Back in college, a professor asked us to define who we are. When it was my turn to speak, I said something like: “I’m a son, a brother, a boyfriend, a student, a grandchild, a writer, but underneath it all, I am me.”
She liked my answer and was surprised at my ability to be so introspective at 18-years of age.
When I look at myself these days and ask, “Who am I?”, there’s a whole different aspect to that answer now that I am decades older.
My roles don’t matter to me as much as they did when I was younger. So I’m a worker, a writer, a husband, a father. All of those roles are great, but a lot of that is tied into how I define myself in the world.
For those of us who grew up in an alcoholic/dysfunctional family, the roles we played when young are tied into who we are today over responsible, resistant to change, and fearful of abandonment.
To shine a light on one’s inner feelings and to allow them to come to the surface is not easy. To grow, I believe it is necessary to come to terms with who we are and then to love those parts of ourselves.
It’s funny, but in growing up, I tried my best to be the opposite of my father and to avoid the dysfunctional behaviors that I grew up in. But the harder I tried to cut those parts out of me, the more I struggled.
I couldn’t understand it at first.
Why was this so hard? To NOT be like someone, doesn’t it make sense to do the opposite?
Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that you cannot cut out a piece of yourself. To deny my inner self, was to deny who I was and what had influenced me to be who I am today.
Instead, I have focused on embracing and loving my imperfections.
It seems a bit odd at first, but when I peel the onion, even more, there’s a deep realization that dawned on me: I am me.
I just am. For good or for ill, I’m not separate from the world. I am part of the world. Here’s where things get a bit metaphysical but bear with me:
If everything around me is created on Earth and everything on Earth is part of the solar system and the solar system is part of the galaxy, then the galaxy is part of the universe, of creation. I am me. I am who I am. But I am a part of creation.
Okay, let’s break that down a bit. If every single atom was created in the Big Bang, and I’m part of the evolution of that moment, then who I am is tied into the fabric of the universe. I’ve always like the astronomer Carl Sagan as he coined the phrase: “We are star stuff.”
If you’ve not seen that clip of Sagan from the PBS series Cosmos, be sure to check it out.
So on the most cosmic scale, we are all being of creation. The atoms that formed forms and asteroids and comets that seeded the Earth with organic materials eventually formed life. We are descendants from those primordial pools in prehistoric Earth. And now we have consciousness, can imagine, think, but most importantly, we have the power to love.
I ask that you take a moment today to think about who you are. What roles do you play, what roles can you grow beyond, and if you were to shed all of those roles, who exactly would you be?
Find that out and ask yourself: What would happen if I loved all of me? (The “good,” the “bad,” the "in-between.”)
Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.