The Alcatraz of Being

“Christian, why don’t you introduce yourself?” And, boom, my thoughts started racing. All eyes on me. Showtime. What do they want to hear? What makes sense to say? 

I am an avid learner and have taken more than a dozen or so courses, both online and offline. And always this goddamn question. Who am I? 

Who are we? 

When I went on my first meditation retreat in silence, the experience was beautiful. Located in a pristine German forest, there was nothing but silence. But then it was time for the first breakfast.

I wasn’t talking. But I felt. Anxiety. I was looking around me. All these people. Strangers. I felt the urge to talk. Talk about the weather. I tried to avoid their glances. “Oh no, this guy just looked me in the eye.” My palms got sweaty. What do I do? I searched for a solution and then: relief. A glass of marmalade. What an interesting and marvelous object to study. The anxiety disappeared. 

What I tried to avoid in this situation was showing who I was. I retreated into the comfort of not being. Being busy. With that glass of marmalade. 

Have you ever felt the discomfort of a waiting room at a doctor’s office? With all these – people? Then you know the sweet relief of your smartphone when you escape the situation. It’s this discomfort I am talking about.

So why do we do that? Why do we hide and withdraw?

When introducing ourselves to others, we show what we want to show. We put ourselves into 180 character descriptions. And we tell ourselves stories. Maybe you believe you are an extrovert. Or an introvert. Or bad at maths. Or you suck at drawing. 

It’s not wrong. It’s just a limiting way of thinking. 

So, what’s a better way?

A better way is to perceive yourself as consisting of parts not a unified whole. You are not fearful. You have a fearful side in you. You are not introverted. You have a side in you that likes solitude. But it’s not “you”. At any given time all these parts are there. Some more prominent, others less. An eternal dance. 

So next time you think of yourself as sucking at drawing. Say “Hi”. Ask that part of you what it needs. 

2019 I went to Spain to one of the wild parts of the Pyrenees. Very dry, very mountainous. Very remote. We were on a wilderness retreat. In the end, we slept in the wild, alone under the moon, reduced to our mere existence. The two weeks went by way too fast. When I arrived in Barcelona one thing surprised me the most. 

It wasn’t the people and the busyness of the city (which was also strange). I realized I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror for two weeks. Because there were no mirrors. Being in the mountains, I completely forgot to think about how I looked. And so did everyone else. We were there to be. We were there to do what feels good not what looks good.

At the meditation retreat, my tension during the breakfasts slowly disappeared. After a few days I no longer had to study these marmalade glasses and their nutrition facts. I even enjoyed looking at others. I enjoyed being with them without having to be “someone” for them. 

Whether we put on clothes or we put on words or stories, we put ourselves into boxes. We build our own prisons by allowing us to be one thing but not the other. 

But the good thing is this: We are also the warden. We’ve got the keys.

Time to get out.