There are a few times I’ve managed to disappear in plain sight. I’m no David Blaine, but the little trick works every time.
When you’re neck-deep in bullshit, you look up at the sky and wonder, where did it all go wrong? Work, relationships, kids, traffic. The noise. Ahhhhhh. Surely, there’s more to life than this.
In these moments, it feels good to turn off the lights and just disappear. Woosh. Like a candle blown out by the wind.
I don’t mean running off to the mountains, changing your identity or going under witness protection. These require too much effort.
So, how do you disappear, exactly?
The easier way to disappear is this: let go of your past and forget about your plans for the future.
You see, the past and future don’t actually exist. They are happening right now. Here’s what I mean.
When you think about last week, the ‘past’ events are actually a thought in your head. Right? And by definition, that thought you’re having is happening right now. So, the past is happening now. You can’t go back to the past and touch it or taste it. It’s not tangible. It can’t be real.
Similarly, your plans for the future are all just thoughts you are having in your head. Those thoughts, when you have them, happen right now (because thinking always happens in the present moment). Your future plans are just concepts. Ideas in your head. You can’t actually time travel. The future is now.
The past and future are useful ideas sometimes. But when you think about it, they don’t actually exist apart from your belief in them. The stronger your belief, the harder it is to disappear.
To disappear, you need to let go.
If you had no past and no future, what would you be? I imagine Samuel L. Jackson answering this question in his voice: “You wouldn’t have to be anything, mothafucka’!”
The Self that you’ve constructed depends on your belief in who you were in the past and what you will be in the future. Without those beliefs, there is no Self. You disappear.
Just think about it for a second. If you couldn’t talk about yourself in terms of your past or your future, what would you even say?
When I’m at a party or event and people ask me, “So, what do you do?” I’m tempted to explain a coherent story. Bu sometimes I play a game and say something different for every person I meet: I run a business or I’m writing a lot or I’m doing a few things or I am training for a marathon or I’m meditating a lot or, my favorite, I’m just hanging out. It’s fun to watch people’s reactions.
That’s the cool thing about stories. You can make them up. You can change them and shape them. You can tell yourself and others whatever you want to believe.
But why do you need a story in the first place? There are two tracks, or two ways to see the world. One track is full of concepts and ideas. This is your default mode. The storyline, the hero’s journey, the resume, the thoughts of who you are and who you want to be, and the constant chit chat in your mind that reinforces the story.
The second track is that of experience. Raw, unfiltered experience. Sounds, smells, sights, feelings, your perceptions and thoughts coming in and out in an endless, flowing process. They are void of story.
The tension we feel in life can come from this attachment to our past or future selves. We so strongly believe in this narrative that we’re always trying to be someone or do something. But the more we do that, the more attached we get, the deeper we believe in our own story. It’s a never-ending loop.
To let go of the past and the future – to enter the void and vanish in the very spot that you stand – you can ask three powerful questions.
What story am I telling myself? I’m almost always telling a story in my head. Of what I was, my regrets, and what I need to do. It usually repeats. Blaming this person or myself. Playing the victim. Dreaming. Did you know that 95% of your thoughts are actually the same recurring thoughts? When I realize I’m telling myself a story, I notice that it’s not real and that it’s just a story. When I do that, it can be easier to let go of it.
What if I was just a visitor? I like to pretend that I am visiting my own mind and my own body. That they’re not really mine. Like I’m an alien parasite. Or a person walking into the grocery store, looking around at all of the stuff on the shelves. I look at myself from the third person like those people who have cardiac arrest, leave their bodies and see themselves from the ceiling. When I’m not me, it’s hard to make up stories.
What if I had no goal today? Try and do nothing. To be nothing. That’s the opposite of what we normally do. We want to have money, the perfect career, the perfect marriage, the perfect health. Instead of achieving, try to fail. No goals or aspirations for anything at all today. I’m going to put zero effort into any of it. See what happens. When you do that, there’s no pressure. And when there’s no pressure, why would you worry about your past or future?
If you ask these questions frequently enough you’ll start to feel a weight lift from your shoulders. And if you’re lucky you might just disappear – if only for a moment – until you start thinking again.
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Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter! As usual, drop me a comment below and I’d love to hear from you.
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Interested in 1-1 mindfulness coaching? Drop me an email at mishayoucandoit@gmail.com!