Who Are You, Really?
Why is it important to ask who you are? Because it determines what you can and cannot change in yourself.
Picture in your mind that you are a teenager in high school. Watch what you are doing. Are you sitting in your classroom, or out in a field? What are you wearing? What is your hairstyle? Are you with anyone? Are you involved in an event?
The Watcher
While you have this image in mind of yourself as a teenager, ask yourself if you can identify who is doing the watching. Notice that there is a dual process of you watching you. It seems there are two of you at least in a sense of awareness. You are one of the two. Who is the other?
Let’s call the other The Watcher.
Can you stand in the image you created of yourself and look back at The Watcher? Can you describe The Watcher? No. Just know this is not possible.
Why? The Watcher is the unconscious psychic energy that lives beneath the subconscious of your mind, making The Watcher inaccessible through language.
“It is said I think therefore I am, yet I am not where I think.”
Notice that in our daily social exchange, we simply speak and transmit ideas. We don’t first rehearse what we are about to say unless we are giving a speech. Thought flows from a place we know exists but we cannot directly grasp. This place houses our deeper self.
The Importance of Who You Are
The distinction between the image and The Watcher is vitally important to understanding the material you are being with and what you can do with it.
The physical domain of Doing and the abstract domain of Being have separate functions, both dedicated to working together guiding you toward the best outcomes in life. Making a mistake by trying to change what is essential to who you are can have devastating and life-altering consequences, or at least contribute your unhappiness.
Ask yourself:
Do you feel life has no meaning for you?
Do you feel life has no purpose?
Do you feel a lack of belonging?
Do you feel a lack of self-worth?
We all occasionally feel one or more of these four natural anxieties from daily living. In fact, psychologists report that these are the usual problems revealed by their clients who simply need guidance.
If you don’t know the difference between Doing and Being you may be trying to change what is essential to Being who you are. With Doing, you have the ability to make a change. For example, changing a bad habit or learning a new one is reasonable with Doing. With Being, however, you cannot change. You simply are who you are. This distinction is that important. Do you know the difference?
Knowing and understanding that this duality is responsible for the types and kinds of your personal happiness is crucial before you begin trying to randomly change yourself. This duality reveals and separates what is your changeable socially conditioned self from the stabilizing expression of your essential self.
Power Is in Distinction
If humanity has a common nature this nature must have a purpose. If we realized what we truly wanted individually out of this commonly held purpose; our essential nature would be realized.Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997)
European scholars have known that if we realized what we truly wanted individually out of our commonly held purpose, our essential nature would be realized. This process begins by knowing 1) the world, 2) who we are, and 3) our relationship within our world. If we had this knowledge, we would know what fulfills us and know what to seek. We would know what makes us happy, wise, and virtuous and how our social participation will assist in changing the world for the better.
This knowledge will tell us why life for many us may not be meeting our expectations. This knowledge will reveal how to be happy, how to belong, how to find purpose and meaning.
Your Uniqueness
The fact is, our individual power comes from our inner uniqueness of Being and not in Doing. This is the distinction between our physical desire for something or someone and mental motivation that drives us. Yet, personality profile tests report on what we Do and not who we are Being.
Why aren’t we reporting on our Being? Simply put, reporting on our Being is rather difficult when we are not shown how.
We tend to share the same daily behaviors such as getting dressed in the morning, eating breakfast, driving to work, paying bills, seeing to the needs of our loved ones, and much more. Looking into what we do each day does not separate us from the masses. Even specialized behaviors like skydiving are still a shared activity with many belonging to skydiving clubs and organizations.
What is the criteria we can use to determine the difference between people. In our state of being, we are unique people.
Authentic / InAuthentic
The state of Being is manifested through feeling. When you are uncomfortable, you are not aligned with your authentic.
What does authentic mean? Since there are many ways to describe the word authentic, it makes it tricky to truly define it. It is like describing beauty. At best, we sense our authenticity when we feel its presence as The Watcher.
This is the easiest and most practical way of touching the edge of the authentic essence of who you are. Also, when you pass judgment, when you strongly feel you are right, or when you experience a happy moment, you are feeling your authentic motivation as your Authentic Self.
Originally published at https://johnvoris.com on October 14, 2022.
