Who am I?
In my book, Create a New Life Without Going into Witness Protection, I address living in alignment. What do I mean by that? How exactly does one “find themselves”? It would be nice if we could all have a Newtonian moment where identity drops on our head while we sit under an apple tree and life’s mysteries are explain. Yeah. Doesn’t work that way.
Finding your true identity is a process. Our first half of life is all about exploration and discovery. (Hopefully!) We try different roles. We identify ourselves by where we live, what we drive and our careers.
As we get older, the satisfaction in the fleeting lessens. The tricky part is that we may not even be aware of this shift going on within. But your body does. You may develop insomnia or aches and pains for which there is no apparent cause. Things may feel out of sorts.
Discovering your true self evolves with maturity and inner growth. We become less identified with our possessions, accomplishments, opinions of others, roles and appearance. We may also revisit inflexible beliefs that no longer serve us well.
Does this mean we all become homogeneous robots, void of personality? Far from it! It brings in a new season for you and all your beautiful authenticity along with deeper grace and love for both yourself…and others. This is where you become a beloved elder, one for whom people come to for wisdom and encouragement.
The journey takes courage because it requires recognizing your less lovable attributes and embracing yourself unconditionally, in spite of them. Unfortunately, examples abound of folks who don’t chose this route and become more quirky, inflexible, and unhappy as they age.