Let Me Be Project
On exploring what it means to be human and let our different facets express themselves
Why?
You know that feeling you sometimes have when it feels like there are different parts of you working against each other in particular when you are trying to make an important life decision? I was thinking it might help me to name them and visualise them so that instead of fighting them pretending they do not exist, I could listen in and figure out what they are trying to tell me. I am working here with the assumption that they are all well-intentioned, or at least they were internally manufactured as a response of external signals which were literally and physically embodied into who I am today. So let’s dive in and let’s explore what they have to tell us. Although I am clearly not gifted when it comes to drawing, I’ll be using little visuals to try and represent creatively what’s crossed my mind, just to add another dimension on top of words.
Introductions
I often feel like if I listen carefully enough, I can tell what voice is speaking. The rare moments of bliss are when the parts of me are nicely in sync, when you somehow feel balanced and calm.
Mostly I find myself having ‘Me’-etings with my selves. So let me briefly introduce ourselves:
- Planning Me – she thinks ahead and plans carefully with Future Me’s best interests at heart, although she has learned perfectionism and control along the way to keep me safe, which is not always entirely helpful (but we know despite her dictatorial behaviour that she means well)
- Cuddly Me – she just wants to be free, quiet, cuddles and softness all around
- Witty Me – she can be a bit of a smart ass, she is pretty funny and cares more about doing the right thing than most other things
- Useful Me – she thought she was Me for a while and we just discovered through the process of writing that she is just a part of me – Eureka!
Insatiable Thirst
Maybe this is where we sit all the time
In the space of the insatiable thirst
We are so thirsty
We drink and drink and drink
But that feeling of thirst never really goes away
As if the part of me who decides to drink is not the part who was thirsty
As if that thirst can never really be quenched because it was never supposed to
Sort of running in parallel
Like river streams that can never really cross
They might but they might not
The part of you that was thirsty is still as thirsty
As if you don’t know how to absorb it
If only you could just read it and it would become true
Is that why writing is so important to you that you cannot even write it
I-dentity
It is often hard to see beyond dualism and break away from the two most obvious options.
It takes a bit of effort to think about a third way, to think in nuances, to sit in the uncomfortable messy middle, the world of the in-between.
It seems to me this attachment to dualism may be strongly tied to our belief in individualism and our sense of identity.
Some of us live with a strong sense of self, of I-dentity of needing to feel independent, to have strong boundaries.
Some of us are more ‘permeable’ – less attached to their personality.
Did I just do it again? Falling into the old pattern and dual description, so hard to mentally escape from.
My sense is that this is all linked to Attachment Theory and there is a lot we can learn by better understanding our attachment styles and behaviours.
I also get a strong sense that if we felt safe to let go of our ego, we might begin to feel more connected to others.
If we began to let go of our I-dentities, we might become more open to our interconnectedness with others and rather than looking at it from the perspective of I vs you or them, we might reconsider what ‘we’ might mean. We might reconsider what benefits us all.
The Milkshake Epiphany
Let me tell you a funny story about a banana milkshake and what it taught me.
Are you the kind of person who knows what’s good for them and trusts that things will turn out exactly how you want them to?
Do you excel in being in the moment, in the Now?
Great! You win!
What do I win, you wonder?
Life! 5 stars!
You can probably tell by now that I am not one of these people and I mostly don’t think things will just work out. So I practice and I plan, and plan and practice some more.
Some tend to FEEL first when I naturally tend to THINK first. Let’s call this FEEL-driven vs THINK-driven for the purpose of this story and let me illustrate what I mean with a little milkshake analogy.
There’s a type of people, the FEEL-driven, who when they want something, go and get it. Mostly it’s great, they get to drink their milkshake as long as all the ingredients were present where they needed them to be. Easy, done.
Another type of us takes a let’s say, more convoluted way! The THINK-driven are the prepared type (yes, read over thinker) and they think about their Future self and ways to make their life easier. So they think ‘When I am tired later I am going to want to drink a milkshake’. So they get the ingredients and make the milkshake in the advance. Great job, you planning genius. But, when it comes to the time they’re thirsty they go fetch the milkshake in the fridge, something isn’t right, the milkshake looks all funny. What?! All that effort for nothing? They might end up spending hours, hypothetically, being thirsty and not drinking the damn pre-prepared milkshake. Until they realise something really important that was staring at them. They realise they were focusing on what the milkshake looked like rather than focusing on what it felt like. They finally decide to drink a sip of that milkshake and it is bloody delicious! In the end they got the milkshake and a life epiphany. Much delayed yes, but bigger WIN! Whether intentionally or not, Planning Me had given me something much deeper that I didn’t know I needed to learn.
From where I stand, it’s hard to say who really wins between the THINK and FEEL-driven. (Yeah Yeah I can hear you judgey THINK-driven ones, I know you’re thinking ‘Sure and what if they’d run out of milk, what happens to that in the Now lack of milkshake?’ True, being in the Now works best when the conditions are there to support you. Truth is, although it’s really hard not to, there is no point comparing in terms of best or worst because at the end of the day, we really just are who we are. It’s great that both types exist and hopefully we can all learn from one another.
I guess one big thing for THINK-driven people is to learn to trust yourself and that you’re able to give yourself a milkshake when you need one.
Another one for all of us to remember is to rely on all your sensations to make a judgement, not only the most obvious one.
Something to ponder over next time you enjoy a banana milkshake!