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
969 Comments
I fully agree with what you say here Toni; ‘..who we are is a quality that exists within.’ and all we have to do is surrender and let this quality come out, be lived.
I was pulled to look at this blog this morning from the awesome photo that illustrates it. What I love is the simplicity and clarity here. Bringing our focus to how we are on the inside rather than how the world views us on the outside is huge. Living our life as a spherical being rather than someone who is going from A to B in a straight line “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.” As we allow ourselves to reconnect to this quality, and live it, life becomes naturally more spherical and expansive. We no longer have to limit ourselves but are free to express what is true for us as we honour the increasing love that we feel.
Building a steady, supportive, loving, true relationship with ourselves is the most important thing we can possible do
‘Who am I?’ When I was first asked this question – many years ago – I wanted to run away, it was as if it was something too enormous to even contemplate. Since listening to presentations by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine it is a joy to rediscover, step by step, the enormity, beauty and Divinity of Who I am.
We seem to spend so much time looking for who we are, only to simply find it by connecting and loving ourselves first.
Like you Toni I to can get trapped in the ideal of what I do determines the person I am; this is such less so in my latter years however it can still creep in. Thank you for the reminder to simply and lovingly be me in every aspect of my life.
The key here is to be patient and wait for the unfoldment and what needs to be presented next.
“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.” What an important statement, as we can confuse these feelings. I notice if I choose to act on my familiar feelings I tend to end up with the same result, where as the unfamiliar feelings are sometimes the ones with least safety but most evolution.
This is an ongoing unfolding I agree Toni, ‘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 learned that there is no end to exploring and discovering who I really and truly am. Thank you Toni for confirming and encouraging this exploration. Like you I am eternally grateful to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for their teachings, continued support and eternal love.
It feels like a great exercise to shed the identities of what we live as, our work, family and everything we think we belong to and see what is left… a beating heart, a body, and a constant and steady breath.
‘If these roles were who I am I would not exist without them’. I love this line Toni, it gives you a complete stop moment where you can see all the roles you have created to falsely be you, and ask the question who am I now without them.
Great exploration of who we truly are Toni, it has and is still taking me time to see who I am without the many roles, beliefs and ideals that still arise that I had no idea where there. It amazes me all the time of the amount of things I have layered on on top of me. With every layer I uncover the more I get to see the amazing me, makes me wonder why I chose to cover me up in the first place.
It is through the deepening relationship with our ourselves, our bodies and our movements that we discover the majesty that we not only are, but are also intrinsically, inescapably and divinely part of.
I spent many years searching for the answers as to who I am through all the things that I did. I identified myself with what I was doing and more to the point to how well I did them. I found though that when I was not ‘doing my thing’ I felt a sense of melancholy and often questioned ‘if I wasn’t doing this who am I then?’, as I also had a deep sense that there was much more to me than the things that I did. Through the presentations of serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I discovered that my deep sense of there being more was true. I discovered that through my connection to who I am within, to my Soul, all that I do through my day as best I can, is done with the quality and joy of knowing who I am.
That we are not what we do is proved by the fact that we still exist when we are not doing anything and that the answer as to who we are lies within is a hugely powerful realisation. To then truly discover who we are is you say, Toni, “… 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.” It is through this listening and discernment that the search for who we are ends.
It is very easy to get caught up in the momentum of life and forget to take time to smell the roses – in other words to stop, appreciate, and take stock of our own magnificence, and the magnificence in which we are held by life.
Trying to find ourselves in different identities through relationships, work, or by what we do can be a quest that dominates us throughout life. There is a constant need to fit in and be accepted and to do this we pin everything on the roles we undertake. Looking within and connecting to the innate tenderness and love I contain has opened a door of wisdom that hitherto had been locked away. The weighing scales have tipped as the former quest to fit in is receding in favour of a new-found settlement and confidence of who I am within.
‘The more I listen to and learn from these messages the closer I get to fully appreciating and knowing who I am. ‘ Well said Toni, this is such a simple and practical approach that truly works. After spending most of my life not knowing who I was, I am learning to listen to the wisdom my body is constantly sharing with me, to ignore these messages feels like self-abuse, to listen to them develops a deeper relationship with me that is loving, caring and truly supportive.
At some point in our lives, particularly as teenagers we try to find our indentity, fit in with a crowd or group, have a sense of belonging. But all of this actually takes us further away from ourselves. As you have said ‘So the world outside of me does not define who I am. It may affect me, but it does not define who I am.’ All we need, who we truly are, is innately there within us already we don’t have to try or search just allow ourselves to be and live from here. I am still learning this but feel so much more connected to me and who I am than I ever have done before, with thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine who have shown me this through how they live.
