• Home
  • Blog
    • Healthy Lifestyle
    • Relationships
    • Health Problems
    • Social Issues
  • Comments Policy
  • Links
  • Terms of Use
  • Subscribe to the Blog
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
Everyday Livingness
Relationships, Self-Relationship 969 Comments on The Search for Who I Am

The Search for Who I Am

By Toni Steenson · On January 31, 2016 ·Photography by Gyl Rae

The question I always asked myself when I was a teenager was “Who am I?” This quest for an understanding of that important question spread throughout my life. I tried finding myself in different identities that I was attracted to which I had observed in the world.

I tried to find myself in relationships, in motherhood and a variety of jobs. But when all of these roles were absent from my day I was still here, so I realized that none of these roles defined who I am.

If these roles were who I am I would not exist without them.

I find it very easy to get trapped in the idea that what I do is who I am as a person. If this were true, then when I stopped doing something I would stop existing. If I feel feelings of regret (or feelings of achievement) they are due to an experience I have participated in or observed, I am not regretting me so these feelings are not me either.

If I follow this train of thought it shows I am not what I do as I would not exist without any stimulus outside of myself. A person in a jail isolation cell still exists without outside stimulus; I still am here when asleep even though I am not physically experiencing the world outside of me. So the world outside of me does not define who I am. It may affect me, but it does not define who I am.

So what is it that truly makes us who we are?

It cannot be from any occurrence outside of ourselves as what we do needs constant stimulation to support our existence. It can’t be based on our achievements or failures because as soon as we have an outcome contradictory to this we would no longer exist.

I have found that who we are is a quality that exists within. That quality sends us messages from time to time to remind us that what we are doing is either in conflict or in-line with, the quality we are within.

So if we go a little deeper in exploring these internal messages, what would we find?

I have found that I am a very loving and caring being who wants to share this with all I meet. Sometimes my actions may not reflect these qualities and this is when I receive another internal message that something is amiss. The more I listen to and learn from these messages the closer I get to fully appreciating and knowing who I am. This understanding has nothing to do with how I behave or what I do, but rather it is a self-generated feeling that needs no outside stimulus to support its existence.

The one thing I am learning is there is no end to exploring all that I am; it forever unfolds before me when I take the time to reflect on the internal messages and feelings that guide me back to a truer and deeper understanding of all that I am.

I have searched for this understanding of who I am far and wide and it was my introduction to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon that showed me clearly that all the answers were inside of me already; all I had to do was to start listening to that inner voice rather than allow another source outside of myself to tell me who I am.

We all have this exact same inner dialogue of feelings that is us, and from my experience it just takes a bit of listening to start to build a relationship with ourselves. It did take me a while to discern which internal feelings were truly mine and in line with who I am, and which feelings were generated from external ideals and beliefs I had taken on or formed throughout my life.

The never ending support and love I have received from Universal Medicine, Serge Benhayon and his amazing family has made this possible, practical and tangible for me. This is the greatest gift I have ever received; it keeps on giving as I grow to understand more of who I am. I am forever grateful for this.

By Toni Steenson, Goonellabah, Australia

Further Reading:
We Are So Much More Than This
Who I Really Am
Stillness and Aloneness

Share

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google
  • LinkedIn
  • More
  • Email
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
Share Tweet

Toni Steenson

A cheeky, sassy woman who enjoys exploring the wonders of life, herself and all. Living with her spunky husband and two amazing children mainly in Northern NSW, but occasionally taking her sparkle on tour. Her job is making space for Love in people's homes as a cleaning lady and crazy as this is, enjoys this immensely, even scrubbing the toilets.

