Shifting Space by Desserae Shepston is a community-supported newsletter. I am so grateful to you for stopping by and taking the time to read. If you’d like to receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
April is my birthay month! Not to mention the heart of spring and the month we (officially) celebrate Earth Day. To celebrate, I’ve set up a 20% subscription discount, available for the whole month. The discounted annual rate is $40. Once you sign up at this rate, you’ll maintain it as long as you subscribe. I’m also donating 20% of all new subscriptions to the Nature Conservancy.
Also, please consider downloading the Substack app to join the conversation and participate in the community. If this post resonates, feel free to share!
Who are you when no one is looking?
I asked myself this question earlier this week. I think often about who I am at my core, the real me without the protective shell, the fear, the feelings of inadequacy and not-enoughness. I ask myself what I really want from my life, what would it look like if I could live my days exactly how I want. But, I am not sure I ever quite posed this particular question to myself.
Who are you when no one is looking?
When eyes aren’t on you, do you let down your guard and let yourself be whoever you are at that moment? I wondered who this person is when she finds herself in her own company.
I often have these ambitious thoughts about what I want my life to look like when I can carve out the time and space to do just as I please, with the hope and dream that the more I move in the direction I want, the more my life will take on the shape I see in my mind’s eye.
Am I true to myself when I’m alone? Am I the person I say I want to be? Is the person I say I want to be really who I feel I am in my center?
I don’t want to say that the person we are in front of others isn’t real. You can be the most authentic you and still be different in front of others than when you are alone. I think we’re inherently different when we mix with others. Sometimes, the changes in our behavior and personality are only nuanced variations of the alone self, and sometimes they’re wildly different.
When I started thinking about this question, my first thought was that we humans are so performative, that if we want to know what it’s like to be true to nature, we should look to nature.
And then I realized that everywhere you look, creatures behave differently alone than they do when others are around. How different depends on context.
It does for us too.
I’m not talking about threatening situations here. I’m speaking of daily interactions in our lives, when we know we have eyes on us, when others see what we do.
You only have to think of the often-dramatic performances of (usually) a male of any species when females are around during mating season to understand that performance is inherent in nature. You can also look at the way animals act in large groups, or how little ones vie for the attention of parents. Or how an animal can wither or thrive depending on the type of attention it receives from others in its environment.
We’re no different.
I realized I was only considering behavioral differences in other animals. But then I wondered about plant life too. Do we not see the differences in how they behave because they just are what they are, all the time and no matter what? Or is it that we just don’t notice because we don’t understand or recognize the subtleties in their “behaviors”? We think of them as non-sentient life forms, so they must just exist in a stasis, actions purely based on environmental and biological factors.
It rains, they grow.
Something chops it down or stamps on it, they die.
Right?
Except I’m not sure that that is right.
Scientists are finding out so much about the language of water and the language and communities of trees that tell us there is much more to these life forms than we realized (and with regards to water, we think of it as life-giving, not a life form itself).
Everything on this planet is energy realized into form and substance. Perhaps that means it all has the potential to influence and be influenced by other energies, even if subtly. Even if we can’t see it.
Have you heard about plants that thrive when the people caring for them play peaceful classical music, or how they wither in the presence of harsh music?
My bestie, Gail, has first-hand experience with how plant behavior can change when it receives positive attention. In the first instance, she took a plant that had had ample sun in a home but still wasn’t thriving and brought it to her office, which had no natural light. Every day, she talked to that plant, told it she loved it as she watered it. Touched the leaves softly, gently. And you know what?
That plant thrived!
It grew long healthy stems that reached from where the pot hung from the ceiling down to the floor and continued running along the floor the length of her office.
And then it happened years later, with another plant in another office at a different job. This plant was not doing well at all when Gail started this job. So, again, she nurtured it with her voice, sending it love as she cared for its physical needs. And guess what?
The plant blossomed, filling out and becoming lush and healthy.
Yes, I think every life form on this planet is impacted by other energy forms. Every life form potentially behaves differently when others are watching (more mind-bending observations from the quantum world tell us that at the quantum level, it’s only when something is observed that it takes form. Until then, it’s infinite possibility).
But I digress…
The point of this little trip down a side road was to say that who we are in front of others is a very real aspect of our whole self. Different than our true selves in solitude even when we are our most authentic.
Are you aware of who you are when no one is looking? Do you see the you who exists when you don’t have to perform?
In the age of social media, when even our most mundane or private worlds are seen as performance, it can be challenging to step back from the need to be always on. It’s easy to busy the mind—numb it, really—when we find ourselves alone.
