what if development isn't about getting better?

 

There was a point when I realised that for me the inner development journey is not about getting better or improving. About adding knowledge or skills. My inner journey is mostly about shedding, about letting go of the stories that have shaped the way I see the world. Peeling back the layers that have (necessarily) provided meaning, belonging and status. The onion layers analogy is not sufficient to describe what happens, because the profound significance of recognising the next story that has held me captive, can be both surprising and shocking.

One of the stories for me to name and shed is that accumulating experiences matters for the inner journey. Instead of accumulating experiences, I’m learning that what matters is radical presencing. Presencing that is attentive, that slows down to notice things.

In his piercingly insightful The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton suggest that one of the things about travel that is often swept under the carpet in our planning and anticipation; our expectations of what our excursions will look like, is that we ‘take ourselves with us’. What I’m suggesting is a bit similar. We can accumulate a veritable kitbag of experiences, many of which can carry a ‘development’ tag, but we take our same old inner worlds with us. Our same perceptions, same fears, same hopes, same biases and prejudices … etc.

I am learning that fear and hope are indicators that I’m not being present. Both are projections into a future that isn’t real, only hypothetical. But in order to quieten the incessancy of hopes and fears, I need to engage in something more compelling, something that drowns out the noise of the yet-to-come. Because I can only live in the present. It’s all I’ve got. Now is it. The future will be just another now, but I’m not there yet.

So that ‘something’ is a radical, attentive presence that notices sounds, smells, tastes, textures and colours and shapes - now. Where ever I am. A presence that absorbs beauty, notices patterns, and pushes deeply and curiously into the un-noticed. And it pays acute attention to my own body and soul, my nervous system.

I’m learning to ask myself; what is ‘now’ inviting from me? How do I show up for the place and people I’m with now? How do I steward now, so I leave it with people feeling better about themselves, and the space I’ve been in is healthier in whatever way that makes sense?

My inner journey is therefore more and more about being present. For me at least, this is where the real transformation happens. The experiences of the outer world matter less. I am more content with being immersed in the local and the ordinary; wondering deeply about my judgements, perceptions and biases therein. In practice that means I’m less inclined to want to add another ‘exotic’ experience, pondering where to go and what to do, and more inclined to lean into curiosity about how I am in the ordinary.

For example, my morning ocean ritual has evolved in recent years. Instead of chasing waves and being largely motivated by being social (which was and is awesome BTW), I dip at the same time (pre-dawn), in the same place. It’s a practice rather than recreation. There is certainly a social dimension, but it’s better described as ‘connection’ - with people, but also with place. It is incredible how intimate you can be with a piece of country, in this case a beach, by engaging with it everyday with an attentive spirit. I am intentional about the bodyfulness of the experience, seeking to engage all my senses and in doing so paying attention to patterns, rhythms and trajectories.

Practicing a radical presence is also teaching me to release my ego in interactions with people. (I’m a slow learner BTW). Increasingly I am comfortable with not being noticed. In the brilliantly creative Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, ‘Sonder’ is defined as the profound realization that every random passerby is living a life as vivid, complex, and detailed as your own. It is the awareness that while you are the main character of your story, you are merely a background extra in the stories of everyone else around you. Practicing radical presence, for me, is about empathising with others’ lives and in my interaction with them, tentatively feeling into their world and nudging their souls ‘upward’.

The journey is therefore less about becoming a better person, and more about being a present person.