One of the most powerful ways to change your life for the better is to change the way you see yourself. What you experience in your life is merely a reflection of what is inside you. Your Self-Identity holds resonance (vibration). What you resonate from within attracts that of the same resonance into your life. Even small changes in your sense of Self-identity ripple out in beneficial ways in every aspect of your life, and the lives of others.
How We Identify Ourself
Most of us when asked Who Are You? offer a list encompassing our profession, family roles (mother, father, wife, husband, daughter, son…), political party, group memberships, and activities (jogger, gardener, painter, activist…), and perhaps an attribute or two such as, dog-lover, creative, or free-thinker.
Many of the roles, labels and attributes we absorbed into our self-identity during childhood or many years ago. We adopt these identifiers consciously or subconsciously, yet may not shed them when they no longer represent who we are. Ask yourself, are you the same person now that you were six months ago? A year ago? Five or ten years ago? Has your sense of Self-Identity changed in keeping with the changes in you and in your life?
At the deeper emotional and subconscious levels, our core sense of identity is acquired in a piecemeal fashion as we grow up and interact with others in our world. We take on what I call false personae. We acquire and take in at the subconscious level during our early childhood aspects of our Self-Identity upon hearing declarations such as “You were a fussy baby.” And as we grow up we hear: YOU ARE... “too rebellious”, “such a cry baby”, “too demanding”, “too emotional”, “too much of a free-spirit”, “too sensitive” “not man enough”, “weak”, “too far out there”, “crazy”, “hair-brained”, “selfish”, “such a coward”, “too aggressive”, “always think you’re so special”, “stupid” etc. etc. and on and on and on.
It’s often more difficult for us to take in and self-identify with the positive things others tell us about who we are. The gist of these pronouncements, which we absorb into our sense of identity at a deep unconscious level, amass into a deep-seated self perception of “I’m not good enough.” or “I’m not worthy.”
Notice the commonality between our list of professional, relationship roles, and outside interests, and the false personae is that they’re all derived from outside ourselves, our outside associations and (mostly negative) opinions of others.
The Benefits of Editing, Revising & Upgrading your Self-Identity
-
Changing
and upgrading your Self-Identity raises your vibration as you
release old attributes that no longer or never did fit for you.
Dependent upon what choices you make in selecting your revised sense
of self, it can raise your vibration significantly.
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When
you change how you see yourself to reflect what is truly you, you
align yourself with your higher Soul Self.
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When
you change your Self-Identity, based on your choices and Not others’
opinions of you, you (re)claim your Sovereignty.
-
When
your Self-Identity is based on your core attributes, and not your
outside affiliations and roles, you gain stability and grace. This
is especially valuable in these global transition and awakening
times as the falsehoods are being exposed and the Truth is revealed.
When one roots their self-identity in a particular cause or belief,
one loses the ability to dispassionately assess information that
refutes the basis for one’s affiliation.
-
When
you remove false personae from your Self-Identity, and revise to
reflect who you are and what you choose to embody, you remove lenses
of distortion and expand your perspective on the world and open to
seeing possibilities you could not see before.
-
When
you change your Self-Identity to one that reflects all the many
positive attributes you embody, you diminish the power of your inner
critic.
If I just tell you about the benefits of changing your Self-identity you’ll get a cursory inkling. If I give you some tools to change your Self-identity and you try them out, you could develop deeper understanding and witness results. That’s the shared intent here.
The first step in upgrading your Self-Identity is to take a good look and identify what’s there, both consciously and subconsciously. In the second step, you get to make choices on what you want to keep, what to reframe, and what to let go of. Lastly, I’ll give you a couple of meditation tools to make revisions at the deeper subconscious level. This will most likely take a number of sessions with your journal and meditations. You may experience huge transformation in the process.
If you’re up for this, grab your journal and pen. This is a list of journaling exercises to examine how you self-identify.
1. When someone asks you to tell them who you are, what do you say? Write your answer as a list. Leave room to make three side-by-side columns.
After you have your list, in you second column, note for each item whether it’s a family role, profession, activity you engage in, or an attribute.
In your third column make a note about your feelings for your role, professions, activity, or attribute.
Take a some time to reflect on your answers and journal your thoughts.
What patterns do you notice?
Are the ways you describe yourself primarily descriptors? How many are positive attributes?
Are there patterns in how you feel about this identity you share with others?
Other observations?
2. How do you describe yourself to your Self? Write your answers as a list. Leave room to make three side-by-side columns.
After you’ve made your list, in the second column note whether the descriptor is positive or negative.
In your third column make a note about your feelings for each descriptor on your list.
Now take some time to reflect on your answers.
How positively/negatively do you describe yourself to your Self?
What patterns do you see?
How does the way you describe yourself to yourSelf compare or differ from the way you describe yourself to others?
Other observations?
3. What does your inner critic say to you? Make a list of your inner critic’s comments about you. You might want to closely observe your inner critic for a day or two and take notes along the way.
After you have this list. In a second column, note TRUE or FALSE.
For each inner critic statement that you marked as True, flag it as a “Limiting Belief”.
Take time to reflect and journal on your observations. What patterns to you see? How often do you believe what your inner critic says is true?
4. What statements have others made telling you, or others, who you are? Make a list of the statements/labels made by family, teachers, school friends, friends parents, employers, co-workers, during childhood and adulthood.
In a second column note whether each statement on your list is positive or negative.
Sometimes statements/labels denote a quality or attribute that you find to be positive, yet it was said with a negative connotation or context. For example “free-spirited” or “inquisitive”. Make a star or highlight these statements. You might decide to re-orient these qualities or attributes into “positive” at the subconscious level.
Spend some time reflecting on this list and journalling on what comes up for you. Note which ones were especially hurtful, or that you’re aware you took in at a very deep level.
As you’re doing these exercises and journalling about them, you may very likely find some old hurts coming up to be processed so you can heal, forgive and release them. You may also discover strengths you hadn’t seen in yourself before.
This wraps up the exercises for examining and identifying your send of Self-Identity. The next post(s) in this series will continue on with making choices of what you want to edit out and discard, and what you want to include in your Self-Identity. Lastly, then implementing and integrating your choices at both the consciously and subconscious levels.
Namaste & Godspeed!
