When we begin Life, we are like a beautiful party balloon, inflated and filled by the Breath of Life. Almost immediately, the balloon begins to be decorated by papier-mâché. This papier-mâché adds to and helps us form our identity. Earliest examples would be, “Doesn’t she look like her dad/mum/sister/brother/auntie/uncle/pet squirrel?”

Later on, papier-mâché pieces may include identities linked to roles. “He’d make a brilliant nurse/brain surgeon/engineer/rock scientist/taxidermist…”

And let’s remember all the pieces of papier-mâché that cover us in beliefs, culture, behaviours, biases, values, thoughts, ego, learned body language (“Oh, goodness, I’m turning into my mother!”), media – even songs (“big boys don’t cry.”)

We dare not tear off the papier-mâché, even if it was imposed by other people, because our balloon might pop! Changing identity can burst our bubble! However, much of our identity is false-identity. It really is ‘stuff’ that’s been attached to us by other people who really don’t know us that well – even our parents.  You and I – we are SO deep, SO complex, SO sophisticated that no-one can ever know our true depths.

Liberation and freedom flow from getting to know our true selves – our original balloon hidden under the surface. Without deep self-examination we can confuse other people’s outside-in views of ourselves with the true-self who must be known and expressed inside-out. Only when we examine our beliefs, our thoughts, our culture, our behaviours… the whole list… can we deliberately CHOOSE to keep what WE decide to.

Here's a liberating truth: all of it is changeable. You are not your thoughts. You are not even your ego – that’s an invention of the inner-self that sometimes serves us but often doesn’t. You are not your beliefs, nor are you your values. You are at the very least the observer who has thoughts, values, beliefs – all of which are subject to change.

And for most of us, we’re only just waking up to the fact that we are not quite ourselves! Our egos can confuse our true-selves with the following blurring of reality…

Attachment – to people, things, places, which when they go leave us with a loss of identity

Entanglement – especially in relationships that ‘define’ us

Identification – with gender, role, job, race, nation, body type, body health, mental health!

Ownership – “I am what I own,” which becomes an insatiable lust for more

Uniqueness – in the sense of being separate from everyone else.

Lest this become WAY too esoteric for a Monday Moodscope blog, I’d like to ask you one profound question:

“Do you 100% identify with, and are you 100% happy with, the way that other people see you, label you, expect you to behave?”

If not, it’s time for your inner beautiful balloon to reassert itself, and to colour and decorate the papier-mâché  in the style of YOUR CHOICE! Tell us what you’d like to change…

Lex

A Moodscope member