this is me

i recently ran a podcast series on identity called this is me. i like to finish each series with some ideas and thoughts to round up the topic and chat about next steps but instead i had to take a little break from the podcast to take care of me, as i experienced a period of depression. ironically, one of the things that helped me rise up out of my darkness this time was remembering a part of my identity… my strengths! i will share a bit more about that another time, for those who are interested, but i love that i proved for myself that identity work is indeed healing.

the this is me series on identity was inspired by the work i was doing to find myself again… i have shared that since losing my parents i felt that i lost my self too. i really don’t like to see memes or posts that say things like: you can’t lose yourself, you aren’t a 5 dollar bill! i don’t like how that very real experience of feeling lost gets discounted as though it’s something silly or fabricated. for me, i felt like i was just a shadow of my self… barely present, barely tangible… an empty shell.

it made sense to me then that i needed to fill up myself again – with me! i love what emma pollette said in her interview for the this is me series on becoming “full of myself”… that is exactly what working on my identity is doing for me; i am finding those pieces of me and making them real, tangible, through knowing and remembering and honouring and strengthening and exploring. i am working on becoming full of myself.

i think can be very tempting, to those of us who have lost ourselves, to feel that we have to somehow leave in order to go and find ourselves… to leave our everyday life, a career or job, maybe leave a partner or leave your family for at least a while. maybe that’s why books or movies like eat, pray, love or wild are appealing to us! maybe you might very well have to leave something in order to find you, please give yourself permission to do that if you are able to. but also, please don’t let the waiting to leave something stop you from starting your journey forwards… we actually cannot afford to wait until we can leave (even for some ideal version of a solo retreat to the woods or the beach) to do this work, and in fact we don’t have too.

finding yourself isn’t about leaving your life it’s about returning to yourself. i had to gift myself time within my everyday life to retreat… to escape for a little while… and to go within. i realised that who i am is not out there… somewhere… for me to find. it’s in me, and in the world that already exists around me.

the first time i shared publicly that i felt lost, gosh this was 3 years ago now, i received an email from a close family member calling me out as selfish. i deleted that email, without even replying to it, so i can’t quote it directly, but the gist of it was this: you are all about your SELF… finding yourself and finding your purpose, but don’t you think that’s a little selfish. your purpose should come from being a mother and a wife, maybe focus on doing a better job of that stuff and let that fulfill you and get over this obsession you have with working on yourself. UGH. even thinking about that email now makes me feel sick, partly because i let it get to me! i didn’t respond because i couldn’t come up with a response that wasn’t ragey with hurt and anger, and instead of facing all of that head on i let it contribute to the downward spiral i was already in.

what i would like to say now is this: damn straight! i am SELFish. i need to be… i need to fill myself up, full of ME. because i cannot pour from this empty vessel i have been, i can’t give of myself fully if i am only a shadow. and i am not here to give of myself to everyone else without giving to myself too.

i recently listed to a great podcase episode of we can do hard things with Glennon Doyle. in it, her sister Amanda talks about hard it can feel when someone suggests you do somethings for yourself when every hour of your life is so full, how you just feel overwhelmed… i can’t add taking care of me to my list! the problem is that every hour is full, but you are empty. you don’t actually have to DO anything more. what you really need is space. i feel this is so true, yet it can be the hardest thing… you have to leave room, create space, have a little bit of empty… just for you. room to breathe. room to BE. and if anyone calls you selfish, your answer is DAMN STRAIGHT. i am doing something for my SELF, my inner empty self. i love what Glennon and sister say at the end of their episode: i’m going to see about a girl. that girl is ME. so yep – be selfish, OK? your inner self… your brilliant creative talented clever curious adventurous amazing self depends on it.

let’s take back that label – selfish – and use it to ask for what we want and need for our SELF. that’s why owning labels can be a great thing: it’s hard to ask for something, to speak up for what we want, if we can’t put a name to it. actually, a big aspect of this identity work for me has been to get right with the concept of labels. it’s funny – we live in a time where we are experiencing push back against labels in many ways: i saw someone recently share that they are non-binary and they received all of this push back about being trendy! sweet jesus. your identity is not a trend!

here’s what i think… and i want to make this super clear… identity is about owning the space you are in, about sharing the truth of your insides on the outside. it’s for you… not for anyone else. a label is just a word with a definition, that can help you do that. but you get to choose, you can even make up your own. i think labels can be tricky if they are constrictive – if they box you in, shame you, define you forever, or block your growth. but when labels are expansive – when they help you with belonging, awareness, healing, transformation, acceptance – they can be so powerful!

you know this feeling if you’ve ever found a word – or you’ve discovered a shared experience – for a something that you feel inside but you’ve never really been able to put your finger on it and now, you suddenly feel like a puzzle piece has clicked into place. this has happened to me: through reading stories written by queer authors with queer characters, i came across a label and experience that made me think: woah, that feels like me! i’m 46 years old and i have a word now for something inside of me that i never knew was a thing!

but you also don’t have to have labels for your identity if that doesn’t sit right for you. you can simply work on building your sense of knowing… knowing who you are BEING… and your sense of acceptance, compassion, and trust for yourself. remember that nobody – no label – can put you into a box but you. sometimes you gotta break out of your own box… let go of old labels, write new definitions, choose or create new words that fit, reclaim words and make them yours again.

