Buddhism, I believe, is at its heart the search for sanity. The release from neurosis, which is the ultimate cause (and symptom) of dhukka. Feelings are not the enemy: our reactions to our feelings are what turn pain into suffering.

By embarking on the path to sanity, we fall prey to insidious delusion: the notion that we are “really getting somewhere”, when later we look back and realise we were in momentary insanity. We can sometimes convince ourselves that we have gone so far on our spiritual path that we undertake manic actions: we give things away that we later realise we actually needed, we quit a job we actually kind of liked, we take on a task we can’t handle. We write checks that our future selves just can’t cash. We’re operating in a kind of punch drunk mindset.

Chogyam Trungpa put it well, and suggests that what you have really done is re-defined the concept of the dharma to suit your own bent psyche: “you adapted the message of this particular doctrine to your own needs rather than hearing the doctrine as speaking the truth. You are a spokesman for the doctrine for your own sake; therefore you have manufactured the truth of the doctrine.” (this is from Cynicism and Warmth from The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Volume Three)

Myopia and self-reference is anathema to progress. What Trungpa is saying is that you need someone to call you on your shit. We come to Buddhism because we’re a little crazy. We are worried that we see the world wrong, and we are right about that! But because our vision is clouded, we need someone outside our own heads to give us perspective. You need someone to say “Okay – so you feel enlightened today – now try getting stuck in traffic/going home for Thanksgiving/… What comes up for you? Let’s work through that!”. In the past, these people were Buddhist Gurus. They had the market on self-discovery cornered. But just like physics has migrated from the realm of philosophy into the realm of science, the quest for sanity, and understanding of the mind, has tracked a path from spiritual Guru to Therapist. The quest for enlightenment is more a search for mental clarity than spiritual magic. Most of us don’t expect the end-point of enlightenment to be suddenly seeing auras or more dimensions. We expect that we will be able to see situations without wrapping them in our own insanity and bias. That our own neurotic/psychotic needs won’t eclipse our sense of reason. This is what therapists are for.

Therapists can help you walk the 8 fold path. Therapists have direct tools, validated (I believe) by science, to address the “inner critic” — the voice in your head that tells you you’re terrible at everything (right thought); to help you identify your own delusions (right view, right understanding); to help you find your authentic purpose (right livelihood); to help you keep your actions and reactions authentic and not harmful (right speech, right action). Therapists can give you activities and exercises to do that will sure up your muscles of self inquiry and self control (right effort, right mindfulness).

Meditation is a key component: it will let you hear that your inner voice more clearly, and distance yourself from it so you can remedy the situation, it will let you watch your actions rise up, so you can pause before you cause harm, and it will teach you the superpower of calming yourself in times of stress.

But you need someone to shepherd you through the process of working with your mind. You cannot blindly lead yourself. You can’t get sane just by reading self-help books, and you can’t attain enlightened sanity just by staying in your own head. Or maybe you can, but it will certainly take longer.

Maybe a Buddhist Guru is what you need – but those are hard to find, and tend to have a lot of foibles. Therapists are everywhere, and many are rooted in mindfulness and will exploit meditation practice as a mechanism for self-inquiry and ultimately sanity.

So don’t go it alone. You need someone whose opinions you trust, who is outside your own mind, helping you along the way.