I’ve been in a *poof* disappear mood this week, haven’t I? On Tuesday I wrote about *poof* disappearing in the context of Alex Jones, and today I want to talk to you about how you can become your own fairy godmother. Aka, make the lies you’re telling yourself… you guessed it… *poof* disappear.
I was talking to someone last night about the super surface level quandary better known as, “who are you?” Not “where are you from” or “what do you do” but “who are you.”
You know, super surface level.
I think we often borrow our answers for “where are you from” and “what do you do” to form a makeshift answer for “who are you.” I know I do. Especially when I meet new people.
But our answers to “where are you from” and “what do you do” can perpetuate so many lies up in our noggin without us ever realizing.
Take “where are you from”. If you’re from the Midwest and now live in a big city, I wonder if upholding a “Midwest nice” attitude is something that is truly part of who you are, or just an identity put upon you because New Yorkers assume you must be pleasant every time you tell them you’re from Kansas.
To figure out an answer to “who are you” it actually doesn’t matter that you’re from Kansas because you weren’t the one to decide to be born in Kansas. You decided to move to New York.
Why?
Asking yourself why, over and over again, for any decision you’ve made, is an extremely potent way to get to the crux of who you are. For our fictitious Kansas friend, let’s say their answer to why they decided to move to New York is because they wanted to get away from daily monotony. From there our fictitious friend needs to answer why they wanted to get away from daily monotony. Let’s say they wanted to get away from daily monotony because they craved adventure. Why did they crave adventure?
Until after a long list of why’s, our fictitious Kansas friend lands on some crux. Some absolute truth.
In the pursuit of honesty, I’m using a fictitious friend here in place of myself because I’ve been going down this trail of why’s all day, ever since my new friend told me about it last night, and I’m still too shy to share what I’ve landed on.
It’s terrifying to figure out who you are at your core. Because suddenly the masks of “where you’re from” and “what you do” are no longer there to shield you.
Do I smell vulnerability? Yes I do.
But if you’re feeling brave this week, I wonder if you might want to venture down the trail of why’s, too.
Let me know how it goes.
Oh good, another rabbit hole to jump into! Except this one is truly terrifying and not found on YouTube at 3am, but rather inside my head a train car taking me from my circus job to home.
Larissa, why?