Of course, changing our outside appearance doesn’t get us any nearer to being loved and wanted for who we authentically are. Applying WE’s principles enables us to know our identity from the inside out rather than the outside in. We realize that who we are lies beyond what we do, how we look and what we own.
When you are clear about who you are and who you are not it’s a lot easier to be clearer with the outside world. If you adopt rigorous self-honesty as a way of life, the false-selves and labels that have disguised your true self will gradually start to fall away.
‘Curiosity is our friend that teaches us how to become ourselves.’
ELIZABETH GILBERT
As children we’re all emotionally super-porous. In addition to the messages we receive from our families, peers and society at large, we also absorb our caregivers’ fears, frustrations and beliefs, and mistake them for our own. We start receiving most of them before we’re old enough to be able to scrutinize and reject those that don’t serve us or belong to us. This will especially be the case if you come from a family in which there are secrets or traumatic events. You may not know the facts, but you’ll still absorb the feelings. It’s possible to carry emotions like shame, fear and sadness for decades, even though they have nothing to do with you.
I’ve always lived with a fear of catastrophe and could never define what that ‘terrible’ thing I feared might be. As a girl I’d squirrel away my pocket money so that I’d be ready for whatever it was that was going to happen to us. It was only years later, when I discovered my father’s secret past, that my behaviour made sense and my fear started to evaporate. When my father was a child, he’d fled from the Nazis during the Second World War and, wanting to protect us from anti-Semitism, never told us that he was Jewish. But it turned out he inadvertently left me a different kind of legacy: a sense of impending catastrophe and a fear of saying who I really was.
JN
Genes with memories
The new and fast-evolving field of epigenetics research suggests that trauma can be inherited genetically. In one study, male mice that were taught to fear a smell passed that fear on to their offspring – which in turn would bequeath the same sensitivity to their offspring.8
Another study found that baby rats that received insufficient nurturing from their mothers matured to be more prone to disease and anxiety than their well-groomed counterparts, and then passed on that predisposition to their descendants.9
We can live our whole lives with a particular sensitivity, fear or trait that doesn’t belong to us – that’s been internalized from the outside world. Now we can start challenging the assumptions we’ve made about ourselves and ask, ‘Is this mine? Do I own this? Is it part of me? Is it serving me?’ or ‘Can I let it go?’
EXERCISE 2: Getting Beneath the Surface
This exercise is to help you discard the ideas about yourself that no longer serve you. Think about the labels you’d use to describe yourself. They might be about your job, how you look, your race, your background, your sexual orientation.
Now think of the messages about yourself that you were given growing up. It doesn’t matter whether they were good or bad – we internalize them when we’re young and impressionable, and as we get older they can be hard to shake.
As a child, were you told you were lazy, smart or a show-off? Were you criticized or praised for how you looked – told you were too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short? Or maybe you were ignored and grew up with the belief that you were worth nothing at all.
Write a list of the ten most prominent messages about yourself that come to your mind – from your past and your present. Look at each label on your list. Really ponder it. Is it true? Does it really represent who you are inside?
Now make sure you are comfortable and have time to sit for a few moments. Close your eyes. Breathe in and out five times, letting your out-breath last for five counts and your in-breath for four. Imagine you are in a boat that is floating far out at sea and that you take the labels you have written and scatter them onto the surface of the ocean. Watch the words floating there, bobbing up and down on the waves. Now imagine diving into the water so you’re beneath them. As you look back up at them, you see that the paper is wet and the writing is starting to smudge so you can no longer read the words.
Dive deeper and look back up again. The paper is dissolving into the ocean and now it is gone. As you swim deeper you find yourself resting on the seabed. It is calm and peaceful and still down here. No turbulence, no waves. Any notion of who you are or are not is just a distant memory left on the surface. Inhale and exhale. You are free. Deep down, beneath the words, beneath the ideas and judgements of yourself and others, you are perfect and whole just as you are. Allow yourself to really embrace what that feels like. To be truly free, to be truly yourself.
When you are ready, slowly float up to the surface and open your eyes.
Take your list and scrunch it up. If you’d like, you can throw it in the trash or even burn it and scatter the ashes. You don’t need those labels any more. Your true self – the part of you that dived into the water – exists beyond and beneath all words. When you reside in her, you will feel utterly safe and loved.
This is a great exercise for when you’re feeling off balance or upset. It’s not necessary to repeat all of it, just imagine yourself diving deep down into your own internal ocean and resting there for a while until you feel restored. You can even add this calming imagery to your daily meditation practice.
Finding ourselves
Now that you have started to shed who and what you are not, the really exciting work of discovering who you really are can begin in earnest.
‘My true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play … there is an Authentic “I” within … a divine spark within the soul.’
SUE MONK KIDD
It’s time to get curious – about yourself. Forget all those messages you may have been given as a girl about not being nosy or not asking too many questions. Give yourself permission to question everything, assume nothing and be ready to be amazed.
In my working life I was dedicated to uncovering the truth in the world around me – first as a barrister, then as an investigative journalist – but it was a whole new journey when I was told to start asking myself the questions that I’d normally throw at others. I realised there were all sorts of truths in my own life I didn’t want to get too honest about for fear of unravelling. Eventually I did, and that’s when I discovered a new level of emotional freedom.
JN
This is not a straightforward, linear process. You’ll find false leads and dead ends. You’ll have surprises and tough choices.
Think of yourself as an archaeologist in your own life. Let curiosity be the tool you dig with. Ask yourself questions as you would someone you were studying. When was the last time you were really happy in your life? Why was that? What music did you love in your teens and do you ever allow yourself to listen to it now? What is your favourite food? What do you hate about your life and what do you love? Write down your answers in your journal.
Sometimes we simply don’t know. We’ve dulled our longings and our wants out of necessity. They’ve become what often feels like a painful luxury. But the truth is they are the nerve endings we need to bring back to life. So listen out for the stirrings of what you love and what you want and then expose and explore them.
There