Who am I?

In what do I believe?

What matters?

How do I find peace after all these years?

Sometimes, in order to find oneself, we have to shed the layers of others that we have taken on. It’s complicated.  But not really.

Are we not the sum of all of our parts? And do our parts not included parts of others? How then, do we find who we really are – at our core?

When we’re born, we can be anything that we want to be – minus the limitations placed on us due to physical or mental handicaps.  The remaining limitations are placed on us by those around us, our parents, our leaders and mentors, our society, our culture, our friends, lovers, spouses.

If we are lucky, we are either born with a strong spirit and a will and determination that drives us to achieve and be our best or we are fortunate enough to find someone that helps us see our ultimate potential and encourages us to strive. If we are not, look around and you’ll see much of what is wrong with society, any society – industrialized, civilized, uncivilized, first world, third world, “fake” world.  We end up becoming what someone makes of us.  Perhaps we become guerilla children in a nation fighting for “freedom from the oppressor”.  We grow up believing that the other person is the enemy, no matter the color of his skin.  Sometimes the color is the same. Perhaps we grow up hiding behind window shades and dark curtains afraid to look outside because someone told us that outside was dangerous.  Or maybe, we find comfort in becoming.  Becoming whatever someone wants us to be, until.  What happens when that someone decides that our becoming isn’t enough?  What happens when we wake up one day and discover that becoming isn’t enough? What then?

Where do we begin to piece ourselves together?  What is ourself? One day you wake up you look in the mirror and you do not recognize the face that is looking back.  Maybe you just find yourself crying for no dam reason.  Maybe you automatically go through old routines only this time you don’t even remember that you went through the motions. You need to stop. Just stop.  Stop and look back at that person in the mirror and stare.  Stare into her eyes (or his) and take one minute to say, “hello”.  Maybe, just maybe, take a moment to listen to the person that answers back. Who we were born, that majestic individual that rose from an egg and sperm, is in there.  All you have to do is find her.  But how? Take a minute.  Take a minute and realize that part of the reason you don’t recognize who is looking back at you is because the skin you’re in is not yours.  It’s whose ever skin it was you needed to be until you needed to find your own.  And now, now you need to shed his skin.

Where to begin? Think back, as far back as you need to think to remember what you wanted to be when you were five or six.  Think back to remember at whom you stared at because she was beautiful, amazing, awe inspiring.  How did she dress? Classy, simple, ostentatious? What color was her hair? Did she style it? Did she wear it down? Was it short? Long? What color lipstick did she wear? Now, find the pieces of that awe inspiring person that fit you, and begin to replace the pieces you need to shed with parts of a new you.  What next? Listen.  Listen to the voice inside your head – it’s the universe talking.  It’s saying, “the answer is right there, all you have to do is listen.” Steal moments to listen.  Five minutes, ten minutes, thirty seconds. Silence the noise outside and listen.  Sometimes silencing the noise means making louder noise or changing the noise or listening to noise that is slightly lower than the voice inside.  How can you hear it?  You’ll hear it.  The moment isn’t working.  Then try harder, force it.  Finding yourself sometimes is like looking at a piece of wood or a ball of clay or a blank canvas and asking it, “what do you want to be? how shall I shape you?”  And then, you sit back and you wait to be inspired.  Or, you begin, with no idea, no clear picture in your mind.  You just begin and slowly your piece of wood or your ball of lay or your blank canvas begin to take shape, and then, you see it.  You see a familiar feature, a curvature that reminds you of something, you mix a color and another and another or it takes a life all its own and you allow it to go and see where it takes you.

How do you know what his skin and what’s yours? It doesn’t matter.  What matters is that you can move comfortably in it and that when you look in the mirror you see more of what you recognize as you than you see of what you became for him.  In each of those little pieces of skin from the past there were always pieces of you.  That’s how you were able to survive.  Those are the ones that will show you the way to yourself.  You’ll never be completely rid of who you became.  After all, it’s who you became.  But you can be comfortable in the knowledge that you decided which parts to keep as your sum and which to discard.

Finding you is not about forgetting and being embarrassed of what once was.  Instead, it’s about embracing, owning what once was, welcoming the new you and not being afraid to show it.