Whoever You Think You Are

You’re probably lying

Oh happiest of Fridays, friends, and Happy Veterans Day — we are saluting and thanking all for their service.

Interestingly, and I’d love any veterans to weigh in here, but I can imagine that those in the service also might struggle with their identity- as in, who am I now that I’ve moved into civilian life?

Assuming many move into complimentary or altogether different careers, their “service” identity is always with them, the forever piece of them, making up the Who Am I? question.

This ties back to many of the roles we take on — we are mothers, fathers daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, friends, spouses, partners, etc in our personal lives, and then we are this career or that vocation, or this mission or that set of values we “represent” in our outfacing lives.

Every role we take on adds another piece to the answer of the “Who Am I” question. We build our entire lives around this question — filling the Who Am I basket with all of these roles we play.

But are we truly all of these roles? Is that who we really are?

I would argue that no, we are not the roles we play, but we sure do feel like that is, at the core, who we ARE.

Even the ways we think we ARE become who we believe we are, and continue to be. For example: I am the one who always shows up for others, I am the peacemaker, I am the screw up, I am the smart one, I am the strong one, I am the screw-up, I am the good one, etc etc etc.

When we believe we ARE this way and that way, we become fixated on upholding these things, because without them, we become lost, we become UN-defined, and therefore we would have to then take responsibility to BE what and who we truly desire to be, not just the roles/ways we’ve continually reinforced our entire lives.

Who AM I if I don’t have this particular problem or gripe or circumstance that I continue to reinforce in my life, or if I am not the sunny one who everyone depends on. If it disappeared tomorrow, who would I be?

Good question.

It’s another freaky circle. Damn you freaky circles!

Continuing on with our identity crisis theme (with my Aries in Chiron 1st House in case you haven’t caught my previous posts)… I pondered more of Charlotte Kirsten’s words on her Typically Topical site:

“Remember that Aries is the instigator of the zodiac, it kickstarts the zodiac wheel being the 1st of all the signs. Its motto centers around ‘I am’ which is why many with Chiron in Aries feel as though they’ve lost touch with themself over the years.

If I had to sum it up, I would call it a ‘pure identity crisis’, always trying to prove they do and should exist.”

Proving I do and should exist. No pressure. All good.

And as I ponder that idea specifically, it does line up with so much of my life — trying to prove something. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now that I’m unraveling the layers more than ever, I do see this playing out through my life.

This proves the point to me more than ever, and I hope you’ll take a look at your own life to see if it’s similar, that when you are not clear on what you desire your life to look like, you will drift like a plastic bag drifting through the wind waiting to start again. (thanks KP).

As we move through our lives, especially at a young age, we move to each “next rung” as we think it’s what we have to do in life, never critically examining if those choices are in alignment with our soul’s desire vs. the societal ideas we’ve self-imposed of how one “should be”.

Perhaps this is something people only start to think about at a certain age (ahem)… but if we can reach people SO much younger to start this exploration, I think what a profound difference we would have in the world — people feeling more in line with who they really are, not with the roles they picked up along the way and feel they are ball-and-chained to.

It doesn’t have to be so, and the sooner we realize we have a choice, the better. Which reminds me, now that I officially have TWO teenagers (gasp and sigh), I need to sit them down asap to start this practice of self-exploration and alignment.

As they say, start ’em young.

Happy exploring friends. Have a great weekend and I so appreciate a clap, subscribe, and/or share.

xo Aim