Mistaking Our Identity

Posted on March 21, 2007
Filed Under Spiritual Development |

We all love to discover something that truly works for us. A career that offers a deep level of fulfillment, a hobby that shifts our perspective, or a spiritual practice that leads us into new aspects of consciousness – all of these offer us a means of expansion and growth. Sometimes we find just exactly what we need in our lives, a new tool through which we create greater balance, health, and happiness.

The problem arises when we allow the solution, the tool that is working for us, to define us. Let’s say we begin a yoga practice, which cures the chronic back pain we’ve been experiencing for years. We go around preaching to anyone who will listen about the joys and benefits of yoga. We go to class regularly, we start chanting kirtan, we buy some cute yoga outfits and our very own yoga props. Which is all well and good. We’ve all been there.

But now we go further. We get bent out of shape if we can’t attend our regular class. Our favorite teacher leaves our studio, and we feel devastated. Everything revolves around yoga, around this practice. And, very quietly and slowly, we’ve elevated a tool to the position of master. The yoga that was meant to serve us has become the altar at which we worship. Instead of a means to an end, it has become an end unto itself.

We do this all the time – we find what works, and make it a part of our identity. We become a healer, a painter, a business owner, a writer, a runner, a musician, a lawyer, a yogi, a meditator. We substitute the tool for its function. Instead of a tool that offers us great joy, our music becomes the joy itself. Instead of offering us a sense of accomplishment, being a lawyer becomes the accomplishment in itself. And so we serve the tool.

Quite frequently, we stop questioning whether the tool even still serves us. Now that we’ve made the career, the hobby, the spiritual practice, an integrated part of our identity, we are reluctant to question whether it still fulfills its original purpose for being in our lives. We keep doing what we’ve been doing, because we think that this is who we are.

All the things we do in our lives, our occupations and hobbies and practices, are simply tools through which we express ourselves, expand ourselves, discover ourselves. They are not who we are. It stands to reason that we should take inventory from time to time: “Is this tool still serving me as the most appropriate expression of who I am today?” Maybe the tool is still working beautifully. Maybe it needs a little tweaking. Maybe it needs to find a permanent home in the back of the tool shed, to be dusted off only occasionally.

Take a truly honest inventory of your toolbox! Acknowledge that everything there once served you beautifully, and should be honored as such. Shedding some of those old tools may leave you feeling lighter, less burdened, and open to new solutions, new tools that may serve you in the perfect expression of who you are right now.

Comments

One Response to “Mistaking Our Identity”

Hueina Su on March 25th, 2007 8:26 am

Hi Andrea:

What a thought-provoking post! Thank you for sharing this with the Carnival of Healing. The Carnival is up at my blog.

http://blog.beyondhorizoncoaching.com/2007/03/carnival-of-healing-78-blossom-into.html

Warmly,
Hueina

Intensive Care for the Nurturer’s Soul
http://blog.beyondhorizoncoaching.com