The value of un-learning

I’ve recently returned to work after taking a 10 month sabbatical. I won’t regale you here with epic tales of activities done, experiences experienced, places visited, or people met. They exist, of course. I packed a lot of experiences into these 10 months, spending a total of 5 weeks of it at home.

From yoga & meditation teacher trainings, to farming in the Arctic Circle, swimming in the Amazon, diving with hammerheads, and sleeping on active volcanoes, many of these weeks were intense; some were… wild. I will happily swap stories, but not here, not yet. I’m still processing and readjusting. And now I’m back in the archetypal ‘village’ of work feeling like a very different person.?

I thought briefly about writing out a “top 5 things I learned from my sabbatical” post. I gagged a little, then decided not to. My Ego demands I share something ??, but what indeed to share??

I did not miss working for a microsecond. But I’m also genuinely excited to return. I am immensely grateful to work with such wonderful people like Dr. Michael Reinhardt at #SiemensHealthineers who supported and empowered me with this. I can honestly say I’m very glad to be back.

However, I feel very different from the person I was when I left.?

It’s interesting, since I feel I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know during this time off. Sure, I had loads of intense experiences. But no matter where you go or what you do, the “you” is always there (though meditation gurus might say a “you” is only there as long as “you” identify with “your” Ego or mind…but that’s a topic for another day). The “me” that I brought along has a head already loaded full of personal development books.?

So if I didn’t learn much new stuff… what the heck did I do?!?

The two most important things I did during this time was to unlearn things and to convert knowledge into lived experience.?

One of my teachers defines “life learning” as “unlearning.” He’s right: there is so much stuff filling our heads. Content, planning, worrying, analyzing, fears, hopes, stances, etc. The innumerable judgments and opinions of our minds imprison us in invisible cages of “should.” We let the donkeys ride us, rather than the other way around.?

We fill our lives with thinking that doesn’t serve us and largely isn’t even our own. And I’m not talking about the terabytes of useless trivia & song lyrics stuck in my head ??.

In this so-called “information age” of social media and 24/7 news we are bombarded like never before in human history with external beliefs, thoughts, and stimuli. One of the biggest “learnings” we can do in life is to deprogram ourselves of thought patterns and beliefs that do not serve us. This requires unplugging from external sources of knowledge and content. I looked deeply inside my mind, trying to expose the values and deep beliefs which aren’t serving me (this was particularly intense during a 3 week meditation training).

I examined beliefs about myself; insecurities; fears; beliefs about others and the world; conditioned values about career; judgements I'd unconsciously held for years; opinions about how a person "should" live their life; patterns I've been reenacting for decades; and many other areas. It was shocking to discover how deeply I’d relied on other peoples’ ideas of what is smart or good.?

Please now pardon my French (and for the French, please excuse my use of this idiom ??), but I adopted this mindset: fuck constant input; fuck reading the news so often; definitely fuck social media; fuck reading more personal development books; fuck listening to more self-growth podcasts; fuck obsessing over “learning” more information. We need fewer impulses and more living; less knowledge and more wisdom.

If I wasn’t planning on actually doing something with a piece of knowledge, I tried to ignore it. And during this sabbatical I tried to gently coax the Mind Donkey off my shoulders. I sought to unlearn a lot of conditioning and to feel more of what I knew, rather than just know it ??.?

Lacking the incredible distraction of working every day, I dove into deep, dark places of myself… areas I did not want to go, things I did not want to look at, and emotions I had long resisted. I did this with my mind kicking and screaming. With the elegance of a drunk elephant trying to ice skate, I blundered my way into deep introspection and self-exploration. It often wasn’t pretty. You definitely shouldn’t listen to advice from me on how to do this ??.

I did this by throwing myself into experiences with minimal planning, and by diving into my inner world through meditation and other paths. I traveled a lot. I journaled a lot. I had hundreds of hours of deep, emotional conversation (sadly I didn’t un-learn the need to talk a lot ??). I dove deeply into my relationships, navigating a lot of healing and change with them. I spent a lot of time working with teachers from various backgrounds. Primarily, I threw myself into “training” in many areas, including dance, yoga, meditation, plant medicine, shamanism, music, farming, languages, poetry, partying, etc.?

Most importantly, I felt and expressed emotions more deeply than I have since childhood.

Not to sugarcoat things, I had many moments of misery, suffering, and pain. Actually, this time off was far more painful and difficult than I expected. It was also more joyous and eye-opening than I could have imagined.?

I discovered that there is an ocean of difference between rationally knowing something (ex. self love is important, trust your intuition, don’t touch the tap water in San Cristobal ??, goats are stubborn, etc.) and the felt and lived experience of that same thing. I deprogrammed a little the god-status of rational thought, to allow myself to feel more.

Living is so much more important than knowing. And that requires us to rebalance feeling and thinking. I’m not saying to ignore rational thought… just don’t put it in the role of god over our emotions and intuitions.?

My mind is just as neurotic as ever, with its incessant need to plan, re-plan, re-re-plan, and over-analyze everything. But I watch it more than I used to, rather than buy into the illusion that I AM it. I listen less to the conditioning of others hiding inside. Paradoxically, I feel much more connected to others when I disconnect from external conditioning.?

The point is not to get rid of the mind. As another teacher said, “How can you ‘get rid’ of something that doesn’t actually exist?” (yet another topic for another day ??). The point is to see your mind as the wonderful employee it is - not as a master who unconsciously and compulsively drives you. Remember the donkey…

On the surface, it feels like quite a big shift to return to work now. But this shift is just another thing to experience, rather than think about. This may sound odd, but I’m quite proud of the fact that I actually thought and planned very little about what it would be like when I returned to work.?

Unlearning and experiencing is painful, difficult, and discombobulating, but it’s the most joyous living that one can have. I feel so incredibly grateful for the entire rollercoaster and the many people who connected with and supported me along the way.?

I’m working now to unlearn the belief that there is any separation between the worlds I just experienced during 10 months of sabbatical, and the so-called “normal business world.” Put another way: it’s time to integrate ??!?

What about you??

Close your eyes and place one hand on your heart. Imagine for a moment all the energy in your body and around you flowing into your heart area.

Breathe deeply in and out. Do it again. Now ask yourself: what is something that you need to unlearn?