Who Am I?
To succeed at being yourself we first we need to ask the age-old question: Who am I? We have lots of input on what we are, or who we should be – from our childhood, parents, friends, experiences, physical appearance, our environment, etc. But all of these labels and situations change due to the fact that so many things about us are temporary. For example, what you liked and where you lived when you were 8 or 9 years old may not be the same when you are 23 years old. Therefore concepts of ourselves have continued to change over the years.
Take a few minutes to think about who you are right now. Are you a daughter, son, mother, father, sister, brother, employee, boss, what talents do you have, how are you creative, etc.
Another perspective is to look at yourself as a spiritual being. If you are to discover the real you, this self we want to succeed in finding, you need to get beyond many things that may be in the way.
Try the following brief meditation to help to try to clear your thinking
Get comfortable and close your eyes. Focus on your breathing, inhaling and exhaling, relaxing more completely with each breath. Now, mentally repeat to yourself the following sentences continuing to completely relax:
- I have a body, but I am not my body.
- I have emotions, but I am not my emotions.
- I have desires, but I am not my desires.
- I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.
- What am I, if I am not my body, my emotions, my desires and my thoughts?
- I am a center of awareness. I am energy. I am space-less and timeless. I am being. I am!
Continue to focus on your breathing for a few moments. Now open your eyes.
If we try to identify ourselves with the fashion and times of today, we may soon find ourselves out-of-date. If we identify with our job and we lose it or retire, we will either live in the past or feel we have lost ourselves after retirement. If we identify with the roles that we play, for example, mother, father, lover, teacher — when those roles change we may feel scared, bewildered, empty or abandoned.
Your true self, the true you, is spirit; it is energy. You can take 1000’s forms, wear many different hats, play many different parts but the essence of you is the same behind all forms, thoughts and faces.
To succeed at being yourself you must get in touch with the true self from whence springs all your real power, love and knowledge. If you think the roles you play give you power, for example, a boss or a parent, what happens when the role changes? If your sense of self-worth depends upon what you do, the people you know or the things you are able to do – all things outside of yourself – where will your self-worth be when those things are no longer with you? If you think that a person or a position gives you love, security and happiness, eventually you will feel an empty feeling when things change. You’ll wonder what is wrong because you gave your true source of power away to something or someone else.
The true you is not a victim of circumstances; you create the circumstances. The true you is the being who makes choices to provide experiences from which you grow. Everything in your life is the result of your own choices.
When we forget the true center of our being – the choice maker – we get trapped in what we see around us. We can feel limited and insecure. The good news, though, is that anything we don’t like can be changed by our continued choices.
Life becomes much simpler when we realize who we really are and when we become responsible for ourselves. Unfortunately, there is a great fear in getting to know who we really are inside – that elusive, infinite being. We think we have to be identified as someone’s employee, lover, spouse, friend, parent, etc. It is more comfortable for us to put labels on ourselves and leave it there. But, by the same token, we limit our awareness and manifestation of our infinite potential by using labels.
Realizing that you are infinite energy, however, is not your signal to drop out of society. You have chosen to incarnate this lifetime for a special reason and it’s your job to figure that out.
To succeed at being the best you can be, to realize your potential and to really succeed at being and knowing your true self, you have to first let go of all the old ideas and blocks that pigeon-hole you and limit you. One of the best and fastest ways to do this is through meditation.
Meditation gives us perspective. It lets us develop a detached attitude toward the things that have bound our awareness. In addition to meditating, be sure to use Prayer (affirmations and visualizations) and interpreting your dreams to help yourself.
