Find Out Who You Are

I’m not sure if you’ve ever thought about it this way before but you are a pretty exquisite creature. From the symphony of cells that creates your physicality to your consciousness in and of itself, we are all bloody amazing. Life is such a blessing. It is something that should be cherished and experiences savoured, each of us is a living breathing miracle – no matter what your perceived circumstance. Today is a gift.

Only how do you live this gift? Are you in fear or succumbing to social pressures, maybe even obsessing over money or material gain? Free will is an interesting concept. We all have choices to make in this lifetime, passions to follow, challenges to overcome. This is the human experience. But do you know what drives you? Why you make the choices that you do and how you choose to spend your time? What’s beneath your bullshit?

Honestly, there’s probably 1001 different ways to find this stuff out, or at least to set you on the right path. Go to a psychologist (even study psychology), do an online personality test, have some deep and meaning conversations with friends, heck even push yourself and run a marathon. Anything to bring you closer to finding out who you are, what your patterns are, and most importantly what you’re capable of.

Why is this important? Well, I think those last three points are a good place to start. But to go even deeper, some famous dude once said ‘an unexplored life is a wasted one’ or something like that, which I don’t know if I’d totally agree yet it sure gets you thinking about its importance. Like are we purely here to do and take action or is understanding and analysis part of the life experience too? Personally, I believe they are both of equal importance. Life is easily as much a mental game as it is a physical.

Anyhow, I think the lesson here is that we should never forget why we are the people that we are – both past and present because life is definitely an evolution (even a devolution in some cases). And truthfully there is a lot of power in understanding your own processes and preferences. What makes you, you. Which, if anything, this is such a great tool to predict and control your responses to situations that may arise as you move into the future. It’s like a secret weapon.

Now as I’ve already mentioned there is like 1001 different paths you could take in order to understand yourself more, and honestly the more the merrier. Different perspectives and avenues can undoubtedly create a fuller picture. Still, what I want to share with you is the avenue which has helped me most of all in this regard and that is trough writing. Or to be more specific it was through telling my story. This enabled me to release some of the shame and sort through the confusion, but best of all this allowed me to see my life from an outsiders perspective. My flaws and strengths became clear, plus much much more. This give me insights that I could only tell myself and there was also no hiding, it was right there on paper.

Obviously again there are many ways to do this yet how I tried to think of it was as telling my own story to myself. There was no judgement I just tried to have a bit of fun with the whole thing. Also, this isn’t something that needs to be shared publicly for grandeur or sympathy (which in my case I did as I was seeking understanding and I knew I was strong enough to handle the embarrassment), but what I’s suggest is that for the majority of people this should be a personal journey – at least to begin with. Especially if experiencing significant adversity. What you want is the benefits not to risk public judgement or assassination.

So, do your free writing and journaling exercises, but most importantly focus on the depths that is you. Don’t just focus on what happened rather why it happened and what was beneath it. Look at the significance of an event and how it impacted your life jouney. Maybe even consider your response and how appropriate that was or if you had that same scenario pop up again how you could respond with more love, compassion or forgiveness. And remember there is no right or wrong here, this is simply an exploration to help you understand yourself better. Get mad, go wild, be creative, and one other thing I must say is to go easy on yourself. Life is just something that happens to all of us – good, bad and at times ugly. Oh and I almost forgot, if you hate writing it is feasible to tell someone you trust your story, what I think is most important here is that you let it out. Then the exploration, insights, understanding and healing can begin.

Your story is so worth of telling. We all have insights and learnings that can blow minds. We all know about something to a depth than most other people on earth.

In fact, for centuries stories have been one of the primary teaching modalities for centuries. When I say this my mind instantly wanders to the old-time American Indians sitting around the campfire swapping tall tales and creating legends. This is how humanity and community grew, so cool. Nowadays I think we forget the significance and importance of story. Like not only can it be employed for self-assessment and discovery (as I’ve listed above) but story can also be used as a tool to teach, entertain and inspire. It’s a fascinating beast.

But what I love most of all, this simple art form that almost anybody can do has the possibility of immense power .Storytelling can provide the purpose and meaning many of us are looking for, and at times this becomes clearest when reading what is written between the lines. A feeling or revelation speaks volumes. A contrast or confession can speak new and raw truth. A life of great magnitude can even be created that expresses in all its glory the exquisite creature that you are – and the discovery that this is your truth.

Not only is today a gift but you are too.