What We Are
The Eternal Question
“Finding yourself is not really how it works. You aren’t a ten-dollar bill in last winter’s coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. Finding yourself is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.”
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I go through the world, as maybe you do too, motivated by and driven to be the person I want to be in this world. Gently holding the question in my hand,
“Who am I and how do I want to be?"
At times in my life I’ve chased after that question. Desperately actually. Kneeled down and pleaded for an answer to show itself to me.
I’m grateful to ole' father time and profoundly helpful tools like Partswork, meditation and sacred ceremony to help me ease into a gentler place with this question. A knowing of who I am. A trusting that all the parts that make me up have a purpose.
But the who that we are is really just that. Parts. Images. Ideas. Who we are is important. It’s our identity. It’s what we call ourselves. It’s how we navigate through the world, and how we identify others. And it’s external.
What we are. That is eternal.
It may seem like a small shift in wording. It is. And it changes everything. Questioning what you are asks you to look at your actual constitution. The fabric of your being.
To know that who you are matters, is important. To know that what you are matters...questioning that doesn’t even make sense.
I am love, joy, fire, water, the full moon rising.
I am the wind from hawk’s wing.
I am the imprint of bear’s paw in the earth.
This is what I am.
So while I am curious to find out about who you are and who you want to be in the world, what I’m really interested to know is...
What is it that you are when all the rest is stripped away?