Stepping back
The idea of 'stepping back' points us towards the existence of space, something undefined and open, within what we think of as ‘ourselves’
Stepping back is a powerful idea. It means to step back from a certain groove in which our perception and thought is stuck. It can take so many forms — sleeping over a problem or a decision; taking time out to do something different; going away on a break and so on.
What is interesting about this concept is that we are putting distance between our thoughts and ‘ourselves’ through a linguistic device, a metaphor. Isn’t it somewhat strange (and wonderful) that an image conjured up by words, or an action inspired by them, can bring us to a new whole perspective on the same situation?
But what is truly fascinating about this linguistic tool is the idea of a backward step from ourselves. What we are ‘stepping back’ from, with its help, is not the situation, but ‘ourselves’.
The phrase reveals something to us then that isn’t usually spoken about — that what we take to be ‘ourselves’ is not as real and immovable as we believed. For how could ‘stepping back’ be possible at all if this ‘me’ was a stuck thing?
The idea of ‘stepping back’, therefore, points us towards the existence of space, something undefined and open, within what we think of as ‘ourselves’. This must in turn upend the concept of ‘me’ as something defined, set and bound.
We’ve all possibly had at least few experiences of the kind where this stepping back into the spaciousness of who we are has happened more or less spontaneously. Perhaps you have experienced it while listening to a piece of music intently, or when your heart was full with love or gratitude, or when you were ‘lost’ in nature, unmindful of where you are and what you are supposed to do next.
This ‘me’ or ‘I’ as an experience of openness seems to be accessible and perhaps does sit somewhere right behind what we take to be ‘ourselves’ — the body-mind-person. Which is why the idea of taking a backward-step-forward into ourselves, (our real selves?), is so fantastic!