My whole life has been a giant identity crisis; a “where’s waldo” of the soul, of comedically tragic proportions; sifting through all the who-I-should-be’s, who-I’m-expected-to-be’s, who-I-wish-I-was’s, and the rest of the bullshit, until I find who I am, who I can be, and perhaps most importantly: who I want to be.
As a young boy, I had to grow up without my biological dad, who was killed when I was 8. I had a stepfather who adopted me, but he changed my last name to his. He changed my middle name too, because it was my fathers name, and he hated my father. And if that wasn’t confusing enough, he spent every day telling me how evil my dad was and that I shouldn’t emulate him. Unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps, in retrospect) I was not allowed to emulate my step father either though. I felt like I was abandoned in a fatherless no-mans-land where I had to conform to impossible standards and nothing I ever did was good enough.
In the deepest, hottest part of that particular circle of hell, I remember writing a poem titled “Who Am I?”. It was dark, angry, and poorly written, and I was extremely proud of it. It very accurately expressed how I felt, and that is why I loved it.
“Who am I?” is a question that most of us have, or will have, at some point. It’s a question that I still ask myself. Though now I ask it without all the pain and misery that I had attached to it previously. And not even at my greatly advanced age of 25, do I know whether or not it is something that can ever be answered…but in my considerable wisdom, I suspect that it can’t be. We are infinite creatures, after all.
Eventually, when I was 17, I snapped. I decided, after 10 years, that I was done trying to be whoever it was that my step dad wanted me to be. This resulted in me being kicked out of the house, which I consider to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. I have spent the last 8 years learning about myself and healing all the self loathing that I acquired during my childhood.
I tried on all kinds of different personas, trying to find one that fit me, fit my idea of who my dad may have been, fit who I felt my family wanted me to be, fit who I was told “God” wanted me to be. It was like trying to find a single blazer that would fit a toddler, Shaquille O’Neil, and a Barby Doll equally well. Impossible in both size and style. But, tenacious man that I am, I stuck with it for a loooooong time before I realized that it just might not work out.
I have learned a lot of life lessons through this process of unlearning and relearning. Here are a few of the big ones:
- The only way to go about finding and discovering yourself is with a curious and loving attitude toward yourself. It nearly brings tears to my eyes when I think of how I used to hate myself. Whatever reasons you think you have for your self loathing, you don’t deserve that kind of abuse from yourself. Out of everyone on the planet, YOU are the one who should be wildly in love with you. If you aren’t yet, that’s ok. We all struggle with this because we are also the ones who see the biggest, nastiest parts of ourselves. Be patient with yourself.
- You are a goddamn work of art. I am a goddamn work of art. Just from a biological perspective, humans are insanely dope. We are the most adaptive and indestructible animals on the planet! Well, except maybe Honey Badgers, but we have them beat in every other way. I love going to the circus, or seeing ballet dancers perform. Acrobats, athletes, and dancers…how can you look at them, male or female, and not just be awestruck by the beauty of the human form. We outperform every being in the known universe psychologically. We can think about thinking (mind blown). Ever heard of “mind over matter”? Shits whack, yo. I could go on for literally ever concerning all the ways in which we are dope, and YOU ARE MADE OF THE SAME STUFF AS ALL HUMANS, YOU ARE THAT DOPE TOO!
- There is nothing more powerful than a person who is friends with his/herself. If all the time and energy that we spent on beating ourselves up was spent on building ourselves up, how different do you imagine things would be. Also, how much healthier, happier and more energetic do you imagine you would feel if you never spent an ounce of your resources against yourself again? But we’re only human, and it is DEEPLY ingrained in us to be self critical! Yes, and for good reason. That self criticism instinct is there for a reason; it’s how we learn from our mistakes and evolve and get better. Just make sure that you are kindly critiquing yourself, instead of descending from the heavens in a fiery rage to smite the unworthy wretch that is you.
- Who you are is up to you. No one else has the right to tell you who you should be. Not even, dare I say, god himself. Get creative and curious and start questioning yourself. What do you want out of your life? Who do you want to be? Paint a detailed, picture that excites you to look at! If it doesn’t get you more stoked than your team winning the Super-Bowl, you ain’t there yet.
- G. K. Chesterton said, “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly.” I only recently got this one, but it really is a gem. I extrapolated this saying to myself. In other words, I started to practice seeing that I don’t need to be perfect in order for me to appreciate, value, and love myself. Inner harmony, adventure, fun, and making the world a better place are at the tippy top of my list of values. I think each of those are worth doing, but none of them are easy to nail perfectly my first try. Some of them don’t even make sense without repetition. So they are things that I feel deep inside that I must do and strive for, even if it means I am embarrassingly bad at them. A much simpler example than all of that would be this: one minute of brushing your teeth is better than no minutes of brushing your teeth, even though the ideal is two minutes. Ok, done mansplaining this one.
If you take one thing away from this, take away the first of my little life lessons. Be nice to yourself. Love yourself. Be your own best friend. Don’t let yourself down. Realize that not everything you have learned to believe about yourself and your potential may be true. Challenge your limiting beliefs, figure out what stories that you’re telling yourself are holding you back and start telling yourself better stories.
As always, I love hearing from you all! Please feel free to reach out, and/or comment and share your thoughts.
Much Love!