’t reach out to Mr. Chasez nor had any influence over when he chose to stay with us. I think you’ve seen that while money can buy you access to things, it certainly can’t buy you peace of mind and Mr. Chasez had his own reasons for coming here. As I said, no one’s life is perfect, no matter how much money is in your bank account or how many fans you have.”

“Being paired together though…” Alice asked skeptically.

“I can admit that I did pair the two of you together but I wasn’t aware of your feelings. You mentioned you liked his band’s music and it was evident from his answers he was in need of someone who could help remind him of happier times. Call it luck or kismet but clearly the two of you needed each other on a much deeper level than even I realized.”

“He’s nothing like I imagined and everything I did all at the same time. He’s who I’ve based my ideal man off of for so long and seeing him, being with him, touching him…he’s real and it’s amazing and weird and I just…I’m glad I’m getting to know the man he truly is.”

“Has that changed your perception of him?”

“Yes but not in a bad way. I always…when things were bad, which was a lot, I always imagined JC being there; to talk to and hold me and get me through it. It was always about him taking care of me. Now I see the real person with his own issues. He’s not this knight in shining armor I kept praying to come rescue me but…a friend I can confide in and I don’t want to see suffer. He’s human, I guess is what I’m saying.”

“It’s good for you to see that.”

“Yeah, good reminder my dreams are just that,” Alice frowned.

“Not necessarily,” Vivienne began to explain. “Sure you are fantasizing about a real person but you can only imagine how they would react to different scenarios. All you did was give a physical manifestation to the ideal traits you were looking for in a partner. You saw some of those things in JC and that is why you gravitated to him and you built off of that. Him being attractive certainly helped those feelings along, I’m sure.”

“You noticed that too, huh?” Alice gave a small smile.

“Haven’t lost my eyesight quite yet,” Vivienne smiled back. “You’ve used your image of JC as a coping mechanism for years so I think we should continue to do that for this exercise.”

“Yeah, see, now when you say “used”, it sounds dirty since he’s, you know, real,” Alice confessed.

“While I see your point, you’d be hard pressed to tell me you aren’t going to go home and still imagine this man. Sure, it’ll be tweaked based on what you know now but just because you can now talk to him doesn’t mean you won’t still wish him to be there.”

Alice stared at Vivienne’s satisfied grin and huffed. “God, I’m fucking psychotic.”

“No, you are a person imagining a better life. We all do that in our own ways. There’s no harm if you know it’s just a fantasy but when you start pinning your hopes off of it, that’s when it gets dangerous.”

“I didn’t sit around waiting for JC or anything. I mean, I know he’d never, like, want to date me or anything, even if he was single.”

“I’m going to come back to that thought,” Vivienne held up her finger, “but what I was actually getting at is with Donny.”

“What do you mean with Donny?”

“When the two of you would have a fight, he storms off and you, what? Imagine if it was JC the fight would have never happened?”

“Sometimes,” Alice mumbled an admission.

“And maybe sometimes you imagined it did happen but JC would apologize, maybe bring home some flowers, talk it out with you before taking you to bed and making it up to you? Or maybe he’d show up to comfort you, telling you your husband was a jackass and you deserved better?”

Alice nodded, too embarrassed to give words to the agreement. It would have been awkward before to be called out for her fantasies but now it made her skin crawl with judgement. She had used JC and she didn’t like that realization.

“So I’m going to bet you also hoped Donny would do some of those same things. That once, just once, Donny wouldn’t come home drunk and flop into bed and pass out without a word but he’d just show he cared because it wasn’t hard to imagine that someone could. If he had, you wouldn’t have had to imagine so much but because it felt attainable, you held onto the hope he’d actually do it one day.”

“Why was it so fucking hard for him to just not be a fucking bastard?” Alice shouted as new tears formed. “I didn’t ask for a lot. I didn’t demand vacations or a pool in the backyard or diamonds every Christmas; I just wanted to feel appreciated and he couldn’t even do that. He didn’t want to do that.”

