Why! Do We Ask – Who Am I?
This is such a big question in so many peoples lives wouldn’t you agree?
If you knew the answer to this how would it help?
I remember hearing one of my more outrageous Yoga teachers say “You’re a ghost driving a meat coated skeleton made from pure Stardust”
Have you ever ask yourself the question – Who am I?
Who is this I?
So let me ask you in another way… What are you referring to when you say “I”?
What are you experiencing when you say “I”?
I am Marion, female, Christian, (well I am not practicing but this was how I was raised). I am English, my parents were Irish, I am human, I am white… The list of labels that can be applied to “I” goes on and on – but does it tell you anything about me?
There are also the roles you play, I’m a daughter, a sister, a friend, an (great!) aunty, a niece, a mentor, an author, a speaker, a teacher, a therapist – it’s a long list, how long is your list?
If you have a CV, resume or biography this is the type of information that’s usually included here, but does this tell you anything about the “I”?
And then there are feeling states and emotions, like: I am inspired, I’m interested, I’m engaged, I’m bored (not right now), I’m sad, I’m glad, I’m clever, I’m loud! It’s another long list…
And what about your desired feeling States… Would you like to be able to say the following?
- I am happy
- I am fulfilled
- I am satisfied
Isn’t this what we all want to be… happy satisfied and fulfilled?
Now because this is such an important area to understand and comprehend, I want to break this question down even more. Let’s begin by looking at the physical person that you are.
- Are you the bones of your body?
- Are you the skin?
- Are you the brain?
- Are you the eyes and the ears and mouth and nose…
Well if you consider this; when you lose a tooth are you less of yourself?
If you have a part of your body removed, changed or amputated are you less you? How far could you go to still be you? This makes me think of the funny and brilliant film with Steve Martin called “The Man with Two Brains”
In case you haven’t seen it yet… Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr (actor Steve Martin) saves the brain and the life of Dolores Benedict… I’d love to know how you enjoyed the film, you can post in the comments below.
Anyway back to the serious subject of…
“Who am I ?”
If I lose a limb, I am still of the same essence, if I lose an eye then the same is true. So when the body dies, when this physical form is dead where is my essence then?
Now I don’t want to preach here – I want to help open up the mind so you can come to your own conclusions or see where you may have held inaccurate or incomplete conclusions…
Next part of breaking down this “I”, what about your behaviour, are you your behaviour?
When I was 10 years old I had a beautiful young trendy teacher called Miss Dawson, I can still see her clear as day in my mind… She’s pretty, blonde, outstandingly fashionable with hair like Farah Fawcett Majors, she’s great at French, she makes lessons fun and is so inspiring to my classmates and me as pre-teen girls. Miss Dawson loves netball and I think she likes all sports, but she definitely loves netball. And so imagine our surprise when we hear her scream, “How bloody stupid!”
Oh my god! Miss Dawson just swore, she seriously lost her cool and screamed like a Banshee across the netball court, at Janet Cooper who is the crazy red-head in our class.
It’s our first day on the netball pitch and if you’d been with me you’d see the whole (brand new) netball team frozen in shock!
“I can’t believe she just called me stupid! How dare she!” Janet growls as she storms off the netball court, in a proper strop, red faced and so angry.
In the aftermath of this surprising confrontation Miss Dawson gathers us all together “Janet, I’m so sorry that you got upset by what I said, I know I used the word stupid, but please allow me to explain. When I say this word, it was out of passion for the game… I’m talking about the behaviour. I did not intend you to hear me called you stupid. I’d never call you stupid. It’s the behaviour I’m calling stupid.”
She looks around at all of us “Girls, I would never call any of you stupid.”
Have you ever had a time when suddenly everything seems to run in slow motion, and a thought gets caught in your mind, and your mind begins to absorb, digest some new and mind blowing idea?
This is happening to me, it’s a Eureka moment for me, because nobody has ever explained that it’s possible to separate my behaviour from me.
Miss Dawson continues to explain and clarify that when she criticises behaviours or actions or choices they are not me!
“And girls, I want to apologise for the power of the outburst, my passion got the better of me and that was stupid! And I want you all to win!”
So maybe this is a new way of thinking for you too, because it’s so important to realise that you are not your behaviour.
So returning to the question “Who are you?” Are you the role that you play? Are you a sister, a daughter, a mother, a grandmother, a friend, chief cook and bottle washer!
Why do you even ask this question? We often find it’s stimulated by the fear of death… Is that true for you?
So if “I” am not my behaviour and “I” am not this body where do “I” go when my this body dies?
If I am my essence, some people call it soul, or spirit, what ever you call it, the essence of me lives beyond this physical body. So if I lose an eye I am still the essence of Marion of me.
Have you ever visited a corpse… Well that’s another story! I’ll talk more about that in the next article on this theme.
And finally WHY! – Why do we ask ourselves this question “who am I?”
In my experience (and my co-creator Cheryl agrees) the biggest reason for beginning (And it’s never too late to start!) the deep personal change and transformational work is the desire for happiness.
- I wanna be fulfilled
- I wanna satisfied
- I wanna be happy
And at the same time the majority of clients we work with say that they have a huge fear of death… So the questions like “what will happen when I die” or “I’m too scared to even consider that one day I won’t be here!” bring up great fears as they ask the question will “I” no longer exist – this “I” that is my identity!
Strangely if you do the work to make the above changes and achieve the desired deep transformation – begs the question “who will “I” become?”
Both Cheryl and I now know that one of the biggest barriers to the desired transformation is the conclusion of, the heart of todays article which is…
“Who will I become?”
This fear of losing your identity, which is like a death in many ways, can seem much greater than the desire to achieve happiness fulfilment and satisfaction.
But if you want happiness fulfilment and satisfaction and you’re not there now then would you agree that you must change?
At The Live Love Laugh Lounge™ the community of WHY’s women have access to tools and a team of supportive collaborators there for each other when these fears and blocks come up.
Learning to understand when you have any fear of change and when you are in need of change and how you bring it all together is crucial. I want to inspire you to begin now! So you can make real progress.
To have even more awareness of what you don’t want, of how and why it happens and then you begin to have access to more choices, then you can begin to respond rather than react and the deepest desired change happens in conscious response! But how do you do this?
To find out more, we invite you to complete the boxes below to get a FREE copy of our book Find Your WHY!
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Love Marion (& Cheryl)