What words do you use to describe yourself when someone invites you to tell them about yourself?
The temptation is to define yourself by what you do, and then to qualify that with words describing your social roles, your nationality, and maybe your political and religious affiliations.
Often, your choice of words for describing yourself to others depends on the context. At a work function or professional networking event, for example, you’re more likely to use words describing your occupation or professional status. In a social setting, you’ll probably talk about yourself in terms of your relationships, describing yourself as someone’s spouse or father of brother, for example.
But, who are you, really?
If I think about the professions I’ve worked in over time, I’ve described myself as a teacher, then a banker, a tax collector, and now as a writer. All descriptors telling you something about what I was doing to earn a living at the time.
Describing myself that way might suggest I am a certain type of person, but only in the minds of the people listening – and I have no control over what their perspectives are. Some people hate all teachers because of their experience of schooling. Others think every teacher is a saint. I’ve yet to meet the person who congratulates you for being a tax collector, and these days even bankers get a bad rap, and everyone knows writers are lonely.
If you talk about your relationships, those words point to your family and social responsibilities but they don’t tell your listeners anything about how you fulfil those roles. People need to see you in action to get an idea of what sort of person you are when you’re dealing with the stresses of family life, for example.
When it comes to religion, politics or nationalities, we’ve become tribal and over reliant on stereotypes. I won’t go there, beyond pointing out that none of us are the stereotypes we hear so much about.
No matter what words you use, they’re not actually about who you are.
So, if you’re not what you do, who you’re related to and not defined by which political, religious and national tribe you claim to belong to, who are you?
In one of the lessons in The Way of Mastery course, Jeshua points out that if you want to find out who you are, you have to let go of all the definitions you have become accustomed to using to describe yourself. Those descriptors might be convenient labels for daily living but they don’t say anything about who you are.
Jeshua offers a suggested description you can use when someone wants to know who you are: ‘I am an expression of love in form.’
I’ve used that description a few times. It throws most people – because most of us still think of ourselves as bodies and not as spirits having a physical experience through a body.
You might want to try it on for size the next time someone asks how you describe yourself. It’s a good conversation starter, because their next question will be: What do you mean?
Featured image by Evelyn Verdín used under Unsplash licence