If there is one big lesson I find myself being taught in life at the moment, it is the practice of letting go.
I see the young man in me that so desperately wants to succeed and show how valuable he is to the world around him. I see the boy in me who finds it nearly impossible to believe in himself without constant praise and reinforcement from those around him.
I see the controller in me who wants to ensure that everything I do satisfies those two characters, and who seems to be less and less effective at doing so.
And I see the one who just seems to be there, quietly standing upright in the centre while all the bustle of agendas continues its merry dance around him. He is the one who need not prove his value, for he is value itself. He is the one who need not seek re-assurance, for there is nothing that needs reassuring. He is the one who need not control, because there can never be control of this.
I feel like I know him a little better than I used to, though I often forget him. The first time I remember meeting him was when I was about 20. The needy boy had slipped into the driving seat that day and has led us all on a thrilling journey of fear, despair and desperation.
I had been due to watch a friend perform his show at a festival, when just before going on stage he informed me that he might ask me to jump on stage in the middle and accompany a couple of his songs with my guitar.
I remember being gripped by this extreme fear, rooting me to my seat, rigid and unseeing. I could not bear the possibility of being asked to play when I hadn’t rehearsed, and be subject to a reception by the not inconsiderable audience that would not meet my exacting standards of complete appreciation and wonder.
So I ran. Before he started the show, I just left and ran away. I ran down to the river side in the town nearby and sat. While the immediacy of the fear dissolved when I stepped from the tent, the root of the fear was, I realised, going nowhere. So I sat, and wrote, and questioned, and exposed myself to my fear. I threw myself into every single question I could make space for, every question that I was afraid to answer.
After a couple of hours I met him. There he was, quiet and strong, smiling.
“Ewan, I am the one who does not fear, because I am simply what I am. I don’t pretend to be any more, or any less, I just am, right here, where I’ve always been. I don’t fear anything, because I don’t have anything to protect or justify. Nothing can harm me, because there is nothing to harm. Ewan, I am you. Here I am.”
I try to let go and let the quiet strong one walk around in my shoes when I remember to. He likes that. He’s fascinated by the world, and loves to explore it with this wise curiosity. Other people seem to like meeting him too. He’s great company – open, compassionate and unforgivingly real. They seem to respond to him in ways that they usually don’t with me.
I would be jealous, but I’m not, because there’s nothing to be jealous of. There’s nothing to justify. There’s just me, and him, and this.
