"We r who we r." - Ke$ha
Have wiser words ever been spoken by a popstar than when our girl Ke$ha chanted in one of her anthems that “We R Who We R”? I simply think not. This song was rather influential for me at a formative age, but I recognise that many readers will have no idea what song I’m referring to. If you fancy taking a blog-reading-break, please enjoy some Ke$ha (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXvmSaE0JXA) and then kindly come back.
The reason, of course, that I felt compelled to lead with a quote from this iconic tune, is that today’s blog topic is all bout BEING WHO WE ARE! It sounds pretty simple, but let’s take a minute and break down what Ke$ha and I are talking about.
When we are growing up, we have a pretty limited understanding of who we are as autonomous individuals because you guessed it(!), we aren’t autonomous individuals. Our survival and perceptions of our role in the world are shaped by the interactions we have with caretakers, family members, peers, teachers, employers, friends, strangers, and even PETS! The messages we get from these outside sources contribute to building a sense of who we are that becomes the foundation on which the rest of our lives is built. Mildly significant, no? As we get older, this foundation doesn’t always serve us in a way that is helpful or adaptive. So, we continue to use feedback from outside sources to go within and reshape parts of ourselves that need some attention. Conversely, we don’t! We move through life continuing to use old patterns of thought and behavior that prove to be no longer helpful for the contexts in which we find ourselves. We try to change our partner, our home, our focus, our work, our body, our education, our appearance, our ANYTHING because we do not wish to confront that which needs to be changed within us. Unfortunately, the latter approach tends to eventually come back and bite us in our bottoms har har-har ha-ha-hard. Too many Ke$ha references yet?
Anywho, THIS is why I come to you today with a request to pay some attention to who you are. Do you really even know who you are? Do you like yourself? Do you repeat patterns in different areas of your life but resist the painful work it might take to change them? Do you take time to focus on yourself and your inner world? Do you value yourself the way other people value you? Are you familiar with the dark parts of yourself? Do you know what you love and the ways you learned to love? Do you take responsibility for your role in difficult interactions? Do you celebrate your successes and learn from your failures? If you are feeling tip-top about all of the preceding questions, then you are a superhuman that even Ke$ha can’t compare to. However, if you read some of the questions and felt a guttural unease of ignorance, I’m with you, sister/mister, and I’m here to remind you that BEING A HUMAN IS COMPLICATED!
I invite you to take some time today/tonight/whenever you get to it to explore who you are. Maybe use one (or five!) of the questions above as a journal prompt, or perhaps share your answer to one of the questions with a close friend. We spend a LOT of time keeping up appearances with who other people think we are, which makes sense given that other people shaped our understanding of the world. That being said, maybe the persona we present to other people (social media much?) is not a version of ourselves that is congruent with the truth. Just some food for thought.