You Might Also Like

  • Parenting

    Turning Single Parenting on its Head

  • Male Relationships

    The Bulldozer, and the Butterfly

  • Communication

    Expressing the Unexpressed

969 Comments

  • Mary says: January 24, 2020 at 5:11 pm

    Toni to me you make so much sense and I feel from my own experience that we have fallen for a trap which you have so very simply exposed
    ‘So the world outside of me does not define who I am. It may affect me, but it does not define who I am.’
    We are from day dot saturated with ideals, pictures, other people’s beliefs, expectations, insistence even that we should behave in a certain way and as children many of us conform to this way of being. So we believe it defines who we are.
    But there is another way as you have discovered and many more like you Universal Medicine this company supports everyone to build a relationship with themselves and as this happens it can be discovered as you say we may be affected by what society insists we should be but it does not have to define us. I am finding for example there is a way to live in society but on the whole not be affected by it but to hold my own and what I know to be true because I can feel the truth from my body. For me life then becomes easier because I have an internal marker that is my guiding tool.

    Reply
  • Greg Barnes says: January 21, 2020 at 9:47 pm

    The greater the transparency of those ill ways of living from our past the simpler it is to heal them, so that then our evolution will take a giant leap towards heaven.

    Reply
  • Lucy says: September 8, 2019 at 6:31 am

    There is no end to exploring who we are and why we do what we do. This is part of our personal medicine cabinet.

    Reply
  • Annoymous says: August 17, 2019 at 5:18 am

    When you met someone who knows themselves completely like Serge Benhayon who has no doubt of the absolute divinity he is from it reminds us to of that universal quality that is innate within us all.

    Reply
  • Greg Barnes says: May 6, 2019 at 10:26 pm

    Considering the greatest ‘gist’ my feeling is that it is delivered on a simple platter when we let go of our ways of living that are not Loving and when we find those things that we are good at we simply deepen our relationship with that aspect of life then everything is also pulled up so we can also deepen in this area of life.

    Reply
  • Michelle Mcwaters says: April 1, 2019 at 3:59 am

    Now I have re-connected to the enormity of this essence it is a wonder to me how I ever felt myself to be so insignificant. The set up we are in to not stay connected is totally horrendous, and it seems so all encompassing or overwhelming that it is impossible to retain that sense of who we are. Over the course of the last decade or so I have been realising what an illusion this is and how the choice to connect to that essence has always remained with me.

    Reply
  • Lorraine Wellman says: January 6, 2019 at 6:23 am

    We are continually becoming more aware, and have more understanding of so much, it is awesome, ‘The one thing I am learning is there is no end to exploring all that I am; it forever unfolds before me when I take the time to reflect on the internal messages and feelings that guide me back to a truer and deeper understanding of all that I am.’

    Reply
  • lorraine says: November 27, 2018 at 5:22 pm

    Starting to listen to that quiet voice within is starting to honour and respect ourselves, ‘The one thing I am learning is there is no end to exploring all that I am; it forever unfolds before me when I take the time to reflect on the internal messages and feelings that guide me back to a truer and deeper understanding of all that I am.’

    Reply
    • Mary says: May 3, 2020 at 2:57 pm

      I agree with you Lorraine that underneath all the raciness of life there is a stillness that resides within each and everyone of us. However our current way of life makes it very difficult to feel this. I am finding for example that the smallest amount of sugar disconnects me from what I can feel if I don’t eat sugar. So I prefer to eat as little sugar as possible.

      Reply
  • hm says: November 9, 2018 at 7:38 am

    I’m learning that movement is everything -not from what I have been told – but from what I feel in my body when I move in a way that is healing and true. In this – I have access to so much more than just me – I have access to the universe and I am not just a single individual anymore.

    Reply
  • Mary Adler says: October 29, 2018 at 4:53 pm

    A newborn baby just is who they are with no words of thought to confuse them. As we grow up in the world around us we can choose to stay connected to the beauty of just being who we are.

    Reply
  • Meg says: October 23, 2018 at 3:21 pm

    “Who am I?” is a great question to ask, I think we spend way too much time just existing and not truly maximising life and I think there are much greater depths to ourselves than we could ever imagine.

