Lose Your Identity to Change Your Life

If someone were to ask you to summarize who you were in five sentences of less, what would you come up with? I'm not asking you to stop reading and think about how you would go about defining yourself, but you might be surprised at some of the automatic thoughts that enter your mind when thinking about who you think you are…The topic of this message is how real is your identity and who makes it so? Questioning your identity can be challenging. Reading this message might even bring certain built in resistance mechanisms to the forefront of your mind. If you feel as though you're consistently encountering internal conflict because what you want out of life doesn't align with who you think you are, this message could shed the crucial light on something you might consider letting go of in order to live a more harmonious life — your identity.

Most of the people I know have relatively firm ideas about themselves, who they are, what their value system is built upon, how they look, how they should act, what their place in life is and more. You could think of this as a person's identity. The ideas someone has about who they are. Granted, others may not perceive a person as they perceive themselves, but that is beside the point this is about how you perceive your own identity.

Of all the things you can be, some of them include: being rich or poor — being fat or fit — being beautiful or ugly — being up tight or easy going — being healthy or sickly — being free in spirit or bound by obligation — and more.

Of course, within those polarities, there is space in the middle. There is also the idea of what happens to people who are how you may choose to define yourself on the topics mentioned above and more.

For example, it could be thought that a fat person has no business doing activities skinny people enjoy. Or it can be easy to think a poor person is bound to live a certain life that a rich person has complete freedom from. An ugly person is certain to have a far more limited experience with physical intimacy with more partners than an attractive person is.

Reading through those statements, you may be agreeing with certain statements and mentally citing experiential reference points (memories) that support your ideas- or you might think the idea is absurd (or maybe you're somewhere in between the two ideas). Either way the one making these decisions can be though of as an extension of who you are, or your identity (yes, please do re-read this paragraph, taking time to think about it).

No one is suggesting that there is anything wrong with your identity. But, there is something you may have yet to consider when you are wishing to make any sort of life change that hasn't seemed to materialize in the physical world just yet:

If the change you seek is outside of the identity you hold onto chances are there will be an internal conflict and an inevitable "victor." For example, do you know someone who has attempted to lose weight, taken some kind of action step, lost weight - and then gained it back after a few months?

What about the person who invests their hard-earned money into an abundance of "millionaire mindset" type of books, seminars and workshops, yet year after year, still struggles with finances? How about the person who is convinced they are destined to unwillingly endure a life of loneliness without ever finding love, only to convince themselves of this truth through a seemingly unending series of short term relationships?

Do you think it's possible the reason many of us just don't seem to be able to arrive where we wish we would is that our identity gets in the way? Could it be the ideas we hold onto about ourselves keep us locked into the confines of a series of thoughts that sum up who we think we are?

What if it we had the ability to let go of who we thought we are? What if the "fatty" decided to let go of idea altogether? What if the person who never gets the "right break" in life they need in order to make it decides not to identify with that person anymore? What if the ugly ducking stops subscribing to that idea? Do you get where I'm going with this?

I know a lot of us are wishing for change right now. So am I. I wish you all the success in the world along your journey. So here's the thing… If it hasn't quite worked out for you yet - will it ever work out for you if you continue to be the person you think you are, or will you have to let that person go?

Last week I wrote about the process of ageing - and how it seems so many of us have declared war, in many ways on the inevitable process that will eventually force us to all let go of who we think we are by certain terms - death, of your identity. You can argue this all you wish, but you can't dispute that we all let go of these bodies we occupy at some point. Where we go, well - many of us have many ideas - and in some way they all include letting go of the person you think you are now.

How could your life be if you didn't wait to let go of the parts of the person you think you are who keeps you locked into living what you don't want? Are you willing to find out? I know I am.

Namaste, Paul

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Paul Bunting is an avid "Freeform" practicioner of Yoga, Meditation and Introspection. For more writings on more topics, including intimacy, you can visit http://www.paulbunting.net Several E-Books avalable as well.

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