Who Are You?
Have you ever asked this question?
Have you ever felt completely lost in answering it?
Or maybe you know exactly who you are and you hate it!
Identity is a huge part of our mental health and today we’re going to break it down.
Funny enough, whether you know it or not, we’re actually talking about two very different things here.
There’s who you are and then there’s your identity or ego.
And I don’t know mean ego like someone who is constantly bragging and boasting about how great they are. I mean the sense of I. I’ll explain what the heck that means in a second. Throughout the rest of this post we’ll use the words identity and ego interchangeably.
So just for a second let’s do an experiment.
Let’s say I cut your hair, would you still be you?
Before you did whatever you currently do for work, were you still you?
If you got comprehensive plastic surgery and completely changed everything about the way you looked, would you still be you?
Right. There is some fundamental you-ness that transcends the things that we identify ourselves with.
I’m a husband
I’m a coach
I’m a feminine man.
But before I was any of those things I was still me.
So then this begs the question “Okay if I’m none of these things that I identify with then who am I?”
To answer that I want to do another little exercise with you. Close your eyes and observe your mind. Notice all of the thoughts and emotions running around inside of it. Notice all of the the things you personally identify with. Just watch them.
Now…who is watching all that stuff? You.
And you can even try to get really clever and observe the person that is watching all that stuff but then that begs the question…who is watching that person. And we again come back to…you.
Thousands of years ago yogis made a really interesting observation. They noticed that the observer and the observed cannot be the same thing.
“Well I can see my hand” but that’s your eyes observing your hand.
“Well I can see myself in the mirror” but that’s you observing a reflection not actually observing you.
And as they realized this they made another interesting observation. Well I can observe my mind…therefore I must be separate from my mind.
All of these identifications we have
I’m a mother.
I’m a wife.
I’m a caregiver
I’m a people pleaser.
They are all constructs of the mind. They are ego. But you are the one that is able to observe all of that.
“But if I’m just the one who observes all that and everything else is ego then what makes me different from anyone else?” EXACTLY! Nothing. This is what people are talking about when they say hippy dippy stuff like “We’re all one.”
But what’s cool is the way that fundamental you-ness, whatever you want to call it—atman, consciousness, soul, spirit, some other part of your brain—has interplay with things like our ego, thoughts, and emotions.
It is that interaction between the two that makes the magic that is humanity. The problem comes when our consciousness gets swallowed up by our mind.
Imagine you’re sitting in a movie theatre watching a movie. There are all sorts of different experiences and emotions that you can see watching that movie. You may laugh, cry, get angry, but ultimately you know that you’re watching a movie.
Now imagine for a second that you forget you’re watching a movie. That everything happening on the screen is real. Imagine how much more devastating it would be when the main character’s love interest dies or New York City is destroyed.
In this analogy the you that is sitting in the movie theatre is that fundamental you-ness that we’ve been talking about—consciousness. And the movie screen is your mind and everything that goes on it. So when our consciousness gets swallowed up by our mind it’s like we’re forgetting we’re in the movie theatre.
“Okay but if I’m just some observer then why bother doing anything”
2 things about that
Remember that there is interplay between consciousness and your mind and that’s not a bad thing. It’s totally okay to play around with your ego. It’s like putting on a costume. Again it only causes suffering when we forget that it’s a costume.
There’s this concept known as dharma which roughly translates to “duty” and your dharma is informed by your karma. What this basically means is that the hand of cards that you are dealt in life, informs what you do in the world. So within this play that we are all participating in, we each get assigned certain roles to play. There are certain things in life that we just do. It’s thoughtless. A good example of this is when a mother steps in front of a car to protect her child. Normally stepping in front of a car would be a really scary decision, but for a mother protecting her child it’s just what she does because it’s her duty or dharma. If you’d like to learn more about this dharma stuff I go into detail about it in this video
Coming back to this idea of how getting attached to our ego causes suffering, let’s say that you’re a teacher and you deeply identify with being a teacher. It’s your whole life. It’s what makes you feel worthwhile as a human being. And then you get sick and you can no longer teach. Now what? Now you are worthless as a human being because you can’t teach? Therein lies the danger of getting too attached to our sense of identity.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with mourning the loss of that identity. Just like you would cry watching a movie where that happens to someone. The problem is when it gets tied to your inherent worth. When instead of recognizing the beautiful dance between consciousness and identity you begin to think they are one and the same.
Think about someone who is deeply depressed or hopeless
“I’m worthless”
“I’m a loser”
“I’ll never amount to anything in life”
“I’m powerless.”
It’s like their ego is a vacuum sucking up their identity.
You are literally infinitely more than your identity and there is such joy in experiencing that.
So as you go about your day to day notice the difference between you and your ego.
Intentionally watch the way that your mind works—the ego, the thoughts, the emotions.
The more you do this not only will you feel more peaceful but it will help you to feel more connected with others because you will feel the you-ness that we all share.
So who are you? You are the awareness beneath it all, and the joy is that you get to play with whatever identity you want without being trapped by it.
With care and service,
Sean