    Reply
    • Lucy says: September 8, 2019 at 6:34 am

      Yes and if we don’t know who we are, which is an ever deepening understanding, then we trundle along following a route that may not be the right route for us. We just fall into it because everyone else does it but then get trapped with a constant feeling of tension.

      Reply
  • Bryony says: August 29, 2018 at 5:02 am

    ‘I am not regretting me so these feelings are not me either.’ This is such a great point that exposes what it really is that we’re ‘regretting’ when we go into that regret- leaving ourselves, overriding our body’s messages and our internal compass to make a choice that wasn’t true and didn’t serve us or anyone else. But we can never regret ourselves and regretting our choices is a pointless distraction and waste of time that keeps us in the trough, instead of learning and evolving from those choices. There is always something to appreciate and a learning to be had from every single choice we make, moment to moment.

    Reply
  • Joshua Campbell says: August 25, 2018 at 10:40 pm

    There is so much more to us than meets the eye and whilst we remain thinking we are what we see physically we will always feel the tension of being less.

    Reply
  • Joseph Barker says: August 24, 2018 at 1:53 pm

    If you don’t have that warmth in your heart, that tenderness and surrender in your quality then chances are you’re not living you at all but just another costume from the endless fancy dress disguise rack life offers us.

    Reply
  • Samantha Davidson says: August 20, 2018 at 11:31 pm

    We really do look for who we are in what we do and the rolls we take on, instead of looking at who we are from within. turns everything on its head to look at life from how we feel within and what we know from within, rather than trying to seek recognition from the outside for what we do.

    Reply
  • Carola Woods says: August 20, 2018 at 6:01 am

    I can also remember that question of ‘who am I really?’ and ‘what is our purpose of being here?’ burning inside me for many years until it was dulled by the activities fuelled from ideals and belief that the answer lies in what we do. All along, and as had been shared through the ages by many world teachers and prophets, that all the answers to who we are and the universe we are part of lies within us, and through our connection to our Soul all makes sense as we are guided to live the power of who we naturally are. Universal Medicine and The Way of The Livingness represents and presents a way that this knowing can be lived, a way this is guided only by our connection to our essence within; our Soul.

    Reply
    • Samantha Davidson says: August 20, 2018 at 11:33 pm

      Our Soul, something that we often neglect, but we can all feel and know, that warm stillness, those moments of depth, truth and clarity, our Soul call us home.

      Reply
    • Lucy says: September 8, 2019 at 6:35 am

      Yes, this is an age old teaching and one that will remain, till we are ready to re-discover it for ourselves.

      Reply
  • Joseph Barker says: August 12, 2018 at 5:19 am

    Nothing is wrong, we are not bad human beings, we just allow a toxic energy in that is not loving, understanding or who we are.

    Reply
  • Stephanie Stevenson says: July 28, 2018 at 12:29 am

    When ideals and beliefs first begin to be exposed for the false light that they are it can feel extremely uncomfortable as we are aware of how we have been duped and taken it as real. It can take a variable length of time to accept them for what they are and appreciate that this is the beginning of the Return Path Home to the truth of ourselves.
    “We all have this exact same inner dialogue of feelings that is us, and from my experience it just takes a bit of listening to start to build a relationship with ourselves. It did take me a while to discern which internal feelings were truly mine and in line with who I am, and which feelings were generated from external ideals and beliefs I had taken on or formed throughout my life”.

    Reply
  • Sue Q says: July 22, 2018 at 2:27 pm

    “I find it very easy to get trapped in the idea that what I do is who I am as a person” So many of us would agree. It is common when people retire, having given up the job that occupies such a large part of their lives, they feel lost – after the first few months of so-called freedom. Yet if we don’t have any quality in how we move our being and do what is necessary in life, then regardless of the amount we do – and achieve in the doing – it adds up to very little. We are human ‘beings’ first

    Reply
  • Lucy Dahill says: July 16, 2018 at 7:21 pm

    It is true, “The one thing I am learning is there is no end to exploring all that I am” and it is a constant discovery because as you unpeel one layer, another layer makes itself known!