“I know, darling, I know,” Vivienne closed in to hug her again. Something in her voice made Alice understand that Vivienne truly did know this particular kind of heartache and wasn’t just placating her. “We always hope and pray the person we love will come to their senses and we self sacrifice too much of ourselves in waiting for it to happen. We both unfortunately know it rarely does and even then, it’s normally temporary.”

“I just feel like…like I didn’t mean anything to him. I don’t know that he ever loved me but I don’t think he hated me either. I feel like I was more of an annoyance than anything to him. Someone he was stuck with but didn’t want to put up with.”

“You’ll never know how he felt and that’s one of the hardest parts; accepting you’ll never have an answer.” Vivienne turned Alice and positioned her at the start of the path behind them. “Have you ever done a Labyrinth Walk?”

“The only labyrinth I know involves David Bowie.”

Vivienne once again couldn’t hold in her amusement at Alice’s statement as a soft chuckle left her throat. “A Labyrinth Walk is simply a long winding line that you follow slowly as you meditate. Instead of meditation, however, we are going to use it as a journey to self acceptance.”

Alice sighed as she looked at the geometric pattern in front of her. “I have spent so much of my life hating myself; I don’t really see that changing because I walked some magic tightrope.”

“I do not expect you to suddenly have a completely different outlook on life,” Vivienne told her, “but I hope maybe we can shift your way of thinking about it for the better. If you open yourself to the opportunity for change, you will find it easier to do so. That’s all I ask of you as well with this exercise.”

“Ok, let’s try it, I guess,” Alice shrugged and awaited her instructions.

“Excellent,” Vivienne smiled broadly. “I want you to concentrate on the path, placing one foot slowly in front of the other. I’ll be speaking to you from outside and I just want you to let the words move through you, you don’t need to focus on them.”

Alice didn’t really follow that logic but nodded her agreement just the same. She had no expectations of what was about to happen but tried to follow Vivienne’s request to be open to it.

“You may begin,” Vivienne stated. Alice looked down and placed one foot on the line drawn on the ground firmly then slowly placed the other in front in the same fashion. She continued this motion as Vivienne spoke.

“As I stated, the shadow on your manipura is shame. Not just shame for your relationship but the shame you’ve placed on yourself for who you are and that you feel society has labeled you as. Shame keeps us incomplete by telling us we are not enough. It drives our pursuit of better yet makes us believe we are not worthy of achieving it. It leads us to settle for what is given to us and not reach for what we deserve.”

Alice was now understanding what Vivienne meant by letting the words move through her. Every sentence felt like it was tailor made for Alice, like she was the walking embodiment of shame. She found the realization unsettling but certainly not untrue.

“Shame is alive in you, Alice,” Vivienne continued, “and it is obstructing your unlimited potential. It’s the thing that makes you feel like you deserved the treatment you got from Donny even though you’ve done nothing but pine for better most of your relationship. It is also the thing that makes you believe JC would never be interested in you.”

“JC has a girlfriend,” Alice shouted back but not losing her concentration. 

“He does but the bond the two of you have is undeniable,” Vivienne countered. “This exercise is not intended to make you believe he really is that savior you dreamed he would be but to look at the reality of the situation and see that some part of you was right. When you are truly yourself, your inner light shines and attracts the right people.”

“My true self is pretty fucked up, Vivienne,” Alice shouted back.

“While you may believe that to be true, that doesn’t make it any less beautiful.” Alice had to pause at Vivienne’s statement, letting the words affect her more than the previous. She shut her eyes and breathed through her mouth a moment, trying to not let herself cry before carrying on without a word.

Vivienne took this as a good sign as she continued. “The imperfections that you see draw people and opportunities toward you but also push others away. This is actually a good thing because people who seek to diminish that light inside you are not good for your soul. That light is the root of your worthiness and the parts the right people will love the most. Feel that light shine within you as you reach the center of the labyrinth.”

Alice stepped to the end of the line and stood still, trying to find this light that Vivienne spoke of. She even tried to picture her so called belly fire burning in her stomach to start something to no avail. She hated how terrible she was at these visualizations.

