3 Life Changing Benefits From Taking A Break From Being ‘Yourself’

Hey, my name is _____ and I am a ______ (fill in the blanks).

Yesterday I wrote an essay about lessons I learned from walking the Camino De Santiago with my dad. But there are more gems I wish to share with you, so you don't have to walk for weeks in Spain. Let's get started with this question...

How many times do you think you've told others who you are? a 1000 times, 100.000 times?

Every day, for 6 weeks, my dad and I met new people on the 'camino'.

People didn’t introduce themselves. Saying hi was enough and then we just walked together. Whatever was alive in the moment for someone was being shared. Raw and openly. Everyone had a story, but it didn’t have a name, neither did the emotions that came along with it. People freed themselves from their stories and identifications by sharing who they were being in that moment. So did I.

Everyday I felt I was meeting myself for the first time.

I also experienced this 4 years ago at Burning Man.

At Burning Man (a week-long event focusing on self-expression and community) you don’t introduce yourself by your name, nor do you talk about what you do. You are there to create, play and be. People call and dress themselves whatever they like and do what they wouldn't do in their 'normal' lives. So did I. It made room for exploring parts of 'me' that I never would consider to be 'me'. Liberating!

It is like instantly skipping to the best part of life: Being, sharing and expressing with no limitation or identification.

Now, you don’t have to go anywhere to reap the benefits from dropping the story of yourself.

To start: Ponder the question: Who am I without my story?
To Practice: refrain from telling people your usual story.
For fun: Take on a personality or type that you consider very different than yours. Adopt their way of walking, thinking and behaving, for a day. You will see how easy (and fun) it is to live another ‘story’.

The benefits of this are:

Open up to possibilities you normally wouldn’t consider.

A strong identification with who you think you are blinds you to everything that doesn’t fit that image, and thus possibilities. Everything worth living for, lives exactly beyond that image.

It breaks you out of the habit of being ‘yourself’.

“This is just who I am” is a lie. You are born with qualities and characteristics, but that is not who you are. By loosing up on your ideas, it becomes easier to just BE and express yourself however you please, at any given moment.

A break from the burden of being a person.

To believe yourself to be only this tiny human being, living on a blue ball floating in space, is very limiting to begin with. Explore your imagination and inquire deeply into the question: Who am I without my name and body?