Authentic Self

If we can get past our ego’s definition of who we are it can be an enlightening experience. Visiting our authentic self for the first time is like meeting a perfect stranger that you’ve known all of your life.

But to get there you have to push beyond those influences that up until now have defined who you think you are. Past life experiences, relationships, loves, losses and a wide assortment of pivotal life-altering events that have all conspired to shape a personal vision of yourself in your head. 

You’ve spent a lifetime painting your skin like a canvas of who you think you are. It’s a personal journey of ego, attitude, needs, desires, fears and wants. But in your quest for satisfaction in life you’ve inadvertently let outside influences shape and define your true self.

St. Louis Grade School

There’s been collateral damage suffered and you didn’t even know it. It came from those youthful messages imparted on you by parents, teachers, lovers and friends. Everyone who thought they knew who you were, what you were and what you should become in life. It was everyone who made promises that couldn’t be kept. Everyone who envisioned your future fulfilled but didn’t have their own stuff together yet. Anyone and everyone who slipped into your life, touched you if just for a moment in time then disappeared into that vast emptiness called past relationships. It was a self-image you’ve dragged along through life until something or someone challenged it.

That something for me was a new focus on writing after a lifetime of working in fields I loved. It was finding even more fulfillment in writing than I had in running marathons, long distance bike rides, walking in the rain, getting lost in a forest, running trails until I wanted to drop, climbing a mountain and gasping for air until I thought I was going to pass out. Those were/are satisfying experiences but none compared to holding that first published book in my hands and saying ‘damn, I did it.’

Part of that organic process of writing was a new demand for more self-examination and thoughtful-processing of past lives I’ve lived, my present environment and level of personal satisfaction.

It demanded a closer examination of past relationships and my reaction to life events. It forced me out of old reflections, memories and explanations and gradually wiped away the dust and dirt of past assumptions to revealed a truer self. My research and writing took me on a journey I am only now beginning to better understand and appreciate. It is all about answering the question of who I was back then and how it made me who I am today.

Helping me along the way is a daily detour I take to check-in inside my head. This practice is a monastic exercise but one with benefits. It’s finally coming face to face with the true me. Mind you I can’t say I know me that well even though it’s been over seventy-two years of living in this skin.

The latest catch-phrase is mindfulness even though it’s been around for many years. It’s an exercise that seems pretty simple on the surface but can be very powerful on one’s psyche.*

1.      Begin with a comfortable seated position. Take five or more deep inhalations and exhalations.

2.      Make yourself aware of your breathing, allowing your breath to be as natural and relaxed as possible.

3.      Using the mantra ‘I am’ continue your breathing in a slow and rhythmic fashion. Make it organic, natural, comfortable and effortless. Focus on ‘being one with yourself’ and not the ‘doing’ of the exercise.

4.      As your mind quiets, begin to drop in the question, “Who am I?” If words or emotions arise, allow them to be there. You are not looking for an answer but rather an awareness of self.

5.      This opening into awareness may last only seconds but with repeated sessions it will begin to reveal itself more and more.

*Parts of this exercise were taken from an article entitled ‘Check Your Head’ by Sally Kempton in Yoga Magazine.

It’s a journey I intend to follow for the rest of my life. A trek backwards that might help propel me forward with clarity and vision of who I really am.