unflushable

first few photos from vanuatu before we move on to north america ;)

it is the human condition to be tortured by insecurities. to be racked and wracked. to be smitten; to be smote. to my mind this has evolved to ensure that individuals stay within the group. totally secure, psychologically healthy and happy people would be prone to wandering off into the savannah, only to be disemboweled by nature's latest iteration of a sabre-tooth tiger. our predecessors - unsure of themselves - cowered together at the cave trying to reassure each other and themselves that their arses weren't too big, cocks too small, tits too unequal, personalities too boring, jokes too unfunny, intelligence too dull, achievements too lack-lustre and so forth. in-so-cowering, they survived, only to hoist this judas of a psychological inheritance upon a modern people that are now drowning in an ocean of freudian defense mechanisms, and funding a $400 billion global advertising industry that removes the need for us to generate insecurities by generating them for us. 

i've been labouring under the delusion that i am at terms with my insecurities, and the last few years i have been laying siege to my impenetrable fortress of an ego, which - despite this endless trojanesque war - remains as untouched and indestructible as it has ever been.

before leaving for north america, i had arrived at a realisation that the necessary flip-side of letting go of one's sense of self-importance is quite simply being kind to others. not just passively kind, but actively kind. seeking opportunities for kindness and acting upon them. this was largely prompted by an article iva sent me (link) in which an old man speaks of missed opportunities for kindness as the one thing he regretted most in his life. i wept for the truth of it, and when i considered those in my life that had touched me the most deeply, or those that i loved the most, they were indeed those that had shown me the greatest kindness.

so with this in mind, off i went to north america. montreal, new york, san francisco. i'm not going to talk about what i actually did. suffice to say that despite initial reservations (a hangover from my left-leaning bourgeois (white-trash) adolescence in which i was fed (and subsequently regurgitated) an all-you-can-eat diet of anti-american sentiment that i have since identified as pertaining to a collective australian nation-defining insecurity), i was pleasantly - and absolutely - surprised by what i experienced. i was disarmed by the north american openness of spirit, the friendliness and acceptance of difference. i was dazzled by their pride in achievement, and a culture in which brilliance is not just permitted, but celebrated. i found a kindness that humbled me. i found something to be admired and lauded, and perhaps even something worth fighting for. i was enthralled, enraptured, captivated and bewitched by north america and her gentlemen. and yes, i fell in love. i fell in love with north america...

...and her gentlemen.  

but the real journey, as always, occurred within.

for years i have been travelling with the almost singular purpose of socratically knowing myself. this journey is called life and it appears to continue until the day you die - thank goodness - and travelling has always seemed to me a way to accelerate the acquisition of knowledge that life has to offer about who you truly are: by yourself, out of your comfort zone, alone.

i've always been slightly irked by my self-love (an affair that rivals any hollywood romance). i felt that it was a slightly embarrassing barrier to loving others and living in the moment. what i didn't realise, and what i learnt on my vacation, was that my so-called self-love was conditional. that love - perhaps the most important love of all - hinged on my being a perfect version of myself. my imperfections and weaknesses would have to be corrected or ignored, and the ondrej that manifested those imperfections and weaknesses was someone that i didn't so much hate as felt ashamed of. deeply ashamed. 

according to brené brown, (and i encourage you to click on her name and watch the linked video), shame is universal, and can be understood as the fear of disconnection: if people know or see the things about us that we are ashamed of, we fear that we will be judged to be unworthy of love and connection (the only damn thing that matters in this life). 

when i talk about shame, i'm not talking about the dirty secret of what you did in the sandpit with lucy o'donnell when you were 10 years old, or the crazy aunty that has been shut up in the attic since god knows when, i'm talking about the feelings that underpin all of our insecurities. you know when you give a talk or a handover and you mess something up or you get asked questions that you simply don't know the answer to and you leave with that humiliating, excruciating feeling that you're not good enough? the one that leaves you feeling sick to the stomach, doubting your worth as an individual and unable to sleep? you know when you go to a party and everyone seems to be laughing and having a good time and you can't think of a single thing to say to anyone and you leave with that humiliating, excruciating feeling that you are not interesting enough? you know when you go swimming and everyone else in the pool or change room has a perfectly muscled body, big tits or dick, tight buns and tan and you go home with that humiliating, excruciating feeling that you are not beautiful enough? this is shame. it is shame because it is not based on anything external but on our own deep-seated insecurities that we are not enough.

we fear that if we show people who we truly are - if we stand before them in our nakedness, in our weakness, in our imperfection, they would not see the richness that we know exists in there somewhere (a richness that we so desperately want others to see), but poverty. they would see someone who is not big enough, not smart enough, not beautiful enough, not interesting enough, not funny enough, not good enough. we would be judged to be simply not enough, and rejected, thrown on a scrapheap of human emotion, somewhere well outside the orbit of love and connection that holds us all together.

rather than an end-point, this realisation was the beginning of my true journey. a journey into vulnerability. this, apparently, is the antidote to shame. 

i like to think that i'm an authentic representation of who i truly am - i'm sure we all do - but i probably didn't appreciate just how powerful my shame-based defense mechanisms were. when you start a new job or meet the parents of your lover, or even just someone new at a party or a bus-stop, there's that part of your brain that wants your best side to shine, and prevent the dark side from being seen. you want them to see the perfect version of you. it's like performing spinning plates where you constantly have to run from one plate-topped pole to another to keep them spinning and prevent them from falling and breaking. it's exhausting.   

so what i started practicing on my trip, (and it's practice because it's fucking hard and i'm sure it will take an entire lifetime to get right), is recognising myself for the weak, imperfect person that i am, and trying to love that person a little bit more. not the perfect version that never existed anyway, but the rough and imperfect one that you guys probably know (and perhaps love) more than i do. the next part - even harder, but just as important - was allowing other people to see that person. to lean into vulnerability and present myself to the world not as i wanted to be seen, but as i am. to be truly seen. 

so practice i did. the earth did not crack open. a greek chorus of passers-by did not assemble and start chanting the word 'loser' over and over again as i was swallowed up by a hole in the earth that led all the way to one of dante's seven stages of hell. no, quite the opposite. people responded with kindness...and love. authentic connection was born when i manifested my vulnerability, and through that love and connection, a feeling of (and there's no other word for it): joy. the flipside to allowing yourself to be vulnerable is that you see more clearly the vulnerability in others, and you simply ache with love for them. i do believe that this is the normal human state. to be aching, bursting, exploding with love for the people around us. 

...and what's more, there are no fucking spinning plates to deal with. just the reality that is before you that you can dive into, be present in, soak up and enjoy :)

in my 5 weeks in north america, this is what i found:

i'm not as smart as i thought i was

i'm not as attractive as i thought i was

i'm not as fun or funny as i thought i was

i'm not as big and hard and sexually proficient as i thought i was

i'm not as interesting as i thought i was...

...and yet i feel more love and connection and happiness than ever before.

xo