Tag: identity

Getting to Know Yourself

If you want to be in a position to be true to yourself and connect with others at a deeper level, you might consider getting to know yourself first.

Your Personal Inventory

To start to grasp who you are in this moment, you can take an inventory of the things that make you, the you that you are now. (Which may be different than who you have been in the past, or even who you were yesterday.)

1 Values and Beliefs

In general, you can usually determine who you are by documenting your values and beliefs. These are the primary things that influence who you are at the deepest level, they are indicators of how you are likely to react to certain stimuli.

You can rate yourself on a list of personal values, the determine the top three or four which are mostly responsible for making you who you are.

The things which are the most meaningful for you may be indicators of and should be related to, or in alignment with, your sacred assignment, calling, or mission in life. They all shape the parameters of your life’s style and make up your list of things you’d like to accomplish or contribute to, in your life.

2 Life Experience

Is there anything you can remember in your life, or if you think about the possibility of it being a part of your life, which brings you to tears? Not in a bad, way but fills your whole body with the frequency of pure love’s vibration? This is probably part and parcel of your divine purpose.

3 What Turns You On?

Next up, make a list of those things that turn you on. What piques your interest and easily grabs your attention? What are you curious or passionate about? What brings you joy and makes you happy? These items can include anything from hobbies to important causes which deeply move you.

4 What is Your Personality Type?

What is your basic personality type? We all have basic personality traits which make up the person we are. We all have different combinations of personality traits. Even with all the possible combinations of personality traits which are possible, it is generally accepted that there are four primary categories that can quickly identify a dominant category fairly quickly and easily.

You may easily determine What kind of cat are you? You could possess qualities of all possible combinations of cat-types, which would make it hard to quickly identify you with any one type, though many people have a primary or dominant cat-type. (Types of cats inspired by Hippocrates’ cat.)

5 Your Biorhythm

What is your base biorhythm? This is the internal biological clockwork that works 24/7 inside you. It determines whether you’re a morning person or a late-night person. When are the times of day when you seem to perform your best? Do you need eight hours of sleep or will four-and-a-half suffice? Are you more productive after taking a 20-minute mid-day power nap?

6 Special Gifts and Abilities

What are your special abilities? We all have them. You may take yours for granted, as many people do. This is because to you it’s no big deal. You find you’re exercising your special gifts and abilities as something easy, or even routine, but onlookers? They are amazed at your innate ability to do your thing so easily.

7 What Do Others Think About You?

This is a tough one because it is impossible to know what is going on inside someone else’s head. There’s a pretty good chance you don’t know what other people are whispering behind your back. And you won’t really know what they think about you until you’re dead, and if you haven’t guessed it already, by then, it’s too late for you to take advantage of this information.

But you can query the people that you know, the ones that you think could be the most trusted to tell you the truth. First, ask them what they think about you, then follow up with what they think other people think about you.

With this information in hand, it will give you an idea of the present status of your brand, and it will give you an idea about what areas need to be addressed, because people may not be aware of those special features that you’d like them to know about you.

If you’ve gone through these exercises, documented and reviewed your results, you are getting to know yourself and have a pretty good idea of who you are today, right now in real-time.

With this information in hand, you can begin to structure your life consciously to maximize your highest and best potential.

Who Do You Think You Are?

As you traverse your life’s journey, who do you think you are? You start asking questions about your identity, “Who am I?” Who are you? “Am I just an animated biological form helplessly trying to make my way through the rat’s maze of life?” If you are, “What’s the point of my being here at all?” So, you look for meaning in life, and I ask you,

“Who do you think you are?”

I present to you an exercise which might help you find clarity about who you are. You might be surprised that you are far more than you’ve ever given yourself credit for because most people think you are who you are, when nothing could be further from the truth.

When you come to this life, you are given a body and a name. This is who you think you are because that is how the whole world outside of you refers to you, so it’s no surprise that this is who you think you are.

You look in the mirror and you see the reflection of the person you think you are. You can see your body which is recognizable by the name you’ve been given. But this is not who you are.

This is your body which has been given a name which is associated with your body.

You can look at your hand and think that this is your hand, but it is not your hand, it’s your body’s hand. If you cut your hand and see blood dripping from it, you might express something, like “I am bleeding.” Only you are not bleeding. Your body’s hand is bleeding.

If you could take your hand off and put it on the opposite side of the room, and look at it, you can see that you are not your hand. You are still here. You can see your hand over there, yet you are still complete, so you are not the hand.

Continuing this exercise with all the parts of the body will help you to realize that you are not this body which has been labeled with the name which has been assigned to you.

You are something more.

Then you think, “Oh, I am thinking, therefore I am my mind.”

Yet, if you would dare to do it, you could consider continuing the exercise by removing everything that you think you are, all your experiences, thoughts, and beliefs, every thought, and you are still there.

