Holding On
Stop trying to be Michael, and just be Michael. I’ve heard sayings like this throughout my entire life. “Just be yourself”. “You are trying too hard”. Or, “stop trying to have fun, and just have fun”. Try as I may to just let go and relax, I could never quite figure out how to do so. At least, I failed at being me for any sustainable amount of time.
My mind always resorted back to trying to be the Michael I wanted to be. At the time I didn’t know any better, but I was attempting to force myself into being the best version of myself, which just so happened to be this sort of idealized perfect gentleman/manly man of a human being – a real James Bond archetypal figure. The problem was I kept falling short. Even more of an issue was that I continued to believe that ideal was attainable. Repeatedly tried harder. What typically resulted were internal feelings of failure, shame, and doubt.
I think part of the issue was that I hadn’t identified a suitable character replacement. Also, it felt a lot like emptiness to clear my mind and be me. For real! Literally, when I stopped trying, I was left with a void. Nothingness. Sometimes I would think to myself, “Am I just slow as fuck?” That thought would come with a bit of a chuckle, but if I’m being completely honest, sometimes I seriously wondered.
The only me I knew was the fantasy I created in my mind. Without a doubt that me was a collage of various personalities, personas, and characters I’d encountered throughout my life – some fictional, some real, all glorified. In fact, I’d received some colloquial advice over the years that it was completely normal to sample bits and pieces of character from various individuals to create your own. “Take pieces you like, discard the rest” type of advice. On the surface that made sense, so that’s what I did.
However, I couldn’t help shake the thought that I was never actually becoming those individuals. At best I was only mimicking behavior. Also, the more persona bits I adopted, the more complicated it was to keep them all organized. For example, let’s say I was confronted with the challenge of persuading a beautiful woman to take interest in me. My mind would instantly recall several different strategies, seemingly all at once. Should I take the James Bond approach, the Rick James approach, or the Unassuming approach, etc.? it was all very confusing and overwhelming. Another issue that sometimes happened was my brain could not call upon any reference point for the situation at hand. What now? The void. Fear, and inaction.
Ultimately, I felt that adopting the right persona for the occasion strategy was unsustainable. It was mental overload. Right, wrong, or indifferent I felt the need to perpetually maintain a false persona or else risk being inauthentic. Two problems:
- The persona was not 100% me to begin with
- I didn’t connect 100% of any one person I admired
Interesting note. There have been few occasions where I managed to muster the strength and courage to step out on a limb of faith and be authentic. In all cases I achieved my immediate goal. But the fear of fear was so great within me that more often than not I couldn’t bring myself to get comfortable with the leap on a consistent basis.
The personality trait that on which I settled and found to be the most agreeable with myself and others was kindness. I became agreeable and kind. People seemed to like that. I had a deep-rooted desire to belong, and kindness kept me around in most situations, although my relationships were typically one sided and surface level. I also became a decent listener of sorts. That is to say I didn’t say much, and folks were compelled to talk. But I wasn’t really listening per se. I was either off in a fantasy land or scanning my persona index for an appropriate response.
I was consciously aware of what I was doing to myself. I could feel my ‘self’ shrinking. I felt it physically inside of my heart.
Panama Memphis
I was consciously aware of what I was doing to myself. I could feel my ‘self’ shrinking. I felt it physically inside of my heart. Luckily for me I never lost hope and site of my dreams. My dreams compelled me to keep going.
I’ve come to learn that I’m pretty stubborn, and I don’t learn personal lessons very quickly. I really believe that stems from the fear of failure and uncertainty, but that’s a topic for another discussion. I’m not exactly sure when or specifically what prompted me to try an alternative route to finding self. Perhaps it was frustration. Maybe I’d hit rock bottom. I remember a quote I read about 5 years ago when I really started searching for answers. “People change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change.” I related to that. It had become too painful to continue the same repetitive cycles. It was time to make a change.
The Act of Letting Go
I’m going to skip years of trial and error, reading, research, and self-reflection on my journey towards discovering self, and fast forward to the point I’m at today.
Remember how I could never quite understand how to let go and just be? Well earlier today the thoughts “Stop trying to be Michael, and just be Michael” popped into my head. I’d like to take a little time to reflect on that in the present moment.
The reason I could never be Michael is because I had no idea who Michael was. But now that picture is starting to come into focus. I believe all human beings are born with a unique self. I cannot describe or explain biologically what that self is or where it resides within the body, but in my experience it does exist. Unfortunately, our current social structure slowly chips away at that unique self over time and to various degrees in respective individuals – mostly attributed to the levels of self-awareness in one’s parents, guardians, friends, and influences. No one experience has taught me this better than that of raising a child.
If you’ve ever consciously raised a child, it’s truly a miracle in process. My daughter is currently 4 ½ years old as a reference, so I still have a way to go. My journey into ‘self’ became serious while my wife was still pregnant. Thankfully my levels of awareness and interest in the development of her ‘self’ has been keen since before she was born. I feel lucky and blessed in that regard.
Children have their own opinions, likes, and dislikes before they can even speak. You can see it in their eyes, emotions, and mannerisms. It’s curious and engaging to behold. You can also observe how they change based on what you teach them and what they are exposed to – nurture. The more you are able to restrain yourself from being an active participant in the formation of a child’s self, and as an alternative take on more of a coach or guard rail type of role, it seriously becomes an interesting and self-fulfilling experience for yourself and the child. You get to see who your child really is! You can witness the formation of a self in real time.
You can start to recognize what is you versus what is something or someone else. It’s a feeling, sometimes physical. It’s an awareness, a belief and a trust that what you know to be real and true is your honest interpretation of external and internal events.
panama memphis
Now take a step back and apply those lessons to yourself, and you may discover just how much of other people’s personas and opinions you have adopted over the years – nurture. With a little bit of time, focus, awareness, and reflection you may start to recover your own real opinions. You can start to recognize what is you versus what is something or someone else. It’s a feeling, sometimes physical. It’s an awareness, a belief and a trust that what you know to be real and true is your honest interpretation of external and internal events.
On cue, your brain will hammer you with doubts. It will produce endless ruminations and examples of how the world “really” is, but most of those are learned and embodied perceptions that you’ve adopted regarding how the world is supposed to be. This causes you to not see the world as it is, as you truly perceive it to be, but through an external lens that isn’t yours.
Those feelings of doubt, insecurity, fear, etc. are probably your true self in pain. The pain of being denied its reality. The pain of being repressed, and the fear of isolation and rejection. It’s much easier to move forward with an external explanation of the world that is socially acceptable, tried, and “true”. But you will always be left wondering. Your true self can only be so suppressed.
Letting go is releasing your learned conditioning and embracing the fear, pain, and uncertainty of your emotions. It’s hard because it hurts. It hurts because you are out of practice. Your ‘self’ has not been exercised. It’s like working out a muscle that hasn’t been used in a while. It will be painful and sore, and your mind (mental conditioning and subconscious index) will fight you.
However, with the right training and consistent focus, I’ve found that acknowledging self becomes easier over time. Trusting self becomes more natural. Distinguishing between self and external selves becomes more transparent. So, knowing yourself becomes possible.
You don’t have to be that ideal collage of personas that you created over the years, and still strive to attain. You also don’t have to be the void of nothingness that is left when you decide to let go and be yourself.
Let go of the external personas, embrace the fear and uncertainty, and trust that your interpretation of the world, your truth, is real to you. Examine it, learn from it. Grow into it. You will find the answers. Also, you will find authenticity, and there you will discover real similarities and real differences of opinions. Both of which are ok.
Mindfulness Journal 