Being Good to avoid Being Honest

There’s something I have a history of not doing well.

I’ve been terrible at allowing myself to truly enjoy free time.
There’s always this nagging need to be further along, or somewhere else.

And when it’s like this, I don’t get to fully drop in and appreciate the aliveness that is already here.

For a long time, when I got a moment of space, I’d end up filling it with a stillness practice, writing, reading, surfing or scrolling through valuable instagram accounts…

Sure, it’s not a heroin addiction. But man’s suffering is relative… and what’s sad is, when I’m simply using something to fill space, it ruins the magic of that thing.

So, do I feel more relaxed after doing these things? Not really.
Does it feel productive? No, not really.
Because I’m in no-man’s land. Time-killing. Gripping that last trace of guilt-tripped-self-improvement when really, I should be having some fun.

Because truthfully, when I’m all in on my leisure? I can be doing hard shit and it’s genuinely more relaxing and restful. It’s an inner state, more than a postcard.

But you’ve gotta allow yourself to really be in it. And that’s where I’ve been terrible.

There have been times when I’m in a forest, or on a beautiful beach and still feel tormented by my mind’s fears and to-do lists. In fact, it can be even worse when you’re somewhere serene, because it highlights that you’re… not.

So, a lot of my philosophising was, and occasionally is, just busy-work to quell internal conflicts that don’t need philosophical answers.

And beneath those supposedly “low pressure” activities and a relatively “free” lifestyle was a hidden suffering.

Dark, nagging voices. Fears. Guilt, shame, low self-esteem.

All triggering a need to fix something external, rather than face myself with genuine loving kindness. Maybe this is why that old phrase “the good die young” exists. If you spend your life fighting the fires out there, you’re doing a “good” thing. But what about the fire that’s smouldering in you?

I don’t think “good” should be our aim. Often, “good intentions” hide unconscious evils, which are projected onto something, or someone else.

Can we try being honest first? Can goodness come from anything but honesty?

Me? I wanted to get away from myself and I did it by focusing on the "things that someone who had it together would do”, or the things that I thought I should do. The good things. The type of things other people would see and hopefully respect.

But not the honest things that would actually help. No, those things seemed too overwhelming.

So, if life was an ocean and I was paddling through it on my surfboard, my subconscious’ unrest was like a tangle of seaweed caught on my leg rope.

My avoidance habits came from an unintegrated part of my experience — a piece of my identity I’d relegated to the shadows that was always dragging me the opposite way I wanted to go.

My own hands holding me back.
Pulling me towards an abyss of my own creation.

It was connection I was afraid of. It was honesty that scared me. Depth of relationship. And I don’t blame myself for this… because some of my most formative experiences of connection always seemed to lead to one direction: death or emotional abandonment.

My heart was open when I started out. And loss hurt it so badly that it began to close. Especially the loss in those relationships I’d really given my all to… Like raising my rescue cat, Fred, who got hit by a car when he was just two. I was in my early teens. Or Dad’s death in my late teens. Or my brother’s struggle with appendix cancer — although I processed this differently, having had some experience with loss, and having been able to share in our grief together while we could.

But truthfully, I think it’s the same underlying dynamic for many of us.

Things happen that we aren’t ready for and can’t process in that moment… and our being splits into compartments. We live where it’s safe… in certain areas of ourself, where the flood waters can’t reach. But it comes at a cost. We dis-member our emotional body.

Anything truly important, that we’re not addressing, becomes like a leech on our skin. We may be able to hide it from some… but in some dark warm skin fold, the little bugger is siphoning our precious life force.

Sure, maybe the pain isn’t as acute. But the longer term effects of numbness and emotional dismemberment are more crippling than any pain — apathy, illness and a disconnection from the substance of life: meaningful relationships.

But this metaphorical parasite can only latch on because we’ve abandoned ourselves, in a bid to “get ahead”. So many of us are running from home, all the time, leaving our body and key relationships in disrepair because we don’t feel we can face them.

And when we do this, nowhere feels safe, until we feel safer searching than being where we are. But eventually, searching leads to the realisation “wherever I go, there I am”.

How you frame that realisation may be the most important choice you ever make.

“Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.”

— Naguib Mahfouz

If you keep running, you’ll get more of the same. Your life will be build on rotting foundations of fearful avoidance. An urgency — but not the enjoyable kind.

I tried many times to take drastic action to shift or break these patterns. The harder I surged, the more I’d end up collapsing. “God, I need a month of rest, but I just can’t afford that right now.”

I mean yeah, the drastic approach can be okay sometimes.

It helps us move our “what’s possible when I really try” benchmark a bit higher

Except, that “neglect myself and then dramatically re-invent myself” thing is still the pattern.

Do you get it?

It’s not about what you’re doing…

Ice baths can be great, or useless.
Psychedelics can be great, or useless.
Stillness can be great, or useless.

It’s about how you’re apply these tools; what narrative you are writing

And mostly, it’s about the unmet need who sits behind the writer of that narrative, in the shadows of the psyche, still pretending not to be there as the beautiful story creates a smokescreen.

Your identity, and the manner in which you do things, is so complex and yet so adaptable.

Forcing change doesn’t work. You’ll split yourself from yourself even further.
It’s going to take time, even when you’re doing all the right things.

The surge and collapse patterns aren’t going to work in the long term, because this dynamic doesn’t make for a safe, loving, reliable relationship between parts of Self. It isn’t nourishing.

Do you know what does help restore trusting relationships between parts of ourselves — and with others? Building a dynamic where offering some presence to yourself actually feels good.

1. A little bit of action done performed with the intent of making it just a touch more playful and enjoyable than you’re used to

2. A little bit of self-recognition!
“We just did that”
“This part was so good and I want more of it.”
“This part wasn’t so good and I’m okay with not having more of it”

3. A little bit of will-power, remembering that your neural pathways won’t automatically change, but that it’ll get easier over time. And remembering that you only need enough will-power to repeat that small action in this moment, now… and later is later.

Honestly, the only way I’ve been able to create a deep and genuine sense of safety is by leaning into life’s strangeness — and not going with the flow, but creating it and then appreciating it.

It’s the formula I shared above that brings this sense of “ah, I did well today… and now my innermost being can rest and be peaceful.”

Here’s how you know it’s working:

When your mind and body can be tuned into something and working away, but deep inside you feel peaceful and restful, more of the time. I think that’s the rest we’re all really seeking. We don’t want a life empty of achievement or challenge… but we do want to be at peace with ourselves and those closest to us.

So, when you’re feeling this, ask yourself “how did I create this dynamic?”

Because you are always creating, my friend.

Much love.