What Are You? Really?

I don’t normally “quote” such lengthy bits, but I wanted to share the following (from an e-mail I received from Dave Booda) to 1) get you thinking and 2) ask you some questions.

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I’d like to share some good news.

You are not loved.
You are not safe.
You are not whole.
You are not successful.
You are not enough.
You are not worthy.

When we affirm ourselves, we are playing into the agenda of our ego. We are shoring up the walls that hold our identity in tact. “I am loved” and “I am not loved” are two sides of the same coin that we can call identity, personality or ego.

Freedom is not found down this path. Freedom comes from letting go of the need to be anything at all. It comes from transcending the battle between worthy and unworthy. As soon as you declare you to be something, you are creating separateness. Who is declaring? You could only label yourself as anything if you are separate from you, and that separateness is you identifying with and swimming in your ego.

Freedom is allowing both to live in harmony. Just like night and day, rain and shine, loved and not loved can co-exist without judgment or attachment. When we believe that we are loved or not loved, we are living inside our identity, and caught in the endless cycle of pleasure and pain. We get attached to “I am successful” and we resist “I am a failure”.

What we don’t see is both are thoughts, both are feelings, and both are a part of the inescapable and wonderful experience of being human.

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I find the above interesting, and something I’m still processing.

But it gave rise to a question, a different way of seeing ourselves.

What if we “defined/named” ourselves by our actions?

What if what we did, and didn’t do, created (in part or completely), our “identity?”

Perhaps the better question is: do we need identity? And if so, in what form?

I’m not offering answers here, just questions . . .