Who Are You?

Not going to age myself by talking about when I first heard The Who’s song, Who Are you?, but I’m sure you know this song, most recently from the TV shows CSI and The Masked Singer.

Who, who, who are you?

Who are you? If I were to ask you that, what would your answer be?

I’ll never forget the time someone asked me who I was and after responding, the next question stopped me in my tracks.

The conversation went like this:

“Who are you?”

“I am a mom, a daughter, and a sister.”

“But who are you?

“I am an educator, a singer, a photographer, and a friend.”

“But who are you?”

This exchange went on for some time until I had run out of things to say. At that point, all I could do is look at my friend with a “what the fudge” look. How did my friend know there was more for me to say?

“You haven’t told me who you are. You have only told me what you do.”

You are probably looking at this blog the way I was looking at my friend. You know the look. It’s the I think my friend has lost their mind look.

So let me clear this up for you, and you will see how my friend changed my thinking and my life.

When we list all the things we do, we create a bit of a paradox. Once the things on the list are no longer true, or no longer true in the sense they were before (although we still may be mother or father, our role changes dramatically when our children leave), we can no longer say that’s who we are. Look at what goes into each doing item on the list. A mother is empathetic, nurturing, strong. A teacher is compassionate, understanding, flexible. Is this beginning to make sense?

Let’s go back to when my friend asked who I was. If I had answered that same question a year later or even today my answer would be different.

I am a tenacious woman.

I am a prosperous woman.

I am a worthy woman.

I am a brilliant and invaluable woman.

I think you get the idea. It’s not what you do, that makes you who you are. It’s what you are being. What is your beingness? When all the things you take care of, the hobbies you have, the career you’ve chosen are stripped away, WHO ARE YOU?

No one can give you those answers. You have them already. Often we don’t even know we have the answer, but it has been with us all the time. Sometimes, I look at others and identify something in them that I want to emulate. Then I remember, if I can spot it in others, I got it. We can only recognize in others what we have in ourselves.

So when you identify what qualities you really want to step into, practice affirming those qualities for yourself. They can be as simple as the affirmations I listed above.

If you want to try on some affirmations and words that may tell you who you are, be sure to grab my free affirmation workbook. The exercises that you can choose may clarify this for you.

And, as always, reach out to me if you are ready to have someone help you with this. Together we can create the list of who you are.