Who Are You?

All our lives, we are told who we are. You are good. You are bad. You’re a girl. A boy. A mother. A father. A child. Sister. Brother. Boss. Employee.

We believe it, and then we feel guilty, ashamed, embarrassed and confused about who we are.

Because, one, we know it’s not true. That is not who we truly are. And, two, because we want it to be true, but are not living up to the expectations. We like the boxes, and we want to fit into them. We want to belong, because we need to be loved.

The truth is we don’t fit. None of us. None of us fit. None. Can I say it one more time? None of us fit into those boxes.

Not one.

Can we see that? Truly see it?

All my life, I wanted to belong. Belong in my family. In church. In school. I needed to feel at home. Oh please, let me be at rest, at home.

All my life, my mother meant home. My soul was at rest with her. I did not need to be or do anything to be loved and accepted, when I was with her. After she died, I gravitated towards aunts and grandmothers, but I moved a thousand miles from them. I needed a home, so I turned to the Church and my faith in Jesus Christ.

I heard. “Jesus is your strength. Just trust Him.” I was told. “The Church is family.”

But my soul could not rest. I hurt so deeply, I could not breathe. I felt shame. I needed more faith. I felt guilt. Why is the Church not enough?

Embarrassed and confused, I denied my feelings and tried harder.

I saw and needed something deeper. I knew it. I just couldn’t grasp it. It slipped through my fingers like jello.

If home is rest and peace, I cannot be home when I’m believing the lies about who I am. I cannot stop believing the lies if I don’t know who I am. But it’s risky and scary to look. Am I good or bad? What am going to find?

I bring the fears of my parents and grandparents and generations beyond into who I believe I am.

So where to start?

Let go of everything you think you know. Carefully peel off each belief as it arises. Be gentle. It’s been stuck there for quite some time. Even the good ones. Let everything go. Start with a clean slate.

The more you reject the definitions placed on your being, the more resistance and rejection you feel from the institutions and people (yourself included) placing the definitions on you. It will look like you are rejecting them, but you are not.

You are coming home to yourself. That is threatening.

And they are not going to be able to see why it’s threatening, because they still believe the definitions. Those definitions are so comforting, they feel like home.

Be gracious to those around you (yourself included). Just show your light. Do not hide it. We all need to see it.

Now, look.

Place your hands on your chest, right over your heart.

Inhale. Deeply inhale, through your hands. Feel your ribs expand, giving your heart more room. Feel the satiety as the whole body drinks in life-giving oxygen.

When you feel that gentle pulling, simply-softly exhale, through your hands. Repeat this breath until your body begins to give way. You will know, because your body will tell you. It will start to let go. Cells release what they have held for years, decades.

With each inhale, the heart opens. With each exhale, the cells and muscles and bones release deeply held beliefs.

What is left?

Here’s what I found, so far.

First, I found millions of neural connections inside my brain. I found them without looking and out of necessity. I needed to figure out how to connect my brain to my left arm. They are a sparkling network, a web, alive and moving and changing and adapting to the world around me.

This web intrigued me and sent me looking deeper, where I found a black ball, stable and flowing within herself, located at my solar plexus. She is fire and power, and sometimes grows too big to stay inside me, burning this body.

Next, I found a white ball, stable and flowing within herself, located inside my head right at the center of brain. She is air and soft and sparkly, and sometimes grows too big to stay inside me, blinding this body.

At first these two scared me. I thought they were attacking me, burning and blinding me, sometimes at the same time. They felt like trauma, until I realized they were giving me direction and insight. They give the world we live in definition. They show me where we need to go, and what we need to do.

They are located in my body but only because my body surrounds or encases them. But they don’t need the body. The power harnessed in these parts of me, that are not the true me, need a balancing force.

Being present in myself without regard to anything outside of myself is rooted in God, in the eternal. This unique expression of the Eternal God, called Angela, has no basis in time. I am an unchangeable, solid energy currently housed in this body. I am not tossed about. I am not in pain or worried or angry or happy or in need of anything. I just am. And I am linked to everything else. I see the lines and sparks and connections balanced in a perfect web of white light, more like fire without temperature. It’s like electricity, without being sharp or fast or dangerous. And this takes us back to the neural web in the brain.

We are neural connections between everything and everyone. This life is a macroscopic view of what’s going on inside the brain. The whole of everything is the “brain” of God, and we are the neurons. We are the sparks of life inside the mind of God. Sparks is not the right word because it’s not sharp or fast or dangerous. But I can’t find a better word.

We are each a unique expression of God.

I am a solid, stable energy currently located in the center of the chest of this body. I look like a galaxy, spiraling around itself at a nice, even pace, not too slow or fast. I have always existed and never changed. I see and am seen. I do not need or desire. I dance and play with other “galaxies”. I give and take. I accept a shell for a time so I can love and hate, but only for a time.

I am home and come home. Every day.