Who are you?
Men can starve from a lack of self realization, as much as they can from a lack of bread.
- Richard Wright
I will start by telling you straight up that no one can tell you who you are. You can only experience it. Your masters, guides and all the people you look up to will give you pointers, what THEY believe to be true but it will only become true for you when you put those ideas to a test and validate them for yourself experiencially. That is to say, don’t expect this article to lecture you on who you are :).
As you embark on that journey of self discovery, getting in touch with your own discernement and what it feels like for you when something rings true is the best thing you can have in your toolkit. Therefore, in the rest of this article we wil discuss 3 attributes that you might consider embodying as you take on this quest.
Unlearn what you think you know about yourself
This might sound quite litteral and doesn’t necessarily mean that everything you know about yourself at this stage is wrong; but what you know and believe to be true at the moment is the paradigm through which you navigate reality and it hardly allows for new information. So instead of dumping everything you know at the moment, it means to be open to new ideas and to challenge what you think you know. When you think about it, for more than a century, most of humanity bought into the evolution theory of Darwin without even questioning it, while recent evidence shows that his model of evolution might just be wrong. So I truly believe that our beliefs about the world in general and about ourselves in specific as humans are the first things that need reassessment on the path to self discovery.
2. Connect to your core
I will let you define for yourself what you think is at the core of your being, but I do believe that it’s only from that perspective that you can possibly catch a glimpse of who you are. This is based on the premisse that you are more than your brain and the chatter of your mind; and you are more than your body. Therefore it only sounds logical that a truer sense of who you are can only be sensed when you disconnect from your mind, body and external environment, and turn that focus more inwards. One of the best ways to do so is through meditation and all the other mindfulness practices. As you do so, it is crucial to make it a habit in order to feel the long terms benefits in terms of clarity, that will be a crucial tool in your self discovery journey.
The whole point of connecting with your core or as others would call it inner self, is to have a touch of your true essence and what lies underneath the chatter of the mind.
3. Develop Heart coherence
There is a popular saying in the self help community: “The brain thinks, but the hear knows”. I truly believe that there is more to the heart than science is able to see yet. The pioneering work of the Heart Math Institute is a testimony to that and I strongly recommend that you look into their work.
Lets come back to the concept of heart coherence. To explain it simply, it's a state where the heart, mind and emotions are in alignment and working in a congruent way. What is more interesting are the consequences of being in that state. Out of all the benefits of heart coherence, clarity of mind is the most beneficial when it comes to self discovery. It allows you to discern with way more ease what rings true to what is not and therefore to draw your own conclusions. Just like I mentioned before, I believe there is more about being human than science can grasp at the moment and most of the beliefs that you wil buy about yourself will call your own judgment.
However before closing this article, allow me to share a little bit of mine. Just like Dr. Wayne Dyer used to say I believe that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, we are more than our bodies and our possibilities are only limited by our imagination. I literally believe that we at the image of the universe/divine and that we choose to manifest on the planet with the purpose of experiencing more of who we truly are.
This quite sums it up at the moment. But now, what about you? What do you believe about yourself? Share your thoughts in the comments section.