Why you aren't who you think you are Part 3 - It's Just Who I Am
“Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?”
If we had met Michael a short time after playing football with his dad and then scoring the winning goal of the game, we would have met a kind, confident boy. We would’ve been drawn in by his easy smile & ability to laugh at himself.
If Michael had been able to articulate his beliefs - his sense of self, they may have been something like this: I am safe, I belong, I am loved, my parents love me, I am good at football, I can laugh at myself, I like trying new things & taking risks, I like myself, people like me and I like people and though I don’t know what the future holds - it feels great to be alive and I know I can face it.
As Michael’s parents relationship started to show the cracks and tension that would eventually lead to their divorce, Michael’s sense of self comes under attack. Some of his questions, whether he was aware of them or not, may have been: If my parents don’t like each other - does that mean they don’t like me either? Why is dad leaving - does he still want me? What am I part of now? Where do I belong? Maybe it’s my fault they are fighting - how do I fix them?
Perhaps with all the stress, tension and working out the divorce, Michael’s parents missed his footy games. He played badly anyway, the light that used to shine so brightly in his heart seemed to have dimmed. He took less risks in the game - didn’t go for the shot unless it was a sure thing. He was distracted, couldn’t get his head in the game.
He found he laughed less.
Into this emotional & neurological landscape, Michael is attacked by a dog. It is encoded as a trauma and from this point forward his experience of life begins to be coloured by this lens. He begins to look at what happens in his life through the filter of: I am alone, I am unsafe, no-one is here for me, I am not worth people’s attention…
Over time Michael began to form beliefs that he could articulate: I’m not a dog person. I’m not an animal person. I’m not really a people person - I’m good with computers. I’m more of a homebody. I’m a loner.
It’s just who I am.
The indications that Michael is living out of congruence with his true self show up in his body and in his emotional state.
Part of him remembers what it felt like to be fully alive, to laugh and play and be carefree, to be loved and to know belonging and safety.
In a sense the ‘pain’ of his current life becomes the warning bells, the alarm he can’t turn off, the red flag that keeps popping up, the ache in his head that will lead him to remember a time when life wasn’t as it is now. That possibility will begin to call to him, beckoning him along a path of healing.
He will begin to wonder…
What if who I think I am, isn’t who I have to be?