You are something more.

When you’ve completed this phase of the exercise, you realize that you are not the mind. What you are is the conscious source of all life. You can put any label on this which suits your personal paradigm. For me, I refer to this as God because that resonates with me.

If this conscious source of all life were removed from the body with your name associated with it, your lifeless body would collapse to the floor.

Once you understand this, you can see that you are this divine consciousness which is present in all life on this planet, our galaxy, all the galaxies in the universe, and whatever is beyond.

In this manner, you realize that you are one with everything, but you are experiencing this life as a journey witnessed from the vantage point of your identity in your body, so enjoy this life’s journey for what it is.

You might not be able to identify with this exercise and that is perfectly fine. There is no judgment here, and you are perfectly correct in whatever you think about who you are.

Who do you think you are?

When People Show You Who They Are Believe Them

People can be very mysterious, and even though it’s impossible to know what’s going on inside someone’s head, you might be surprised to know that it’s easy to see people as they really are, if you are paying attention. Often they will clearly show themselves to you and when people show you who they are, believe them.

It’s easy to be impressed by someone’s presentation, how they talk, walk, dress, what kind of car they drive, the house they live in, job, or financial independence they exude. Even if your first impression and instincts were over-ridden by appearances, if you’re paying attention, you will often be seeing them clearly showing you the type of person he or she really is.

This is a common occurrence amongst the dating community. When a relationship falls to pieces since hindsight is 20/20 the love-seeker is saying something like, “I saw it, I just didn’t want to believe it,” or see it for what it was. We tend to project our best view of a person onto the people we desire to admire. We overlook the warning signs, in the beginning, to hold a sacred image of them in our minds.

Little inconsistencies that don’t seem to be important, and are easily overlooked in the initial phases of getting to know someone, were likely clearly communicating what to expect from this person.

Little things like, not having same-sex friends, not communicating with family members, or everyone they know is “crazy.” Maybe it takes a while for him or her to respond to your text, but you notice when they are with you, that he or she responds to texts from other people immediately… and other things that make you go, “Huh?”

Even though you might write those things off negligible inconsistencies at the outset, after a while you start asking, “Why?”

When you start asking why, your projected image of them is starting to fade and you’re starting to see them as they really are, and you’re likely to wonder why it appears that they have changed. Only they haven’t changed, though your perception of him or her is changing as you’re allowing yourself to see them in a more realistic light.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see the best in someone, to believe the best about someone, but when you realize that they are who they really are and see clearly that they clearly showed you who they were from the outset, don’t beat yourself up too much. It only means that you have a heart, and you were caught at a time when you wanted to believe the best.

You may have let down your guard and been vulnerable, possibly even feel as though you were taken advantage of, but you can’t put yourself down for loving too much.

You didn’t want to not believe in someone’s best possibilities. You didn’t want to give up on this person or give in to believing that they were any less than you believed was their best possibility. You’re not a quitter. You saw the goodness that was in them, which they could have fully embraced, but when it comes down to it, they just couldn’t go there.

Not that they couldn’t grow into their evolutionary highest and best, but they just weren’t ready to do the work necessary to be the amazing person whom you envisioned coming to life in your mind’s eye. And nothing you could do for them could change them. Change can only be accomplished when the changer sees change as inevitable. No one has ever changed by being nagged to make a change.

No one has ever changed by being nagged to make a change. (Okay, maybe for a moment to defer a particular consequence, but not meaningful, lasting change, which only comes from within.)

Love is a delicate balancing act of loving without reservation, and self-preservation. It’s different for every person, and only you can decide where your boundaries are.

You are awesome and your strength is in the power of your love, and sometimes loving might empower you to let someone go to find and make their own way. This is really the best, most supportive thing you can do. Nobody is wrong, broken, or in need of fixing (plus, you couldn’t fix them if you wanted to).

It is up to you to determine what people and characteristics that you want in your life. So, it’s good to have an idea of what you want and what you don’t. When you start seeing undesirable attributes in people in your inner circle, you can start making plans to clear your sacred space of their influence.

You might be surprised to learn that someone might see some of your attributes as being undesirable. I know, it’s crazy, but its true. We all have our own unique flavor, but we’re all in the same soup, which would be bland if not for us.

While some things are tolerable, it’s up to you to decide what is intolerable or referred to as dealbreakers. These are the characteristics that are red flags indicating that you need to move someone out of your inner circle to make room for someone who is more compatible.

All that to say, don’t be surprised when you lift the veil of best intentions to see that almost every person is being honest, showing you their true colors at the get-go, and if you’ve given them the benefit of the doubt and viewed them in their highest and best form, don’t beat yourself up about it. See them for who they really are.

“When people show you who they are, believe them.” ~Maya Angelou