There used to be this advert of a guy who walks up to a counter in an airport, has a bit of disagreement with the lady behind the counter, and starts shouting: DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?😂😂

Silly right? Well, that’s what our minds scream in places and times of confusion when we haven’t sat down to clarify and define who we really are.

YOUR TRUEST IDENTITY = YOUR POWER

There came a time when I realized I wasn’t in control of my life. Not in control of where it was, and distressingly uncertain of where it was going.

An existential crisis where I was questioning everything about me.

Yes, there was much I had achieved but some of it felt like I was achieving for the sake of achieving, achieving to keep up with my society-given identity of a super-achiever.

And then there were those areas I was good at failing at😀.

I would never expect to be good at everything, but it all just felt so misaligned, so much so that I even felt like I was failing at the wrong things, that I should have been failing at something else instead.

I’d been given so many labels throughout my life and, I’m certain, so have you. Some empowering (go-getter), some discouraging (stuck up), some pressurizing (high achiever). As you can see, some of these didn’t allow failure.

I felt like I was conforming to whatever label was pasted on me, like my life was just happening to me and I was, for the most part, reacting and dealing with what it threw my way.

And one tends to do a good job out of that eventually, ducking and jumping and tending to the bruises when a blow landed. Got to a point where I felt I could not soar, I got weary, I got faint.

I get it, some people prefer to go through life not knowing where they’re going or working towards. They prefer to just be living it up like there’s no tomorrow, and that’s ok. Do you boo.

Not for me though. I needed to take the reins back. I wanted to live a life true to who I was, my authentic self. 

I wasn’t thinking as far out as life vision and future goals stuff at the time, but I knew I needed to take and feel in control of my life.

The heralder of my identity definition & clarification was when I started reflecting on why someone labelled me ‘gullible’.😏

I’d been marinating in that for a while and wondering how on earth do I change that about me. And why God would make me that way if it was to my detriment.

Until I came to the epiphany that I’m perfect the way God made me, and that there are no bad human traits. This made perfect sense to me since I believe/d what God created is good.

There are just undesirable re-programmings and timings and contexts and labels for human traits.

I no longer wanted to change the ‘gullible’ part of me. What I did instead was ask God for wisdom as to when I’d need to readily believe the best in someone, because that’s what gullible is, isn’t it? Told you, undesirable labels!

I then got interested in reflecting about what else I thought or was told was a bad trait in me and disarm it. Uuh, I was always told I was hypersensitive.

I realized it was necessary for me to be hypersensitive in certain contexts, e.g. to discern when somebody is silently suffering, but not in others.

I also understood that some of the labels others gave me, came from a place of them witnessing consequences of previous hurts in me.

These I resolved I could no longer accept as part of whatever was my identity anymore, they were hurtful to carry.

Point in case, I’d subconsciously accepted the label of hot-tempered as part of my identity but it was something that was harmful and sabotaging to my success as a partner and as a mother.

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. I knew that I desired to think and be different.

Clarifying my identity

This excavation of labels cascaded into ‘you have all these labels given to you and they’re part of your identity, but who are you really?‘

‘You want to run away from this harmful labels and their attached behaviours, but where do you run to?’🤔

This is how I began taking control of my life. I reasoned, if my life seemed just reactive and unintentional, then I needed it to be intentional. I reverse-engineered it.

If I needed it to be intentional, what would I need to be intentionally doing? If I needed to be doing something intentional, then where would I need to be intentionally going?

If I needed to be going somewhere then how would I know where I needed to be going? In other words, the things that I would be desiring to get to, how would I know them if I didn’t know myself?

That meant going back to the drawing board to clarify and define my identity. It all started with ‘whose are you?’ and went all the way down to ‘what do you do.’

Because identity is a multi-layered concept. I suppose that’s why one of the most difficult questions to answer is ‘tell us, who are you?’

Oftentimes when we’re asked who we are we start with, or even just mention, what we do. But if our identity rode on that, what happens when I’m no longer a mother, or a pathologist, or a member of the worshipping team at church?

I believe, at the end of the day, physical attributes & demographics aside, your (self-) identity should be rooted in something that does not change with the tide. I’m beginning to picture it like a tree.🌳

The identity tree

The roots are the foundation of whose you are, God, and the leaves and fruit, the extensions of you that serve/nourish others, i.e. your roles, your what you do’s. There are the stem (character – ‘how are you’s’) and main branches (abilities/gifts/talents – ‘what are you’s’) in between.

In my mind, biological attributes (static) sit on the main branches and the rest of demographic attributes (dynamic) on smaller branches.

It’s important to note that there are fixed and there are fluid elements to your identity. Roles can change, new abilities/talents can be uncovered/developed.

It becomes a matter of ‘Lord, what do I become in this season?’

I devised a simple guide for me to pen my identity. Perhaps it will be useful to you as well (find it on the resources page on free self-improvement guides section ). You can build on it by adding more elements if you wish to, or edit it to suit even your kids.

For me to clarify is to write the actual letters and words. Not 1s and 0s in typed words. There’s something powerful about writing: it’s etched in space. Bible says write your vision and make it plain.📝

When I defined my identity, I began walking with so much clarity, intentionality and such blessed assurance. This self-identity knowledge fed effortlessly into my self-image, self-esteem and self-worth.

I’m finally coming to me, and enjoying getting to know me. I invite you on this journey for yourself.

TAKE HOME

When we don’t know who we are, we go through life not in the power of what we were meant to do or accomplish.

We adopt our identity from others, run with it, and accomplish things that are not in alignment with who we are.

We live a lie, we live inauthentically. We rob God of what He meant to accomplish in this earth through us. We rob His people of the service we were meant to give them.

Of the healing through laughter we were meant to do, of the restoration we were made to deliver, of the encouragement we were meant to give.

We rob ourselves of the abundance that was ring-fenced for us before the foundations of the earth.

Like the prodigal son, let’s finally come to ourselves and back to our original place, our original versions.

And importantly, let’s start teaching our kids now who they are, so the world out there does not tell them. Note to self.

To know yourself is to unleash your power.

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