RECLAIMING YOUR TRUE IDENTITY
How we feel about ourselves and how we see ourselves in relation to the world and culture
around us creates a patterning for our personal identity. This includes our belief
systems, perceptions, judgments, and of course the influence of our parents and our early
childhood development. There are two basic types of identity patterning:
THE SOCIAL-ENVIRONMENTAL IDENTITY includes influences of environment,
society and early childhood development, conditioned by social beliefs, role-playing,
performance- oriented, competitive, sees material structure of world as reality.
2. THE SOUL SEEKER breaks away from stereotype role-playing, tradition,
limited belief systems, questions the validity of present social systems and structures,
seeks new, more functional and emotionally fulfilling levels of com-munication, seeks
within to find own inner truth.
THE SOCIAL-ENVIRONMENTAL IDENTITY:
The first and most common form of social identity starts to form in the womb. To take this
a few steps further, we can go back to the moment of conception and look at what both the
mother and father were feeling at the time they made love. To go back even further, we can
be aware of past-life influences that created the present psychological and emotional
pattern of the infant. All these influences play a vital role in shaping the present
emotional, psycho-logical and personal state of each being that incar-nates on earth. This
includes the concepts, fears, and belief patterns of our parents and the kind of emotional
re-inforcement and validation we received as children. Natu-rally this crosses over into
our social interaction with oth-ers and how we relate to the world outside our family. How
we fit into various social roles such as our educational system-from kindergarten up
through our university training, how we relate to the social structures and institutions
around us, become an important patterning for our iden-tity during these crucial years of
our human development.
THE SOUL-SEEKER:
This second type of identity pattern is much less common and represents more the spiritual
seekers, those of us who are not satisfied with surface information, who want to probe
deeper into the hidden, more subtle realms of con-sciousness. They want to find the
missing link between their own personal power and identity and how to relate to the
out-side world, without compromising their integrity and self-worth.
This part of the human population are the soul-searchers who are not satisfied with the
present social belief systems, the values and principles of economic-military
establishments, and a competitive lifestyle. Instead, they look deeper within themselves
to find their own personal meaning of truth and Reality. From this experiential
development and awareness, they create their own founda-tion and value system whether it
is in harmony with society's standards and beliefs or not. This does not mean a re-jection
of society, social standards, or judgment of another being's personal choice of reality.
It simply means that within the process of introspection and diving into one's very inner
core of being, certain belief patterns that were unconsciously accepted as true and real,
start to dis-solve as a new, more fullfiling and functional meaning of LIFE replaces the
old, dysfunctional patterns of abuse.
To get in touch with one's own personal emotional and psychological state of being, takes
some distancing from the distractions of outer stimuli and the world around us. It takes
stepping off the treadmill of self-imposed distractions that we unconsciously create in
order not to face our pain. It takes strength and courage to break free from these
addictive role-patterns that our social values support. It is however, the first vital
step to recovering and re-claiming a healthy, emotionally fulfilling, personal identity
that is completely free from self-abuse and addiction.
THE HEALING AND TRANSFORMATION
OF MY HUMAN IDENTITY
Like most of us, I started this life as a 'victim'. It took over thirty five years of
living in a 'victim's' emotional, mental and physical body for me to experience the
cruelty, brutality, violence, terror and fear of a world to which I felt no relationship.
During these years, I 'played out' the re-active behavior patterns of a victim, and didn't
feel totally present in my physical body since a part of me didn't re-ally want to be here
anyway. It was a great struggle just to maintain my emotional - mental balance and feel
good about being here on the earth. As a 'victim', I unconsciously chose many experiences
of self-abuse that created emotional and physical pain and resistance to the world around
me as well as in close intimate relationships. During the six major, intimate
relationships that I have experienced, a recurring pattern of emotional and sexual abuse
was unconsciously re-enacted, since I did not understand or have any awareness of its
cause. All I thought was: "Here I am, being loving and kind, and sharing my deeper
Self, and I'm constantly getting treated as a doormat." Some of the most recurring
emotional patterns of abuse were feelings of great rejection and abandonment. These
patterns played themselves out to such a dramatic degree that my whole inner foundation
was shaken as my ego-identity started to crumble and dissolve. As my old, hurt self and
VICTIM, "poor me, how could this be happening to me" started to resurface, I
began to experience several major stages of death and dying. It was at this point that the
whole inner foundation of my personal human development began moving through a major
transformation and awakening which has allowed me to write this book and to share some of
these personal experiences with you.
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