the cul-de-sac of self-awareness

Photo by Shane Rounce

When I was working for Ruminate (a contemplative literary magazine I started and led) we made art prints featuring a quote from the priest and writer Henri Nouwen. The quote was: “As long as we have our stories, there is hope.”

I still have one of these block prints and I saw it the other day and chuckled, thinking about how I now see these words very differently.

I used to think that our stories were one of the highest watermarks. Now I think that understanding our stories is important, but it’s not the endpoint. And actually, when we think it’s the endpoint, it can lock us into our identities and become a kind of cul-de-sac of endless introspection.

This is not a very popular stance to take, especially as a writer and an editor and someone who coaches people through the process of understanding their old relational patterns and wounds (aka their past/their story). Ha! It’s a strange tension to hold—doing the very meaningful work I do and also feeling that it’s not the final destination.

And this pushes against the wider culture, too, where introspection is prized and claiming our stories is often seen as one of the ultimate acts of self-awareness. I get this impulse, but it doesn’t sit quite right with me—it doesn’t feel like enough.

When I began to learn about kenosis or self-emptying and the spiritual concept of “dying before you die” that is taught in Christian mysticism and Sufism, I learned about a more subtle level of selfhood. In these teachings, you practice letting go of the personal drama and stories that you’ve been holding oh-so-tightly, and you practice, in a sense, ploughing it all back in and letting it be a kind of compost for something new, for a deeper selfhood to emerge.

At first, this all felt very counterintuitive and I think I was offended. I’d worked SO hard at introspection and self-awareness and now you want to me offer all that up? When one of my teachers recommended taking a break from journaling, I was shocked. No more morning pages?! But I was also intrigued and it had a clear ring of truth.

And I think that this is where the magic happens.

In the very alchemy of plowing these hard-earned identities back in, something deeper can emerge. We find an exit out of the endless cul-de-sac.

This has felt like a scary and ongoing leap that I clumsily try to make (I’ve written a little more about what this looks like for me here) And to be clear, sometimes I really need my story and my analysis and my introspection. And sometimes I don’t. I try to be gentle with myself and this process.

But honestly, just having this larger map with a view that includes the gifts of psychology and self-improvement and writing and art but also shows a deeper vision that I’m aiming toward has meant so much to me. In my body it feels like both a relief and like a surge of vitality. And it’s helped me reorient to how I hold my own story (tenderly and also hopefully lightly) and how I try to hold space for others in theirs (also tenderly and lightly).

What do you think? Have you ever felt stuck in the cul-de-sac of introspection? Have you ever tried offering up the very identities and realizations you’ve worked so hard to find?

I’d love to hear.

With care,
Brianna

P.S. Wanna explore this deeper selfhood more? I’m here.