Checked Out

It turns out that the experience of living can be different than what you think is normal.

I had no idea.

For me growing up, to have a smart, idea-pumping brain was where it was at. Physical bodies must have been mentioned, but generally, I came out of childhood assuming "bodies are embarrassing" and even "bodies are bad." Mostly though, bodies were ignored.

So it's not surprising that this is what living felt like:

I probably could have lived my whole life like that. Thinking, always thinking. Not terrible, but not full either.

Instead of discovering my body and feeling full and whole, things got worse. It turns out that you can check out when your nervous system is overwhelmed or you are under perceived threat—real or imagined danger around your existence (physical, emotional, identity, probably other stuff too). I didn't know, and at some point, living felt like this:

I probably could have lived my whole life like that, too. The checked-outness had gone on so long that it felt normal to be living detached from myself, which by the way, I believe leads to being detached from life. It was a foggy existence where I kept functioning on the outside while vacating on the inside.

We probably all check out sometimes. The main problem, for me anyway, was that I didn't know there was a different way to experience life. I mistook my experience to be brainy hyperfocus or a lot of flow, but as my checked-out state became more full-time, I unraveled. Apparently if you stay checked out too long or it repeats too often, check-out-land becomes so consistent that you just plain stay—stay a little foggy and fuzzy, a little invisible.

And the longer you stay detached in check-out-land, the harder it is to get back to your normal self (and life). You forget your way. You forget the moves. Eventually you forget yourself. I know, it's sad on steroids.

That different way to experience life that I didn't know about? It looks like this:

Eventually I found my way back. Being aware of my body led me to me, which led me to life. Sometimes I still check out, but I don't get stuck there. I find my way home.