Are you what you “do?” I’m a coach, a business owner and an author. But is that really who I am? I’m also the mom of two wonderful girls, a loving wife, and the youngest of seven children. But is that really who I am?
Right now, in this moment, I’m a writer. But in the next moment, I may be something else. I’ll be a customer when I buy lunch, a voter when I vote, and a chauffer when I pick my girls up from school and run them all over town.
But these are all things I’m “doing.” Is what you are “doing” really who you are? We move through life like frames in a motion picture. Do you pick and choose which frames to identify with? Or, is there more to you than that?
Do you choose to be happy while driving? Or, are you a hostile driver irritated by the “poop-turd” that obviously missed that question on the licensing exam? Are you a polite customer as you wait for the cashier-in-training to ring up person #8 in line and acknowledge her for her patience? Or, are you a short-tempered, hurried customer shouting at the manager for not planning better for the lunchtime crowd? All options are available to you.
And, in each moment you get to choose from an endless array of options. If a potential boss asks, “Who are you?” you may respond differently than if a stranger asks the same question. The context of the question oftentimes shapes your response.
On the flip side, you are NOT defined by any one moment in time. You are NOT the employee that spilled wine on the boss at the Christmas party…four years ago. You are NOT the stupid kid in elementary school. You are NOT what OTHERS define you to be. Unless, you choose to be. You ARE an integral part of creation. You ARE a child of God. You ARE a perfect expression of the Universe. You ARE who YOU define yourself to be.
Others will define you through their filter and categorize you based on external experiences, things that happened, or an action or response you made. But you are not an external response or event.
Do you give other people the power to define you? Do you hand your identity over to someone else’s control – your teachers, parents, or therapists? What matters most is that you know who you are. That you know yourself so well that what others say or think about you has no impact on how you feel about yourself. Who you are is internal. It’s like happiness; it comes from the “inside,” it’s not “out there.” Inner-mastery, self-mastery is what changes worlds.
Do you know who you are (beyond what you do)?
How well do you want to know yourself?
Playing with the Author ~ Lori Kuhn
Labels have played an integral role in people’s identity. They become so identified with their job title, for example, that they don’t seem to exist outside of it. That’s who they are. They’re lost without it. I was one of those people. My title was my identity. It’s who I thought I was… until I realized that there was far more to me than a job title. Far more to me and how I wanted to express myself. Far more that I wanted to experience, explore, and discover about myself. It’s been very cool.
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