You know the scenarios….when you meet people for the first time, present yourself at a workshop or put together a bio…..you will share certain aspects of yourself in a positive light. Of course, why wouldn’t you. But we do this to garner favour, popularity and to be accepted by the group…because no one likes rejection.
The thing is, what you are presenting limits how others see you….yes in the short term they may murmur their consent, feel a kindred connection with you based on a shared past experience, yet they are not connecting with the real you.
What they are connecting with is the experience you share and their perception of you based on their similar experience. Hence, if you are an avid cricket fan and you find yourself in a room full of avid football fans, your ability to connect is greatly reduced. It is the shared experience that make sure the labels stick.
Yet what you share is still just an experience. It is not you. Just an expression of yourself through the story you share of your experience. As a result, those introduced to you will see you only in the light of the parameters of the labels you share. Let’s say, for example, you have a bio which tells your marital status, if you have children and how many, what pivotal roles you have achieved in your career, those reading that bio will see you only within the context of those parameters of the labels.
These, however are not who you truly are. These are the labels you have attached due to the experiences that you have had. And we tend to cherry pick them. You have had the experience of being a fourth grader, but that won’t rate a mention because it won’t be relevant in the context of you wanting to influence acceptance.
Again, these are just experiences and because you may only share certain experiences with your audience, your audience is now limited by the labels you have given yourself.
So the challenge is, to remember who you truly are outside the current experience you are having in this life time. In another life you might have been a burly, hairy Viking and so the description of self would be different and so would the labels. You no longer identify with that version of you because you don’t remember it, so you think your identity is who you currently see in the mirror. Yet you existed before you were this version, you existed between versions of yourself in the physical form…so the question begs to ask, who are you really?
If you accept that you are more than the physical form that you currently see in the mirror, that leaves room for you to entertain the idea that you are more than the current experiences you are having. If you are more than the current experiences that you are currently having, who are you really?
If your existence goes beyond the physical, who are you really? And if you are an expression of energy, which cannot be created nor destroyed, who are you really?
Ponder these and allow yourself to grow in understanding beyond the labels you give and share so that you can truly reconnect with and remember who you really are.
Fiona van Lochem
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