I Am… Me explores self-identity and how, where we place our consciousness affects our perceptions of the world. A lot more strange things go on in our inner life than we acknowledge or talk about. Partly because we don’t have words for the experiences, and partly because it’s a reality our society dismisses, so we’ve been conditioned to ignore it.
In the next series of blogs, I am going to attempt to put words to some of these from my journal of ponderings, particularly on the shape and dynamics of consciousness.
I Am… Me!
I am ME! I was born me. I was me when I learned to walk, when I learned to talk, when I started kindergarten, and pretty much every day from my earliest beginnings to today. Chances are pretty good that I will be me when I die and leave this life behind.
That’s not a strange statement. It is, however, bizarre to realize that every person on our planet shares this experience of identifiying, first and foremost, as ME. Literally, everywhere you go there’s only ME! Now, I’m not saying there’s only one of us, but I sure get a kick out of contemplating just that.
Who are you? “I’m ME!”
Of course, each of those MEs also has a secondary identity, a unique name that helps others to recognize us as an individual and is our specific designation, but first and foremost I’m always just ME. This forms the basic question of self-reflection, just who is that ME, and what does it mean to be ME? Psychology probes this question as does religion, philosophy, and spirituality.
Our secondary identity was born on a exact date, with a name given to us shortly after birth. We have a specific height, weight and gender, ethnicity, skin and hair color, sexual orientation, religion, and affiliations with political, ideological and social groups. If we change our name by marriage, choice, or after a major life event we might delineate a self before and after that transition but all of that is still ME.
In fact, it’s kind of funny to realize that ME has been ME through various sizes and shapes but will remain ME throughout my life. Surprisingly, friends and family recognize ME despite all my changes.
Two Selves
In this, I’m tweezing out a distinction between ME and my named-self. It’s as if ME is my eternal, incorporeal, unchanging self, while my named-self is the part that is born and dies, bound to the trials and tribulations of this specific temporal form.
- Which self do you identify with more?
- Are they at odds with one another?
- When are you one versus the other?
At birth, these two selves are separated by a chasm of experience. My named self was just figuring out how to navigate the physical world, move a body, form words and interact with others. While ME came in with all of eternity to draw upon. Parents often report their newborns have distinct personalities right from the start and they often see deep ancient wisdom in those brand new eyes.
I think of it like two streams, separated at birth then converging and crossing in early adulthood, around 21 years old, then diverging more and more throughout life. When we picture ourselves it’s this vibrant young adult self we think of as ME. Throughout adulthood there is a sense of ME, different than what the mirror presents, which becomes a widening chasm as we age. There are days we may ‘feel our age’ but in general, we have a clear and distinct sense of self at odds with our current form. The older we get, the more the reflection in the mirror does not match up to our inner image. We see all the wrinkles, bags, grey and thinning hair; laugh and SHOUT, “That’s not ME!”
(Note that for some, like my transgender and non-binary friends, the process and sequence may vary slightly, but the underlying idea holds).
Mini-Me
I recently taught a trauma class where one of the students had lost his father at a young age, his mother was overwhelmed by the situation so he became the de facto head of the household at age 8; taking care of himself, his mother, and younger siblings. His story brought to light the fact that we never truly see ourselves as kids — we’re just mini-ME, a big person in a little body.
Childhood trauma often arises from the fact we don’t actually have the life experience to meet the extraordinary challenges at those young ages. We don’t fully comprehend ourselves as being children so we are confounded by our inability to meet the hardships facing us. Our named-self hasn’t acquired the life experience, manual dexterity or skills necessary to meet the challenges that ME thinks it should be able to.
Gestalt of Me
Even though we think of ME as a single entity, we are more accurately a complex Gestalt of many selves inhabiting a single body.
I have a teacher/colleague/friend who often tells the tongue-in-cheek story that as a medical intern at Bellevue mental hospital in NYC he would walk the halls on the graveyard shift thinking, “The only difference between me and the patients is that I have the keys”.
In truth, we all have multiple personalities, the only question is how successfully all of our selves integrate into a single ME. Many of these aspects of our collective personality were created through adaptations to the challenges and traumas of our outer world. Others, possibly come from other lifetimes, other realms, or the collective unconscious. (More on that in a bit). The bottom line is there are more of us in here than we commonly acknowledge. There may be an adventuresome self, a shy one, a ‘life of the party’, a compulsive self, and many more. We draw on different aspects depending on the circumstances life presents.
Expanded Me
Additionally, we can extend our consciousness beyond the bounds of our physical body. We do this all the time as kids, but are conditioned out of it by adulthood. As young adults, one of the first times we experience this occurs organically when we learn to drive a car. Suddenly, we must navigate through space within a ‘body’ that has front and rear bumpers and side doors well beyond our physical form. In order to drive on highways, parallel park, and back-up, we must, by necessity, ‘feel’ our bodies occupying a greater amount of space, extending our senses out to the edges of the vehicle. We cannot successfully drive without mastering this specific skill, yet it is never even acknowledged.
Athletes within the intense focus of their sport and artists swept up in the creative process lose their ‘normal’ sense of self and find themselves an indistinguishable part of something beyond self, interconnected to ‘more’, perhaps a greater wholeness.
