The Futile Path of Trying to Be Someone You’re Not
Here’s What My Divorce Taught Me
It’s a Fall evening in 2011 and I’m walking through Denver’s Cheesman Park in the dark crying my heart out. I feel lost, bewildered, and confused after mutually agreeing to a divorce with my wife.
In my head I kept replaying the blood gurgling screams of my then 9-year old daughter when we shared the news with her. “How could this happen,” she yelled with a force of intensity that reverberated throughout the walls of our 1,000 sq ft condo. “I thought the two of you loved each other.”
Problem is, in an effort to be someone that I was not for the sake of the marriage, I had forgotten to love myself.
Broken from the whole experience, I decided to do a Google search for a Taoist teacher (if there even was such a thing). Enter Casey Kochmer and his online community called Personal Tao. I immediately reached out to set up a time to talk . A few days later on our call, he patiently listened to my story and my desire to heal.
“Michael,” he says. “I just want you to just focus on building your inner strength and getting stronger. I’m so proud of you for making the decision to reach out. Everything is going to be OK.”
Looking back on this discovery call, I recall thinking that we were going to proceed forward with weekly discussions about the Tao Te Ching. Rather, the followup assignment that Casey assigned to me was to think about my core essence, which he said involved “how one lives fully in their style while not letting outside crises or stories limit us.”
Core essence, Casey continued “is what makes you uniquely ‘YOU,’ what separates you from others in your core identity. Emblazoned on his Personal Tao website is the following truth bomb on what core essence isn’t…..
“It isn’t your story. People will search for their essence over decades due to the mistake of thinking their essence is a story to complete. This will keep a person chasing an entire lifetime after ever-shifting stories.”
The narrative on the website continues with……
“Core Essence is your style. It’s how you express your stories.
Core Essence is your spark that continues to burn after each story you fill out in life. Look at two twins, identical down to the genes, yet each one is a very separate person with a unique style of expressing themselves in life.”
For me, my core essence is “human connection,” the ability to nomadically wander and connect with humanity. Anyone who knows me well would say that this fits me like a tight fitting glove.
As Casey shared with me in subsequent sessions, many of us lose our essence when we allow our stories to become the dominant force in our lives, not who we are at our core. In my case, I allowed my marriage to completely overshadow who I am, who I’m not, and who I’d hope to become. Yes, some sacrifice is important in any relationship but it never should be to the point where you give away your entire identity.
Like I did….
For me, the consequence of all of this is that I lost EVERYTHING except for literally the clothes on my back and my books. And it has taken the better part of ten years for me to reclaim myself.
Having turned 60 in June, I am on a reinvention journey to reclaim my future self. To reclaim the essence of who I am, who I’m not, and the legacy I hope to leave.
A big part of this for me has been finding my place in the world, my geographical home where I can playfully allow my inner and outer essence to sing and dance. So in a bold move a mere few weeks ago, I picked up and moved from Denver, Colorado to the Las Vegas area.
For me, the spiritual thinker Deepak Chopra sums up Las Vegas best once calling it on the Conan O’Brien show “the most spiritual place on the planet because people there don’t pretend to be anything other than who they are.”
My new coffeehouse friend Anthony by his example reminds me of this whenever I cross paths with him. He shared his journey with me one morning over latte’s. A full-time professional skateboarder, I’ve found him to be such a kind, compassionate, non-judgmental person despite the fact that people often have an inclination to judge him because he’s covered in tattoos.
He is the epitome of someone who seems to fully embrace his essence as a skateboarder and father. Having been on the hard road of life, he now realizes that compromising who is would be a futile move. This speaks to me in ways you would never imagine.
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