“Stop judging yourself,” Vivienne told her. “I know that is much easier said than done but just try, if only for a few moments. In this case, stop giving yourself reasons that JC would not like you and accept that on some level he does or he wouldn’t confide in you the way he has. You are worthy of a man such as him.” Vivienne typically didn’t like to use the validation of others in helping people find their self acceptance but she knew it was a journey to get there and if this was the place to start, so be it.

Alice felt a spark at her navel as she thought of JC. Not the one of her dreams but the real one of this week. He had been nothing short of caring and compassionate towards her, listening to her problems, joking and laughing with her and really connecting on so many levels. She couldn’t deny she had romantic feelings for him and she might have even developed them if she didn’t like him before because he was just so…good and Alice desperately craved something good in her life.

He seemed to like spending time with her and asked her for advice. He reached out his hand to her more and more during their walks. She missed that connection with another person and JC made her feel like it was possible to have again, or even really for the first time.

The flame in Alice’s body began to flicker and grow as she realized Vivienne was right. They did have a connection and JC saw something in her she couldn’t see, just as she did with him. She knew so many other people saw the natural talent in JC he fought so hard to attain in himself so it stood to reason maybe other people were capable of seeing Alice as someone special, someone worthy of love.

Vivienne could see a quiet confidence growing in Alice as her posture shifted. “Acceptance is about identifying all the things we judge ourselves harshly for, learning to celebrate them and welcoming them back in. Think of one thing Donny did not like that JC has praised you for.”

“That I speak my mind,” Alice didn’t even have to think about it. “I learned to quiet my voice and myself so I didn’t incur Donny’s wrath. JC finds it funny and refreshing to hear me express myself.”

“Think of that the next time you think you shouldn’t express your feelings. Know that this man you’ve had feelings for accepts the raw and true you. If he accepts it, anyone who doesn’t isn’t worthy of your time and energy. Eventually you will find that giving to those who love and support all of you will help you learn to love yourself that much greater and know your worth.”

The warmth in Alice’s stomach spread through her body, a hope and joy that there was a space in this world where she could just be herself and have that be ok. Where she wasn’t too much but just enough. Where she fit in.

“The more you accept yourself, the more worthy you become,” Vivienne told her and asked her to begin her walk back through the labyrinth. “You cannot create anything in your life that you do not believe you are worthy of. Learning this discipline is hard but necessary for a fulfilling life. You can not change everything overnight but we are successfully starting you on the path to self love and acceptance.”

It did sound nice, Alice thought to herself as she made her way slowly back. The concept that she was truly worthy of anything still felt like fiction but she couldn’t deny she always felt like she deserved better than Donny, no matter how many times she told herself she didn’t. Hadn’t JC just said how special she was to him only a few hours ago? Of all the men in the world, he was the one that found her special. It was very hard to accept and not pick apart but it was the truth and Alice let that knowledge motivate her to the end of the labyrinth.

“How are you feeling?” Vivienne asked as Alice completed the walk.

“Good,” she breathed and meant it. “I…it’s weird. I don’t feel different or anything but maybe a bit more optimistic?”

“That is definitely a good sign,” Vivienne smiled and clasped Alice’s hands. “Understanding your worth doesn’t always mean getting what you want but it does mean knowing you shouldn’t settle for something less than you deserve.”

“Those sound like the same thing though.”

“They aren’t,” Vivienne smiled knowingly, “and it will take time to know the difference but you will and I promise you, I promise you Alice, your life will change infinitely for the better when you do.”

“But how will I know that?” Alice questioned in confusion.

“Keep working on acknowledging your worth in yourself and one day it will dawn on you,” Vivienne patted her hands. “That’s enough for tonight. This will all take time and you’ll need the rest for tomorrow.”

“Dare I even ask what tomorrow entails.”

“Tomorrow will prepare you for what happens when you leave in a few days. We will ensure you have the tools to continue your work at home and help you in your journey always.”

“Perfectly vague as usual,” Alice laughed as she walked arm in arm with Vivienne back to the main campus.