Who Am I?

Journaling to find yourself

Who am I really?

***Trigger Warning, I briefly talk about a sexual assault experience I had***

In mindfulness studies, and often in yoga classes and similar settings, one of the most common questions that arises is, Who am I? In meditation, this is sometimes distilled into the simple mantra, I am.

Who am I?

It is a question we often ponder in some way, but we rarely take a deep dive into who we are. We simply don’t give ourselves the space to explore not only who we are now, but who we were, where we’ve been, and who has been shaping our ideas of self. We often feel trapped in our ideas of who we are, not realizing that we can change and shift. We often find ourselves stuck in labels, definitions, and ideas from the past, without ever considering new ones.

"In the end, you don't so much find yourself as you find someone who knows who you are."

–Robert Brault.

Are you a caretaker? A teacher? I friend?

Who am I?

It's actually a tough question. Maybe even a riddle, if you throw in a dash of spirituality and a cup of current reality, you find that the question becomes complex.

On the outside, in our micro reality, we may be defined by labels, such as partners, neighbors, and at work, we have other roles, obligations, and responsibilities. Many people define themselves by a job title or a place of business, maybe even a location: “I’m a New Yorker.” Expanding further, we have labels set forth by society, culture, politics, and even family dynamics.

Are these labels who we are, or is there something else?

"At the center of your being, you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want."

- Lao Tzu

Teasing out the labels we derive from our outer world helps us to decipher how we show up in any given situation, but does it help us get to the root of who we are? When we dive deep into this question, we find that labels largely fall away. We gain an inner understanding of our self-definition. Like an onion, there are many layers to this question of, “Who am I?”

Some of my inner definitions were, for a very long time, could be listed as follows:

• Someone no one pays attention to

• Invisible

• A survivor

• A victim

• Lesser

• A perpetual fighter, always fighting for everything

• An impostor, never knowing enough to be viable

• A joke

• Meaningless

• Dumb

• Embarrassing

• Cute enough but not beautiful enough to deserve anything

• Funny but not hilarious

• Spontaneous

You get it, these definitions were my inner critic's evaluation of who I was. The labels I picked up were based on my interpretation of a life situation. Whether it was my brothers calling me “fattyanna” or traumatic dating experiences, or a cognitive issue that went undiagnosed for the majority of my formal schooling, I saw these occurrences (and later memories) as another reason I was not valuable. Each event represented another failing on my part.

I want to stop here for a moment and point out that all these labels, emotions, and thoughts we are going to talk about today are just thoughts; they are not truths. They may feel like truths sometimes, but I assure you, they are just thoughts you have internalized as truths.

Defining who you are takes Courage and Compassion!

“I surrendered myself to the cages of others' expectations, cultural mandates and institutional allegiances. Until I buried who I was in order to become what I should be. I lost myself when I learned how to please.”

― Glennon Doyle, Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living / A Toolkit for Modern Life

This is where reframing your relationship to the origin story of your belief is important. For example, I long considered a childhood trauma, sexual assault, as a failing on my part. My child's brain learned that the victim is to blame. I have long since retold that story to myself. It was not my failing. It was nothing I did. It was not my shame; all of that belonged to the man who assaulted me. I now work on compassion for myself, and even though it is hard as hell, I work on finding compassion for the man who assaulted me. I do not let him into my life; I have a hard boundary there, but in my heart, I try to soften to his suffering. It will be a life’s work, and I probably won’t find true forgiveness, but the retelling of the story helped me redefine many of the old labels I gave myself.

“Identity is more than a label. It's a story you live, a journey you shape, and a voice only you can use.”

- Unknown

Now let’s peel that layer back to the next one, your emotional and wonderous inner self. What archetypes are you? What is your inner knowing, your secret thoughts, your deeper understanding of yourself? What emotions are you, colors are you, landscapes are you? What are you striving to be? What is your beauty, your longing, your wisdom? You have so much to offer; what are those gifts you keep hidden? What are those things your intuition whispers to you about your true nature, the one that isn't dependent on definitions for survival? The things are you naturally?

