Who Am I - 5 steps to I-dentity

Many of us don't go looking for our true selves, our I-dentity, because we are distracted by the baubles of consumerism. But you may have heard someone utter the phrase, normally in total despair, I don't know who I am any more!

When a significant life event breaks down the Identity foundations we have spent a lifetime building around us, we suddenly find ourselves bereft of any true sense of who we are. We find that the previous solid-looking walls of Identity were in fact just paper illusions created by a society that no longer meets our personal needs. We recognise the falseness of Identity and grope for something more significant to rest upon.

This is where I-dentity comes into play, but like yelling instructions at a drowning man on how to swim, it is necessary to attain some level of skill at I-dentity before we reach that time of need.

I-dentity resides in non-dualism, but let’s not go quite that far for now. We can create a working I-dentity that helps us live a more authentic life within this physical reality without delving into deeper philosophies, so let's get stuck right in and look at the steps toward I-dentity...

5 Steps Towards I-dentity

1. Use an analogy of a mannequin to help visualise the pure being that exists beneath the adornments of emotions and artefacts. Some religions and faiths use the analogy of a dirty mirror, clouded over the ages with dust and dirt that obscures our pure reflection.

2. Don’t fear purity. Stand naked in front of the mirror. What do you Eye-dentify with yourself when you strip away the dirty Identity of social and cultural influence? The naked mannequin beneath the fake adornments of peer pressure is the true foundation of our physical self. How can we adorn it effectively if we don’t recognise and understand it?

3. Improve our EQ, our Emotional Intelligence – a term popularised by psychologist Daniel Goleman since the 1990’s with his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

4. Practice Mindfulness and Meditation. These are the core paths to self-awareness and I highly recommend Stephen Procter’s MIDL Meditation series as an enjoyable and effective practice

5. Build intentional daily routines. With my coaching clients we use a daily habit tracker to instil effective routines to simplify and de-clutter our life. To begin though, simply start to recognise the daily or weekly routines that you have created to make life more manageable. With mindful recognition of our existing routines, we can begin to remove the harmful (Identity or Eye-dentity) ones and instigate more beneficial ones. By de-cluttering our life in this way we create spaces for our true I-dentity to begin to expose itself.