How to Lose Yourself

“Not all those who wander are lost.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

There are few things I hate more than feeling lost.

Whether I’m in the aisle of a big box store trying to find what feels like a needle in a haystack. Or whether I’m trying to find my car in the parking lot after leaving said big box store. Or whether I’m feeling lost in navigating my relationship with myself and others. The sensation of being adrift can produce lots of anxiety. 

I’m guessing you’ve probably felt that way a lot in 2020. Maybe you’ve lost a job you’ve worked for many years and don’t know where to turn. Maybe you’ve lost a loved one and don’t know where to begin processing your grief. Maybe your closest relationships have become strained due to the sustained stress of the pandemic.

Normally, we engage in many distractions to avoid the pain of feeling lost and confused. But lately it’s felt like nothing can get us out of this existential pain. How do we make our way back to safety?

Challenging my thinking

Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard stories of people relating to being lost physically that have challenged my own aversion to it.

I learned of a married couple who would go for country drives and purposely get lost. After driving for a while, they would turn on their GPS to make their way back. On first hearing, I thought to myself how wonderful it must be to get lost on a country drive. But I’m so averse to getting lost that I often use my GPS even when I know the way.

The second story was from a friend who told of getting lost while hiking and having to call for help. I was struck by how this person said they just enjoyed getting lost and not feeling any shame for having to call for help in the end. They couldn’t wait to go hiking again.

All I could think was that if it was me, I would have called for help the moment I realized I was lost and would have missed the beauty of the whole experience.

I know this about myself because it happens quite a lot. I would be enjoying a serene moment with friends or family when I would suddenly realize that I’ve lost track of my keys, wallet, or phone – call it ” the big three.”

I would get so tunnel visioned that everything goes on pause until I can find the missing object. I get the same way when I’ve had a disagreement with someone or when I cannot come up with a good idea for a blog post. Nothing looks good, nothing feels good, nothing tastes good.

Life goes on pause until I can work through my problems. All because I haven’t learned how to get lost.

Get lost in the mystery of you

When we become addicted to always knowing where we are, we inevitably push pause whenever we feel lost. Sometimes we try to fast forward through the experience.

But these strategies rarely work and we often feel more lost than when we started. As with most things in the spiritual life, the way out is in and through. In other words, if you don’t want to feel lost you must be fully willing and prepared to not only get lost but set up camp there for a while.

Here’s one good way to do it:

Write an essay on the question “Who am I?” 

You’ll likely not know where to begin. You’ll probably even resist trying to answer the question for fear of what will come out. Give it a try anyway.

Allow yourself to write without stopping to think. Write nonsense if you have to. See what flows onto the page. Read what you wrote. Chances are you won’t gain much clarity about who you are from what you wrote.

But that’s not the point. The point is learning how to sit with the discomfort of feeling lost, of not knowing what to write, of second-guessing yourself constantly, of being worried about what others would think if they read what you wrote.

In that moment you will have understood that you are a mystery unto yourself.

If you’re up for the challenge try these variations:

Who am I without my career? My partner? My kids? My possessions?

Or you can try tackling these:

Where did I come from?

What am I here for?

Where am I going after this life?

Again, the point is not to come up with the right answer but to wrestle with the questions.

Most of these questions will not have fully satisfying (or even partially satisfying) answers. The best we can do is come up with metaphors and approximations.

You’ll drop the facade of having to know the right answer for everything. You’ll begin to feel more free and mental anguish will begin to fall away. You’ll discover that the key to enjoying life is not figuring it all out but inhabiting the mystery of it all with curiosity and wonder.