It’s fascinating what you say about ‘listening’. So different to what I spent so many tears doing – which was seeking and searching and looking at the external for some kind of validation. If only I had listened all this years ago!! To me just simply saying to me “here I am and here’s what is true and what is not true”. Anyway, I’m now beginning to listen! After aeons of not doing so I still slip up, or still don’t fully hear what is being said, but like any relationship – with commitment, consistency, understanding, love and transparency that communication gets simpler and simpler and carries more and more truth.
The journey back to self can be difficult at times, however not as difficult as living a lie
I like the picture that comes with this blog. Humanity, obsessed and entranced by technology, movement, travelling, progress, distraction whizzing past, in a dead straight line, the circular beauty and power of the sun.
I have found in Esoteric Yoga, the Yoga of stillness, it takes a while to feel what it is like to stop. At first there is lots of motion going in in the body and mind, even when laying still. Then there is a letting go into a stillness that feels full, great to be with, natural and yet different to the usual doing and motion. From this experience as a reference point, it has been possible to bring more moments into the day where the doing does not take over and the quality of life is enhanced.
‘Who am I?’ is one of those questions that we all have asked, what I love about this article is it lays out some practical tools of how to begin to discover the answer truly for yourself. It can be a daunting question that some avoid but I think that if you are brave enough to look beyond the deeds and tasks you may identify yourself by, you will find that there is much more to all of us and a quality that goes far beyond face value.
Toni, what you have shared here is gorgeous! Thank you. This really does spell it out that we are human beings not human doings, and so it is not what we do that defines us, rather it is the natural quality that we all hold within that defines who we are and which we may then choose to express or not.
Lately I have been asking myself ‘Who am I, and what am I here to deliver’. Such simple yet powerful words that can activate so much for us. We are not what we do, but when we come from our quality, there is much for us to ‘do’. But all we do only really matters if and when it is expressed from the essence, the true quality that lies within, in other words our natural source of expression. It is worth pondering on who we are and how we are here to express this, in full.
Today I was trying to make a choice and it really occurred to me that I did not know what I wanted as with either side of the choice there would be reasons to go with it. It really made me wonder who am I as I can be so divided by thoughts? I feel like you that I am a quality and that I can choose the quality and that the thoughts will come from there. Defining which quality I am and want to have in my life is then crucial. This quality is tenderness, delicateness, loving and honouring of me, knowing this choice is easy to make.
I agree with you Toni there is no end to our unfolding back to who we truly are. We are the forever student of the Way of the Livingness and The Ancient Wisdom; the more I am aware and evolve the more I realise it is a forever winding path. Thank you for encouraging us to deeply listen to our wise divine inner voice.
‘Finding myself’ was a theme for many years… looking in the Himalayas, in books, in mediation. Yet here I am, always available to me whenever I can be bothered to make the connection!
What a great illusion-busting blog this is – that I am not what I do because if I were and I stopped the doing, then I wouldn’t exist. So what a waste of all that energy in managing what I think I am on the outside when the real jewel is what is already on the inside – that quality you mention, the constant, the connected, real me.
What is of great help with being myself is to be with myself in what I do, so that I am present in my body, that my mind is in line with my body, my movements. My body knows who I am and what is true or not true.
The inner voice that is true will never complicate life but wil always make life more simple and practical.
The beauty is we have the answers with in us, we do not need to look for them out side, we do not need stimulates for this. We need to just connected to our stillness and be open to our inner self. Through this we connect to the knowing and the awareness.
An age old question, to which the answer is remarkably simple. It is the coming to that answer of one’s own accord where all the complication ensues.
I too searched for understanding who I am and why I am here, never realizing the answers were inside me all along, ‘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 agree Toni, it takes me a while to discern which internal feelings are true and coming from who I am. There are so many ideals and believes we have taken on in our lives from education, religion, our upbringing and society to name but a few. It is a continuous letting go of what feels not true and to allow what is true in ourselves to come through.
I so often used to make life about what I did that I ended up forgetting who I was, now I am learning to stop making my life about being recognised and accepted, and simply focus on caring, loving and honouring myself and my preciousness.
I have learned so much about me over the last few years assisted along the way by Serge Benhayon and the Ageless Wisdom he lovingly shares , but “the one thing I am learning is there is no end to exploring all that I am”, and I’m loving this exploration. Every day brings me many opportunities to get to know me a little more and every opportunity I grab with two loving hands, as from me knowing me even more, I get to know and understand others and the world I live in even more as well.
“I find it very easy to get trapped in the idea that what I do is who I am as a person.” I too find myself under this illusion of being identified with what I do often but am becoming much more aware of the empty feeling inside me when I place importance on the roles instead of making the focus on the quality of energy I am in.
I found my way back and who I am by reconnecting with myself. I had stopped listening to my heart and plugged into what was expected of me. I ended up way off coarse, disorientated and not trusting. It is beautiful now to live with my authority of who I am. It is truly powerful.