Who am I? How do I Live?

“Spirit is the symbol for transformation. So when we open to spirit, we’re opening to transformation: we’re not going to be the same person that began the journey and we’re not going to see ourselves in the same way ever again. When we open to spirit, we’re not adding a new layer of identity. Spirit is that which throws off all identities and casts them all away. Spirit has no form, no ideology. It is eternal wholeness and completeness.”
~ Adyashanti - Resurrecting Jesus

            I have reached a new stage of being, or at least a new stage of identification of being. Identity is not only that which we call ourselves, that around which we orient ourselves, but it is a directive, a call for action. Most of us go through many identities as we go through our lives, many have been thrust upon us by birth or by others; many have been claimed through action or intention. But one thing is certain – identity shapes our self-perception, our action, and our presence on this earth.

My identities, or labels, as a human being, have been numerous. Beginning identifications such as baby, toddler, child, little sister, daughter, girl, are common to many beings born into this existence as a female human. But as I grew, I began to add to those pre-assigned labels with ones of my own, ones particular to my own individual journey – ones I chose or that were chosen for me. Some of these were positive, but many of them were labels that instilled a sense of worthlessness or shame on my young developing self.

            As a young teenager, I decided I wanted to be a horsewoman. So I pursued that identity, getting a job (a girl with a job) at 13, saved money and bought a horse (horse owner). I spent the next four years dedicating my life to all things horse and the things I needed to do to accomplish that (hard worker). Then, my need for connection with other humans blossomed, and I began to search for that connection in many destructive ways. I became a girl who drank (partier), a girl who slept around (slut). Having been assigned the label of “smart girl” when I was young, I still maintained that categorization, even amid the other dabblings of identity that were tearing down any self-esteem I had built with my previous actions.

            After a few years of drug use and alcohol abuse (partier, risk taker, experience seeker, wild girl), I adopted the label as sober alcoholic, a label that not only saved my life, but also set me out on the conscious path to awakening. Even before breaking through the fog of alcoholism, drug use, and promiscuity, however, I began to see there was another mode of being to which I was drawn. I read Richard Bach’s Illusions and Peter Marshall’s book of sermons, and I understood there was something more about me, about this existence, about being, that I was on the verge of seeing. Like an elusive word on the tip of my tongue, I could feel this knowing just beyond my peripheral vision.

            Once I adopted that identity of a sober alcoholic, I began the journey of consciousness awakening to itself. Sometimes I focused on the journey, and sometimes it retreated back stage while I adopted other identities and roles in my everyday life. I regret none of those roles, either before or after that initial awakening, and those lives and labels – wife, mother, student, professor – are experiences I treasure and which gave me, and continue to give me, innumerable joys in this lifetime. But always, along those paths of identity and action, I had that pull, sometimes shouting loudly and sometimes whispering just behind my consciousness, that I needed to be more fully following that impulse to awakening.

            This impulse began to intensify in the last 10 years, and I began to pursue paths of knowledge and inspiration; I attended spiritual conferences and retreats and took week-long courses to develop tools to not only open myself to awakening but to further flush out the shadows and obstacles that hindered the full maturity of my personal ego. This pull to awakening finally pushed me to step beyond my identity of full-time career woman to wanderer, and I left home and security to explore the world and my self and, as I said, “to see where I wanted to land.”

            I see now that landing, settling, while yes, in some ways, is finding a place where I feel grounded and home, is also another thing altogether. As I’ve found a place where every morning I see that which stirs my soul, I also find myself settling into a new identity. This new place I find myself is that of a monastic, someone who chooses to forsake other pursuits to spend her time pursuing awakening to the consciousness that already and always is – awakening to the true Self, that which is beyond the true Self, and the Boundless Totality of Source that is everything.

            Of course I still must work, and I still must play, and I must love and give and go about those daily tasks and experiences that sustain my physical presence in this world and the intimate relationships with those to whom I am deeply connected. But instead of my awakening being something I return to now and then, it is the overarching reality I awake to every morning and go to sleep with every night. Just as when I received the gift of motherhood, it is all-encompassing and has redefined who I am and every decision I make.

            Perhaps this movement from stage right to center stage happened because I’ve taken the steps to embrace awakening fully – I’ve meditated daily now for almost three months with no exception, I’m actively participating in an online retreat with my teacher that prompts daily contemplation and spiritual exercise, and I am fully ready to surrender what resistance I’ve held to awaken to the fully reality of existence. I took steps to evaluate how I spend my time and reorganized my day to give time and attention to the things that I value most in life – spiritual practice, writing, and physical exercise – and I’ve followed that schedule joyfully.

            Whether this movement, this opening, comes from creating the fertile ground for evolution or it has just appeared because it was time doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it is here and I am embracing it. My life, now, is dedicated to waking up and sharing that experience. I have finally found the words that have been on the tip of my tongue for nearly 40 years, and I’m determined to speak them aloud. My identity is that of a monastic, an everyday goddess who is coming more and more into her full identity. And by coming into that identity, I will, as I awaken fully, move paradoxically through it to that place of the ultimate no-identity. Come on along.

            Namaste.