    Reply
  • Ingrid Ward says: May 24, 2018 at 4:29 pm

    With the way the world is set up, run by age old, ingrained beliefs that simply serve to keep us away from who we truly are, it is no wonder that you, me and many, many others go through life asking “who am I?” And in the process of trying to figure this out search far and wide for the answer. How amazing it is then to finally come to understand there is no searching outside of us required, but a simple turning inward – and there we are, and always have been.

    Reply
  • Danna Elmalah says: May 10, 2018 at 5:20 am

    Thank you Toni, as a life living not knowing who you are is the most painfull experience that I have experienced, hence coming back to the knowing inside me of who I am, is the most precious gift. One that needs forever deepening by my willing choice.

    Reply
    • Nattalija says: October 13, 2018 at 9:15 pm

      Everything we are searching for is within -the difference is being willing to stop and connect to what is on offer.

      Reply
  • Bryony says: May 2, 2018 at 4:16 am

    Listening to the quiet voice within..we override it so often because we’re so busy distracting ourselves that we can’t hear it- it’s like we drown it out with endless activity, work, or whatever our particular drug is. When we start to listen to it, even in the smallest and simplest of ways, it becomes easier to identify it- and to want to drop the noise so that we can hear it even more clearly.

    Reply
  • Julie says: April 28, 2018 at 4:24 am

    When we start to have a deeper relationship with ourselves we start to realise that what we thought was true for us turns out to be ideals and beliefs that we have chosen to follow without discerning if they even make sense. These days I ask myself, where did that come from and is it even true?

    Reply
  • Gabriele Conrad says: April 24, 2018 at 10:27 am

    We are not defined by our physical shape or our output, we are who we truly are by virtue of our innermost which is our connection to Soul and our divinity.

    Reply
  • kev mchardy says: April 18, 2018 at 1:20 pm

    ‘If these roles were who I am I would not exist without them’. This line struck me because so many of us are identified by what we do and not who we truly are and as we all know, whether we admit it or not as you have beautifully pointed out, who we are comes from within and there can be no changing that.

    Reply
  • Carolien says: April 16, 2018 at 3:04 am

    Who we are is not an identification, it is a being and it will reveal itself in all it’s colours and magnificence when we learn to let go of all the things we have taken on along the road that identified us.

    Reply
  • Leonne Barker says: March 24, 2018 at 6:43 pm

    Getting to know ourselves is literally the date of a lifetime.

    Reply
  • Joseph Barker says: March 24, 2018 at 10:54 am

    The way we live life is like a rack of shoe boxes we try to squeeze in – only to realise there’s no need. We’re broad, Universal, beautiful and divine – and just not able to be confined. The more we embrace this the more at ease our life will be. Thank you Toni.

    Reply
  • Liane Mandalis says: February 19, 2018 at 2:58 pm

    In order to not be shaped by the outside world and all the societal ideals and beliefs we have constructed that dictate who we are to be or become, we are to live from our inner-most and allow the quality of this to inform our movements and thus reveal to the world who we truly are.

    Reply
  • Rik Connors says: February 2, 2018 at 9:55 pm

    It’s important you daily literally take note of your qualities and the values you bring. It builds a foundation of your truth. If not, your focus can diminish into distraction and you can find yourself not in a place of truth. I have found if it is not your focus to initiate by consistently appreciating what you bring you will comfortably be not where you should be.

    Reply
  • Kelly Zarb says: January 20, 2018 at 11:17 am

    I have found that no matter how much I do it does not surmount to the truly lovely feeling of simply “being,” me in my body and then moving from this quality. It is in the constant search I found over the years to figure out who I was that simply stopping to feel my body and how I moved showed me all of the wisdom i ever needed and brought me back to myself and the longing and searching outside of myself dissipated.

    Reply
  • LorraineJ says: January 19, 2018 at 9:06 pm

    Yes, I remember many years back having no sense of who I was, or why I was here. I am so appreciative to have found Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and the support I receive in discovering who I am in truth, in my essence, this is still an unfolding process.

