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Finding Peace
45 Plays6 months ago
From inside my dark tent, I heard menacing sounds. Was it bears?? Wolves?? Well. Turns out, I couldn't have been more incorrect ...
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Life's Effin' Nuts'
00:00:00
Speaker
I tied the string on the spear and I put it over like my shoulders and then I just got naked and just stood out there in the wilderness.
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome, friends, to life's effin' nuts. I am JR, one man's stories and ruminations on being human in an upside down world.
00:00:29
Speaker
Today's story is a story about not believing everything you think. And then also like the difference between how our mind conceives of something and how it actually is in reality.
High School Experiences and Life Skills
00:00:42
Speaker
So I'm gonna take you guys back to 2003 for this story. You know me, I always gotta give a little bit of context to to set the story up. So here, let me set the story up. I went to a small arts and sciences high school in Southern California called Crossroads. We only had about, I think 120 people in our grade or something like that. And
00:01:01
Speaker
Part of the curriculum was what they called quote-unquote life skills. I went to that school from 7th to 12th grade. Once a week we would have life skills class. Basically for an hour we would go in a room and sit in a circle and have a talking piece and then have like a theme or topic or an idea and then we'd pass the talking piece around the circle. I don't know if it's specifically unique to Native American culture, but I know that it is a Native practice. I never took it seriously. It seemed kind of silly to me. And in retrospect, it was probably because i was there was like some level of insecurity that I had. You know, the idea of actually being truthful or vulnerable or transparent wouldn't have been very...
00:01:54
Speaker
ah desirable for me at that time.
Ojai Foundation Retreats
00:01:57
Speaker
When I was young, I didn't i didn't have a lot of self-awareness or introspection or reflection that much. I was like, I just had this sort of almost like class clown persona a little bit, but I was disconnected from my actual experience, I would say. So I never took it seriously, but the culmination of this whole Life Skills curriculum was a five-day trip up to the Ojai Foundation. Basically like this retreat center, each Life Skills class would go up on a separate trip for five days.
00:02:29
Speaker
And it was always sort of a ah joke because people who had not gone yet to the Ojai Foundation, they would watch people coming back from the Ojai Foundation and sort of laugh because people would be like, man, my life has changed. like i've I've never seen things from this perspective before, things like that. And it it seemed absurd that you could just go to this place for five days and have like some kind of life-transforming revelatory kind of experience. But sure enough, when I went, I think it was kind of life-changing and transformative. I felt peaceful and connected, grounded in a way that I just did not feel generally going to school or, you know, throughout high school. I just i didn't feel all that good. I wasn't doing all that well. I wanted to go back to the OI Foundation. it was It was like one of the only experiences I had throughout my entire high school where I actually felt good.
00:03:22
Speaker
And so the summer after my first year of college, I signed up for this program called Paths of Service, this Paths of Service program. It was basically six weeks at the OI Foundation and you work, you work on the land for 20 hours a week. And in exchange, they give you like a place to sleep, a place to stay, and you get to participate, just be sort of integrated into the community. And and it was really, really gorgeous, beautiful retreat center with yurts and really interesting. like green architecture and like outdoor kitchens. It was a really, really beautiful space, really beautiful space. And it was it was kind of controversial because to me, it made a lot of sense to be doing this for for the summer. As I struggled in my first year of college with some pretty like intense demons, I just kept thinking about the Ojai Foundation.
00:04:14
Speaker
I just kept thinking about it because, like I said, it was one of the only places where it felt really genuinely holistically good in years. And some of the people that I met there just said things and shared things with me that just resonated on a very deep frequency. And so it it felt like a no-brainer to go there for me. I didn't think twice about it, but on the night before I left, my parents confronted me.
00:04:49
Speaker
And basically said like, what the hell are you doing going to this place? Like they thought it was a cult. They're like going to this place. What are you thinking? To this day, I still remember my mom like yelled at me loud. You think we can all just follow our dreams? It was really intense. She was really upset or angry about it. And I guess I guess they were probably concerned first and foremost. So much so that I I kind of didn't want to go. Like I felt like they'd sort of gotten in my head. Yeah. So I sort of went up there sheepishly. It was supposed to be this sort of exciting thing when I was going up and spending this
00:05:30
Speaker
Exciting summer, working at the foundation.
Inner Demons and Isolation
00:05:33
Speaker
i went I went up there pretty sheepishly feeling, like, pretty ashamed. Like, oh man, I'm really fucking up in life. I can't be going around following my dreams.
