Who are you when you are alone and unobserved?
Lessons from climbing mountains for other people.
I posted a funny meme on Instagram this week about the story of a woman who climbed Kilimanjaro—got deathly ill, pooped her pants, and then realized she had done the whole thing for someone else. Hashtag #sonotworthit. (And of course the risks associated with a trek like that could totally be worth it—if you were doing it for yourself and your own reasons.)
But how did she get there? How did she get up a literal mountain and in real danger before she figured it out that it wasn’t something she wanted for herself at all? I’m not sure how it worked for her specifically, but I know how to avoid ending up there.
I know many people are still going through the world without even allowing themselves to have, let alone voice out loud, their own preferences and thoughts. And listen, your thoughts might not be correct and your preferences might be dangerous and we have to deal with the impacts of that. But most of the time it’s not even as dramatic as whether you would choose to climb a mountain. It’s whether you actually like that food, colour, sound, activity, sexual position, etc.
One of the greatest gifts that came to me from my three hermit-like years on the west coast of Scotland (you can read about it in my books Letters from the Gardeners Cottage) was that by being mostly alone and unobserved I became more deeply myself than I had ever been. Interrupted only by the conditioning in my head (which was strong enough to deal with) I really settled into understanding my own preferences for how I enjoyed living, working, and creating. (There was a lot of gardening and walking). And as I’ve come back into the world the last couple of years I’ve really noticed the difference in my ability to be clear about what I will or can do without hurting myself. And interestingly I’ve become so much more community minded because I’m not zealously guarding my secret self from the pain of being railroaded over all the time.
I think we’ve been trained that if we don’t express ourselves that peace will be maintained, but I’ve come to believe that it is only oppression, repression and pain that grows when we are silent. What if you being fully yourself is one of the essential steps in us all being our best selves together? What if skipping the part about knowing ourselves is crucial in the differentiation between collective peace versus quiet by domination?
Maybe giving yourself permission to be yourself will save you from more than some dirty pants on a mountaintop someday.