    Reply
    • Leonne Barker says: March 24, 2018 at 6:45 pm

      Thank you for reminding me how wonderful it is to know what is truly me and what is not.

      Reply
  • Toni Steenson says: January 15, 2018 at 6:09 am

    Yes many of us question, who am I, it may even be a universal point that we all question at one time or another. So you are very correct in your statement we are not defined by what we do, as no-one has found a long lasting answer here even with all the millions of different activities humans engage in. I have found a group of people who are discovering who they are in essence and this doesn’t change for them no matter what is happening around them. This group is Universal Medicine and the Student Body of Universal Medicine, they are worth checking out. It is real what is on offer here. In fifteen years I have found nothing that proves this not to be the case, this is pretty amazing in todays world of false answers.

    Reply
  • Mary Adler says: January 14, 2018 at 3:54 pm

    The fact that so many ask the question ‘Who am I?’ reveals that we know that we are not defined by anything we do. When we reconnect to our inner being we reawaken the spark that knows we are so much more than our physical body and are part of a Divine all that we are returning to.

    Reply
  • HM says: January 7, 2018 at 8:47 pm

    We don’t seem to openly share that we are perhaps looking for the truth of who we are – so thank you for sharing this Toni. The trouble is you look at society today, and many people seem to be doing and saying things that is not reflective of who they are. So it does make me consider what happens when we just ‘get on with it’ and don’t express or explore from the truth of how we are feeling.

    Reply
  • julie says: December 31, 2017 at 3:44 am

    It’s easy to see how we learn to define ourselves by what we do when our whole life is geared at receiving recognition. I know I used to look down on people who I thought had menial jobs, and I have also looked down on myself for doing those so-called menial jobs, but no more. Every job is as important as the next providing we are being ourselves while doing it.

    Reply
  • Joseph Barker says: December 28, 2017 at 11:55 am

    The mind will take a million roads but it is not the one who has to walk them. It’s happy to rinse, wash and repeat the way we live life. But our body shows the true tale of how it is to live without connection. Our every cell measures every move and brings the truth back to us. This is a feedback loop the mind cannot answer and inevitably it brings us back to who we are. Thanks Toni.

    Reply
  • « 1 … 10 11 12

    Leave a reply Cancel reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    Search

    Subscribe

    Recent Posts

    • Turning Single Parenting on its Head
    • My Evolving Relationship with Movement
    • The Bulldozer, and the Butterfly
    • How I Have Come to Not Be Owned by Social Media
    • Building a True Relationship with Food

    Categories

    • Health Problems (6)
      • Dementia (1)
      • Digestive Issues (1)
      • Eating disorders (3)
      • Fatigue/Exhaustion (1)
      • Migraines (1)
    • Healthy Lifestyle (92)
      • Drug Abuse (3)
      • Exercise & Sport (25)
      • Healthy diet (29)
      • Music (1)
      • Quitting alcohol (13)
      • Quitting coffee (2)
      • Quitting smoking (4)
      • Quitting Sugar (4)
      • Safe driving (2)
      • Sleep (4)
      • TV / Technology (12)
      • Weight Loss (2)
      • Work (2)
    • Relationships (147)
      • Colleagues (2)
      • Communication (11)
      • Couples (33)
      • Family (29)
      • Friendships (18)
      • Male Relationships (7)
      • Parenting (28)
      • Self-Relationship (40)
      • Sex & Making Love (6)
      • Workplace (10)
    • Social Issues (51)
      • Death & Dying (9)
      • Education (14)
      • Global Issues (7)
      • Greed/Corruption (1)
      • Money (3)
      • Pornography (1)
      • Sexism (14)
      • Tattoos & Removal (2)

    Archives

    • Home
    • Blog
      • Healthy Lifestyle
      • Relationships
      • Health Problems
      • Social Issues
    • Comments Policy
    • Links
    • Terms of Use
    • Subscribe to the Blog
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.