Who am I?
Who are you? I mean who are you really? Do you ask yourself this? Have you ever asked yourself this? At different points in our lives most of us are hit with this question and are left feeling a bit lost, sad, happy, proud, unsure. Why is it that we can be unclear about who we are?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and reading about this and let me tell you there’s a shit load of gumph. If only there was a definitive source of wisdom that would give me instructions on how to find the pot of gold – a detailed document on who I am. But of course there’s not. There are just people like us who have grappled with these questions and found their own way. Some have chatted to their friends about it. Others have produced podcasts or written books.
So who do you want me to be then?
One thing I know for sure is that I have as many identities as I do pairs of boots and it really isn’t helping me answer the question of ‘who am I?’
How many identities do you have? How many different roles in life do you play? Colleague, manager, partner, child, sibling, parent, gym buddy, friend, runner, survivor, writer, good girl?
You take on these identities from a really young age. The first one I can really remember is ‘good girl.’ To be a good girl I needed to be independent, cook, keep my head down at school. These identities come loaded up with a whole bunch of rules that govern how you should be in order to be accepted.
Take working mum. When you say that what does that bring to mind? Career, organised, perfect lunches for kids, sitting down patiently doing homework, securing a senior school place at the same time you pop your contraceptive in the bin? What’s the reality some days? Money for a Greggs sausage roll, grunts passing as conversations and Love Island and a glass of wine in the evening. Then what happens? Guilt. Guilt for not living up to the ideal.
With all of these rules and expectations of what it means to be the perfect parent, colleague, friend, blinikin trapeze artist it’s no wonder that at some point we’re hit with the question ‘but who am I really?’ Underneath all of this expectation where is me?
Where is she?
There’s nothing wrong with taking on these different roles. Sometimes they can be a really useful way of holding on to what feels safe. For if you play the role that is expected of you then you’re accepted. And who doesn’t want that? But, as Glennon Doyle says in Untamed
When women lose themselves, the world loses its way. We do not need more selfless women. What we need right now is more women who have detoxed themselves so completely from the world's expectations that they are full of nothing but themselves. What we need are women who are full of themselves. A woman who is full of herself knows and trusts herself enough to say and do what must be done. She lets the rest burn.
Someone said on Instagram, someone I really respect, that quotes don’t help anyone. Okay. But fuck – this is a powerful quote.
But how do you find yourself? Where do you look for her? Glennon Doyle and Tiffany Han talk of this on a recent podcast. They ask ‘When is your there she is moment?’
For me it’s when I’m dancing, preferably in a field at a festival but on my own in a bedroom works too. Or some moments when I’m running, listening to music, early in the morning when no one’s about.
Your there she is moment is when you feel connected to you. Free. In the flow of you. This is you.
Shrugging a few things off
How connected to you do you feel and is it at all important actually? Glennon and Tiffany acknowledge that there are moments in your lives when you need to get on with your roles. Absolutely. If someone asked me (or sent me a newsletter 😊) if I really knew who I was when I had 3 kids under 5 who wouldn’t even let me go to the loo in peace. Well. I think the answer would be ‘Yes. And I’m knackered so please don’t give me something else to think about.’
But for those of you who have hit a time in your life when you’re thinking ‘Um hold on. This isn’t me,’ then maybe it’s time to shrug off a few of those identities and be a bit more full of yourself.
Coaching Questions
To what extent have the identities that you’ve taken on moved you away from yourself?
If you could start from scratch and be, think, feel, do whatever you wanted what would that look like?
When is your ‘There she is moment?’ What are you doing? How can you connect more to this?
What, in Glennon’s words, would you be doing, thinking, feeling, being if you were completely full of yourself?