Hi. Do you ever ask or ponder the question, Who am I?

I was speaking  to a client of mine in Canada today and she is doing an online course and one of the modules that she is struggling with is the module called Who am I.

The intent of the module is to say, let’s take away you being a mother and a partner, Let’s take away the job you do and let’s look under the covers to discover who you really are. Now for me this is one of the questions that I am always asking. Maybe not on a daily basis but it is a regular question I’m always asking, well Who am I really. For me it’s like part of my life’s journey.

So do you know who you really are?
How do you survive or how do you go when you sit in quiet times with yourself?
Do you identify with being a parent?
With being a partner?
Being a mother?
Being a father?
Do you identify with your role at work or in a business or a job?
And who are you if all of this suddenly disappears?

Because as parents our children will leave home and we will have moved from being someone who wasn’t a parent to being a parent to then perhaps being a grandparent.

Who is at your real core essence?
What are the things that make you happy?
What are the things that make you unhappy?

A number of the people who seek me out for marriage or relationship counselling, I believe unconsciously are seeking the answer to this question. Because part of what we do is we explore this bit indirectly when we look at people’s vision and values to find out what’s important, what they want in their life and what they hold as important to themselves.

So getting back to my client in Canada. What I suggested she do was essentially get a piece of paper and divide into two. And on one side put all the things that make her happy. Things that she enjoys doing. And on the other side, things that she doesn’t enjoy doing or things that she doesn’t want to do.

Because the reality is, we are all who we are right here and now. We can’t be anything else but that. So taking a pragmatic approach and looking at things like:
Perhaps we’re an emotional eater,
Perhaps we get upset and we argue over things,
Perhaps we hold resentments.
These are all who we are.

Let’s get clear on what both sides of the coin are. Because for me there is richness in exploring the dark side those things we don’t perhaps like about ourselves and starting to find the answers to those.

In relationships there are individuals. So how you show up in the relationship? The stronger that you know who you are, is going to be the stronger the relationship is.

Now as some people grow older they’ll often start to become more like their parents. Why? Because a lot of our patterning is layered in at the unconscious at childhood. So we take all the stuff in at a deep unconscious level. Now these are just things that we’ve adopted from other people.

So for me, to answer the question Who am I?,it’s about peeling back the layers. Like in the movie Shrek, peeling back the layers of the onion, and each layer is going to get us closer to who we really are.

I’ve written another blog Who Am I Really? and in that blog I’ve said that:
We’re not our body.
We’re not our emotions.
We’re not our thoughts even.
So who are we really?

So if you’ve got any questions regarding this blog or any aspect of your relationship, why not take advantage of the complimentary 30-minute session I offer. Contact Me to see how I can help you have more healthier and happier relationships.  Until next time.

Cheers
Keith Flynn BSc, Dip. Hyp.