“Who Am I?” Answered
How to reconnect to yourself, others, and discover your purpose
“To know a species, look at its fears. To know yourself, look at your fears. Fear in itself is not important, but fear stands there and points you in the direction of things that are important. Don’t be afraid of your fears, they’re not there to scare you; they’re there to let you know that something is worth it.” — C. JoyBell C.
Self-knowledge is the most useful wisdom you can possess.
It will help you discover your purpose, that feeling of fulfillment that inspires you to work for hours without break or days and months without vacation.
It will reconnect you to your true self. Humans need connection to survive, but unfortunately, the person we’re most disconnected from is ourselves.
Disconnection is also the cause of loneliness. When you’re separated from yourself, you feel alone. And how do we attempt to heal the pain of loneliness? Drugs, alcohol, approval, and distraction — scrolling through Instagram, watching Netflix and Youtube.
If we experienced the warmth of self-connection, we’d feel inspired to experience the warmth of connecting with another. We’d also recognize the feeling of genuine connection.
Self-connection also protects us from rejection. Once you respect your truth, you’ll respect the truth of others. “Ok, they didn’t like me. That’s fine. They’re entitled to their own opinion. I know who I am and who I best align with.”
Self-knowledge helps you understand what you want and need (or don’t want and need). Recognizing your desires then honoring and fulfilling them increases your self-resilience. The ability to self-soothe is a tool to improve your productivity, communication, and independence.
Certainty is grounding. Once you know who you are, the opinions of others won’t matter. You’ll move through life with ease.
Reconnecting with your instincts and acting upon them will increase your self-trust and confidence. No longer will you need to repeatedly search for answers outside yourself before acting or, paralyzed by fear, forgo a response altogether.
Signs You’re Disconnected From Self
- You feel lost, confused, paralyzed, frozen
- You lack confidence and self-trust
- You feel numb and don’t experience pleasure in previously adored hobbies
- You feel “weird” and “different” from others
- You feel self-conscious and don’t know how to act in social situations.
- You yearn for purpose, meaning, a calling
Why We Disconnect From Ourselves
Humans have two primary necessities:
- The need for approval
- The need for authenticity
As infants, we need approval from our parents, so they’ll take care of us. If our parents told us to “stop crying,” we’d obey because we believe if we don’t, they won’t feed us, nurture us, or might abandon us.
In other words, to get approval, we suppress our authenticity. We claim specific thoughts and feelings as hazardous to our safety, so we bury and disconnect from them.
The behaviors of suppression and denial compound over time, and before we know it, we’ve lost connection with our authentic voice and inner and outer experience. To rediscover our truth, we search outside ourselves — through books, videos, podcasts. We become prey to marketing, to opinions, to society’s values, and become subpar versions of our idols.
How To Reconnect to Yourself
To reconnect to yourself, you have to release the shame around your inner experience — your thoughts, your feelings, the sensations in your body. If we believe a particular aspect of ourselves is “bad”, or “wrong”, or defective, we’ll suppress it, avoid it, or disassociate from it.
So to reconnect with everything that is us, we have to accept it unconditionally. We have to integrate it, and hug it, and possess it as our own.
Love is an act of possession. Not aggressive possession, or controlling possession, but caring, compassionate possession. The type of reaction a mother bear has when she wraps her arm around her baby cub and pulls it near to protect it from a predator.
To love is to own, to take responsibility for, to take care of. We take care of the things we love, right? Car, phone, children. We have to treat our inner experience with the same intense softness as our outer objects or people.
So again, there’s nothing “wrong” or “bad” about your feelings. Only believing so will create resistance to acceptance.
To practice acceptance and integration, you have to become aware of your inner experience. We can’t accept the invisible.
Periodically, ask yourself, “how am I feeling?” followed by “where am I feeling this?”
We feel our emotions as sensations in the body. I know I’m nervous when my heart is racing. I know I’m angry when I frown my face or clench my jaw.
Because of our suppression and denial habits, a common reaction to “negative” emotions will be to change them. Resist this urge. Instead, tell yourself “it’s ok” to be nervous or angry. “It’s normal” to have these feelings.
Over time, self-acceptance will feel so pleasurable that suppression will lose its allure. And genuine confidence and pride will replace shame.
We see the totality of a “thing” when we view it from clear glasses — without the debris of judgment. The more comfortable we become observing ourselves, the more we’ll notice “who we are” and “why”. The quicker we’ll recognize our internal signals (thoughts and emotions) and acknowledge and interrogate further.
“I’m feeling nervous. Why? Because I see a person I’m attracted to. It’s ok to feel nervous around someone I’m attracted to. Breathe. Relax.
Release the negative, and only the opposite will remain. Letting go of shame and integrating the fear and nervousness (from the example above) independently, increases this person’s sense of worth and power. Feeling calm and confident, their nervousness becomes excitement.
“This is who I am. I’m attracted to this person. I want to go meet them.”
Who Are You Right Now?
There’s no timetable for self-discovery. People, like trends, are forever evolving. Your truth today may look foreign to you tomorrow. But it’s important to understand you don’t need to know who you are as soon as possible.
The desire to want to know right now, in this moment, is stemming from the assumption “if I know who I am, all my problems will be solved. If I figure out my purpose tonight, I’ll wake up inspired and motivated. I’ll no longer need my morning coffee or doubt my abilities. And I’ll live clear and confident and change the world like Elon Musk.”
Wanting the answers now will leave you vulnerable to false truths. We’ll accept what used to excite us. But again, people evolve. We’ll brand “truth” on the first thought we see so we can chase, hunt, and eat. But that first image may not be the healthiest or meatiest. If we waited, observed with peace and patience, we might notice a larger, fuller picture. Or a dream that is authentic to us, not too big, not too small, but just right.
Who you are is your current experience. What are you feeling? What are you thinking? Your answers are the truest you. Your energy may change seconds, minutes, hours later. Regardless, it remains your most authentic self. Accept it all. It’s who you are.
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