In one of the most challenging moments of my silent retreat, I found myself facing a turbulent internal conflict. Before leaving for the retreat, I had one remaining professional commitment I was supposed to fulfill. However, as the silence deepened and the practice peeled away layers of distraction, a clear and uncompromising realization arose within me: I cannot fulfill this commitment.
The quiet of the retreat leaves no room for compromise or ignoring the inner voice that says, “Stop. It is simply not right to do this.” I realized I had to cancel the commitment immediately and unexpectedly.
The Paralyzing Crossroads
I stood at a crossroads that demanded I choose which kind of pain I was willing to absorb:
- The First Option (External Embarrassment): To cancel the commitment at the last minute, disappoint the people who relied on me, absorb completely justified anger, and risk damaging my professional reputation—not to mention, potentially losing the job.
- The Second Option (Internal Embarrassment): To silence the inner voice that had awakened within me, proceed with the original plan purely out of fear of “what they will say” and the professional repercussions, and act with complete lack of integrity toward myself and the deep process I had undertaken.
The Ego’s Panic
This is exactly where the ego kicks into gear. It is amazing to see how, under the magnifying glass of mindfulness, the ego is exposed in all its anxiety. Our ego treats social reputation and professional image as a matter of life and death.
When I realized the right thing to do was to cancel, my brain went into sheer panic: “They’ll be mad at me!”, “I’ll burn this bridge!”, “No one will ever work with me again!” The ego screamed that my survival depended on how I was perceived by others. The fear of losing the image of the “responsible and reliable teacher” felt in my body like a literal existential threat. The ego will always prefer that we betray our inner truth, as long as we don’t look bad on the outside.
The Choice of Radical Honesty
But you cannot practice presence and truth from a place of fear. I chose to jump into the fire. I sent the cancellation message. I explained the situation without making excuses, took full responsibility for the inconvenience I caused with the sudden cancellation, and didn’t try to defend myself against their anger and disappointment (which, as mentioned, were completely justified).
In that moment, I chose integrity over reputation.
The Bottom Line: Paying in “Embarrassment Coins”
The deepest insight from this moment is the realization that in life, the external and internal sometimes collide. Or perhaps, we even make mistakes that cause these collisions (as in my case), and there is a price we are forced to pay.
The only question is where we choose to pay it:
- Paying on the Outside: Facing professional embarrassment, criticism, or others’ disappointment in us.
- Paying on the Inside: Walking around with a sense of phoniness, and the knowledge that we betrayed our own boundaries.
True mindfulness requires us to understand that sometimes, you cannot save your image and maintain your integrity at the same time. When the two collide, choosing inner truth will exact an external price that might be unpleasant—but the internal freedom and peace gained in return are priceless.
And the external price did indeed arrive. The response I received to that cancellation message was harsh, and following it, I was sucked into a 24-hour turbulent emotional storm of particularly difficult feelings. What exactly happens to the body and mind when the truth we spoke collides with the anger of the outside world, and how to provide “first aid” to the nervous system—I will share all of that in the next article.
Mindful Education 