What if what you are missing is You? Finding True Self.

I wasn’t in the room when my mother died.  As I walked into the room, my sister said, “she’s gone.”

That sentence has stayed with me for the 24 years since my mom left the lifeless body that once held her Spirit, her True Self.  

When you ask yourself, “Who am I?” you will immediately notice that there are many  levels on which you could answer the question. I am wondering what your answer is. One thing you can be sure of is that you are not your body.  You live in your body, but it is not you.  If it were you, it would raise questions, like, “Which body?” The one you had when you were born, the one you had in junior high, the one from last year, or the one you have in the moment you die?  

So, clearly, we are not our bodies.  But we have lots of questions about who we are.  If you google “What is my true self?” you will see 5,070,000,000 results.  OK, that is wild! Over 5 Billion results! There are a lot of people asking this question!

To help clarify what your True Self is, let’s begin by looking at what it is not.  Some people call this the EGO, some say false self.  For this blog, I will use the phrase “false self.”  

As children, we learn really early that there are certain things we do that get us love and there are other things we do that result in disapproval.  We need love and will do anything to get it. In order to get that love, we think we need to develop a false self.  Eventually, we come to believe that this false self is who we are.  

The false self thinks:

I am what I do.

I am what I have.

And I am what other people think of me.  

If you are what you do, then what happens when you can’t do anything any more?  When you lose the job, can’t play the sport you once loved, can’t have children, can’t think as fast, can’t do your own cooking?  We all have losses and the older we grow, the more losses we face.  Richard Rohr talks about how God planned it this way so we cannot hold onto the false self.  Because, as long as everything is going smoothly, with our false selves in charge, there is no need for us to become our True selves.  

 If you are what you have, what happens if you lose it?  What happens when you lose the house, your body isn’t as strong, you can no longer work, your car gets all scratched up… the list is endless. I am wondering, do you feel better about yourself in a nice car than in an old, dented car?  If the answer is “yes,” It is just something to notice.  Richard Rohr says, “our false self is not our bad self, it is just not our True Self.”  This is so important.  

If you are what other people think of you, then you can’t be your True Self because you are too busy managing the impression that other people have of you.  Quite honestly, of the three common mistaken beliefs I’ve been describing, this is the one that has been the biggest obstacle to my having the life I was born to live.  My false self has kept me small for way too long.  It continues to limit me at times, but its hold on me is much less firm.  It really is a process and I am grateful to be on this journey.  

When we die, all of this ends.   At the time my mom left her body, she could no longer do anything, she didn’t have anything, and she no longer cared that people thought all sorts of things about her, some good, some bad.  She left every bit of her false self behind.  

The most freeing part of the spiritual journey is letting go of this false self while we are alive.  The degree to which we are happy and free, while we are still here, is the degree to which we have let go of the false self.  It is helpful just to know who you are and who you are not.  As long as we identify entirely with our false self, we don’t even know there is something more, something absolutely loving and magnificent inside of us.  

So, who is our true self?  If you read some of the  5,070,000,000 posts found on the internet, you will get many different answers.  This question has many levels.  If you can take a quiz to find out who your true self is, that is not the True Self I am talking about here.  It is definitely a fun and important topic. I love these inventories and find it helpful to know that I am a 2 on the Enneagram, and an ESFP on the Myers-Briggs, for example.  But this is not the True Self I am talking about.  The True Self I am talking about can’t be put on paper.  

Here are some things we know for sure.  Our True Self is created in the image and likeness of God.  God is Spirit and we are Spirit. 

When I was walking toward the living room where my family was gathered around my mother, I was gifted with an incredible direct experience as I walked through the kitchen that helped me to experience what our True Self is in a special way.   

There was an energy in the room that was alive and exciting.  The closest I can come to explaining this, and it is only a hint of the actual experience, is this: imagine you are at a ball game, there is one second left with a tied score, and your team makes the winning point just before the buzzer goes off.  

We are like that.  We are energy. Beautiful, powerful, dynamic energy. We are extensions of God's energy.  We are essence.  This is our deepest, truest self.  It is what Jesus is inviting us into when he says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  This doesn’t happen all at once.  It is a process.  

In the months before my mother died of cancer, she died many small deaths.  With each small death, more and more light shined out through her dying body.  She was radiant.  I think of Jesus saying we are the light of the world.  This is true figuratively but it is deeply true literally when we let our false self die.

She also became more and more loving.  My mother was a feisty woman with strong opinions about everything.  And according to her, she was ALWAYS right.  But as this false self fell away, she no longer had to be right all the time.  Being right belongs to the false self.  Anytime we need to be right, it is a sign of being in our false self.  Other signs are: becoming easily upset, thinking judgmental thoughts, feeling a need to defend ourselves.  

I have grandchildren who get to see one movie a week. I have been blessed to see many of these movies with them.  Frozen 2 is my favorite.  There is a song in it that says, 

Something is familiar

Like a dream, I can reach but not quite hold

I can sense you there

Like a friend I've always known

I'm arriving

And it feels like I am home…

Show yourself

I'm dying to meet you

Show yourself

It's your turn

Are you the one I've been looking for

All of my life?

Show yourself

I'm ready to learn

When I hear this I think of my True Self and sing, “You’re the One I’ve been waiting for all of my life.”   

We are all longing for our True Self and our True Self wants to come out, to be known, to be free, to experience things the false self is afraid of.  It has things to teach us.  Are you ready to learn?