What if the person you've been performing your whole life isn't actually you?

In this expansive conversation, Lars Borgmann — a therapist and vision quest guide with nearly 30 years of experience leading people into radical solitude — shares what happens when you strip away every mirror, every audience, every distraction, and sit alone in the desert with nothing left but yourself.

Lars found his way to the desert in his early twenties, when three days of absolute solitude dismantled everything he thought he knew about who he was. What he discovered — and has since guided hundreds of others to discover — is that most of us have been living from the outside in, building our identities around how others see us rather than who we actually are.

This episode is about the courage it takes to stop performing, the beauty and terror of true solitude, and what becomes possible when you finally meet yourself without the noise.

What You'll Explore:

The Outside-In Illusion:

• How we unconsciously build identity around other people's perception of us
• What happens to your sense of self when there's no one left to perform for
• Why the desert is one of the most powerful mirrors available to us

Solitude vs. Loneliness:

• The critical difference between isolation and true solitude
• Why most people are terrified of empty space — and what that fear is actually about
• The ancient hermetic tradition of Desert Fathers and why solitude appears in every spiritual tradition across cultures

The Desert as Initiator:

• Why Lars keeps returning to Sinai, the Sahara, and Siwa on the Libyan border
• How the desert functions as a shamanic container — where everything becomes communication
• The woman who dreamed of falling into the desert her whole life — and what happened when she finally went

Fear, Projection, and the Caged Self:

• How our deepest internal fears get projected onto external images — snakes, darkness, death, strangers
• The self-installed cage: how conditioning limits us without our conscious agreement
• What it means to be freed from fear you didn't even know was running you

Two Gurus — Love and Your Nervous System:

• Why Lars gave full authority to his nervous system as a guiding principle
• The difference between love as something you hunt down versus love as something you cultivate from within
• "If you are looking for love, you won't find it — because you're looking where it is not"

Coming Home:

• The wild disorientation of returning to modern life after deep solitude
• What the desert reveals about how much stuff we need to feel safe
• Why integration is its own initiation

About Lars Borgmann: Lars Borgmann is a therapist and vision quest guide who has been leading people into desert solitude for nearly 30 years. His work draws on the hermetic tradition of the Desert Fathers, shamanic practice, and somatic therapy. Lars has guided vision quests in the Sinai, the Sahara, Siwa, Morocco, and Greece. He works through personal referral and the law of attraction — those who need to find him, do.

To connect with Lars, send us an email at [email protected] and we'll pass along his contact information.

Connect with the Garden of Becoming: Instagram: @gardenofbecomingpodcast Email: [email protected]

If this episode moved you, please leave a review — it helps others find their way here. And share it with someone who's ready to stop performing and start listening.