WHO AM I?

I was chatting with a friend of mine this AM. She was telling me about a project she is part of that involves doing personal growth work with inmates of a prison. She was telling me about one woman who has impressed her. She mentioned a comment the woman had made:

"I am not defined by these walls; I am defined by who I am."

WOW-- I was moved by that statement. It represented a huge amount of personal freedom in this woman and also a willingness to be totally accountable for her life, despite many limitations.
I found myself contemplating how sometimes I am tempted to let challenging circumstances define me, and how likely it is that many people are doing that same thing right now as they lose their jobs, homes, money and etc. It is very easy in the midst of all that loss to think that one has also lost one's identity-- or that since that “stuff” is gone, one's “self” is gone also. After all, if one hasn't practiced defining oneself by something other than "things," positions or roles-- it can be pretty darn empty and scary without them.

I had the experience over the last few years of losing many things I identified with as "Who I Am." Several close friends died over a two year period. I lost my mom and my sister. I experienced the intense and painful break-up of a long term relationship after discovering my partner had lied to me and cheated for a very long time (destroying even my perception of him and what we had had together). All that was interspersed with six months of pneumonia and a year struggling with the lingering after-effects of that (so my usual state of health was gone). Then my youngest child decided to move into her own place. I sold my home of 24 years, storing most of my "stuff" and moving in with a close friend. My primary professional focus blew up as the industry collapsed-- and then, just at the beginning of our nation’s economic collapse, my ample income disappeared into an abyss.

WOW! "WHO AM I??" became my big question as I found myself struggling to move past the emptiness and the feeling that there was nothing left for me here on the Planet Earth. All my "roles" were gone and my "stuff" was minimized. I was not even BEING the person I had come to know myself to be. I had, seemingly, way too much of personal and psychic space to swim around in, and too much time to look at what was going on in and around me. I found it uncomfortable.

Luckily, I still had lots of love and support around me in my life, so I decided just to be patient with myself. I decided to simply be present with my FEAR that I did not know who I was anymore, that without all those people and things to define me I was nothing—instead of trying to run away or hide from it. It was VERY scary.

Eventually, I began to notice that another WHO I AM eased forward. I began to discover that who I REALLY am is defined by how I CHOSE to BE with myself and others in any given situation. I began to pay attention to how I spoke to people and how I acted with people, to the choices I made inside of me about all that. I pondered why I made those particular choices. Even when I was alone, I began to pay attention to how I thought and felt, how I chose to use my time, what I chose to think about and feel, how I interacted with myself & the "space" inside and around me, and, simply, what kind of relationship I chose to have with what was going on inside of me & in every area of my life all the time.

Neale Donald Walsch (in his book "Relationships") commented, "We all have a relationship (with) the circumstances . . . events, (and people) of our lives. And it is out of this relationship, which is entirely self-created, that we experience, announce, and declare, express, fulfill, and become, who we really are." He also noted, that "the purpose of (any) relationship . . . is simply putting something into it as a means of noticing who you really are."

SO-- when I didn't have my roles of parent, householder, small business owner, lover, facilitator and etc. to distract me anymore, I was able to OBSERVE my relationship with and to the circumstances, situations, events and people of my life. As I observed that, I became aware that what I was observing was ME. I was able to SEE more of WHO I REALLY AM and to see that more clearly than I do when my life is full of roles, people and things to do.

I was able to see that WHO I AM has nothing to do with the roles I play in my life, except in that I AM WHAT I AM all the time in every situation and with every person. I simply EXPRESS that through the roles I play, and the words and actions that I take. I AM the PRESENCE behind all that. I AM the FORCE that moves all that out into the world as my creations, relationships, situations, circumstances, accomplishments, and etc... AND no matter what happens to those creations (since nothing here is guaranteed nor definite nor permanent nor even really predictable or controllable because there are so many other forces and people involved), I am always HERE, OKAY and ME.

FOR ME, this is the process of SELF-REALIZATION-- when I began to become AWARE -- to REALIZE-- WHO I AM. I am not positive this is what all the “Teachers and Masters” mean when they use those words (self-realization). But, that is what it feels like to me, as I am doing this process. I am REALIZING myself.

I also contemplate that the action of being the Being I have found myself to be AT ITS BEST in all my thoughts, feelings, words and actions-- might be SELF-ACTUALIZATION. I fully recognize that I have not in the past always chosen to be my Best Self, or to act out of that part of me, though I come pretty close sometimes. I also know there have been times I have failed miserably and allowed the most negative, darkest aspects of me to choose my words and actions. AND, I think that as I become more aware of all the aspects of myself, and gain more comfortableness with them as I seem to do when I am in the "observer" role I am developing, I will be able to CHOOSE even more consistently to do, say and be the better parts of me-- the God-Me-- the HU-man.