I agree, we are not fixed and 'who we are'. Most of us are governed by our subconscious be it positively or negatively and don't really know fully who we are. Most people will ask you what your job is to estimate a level of respect they need to give you. And most people will answer a question such as 'what do you do?' in terms of a job, and also articulate that job intertwined with the sense of I- I AM a Doctor, I AM a lawyer.
I am a wife, a mother, a father, a friend, this job role, but i have interests which i think define my personality. Im interested in this and that etc and that's how i know who i am ..............This is common, what i actually see is most people getting a sense of who they are by filling the roles of projections of others around them.
If you strip away those projections, and the job, the I AM defining physical, materiel, external validations, then who are you? Who are you in your mind? In your quiet space, where no one else has access to .............when you don't need to behave a certain way which meets the needs and expectations of the people around you or your job role...........
A lot of people can't answer that. I can't fully, i became aware that I couldn't answer it and highly aware of how much of my personality is shaped not only from the past, but also based on continually looping and fulfilling the roles I perceive are projected onto me. It was a head fuck initially to come to this realisation, and ultimately is why I am here blogging anonymously. My actual being, who I am when I go inside, when i listen to my self, when i experience my own emotions and not adjust them accordingly for other people, does not conform with the image my nearest and dearest have of me, most of my beliefs sharply contradict theirs, and most of our values are inherently different. Slowly I am learning to say no and act in a way which aligns with what I am unravelling to be my true self, instead of saying yes and going along with things I do not wish to really, to maintain your projections of me and not disappointing. Sorry if this is confusing, it just seemed like it fitted perfectly at the end of this.
Also with regards to the 3 'types'. I don't fit neatly into one, I have been each one at different times. We are not fixed, we are very fluid and we literally know nothing at all when it comes to the nature of existence. It's our subconscious and surroundings that keep us fixed because we allow them to, if you work to aknowledge them and work out when you really do want to say yes or really do want to say no, you start to get this weird sense of starting to know who you really are. At first I would just worry that I am hurting people or just being anti social. But over the last month or so, i feel much stronger in my sense of self, my intuition is speaking louder, I am sleeping better, i am able to be much more observant than reactive, instead of doubting my self, my ideas, my experiences, i am fully looking to them for guidance and trying to work out what exactly my role is here. Starting to notice the ripple effects.........got a long way to go but it's cool :)
Yes I know what you mean and I've also started noticing how we often define ourselves socially by our roles... It was actually something my husband got me thinking about. When people ask him what he does for a living, he often will reply with "I work as a..." instead of "I am a..." and sometimes follow it up with "but I also like to do this and that". Some people just raise their eyebrows and nod, but in other instances it's been a real conversation starter. I've started picking up this habit and noticing a difference, not just in responses but in how I view my self as well. The less I define my self by my job, the more I open my mind to the other things I love to do, and to passion. And creativity. I have a very technical and scientific work life without much room for creativity, so this has been a nice internal change.
It also made me really consider the power of words, especially the words we use with other people. You see all over Instagram and what not memes and things of people talking about the power of thoughts and words, but until I started playing with it myself and feeling the difference, it was hard to appreciate. Now it takes less practice and is more just fun experimentation. Haha
With really cool results!
Thanks for sharing, got me thinking at 6am.which is never a bad thing!