For me:

• Creative being, always searching

• Nature lover, animal tender

• Spirit unto myself

• A searcher

• A caretaker

• Someone who understands and judges less

• Someone who is learning and growing

• Someone who is vulnerable but is willing to be that in public

• Someone who has wisdom

• Someone who is valid and has things to say

• Someone who strives to be high vibe

• Someone who will challenge themselves to live outside their comfort zone

• Someone who practices loving kindness

• A wounded healer

• An ocean of thoughts

• A seeker of joy and fulfillment

• A person who wants to make a difference

• A friend

• Someone who loves and is open

• Someone who is learning

• Someone who is hurting still

• A warrior and hero

• A writer who helps others

You are more than your physical body

Now we get to a real inner layer. Who are you in relation to everything else that is out there? Who is your spirit that resides in your physical body but is not your body? Who is that? Who are you in relationship to the collective consciousness, the cosmos, to Mother Earth? What is your connection to all that is?

I am:

• The tree that struggles to grow through the sidewalk

• The polluted inlet that was once a swimming hole

• The sky with big puffy clouds and never-ending blue

• The neighbor who seems so lonely

• The person at the gym who has lost sight of her true worth

• The glorious taste of a perfect piece of cake

• The undying determination of a seedling trying to survive

• The compassion of the guru

• The passion of a great painter

• The creativity of a great novelist

• The young mother with cancer

• The fall leaves blowing in the wind

• The frog song at dusk

• The cricket chirps in the early morning

• The unhoused man who sits at the intersection every day

• The kids who scream and scream at recess

• The person who broke into my car

• The teacher I most admired

• One of the pack in my animal family

• The person at work who always looks so tired

• That politician I hate and blame

• A deadly disease that severed your connections and changed your life forever

• I am literally Stardust made manifest

I could go on and on, but you get the gist. Who are you, really?

“The game is not about becoming somebody, it's about becoming nobody.”

-Ram Dass

Many people seeking enlightenment will say you are one with all things. I believe this to be true for myself, but I am also in a human body living a human experience, and so while I am connected and one with all there is, I am also labeled. But I have come to realize that the labels are in my control, not anyone else's. I have been allowing others to pick the labels I will wear, the boxes I fit into, but honestly, I don’t like many of those boxes, and I am happier just being the labels that resonate with my values, beliefs, and dreams. I realize that life will always be trying to force me into boxes and labels that I do not want, but it is still my choice to accept them.

“The closer you come to knowing that you alone create the world of your experience, the more vital it becomes for you to discover just who is doing the creating.”

― Eric Micha'el Leventhal

I totally get that a big life event can force labels on you. Things like an unexpected or unwanted pregnancy force you to consider the boxes; society may even pressure you into a box, and health restrictions or politics may push you closer to something you definitely did not pick. This is when you reframe. Deep soul searching is needed here. You have to be strong to listen to yourself and stay true to what you think your life direction should be. And yeah, sometimes you have no choice in the outcome, but you do have a choice in how you label it. It might be hard as hell to label it for yourself. I have had experiences in my life like this, and for a long time, I let society tell me what the labels were, what box was mine. But as I got older, I realized that all the traumatic life events that happened were multifaceted. They were all the horrible descriptors I could conjure up, but I feel that over time, they taught me a deep compassion and better understanding of others' suffering. They led me to myself, a person I genuinely like now. It took a lot of work to get there, but here I am, still learning and growing.

I control the labels and definitions of who I am.

Two things I learned:

1. Labels are not self-defining

2. I control the labels

   
   

Make a list of your outer labels

Make a list of your self-definations

Make a list of your inner self and your connectedness to the world

Can you see how you are all things, connected to all things, part of the great universe? How does that show up for you?

What stories do you need to reframe to work on some of the labels you want to let go of?

“The closer you come to knowing that you alone create the world of your experience, the more vital it becomes for you to discover just who is doing the creating.”

― Eric Micha'el Leventhal

Let me know how it goes, what you found out, and what the exercise was like for you. And as always, my friends, know that I love and I support you, and we are all in this together.

XO

-Juliana