But what if that wasn’t the only thing that ME could be? At the heart of the mystical journey is the expansion of that sense of ME beyond this small local being. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, Moses asks God,“Whom should I say you are?” And God’s response is usually recorded as, “I am that I Am.” To me that makes God sound a little too much like Popeye. However, it makes a huge difference if instead, that gets punctuated and written as, “I am That, I am!” This places God within every thing, every person, all of nature, and in existence itself. In essence in my version, God is saying, I am that, and that, and that, and that. I exist within all of existence, find me everywhere. Another translation has it as, “I will become what I choose to become.” So — What do you choose to focus your consciousness on?
I Am That!
Here is the heart of the mystic’s journey — I am That! To truly know the mystery of the Unknowable is to identify my ‘little me’ with All That Is, to expand that sense of self out to encompass everything (and nothing). Where you place your consciousness you are! What you focus on, you become! It’s surprisingly easy if, rather than trying to think it, you FEEL yourself extend out to some thing, or out and out to no thing.
Consciously or unconsciously, we do this very thing when we’re out in nature, taking in the majesty of the landscape stretching out around us. We become ONE with our environment, sometimes in small insubstantial ways, but we can also do this by deliberately losing ourselves in the billowy clouds, allowing the breeze to pass right through us, becoming a part of the grass and trees and sunrise, or invisible and unthreatening to invite wildlife to come closer. We are WAY more accomplished with transforming our consciousness than we give ourselves credit.
On a recent walk with a friend and his new puppy, we were strolling along the beach when his dog suddenly bolted after some birds at the water’s edge. I noticed how both my friend’s and my awareness took off with the dog and the power of that muscular canine body at full charge. We were reveling in the thrill of the chase right along with his pup. We do this all the time, we seamlessly shift our consciousness to become what we see and experience without even realizing it, especially things that hold emotional charge — like movies, sporting events, concerts, or books. It is as effortless and innate as breathing.
I think this phenomenon may also be at play when we see people throw themselves into extreme danger to save the life of another. We spontaneously identify THEM as also ME. Saving them IS saving ME, and we risk all no matter the cost.
Reflections of Me
I had a spiritual teacher once who would always say, “Sinners make the best saints.” By this, she meant that we must see ourselves in everyone, and recognize that whatever they’ve done, thought or felt, we’ve also experienced or have the capacity for under similar conditions. In short — there I am! I see myself reflected in everyone and my life in every story.
When we see the world through the lens of our named-self, we judge others’ color, gender, etc., all the specifics of their named-selves through our acquired attractions and prejudices. When we see them as ME reflected out in the world, all of that falls away. Our named-selves divide us, our MEs unite us.
The Soul’s Journey
Pioneering hypnotherapist, Dr. Michael Newton (1931-2016) meticulously mapped the Life Between Lives (LBL)® experiences of 7,000+ patients in deep trance over 35+ years. In his books, Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, Dr. Newton relates the experiences of his patients’ soul journeys into, out of, and between lives. They are fascinating reads, but what is relevant here is Newton’s description of incarnation, as one, much like the union of sperm and egg, where the soul and human consciousness unite to form a single entity.
This put me in mind of this dual consciousness I’ve been describing — ME and my named-self. What if contacting your soul was as easy as talking to your ME-self? The challenge, as Newton describes it, is that the part of the Soul embodying accepts a ‘shroud of forgetfulness’ in order to make fresh discoveries in each unique life. But he continues, “Self is never lost because we always remain connected to both worlds.”
“Once birth has taken place, the union of spirit and flesh has been fully solidified into a partnership. The immortal soul then becomes the seat of perception for the developing human ego. The soul brings a spiritual force which is the heritage of infinite consciousness.” — Dr. Michael Newton, Journey of Souls
Inner Guidance
Years ago I did a retreat with long meditation sessions. One of my goals was to have more direct contact with my inner guidance. During one 6-hour meditation, I realized I have this inner teacher talking to me incessantly; when I’m walking in nature, sitting alone, cleaning the house, in meditation, even when I’m sleeping. Once I thought about it, I realized he NEVER shuts up! The very thing I was looking for was so close I couldn’t see it. On the one hand, I could perceive it as simply part of myself, which up until then was exactly what I’d done. But on the other, what comes through, when I’m alone with myself, is WAY more profound, with depths of wisdom that I KNOW I don’t possess.
This is yet another aspect of self that we all have access to. It comes through for each of us in unique ways, as a download of insight, in images or flashes when we’re creating; cooking; writing; playing sports; teaching; or doing whatever we love. In those moments when we get ourselves out of the way and allow something more connected to everything, to come through.
Now, is that the Soul? Higher self? Past lives? Angels? … Sorry, that’s above my pay grade! All I know is, when I’m honest with myself I recognize this as something else that is both ME and most definitely not ME. We expect adventures in consciousness to come with trumpets and fanfare. Instead, it often starts when you notice what’s gong on all around you that you’re simply filtering out. It is a process of tweezing out the subtle nuances of your inner reality. The more you pay attention and hone your discernment, the more magical the world becomes.
Meditate on the sense of ‘I Am’ until the ‘I Am’ is seen to be illusory.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That
Play, Explore!
Living life through the perceptions of ME, allows the little things: body ailments, challenging life events, and difficult interactions with others to fade to background noise. The idea of seeing a world simply populated by ME, in an infinite myriad of brilliant packages makes me smile! Additionally, the notion that we are constantly shifting our consciousness, without even realizing it, and that we can chose to do this in more dramatic ways, for me, makes life a REAL adventure!
I hope you found some juicy takeaways from my ponderings. If all this is new to you, play with what your consciousness can do — like a child on a brand new journey of discovery!
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