00:05:48
Speaker
They set me up there with a tent on this platform in in a pretty, like, wilderness-heavy area. like It was you know was out there, and there was not a lot of distraction. There were a number of people living at the Ojai Foundation, but it was like pretty spread out. So I was basically out there in the wilderness by myself, this 19-year-old. with no distraction, no place to run, no place to hide. It was just like me against myself, just me face-to-face with myself. During my first year of college, I guess I did start to sort of like go within, just face some of my demons and self-reflect in some pretty deep and sobering ways. So it's like started the process, but at college, you know, there's always people around nonstop float food, like cafeteria, whatever it is, and video games, like there's just a lot of distraction.
00:06:44
Speaker
It was just very intense to all of a sudden just be out in the wilderness by myself. It was very dark there at the White Foundation. They didn't have a lot of lights. It was like really, really dark.
00:07:04
Speaker
So yeah, there I was, this 19-year-old
Vision Quest and Transformation
00:07:06
Speaker
with a lot of demons. you know like Maybe maybe ah a 19-year-old who was a little bit more comfortable in their own skin and more secure and things like that. Maybe it wouldn't have been such an intense experience, but I had like pretty intense demons. So like I was just face-to-face with we had a lot of shame and confusion. And also, like like I kind of felt haunted at at that age. Like I would just, my mind was just very dark. I would just like imagine a lot of death and just a lot of darkness, really intense darkness. And so it was it was rough and it was intense. And every night there was like so many sounds outside the tent. Like it felt like those, like things were moving through the bushes near me. It felt like things were like brushing up against the side of the tent.
00:07:57
Speaker
And so I'm in this this little tent, like huddled, afraid, imagining what's out there, what's on the other side of this tent, this little, you know, thin piece of whatever, nylon. And it was pretty brutal, pretty rough, pretty intense. In my mind, my imagination of what was out there was like huge predators. It was scary and intense. And like i'm like there was lots of sounds. And so I kind of hated it. I kind of hated nighttime. Daytime was was fairly good. Like I met interesting people and felt kind of happy there, happy-ish. It's just a really, really beautiful place. Every inch of it is kind of intentional. There's like paths throughout the place, like really interesting paths with like rocks bordering the paths and there's lots of like meditative quiet spots.
00:08:55
Speaker
And so, yeah, the days were okay. But then, man, I just hated the night. So just being this little tiny tent, just just in the belly of darkness, just out there all by myself. And I was just so convinced that all, i was just like I said, so many sounds outside the tent like that. So convinced that there's there's shit out there.
00:09:20
Speaker
Halfway through my time there, about three weeks through, they offered a separate program from my Paths of Service, like a young men's vision quest retreat. They prepped us for like two days or something like that. We did all these different conversations and talks and activities to sort of get ready for this this experience of being out. in the wilderness by ourselves for 24 hours with no food and the prep was pretty great. I think there was only two other guys doing it and so it was me and two of the young men and like there was a feeling of like bonding and connectedness. I remember like one of the activities for instance was
00:10:01
Speaker
writing your own eulogy. Another activity was like to have an item. We had like a big fire and to like throw the item in the fire and like representative of something you're letting go. Yeah, all leading up to this 24 hours of of solo time in the wilderness.
00:10:23
Speaker
I didn't know what to expect, what it was going to be like once I was out there for the 24 hours. But once I got out there, I felt so good. It felt really amazing. I felt really happy and really at peace and really grounded. You just sit there for 24 hours. you You don't do anything. and And so I ended up like, I dug this enormous hole in the ground. And then like I decorated the hole, like I put all these different rocks that I found, and all these like rock patterns and formations around this hole. And then like I made this kind of spear thing. I found this long stick and i had I think I had a knife and I was like carving the knife a little bit to create a spear and I had this string and so like I tied the string on the spear and I put it over like my shoulders and then I just got naked and just stood out there in the wilderness.
00:11:15
Speaker
with this like spear thing and this thing around my shoulders. and And also all that dirt and mud that I got from that big hole that I dug, I just instinctively just started caking it on my face, all over my face. For a long period of time, I just put it like all over my face. And I guess I was like connecting with like a more primal, wild part of myself.
00:11:47
Speaker
It was sort of like a revelatory moment because I had spent the first three weeks at this place huddled in this tiny little tent, small and scared and terrified of what was outside there and and convinced that it was perilous. I had no tent on the vision quest, and so I'm out there in the same environment that I had in my mind been thinking was like this scary, scary place, but I found that, oh, like I'm not scared at all. I feel a million times better being actually out in the elements away from the the illusion of the safety of this little nest that I had with the tent.