People often still find themselves scrolling social media, watching videos, or doing anything they can to keep from being alone with themselves.
I’m not good at social media or scrolling YouTube or the internet in general. I relish time alone. But that doesn’t mean I’ve paid as much attention to who I am when no one is looking and whether that matches up to the who I would be if I could live my life exactly the way I want each and every day.
I long to fill my days in creativity, writing my books and this blog (as opposed to freelance ghostwriting for others, though I’m grateful for the job I have and the people I work for) and spending time daily out in nature, hiking, riding my bike, watching life around me.
And traveling, seeing new sights, revisiting favorite haunts, and absorbing new cultures.
Yet, often, when I get time alone that isn’t already earmarked for work, I find myself just sitting, and being. Oh, I think it’s valuable to let yourself just be on a regular basis.
But I notice that when I have that precious time, I often feel like I just need to let down. Wander through the relief I feel at not having a deadline, not having anything I have to do. The relief is so great that I just do nothing! I exhale all the stress, but I forget to inhale my creativity and energy.
And then sometimes I beat myself up for it because I realize I missed an opportunity to create what I want to create.
So not productive.
Yet, I also like who I am these days when I’m alone. That wasn’t always the case. I judged myself the way I thought others judged me. I played the critical tapes in my head about why I wasn’t enough. I didn’t believe those who told me I was enough because there were those who obviously thought I wasn’t.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
So often we hear the one negative voice (or our perception of one person’s opinion) instead of the ten loving ones. We latch on to the singular, folding it into the vision we have of who we are, letting it dim the light, allowing ourselves to shrink.
I started nurturing my heart, tending to my spirit with gentleness, kindness, and forgiveness.
I changed the dialogue I have with myself when I’m alone, including during the wakeful 3 a.m. hours.
In being kinder to myself, I also find that I am kinder to others. Not just when I think I should be but also when no one is looking, in the thoughts that cross my mind as well as the actions I take.
I’m still human, so I still get annoyed, angry, sad, critical, anxious, and fearful. And that’s ok. There are lots of reasons to feel those emotions.
I also check myself often to see if I’m stuffing down emotions I just don’t want to feel.
Sometimes I am.
More often than not, I allow them to surface. I feel. I acknowledge. I release. It may take a moment, or it may take hours or an entire day.
When I’m alone, I’m also still an observer. I take joy in staring out the window at the dog next door, the birds eating the seeds on the ground, and the way the trees sway and dance in the wind. I watch my cats sleeping and feel their peace.
I wander through my inner landscape, observing whatever I find there, too.
And I’m creative, with ideas for new stories arising from some random thought or a dream or a line read somewhere or a scene I see when out on a hike or walking.
And I’m movement. Sometimes dancing around the RV (best done when no one is looking!), sometimes feeling the way my muscles work as I climb a mountain trail, sometimes luxuriating in stretches, and sometimes in leisure on a casual stroll.
And I’m stillness. In quiet meditations or meandering thoughts.
And I’m longing. For community. For peace. For connection.
And I’m peace.
And I’m joy.
And I’m melancholy.
And I’m expansive.
And I’m restless.
And I’m content.
And I’m weak.
And I’m strong.
When no one is looking, I am alone but not lonely. I might fear what I can or can’t do with my life, but I don’t fear my own company.
So, am I the person I say I want to be?
Mostly.
But not always.
Because this life is a journey, with ebbs and flows, ups and downs, growth and stagnation. The pauses can be as significant as the momentum. But when I pull the camera back and take the wide-angle view, I see progress and process. I see that I now fear less and take more steps more often toward the dreams of the life I envision.
Who are you when no one is looking?
Be kind and gentle and loving to that you.
Be with the process and celebrate the progress.
Sit with that you and listen and observe.
Give that you a warm hug and welcome them to your life.
Peace and love.
Desserae
Shifting Space by Desserae Shepston is a community-supported newsletter. I am so grateful to you for stopping by and taking the time to read. If you’d like to receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
April is my birthay month! Not to mention the heart of spring and the month we (officially) celebrate Earth Day. To celebrate, I’ve set up a 20% subscription discount, available for the whole month. The discounted annual rate is $40. Once you sign up at this rate, you’ll maintain it as long as you subscribe. I’m also donating 20% of all new subscriptions to the Nature Conservancy.
Also, please consider downloading the Substack app to join the conversation and participate in the community. If this post resonates, feel free to share!