there is no magic formula to identity… no 3 step program that will show you who you are. even after 3 years of doing the work to find myself i don’t actually have the answers! what i have instead are lots of questions… questions that i found have helped me to fill myself up with me. i’ve put them together into a workbook called shine, which has what i like to call “21 questions for your soul”. it’s something that i think can be helpful if you’d like to explore, or remember, or honour yourself too. you can find it here.

what i really wanted to share today are some unexpected things i learnt along the way to finding myself… the first is this:

i contain multitudes

lol. maybe that is obvious. but i think that so many of us forget! we get stuck in roles, we don’t always use or share all of the parts of who we are, we forget that we are in fact unique or different or interesting!

my identity work has reminded me that there are many layers that all stack up to make me who i am… that the light that i long to shine isn’t just one thing! as my best friend bruce would remind me: i am a goddamn rainbow. yah, so i’ve literally been wearing rainbows so that i can remember this.

none of us is just one thing. we aren’t our past… we aren’t what happened to us. we aren’t our talent or our strength. we aren’t the role we play (parent, partner, child, employee, boss, volunteer). we are so so much more than any one thing… and who we are is brilliant.

that… that… my friend… is the treasure we discover through exploring and honouring our identity… the gold found in the light of the rainbow…

who i am is brilliant.

i am enough. worthy. just right. just as i am.

enoughness has been a big challenge for me in this life – and i think that worthiness is something that many people do struggle with.  what i am learning is that the more i come back to explore and strengthen and honour my identity the more enough i feel.

something that i teach, and that i am always trying to learn myself, is that we cannot hustle for our worthiness. it’s not something i can earn with successes and A pluses and good deeds and gold stars and perfection and people pleasing. worthiness is something i have chased in the past by attempting to stop the comparison game and ignore the critical voice in my head and refrain from putting myself or others on pedestals and redefine success for myself… and absolutely those are strategies that can help when i am struggling in any given moment with enoughness.

but the opposite of hustling and chasing is, i think, standing still and true in your own knowing and being.

like the quote that inspired me so long ago: lighthouses don’t go running all over the island looking for boats to save… they just stand their shining. (and we can now add… the light they shine is a goddam rainbow!)

so then the question is how do you know… in fact, how do you BE… your worth. i think it is perhaps from knowing and loving and honouring yourself deeply… daily. being so full up of you that you have nothing to chase, you can just stand strong in being you.

if i don’t know who i am then how can i know my worth? conversely, if i can get super clear in who i am – if i can deeply know all of the layers and colours that make me me – then i can also begin to know that that, right there, is absolutely enough.

i am here. this is me. i am enough exactly as i am, right now, simply by being me.

these are the words that i am wearing along with those rainbows.

i am not too much or too little of anything, i am just right. i am not broken, i am no longer a shadow or an empty shell, because i am working every day on filling myself up with me. i am me. i am worthy and deserving of all of the things any of us want for ourselves.

and if i am brilliant, so are you. just as you are.

the more i honour who i am the more i honour other identities as well. how could i not? how could i do this work and then turn and say who you are is not ok? that feels impossible to me.

i think this is actually the most important part of this work… to see ourselves as brilliantly enough is to also embrace all identities as worthy. know and honour and heal and fill yourself up so that you can know and honour and build up others too.

it can be so easy to live in a little bubble of our own making… to hang out with people like us, where we feel safe and comfortable, seen and understood… but inadvertently we can create little echo chambers for ourselves, only knowing what it feels like to be you, to think like you think, to feel like you feel.

so, even as you are doing the work on you and your own identity, please please make space in your world to learn from other identities: gender, sexuality, relationships, culture, race, neuro-divergence, physical abilities, bodies, age… diversify your social media timelines, add more perspectives into your view, lean into growing and opening up your mind.

just know: you might not understand the nuances of other people’s identity. you might not “get it” – and that’s ok! other people’s labels and definitions are for them, not for you. trust that they know who they are, and who ever they tell you they are: your answer is: OK! great! you might feel a little uncomfortable at times… learning to accept and embrace and honour other identities can indeed be confronting, you might have to do some work on the stories you’ve been telling yourself, or your conditioning… you might have to unlearn some things and learn some new things.

but to my mind, this is one of the most important things that identity work can do for all of us… to become more aware and loving of ourselves so that we can also become more aware and loving of the nuances and experiences and labels of others. the best thing i have done in these past months of finding me again is to find other brilliant identities to follow and learn from and be inspired by online. the bravest thing i see people do in this world is to be true to themselves… to show up and say out loud: this is me.

i think now that perhaps the reason i lost myself is that i didn’t have a strong enough hold on her in the first place. sure there have been many times in my life where i’ve felt boldly authentic and true to myself, showing up in the world bravely, but i think those times were more about what i was doing (with my business, my writing and teaching) than who i was being. does that make sense? i was being me as a service to sharing my work but the me i was being felt tenuous… ethereal, a whisp, an idea… not a me that i embodied or felt deeply in my bones. my intention now is to know that me deeply… to be with her with every breath and every heartbeat.

this is me. this is me. this is me.

karen guntonComment