Who are you really?

Who are you really? When you talk to someone, or listen to someone, what perspective are you doing that from? I’m not talking about being a friend, a parent, a love or even a nemesis; these are roles we play throughout our lives. I am talking about your true core, your personal truth, the bedrock that is you. I do believe some of our core truth is something we are born with like being curious or outgoing or introverted. Other aspects of it we learn and create through our experiences as a child. These aspects come together and color everything we are. There are many facets to our core truth I feel very strongly that it always boils down to some very basic statements. At birth we are pretty pure and simple, no baggage, a clean slate so to speak, and the concepts are: * I am love. * I am who I am. * I trust. As we interact with the world around us, meet our family and develop; the initial concepts turn into the things we want to draw to us throughout our lives: * I want to be loved. * I want to be accepted as myself. * I want to feel safe. To gain these very basic things we start creating our sense of self which sets our personal boundaries. In other words, what will we do to get these things for ourselves? To create your personal boundaries you look around you at what others are doing. From them you take your queue on things to try, then see how it feels and if it gets you the results you want. This usually isn’t a conscious effort, especially as a child. Think of kids trying the ‘crocodile’ tear to get their way and how when told no they switch to begging or bargaining and so on. I call these boundaries because the truth of it is that we all have things we will and will not do to get what fills that deep need in us from our core. When we are healthy we may give a gift to a friend, but we don’t shower them with things. We meet someone we are attracted to and pursue them but if told no, we stop. So what happens when you are raised in a toxic family? Toxic can mean everything from extreme physical and sexual abuse to the more subtle, and just as vicious, mental abuses of neglect or disinterest. The obvious answer is that wanting someone becomes an obsession or stalking, being told no might cause you to fly into a rage or a fit, the need for approval might cause you to give up your identity or dreams to take on someone else’s. When we are raised in a toxic environment our core truth becomes more of a survival truth. We need to fit into that toxic world for food, shelter and some kind of connection until we can, for want of a better phrase, escape and handle our lives on our own. So the purity of I love becomes I am unlovable/I am unworthy, I trust becomes I am afraid/I distrust and I am who I am becomes I am who you want me to be. If you truly think you are unlovable/unworthy you will attract people who support that core truth. They will treat you poorly, with little or no respect or kindness. Friends that use you and let you down, lovers that berate you or cheat on you, people constantly treating you as less. You might struggle with that, swear you want something better but can’t seem to find it and don’t understand why. The why is because at your core you believe you aren’t lovable or worthy of love. Admitting that is hard, it can be embarrassing or even shameful. It should not be either of those things. Your truth is simply that, your truth based on your life, your experiences and your perspective and at any given moment you can chose to change it. Once you dig down inside to find that truth foundation isn’t serving you, you can chose to smash it into rubble and build a new core truth for yourself. A truth that suits you and allows you to have healthy, joyful relationships be it with yourself, family, friends, lovers or co-workers. You get to decide what suits you, you have the power, you just need to do the work.