00:12:32
Speaker
I remember the sun going down. so you know I think we've gone out there in the morning, so I remember the sun going down. So I'd spent the whole day out there digging my little hole, putting dirt all over my face. And then I sort of made it through and the sun went down. and I remember like standing. I don't know. I don't think I ever stood as tall in my entire life. Just stood tall and proud and confident. Maybe it was a fantasy, you know, but but in my whatever, I was sort of having a fantasy that I was like a warrior. I was like channeling this warrior energy. I say fantasy because, you know, like I felt like, yeah, I'm a fucking warrior. but
00:13:11
Speaker
Like, if a bear had popped out of the woods or something, would I have freaked out and turned into like a scared little boy? Or if some kind of menacing person popped out of the woods, would I have stayed in the warrior space? I don't know. But in my mind, i was oh I was a warrior, and so I stood as tall as I'd ever stood in my entire life, with this little spear flung over my shoulders completely naked. I just watched the sunset the whole entire day, but for like an hour, I just stood like that.
00:13:49
Speaker
I was gonna say it was like a turning point in my life but it wasn't because I still had a lot of dark years ahead of me but it was a turning point for that summer for sure. I had conquered the darkness. I came down from the vision quest and I felt like I really
Hilltop Peace and Primal Connection
00:14:01
Speaker
liked myself. and I think I also put all that dirt and mud in my hair too and I had like really wild long hair at the time and so I came down the mountain
00:14:11
Speaker
caked in dirt and mud i don't think i put it on my face to get attention but because i didn't even realize what it looked like there was something instinctual of wanting to like just have the the dirt the clay in my hands and that it just felt good to put it on my face. i don't i don't I didn't think that much about it. I didn't know what it would look like, but I came down the mountain and people were like sort of shocked or amazed. Like, what what whoa. i looked I looked kind of wild and crazy, and then I went in the bathroom and looked to myself, and I did i look i thought I looked like really damn cool.
00:14:56
Speaker
you know Once the vision quest was over and then I like went back into my Paths of Service program, the idea of going back and sleeping in that tiny little tent, sheltered away from nature, cut off from nature, sort of huddled inside and just terrified of what was outside, it just felt like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not getting back in that fucking tent. I found this this hill like above the whole foundation. I got a tarp and a sleeping pad. And I made that my home. For the rest of the summer, I didn't sleep inside the tent once. I always slept on on top of this hill. I'd never been more peaceful in my life, man. Never. I'm 40 years old. And those three weeks sleeping on top of that hill, I'd never been so peaceful in my life, man. I'm telling you. Whoo. God damn. That was like bliss. I'd go to bed when the sun went down. So summer, so the summer would go down around 8 45 or nine o'clock.
00:15:53
Speaker
I'd go to bed and I would just stare, up you know, the stars were fucking amazing up there and I would stare up at the stars and I'd never experienced this up to this point in my life and I don't think I've experienced it since. But usually I would look at the sky and see the stars and see it as like flat almost. But up there on this hill, yeah like laying down, staring up at the stars, I felt like I could see like depth. Like I could like peer into the the vastness of space and it and it would like, it would engulf me, this feeling of like being engulfed by the vastness of space and just this just completely star covered sky, millions and millions and millions of stars. I would just stare for, but I don't know, probably what? 30, 45 minutes an hour?
00:16:53
Speaker
I was a kid who grew up on TV. TV put us to sleep. I needed something. I needed some just i needed some sound, some distraction, some some stimulation, some entertainment, some mindlessness to to get to sleep. And here I was just staring at these stars, like more entertained than I'd ever been by any Hollywood movie. Like I was literally entertained by experiencing the depth and the vastness of space and just all the different kinds of stars and the different twinklings and the shooting stars.
00:17:28
Speaker
I was so at peace. And then eventually I would just, you know, tiredness would take me over and I'll pass out and have the most, the deepest, most beautiful, most regenerative, most replenishing sleep of my entire life. And then I will wake up right as the sun was coming up, completely refreshed, completely excited, completely ready to go for my day. And I repeated this day after day, night after night, It was amazing man, it was so good.
00:18:07
Speaker
The contrast between being stuck in that little tent and hearing all this stuff brushing up against the side of the tent and moving through the all the bushes and and the brambles. And just my mind just imagining what all those things were and and it was so scary. I was so fucking scared. I was like mortally terrified. My mental conception of what was out there was fucking terrifying. Like scarier than the scariest thing in the entire world. And then as soon as I got out of this like confined little womb and actually got out into the space that I was scared of,
00:18:46
Speaker
It felt so great, so wonderful, so unafraid. And I always
Conclusion and Podcast Info
00:18:52
Speaker
just found that very fascinating, the contrast between being huddled in that little tent, like clinging to the illusion of safety versus being out there with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It's like, oh, I'm not afraid of this. There's nothing scary out here.
00:19:13
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to Life's F&Nuts. I hope you enjoyed that story. New episodes drop every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and you can follow us on social media at Life's F&Nuts Podcasts. I'm JR, see you guys soon.