Read This Whenever You Feel Unsure About Who You Are

“Who are you?”

Over centuries, humans have long been asking themselves this question—a question that has been discussed by philosophers from all over the world, which seem simple, yet nine times out of ten, the answer barely comes to the surface. Then your mind spirals into several potential answers: Am I my parents? Am I my pain? Am I my relationships? Am I my job or my career?

No but really, who are you?

This is a deep yet hard question, because it makes us question the reality of ourselves, forcing us to look within and seek the answers. However, this same identity crisis pushes our boundaries for rebirth—lets our old identities die before we can really live, let go of all the false images that have been built to us, so that our real self can flourish.

And if you ask me, who are you? Well, you are the books you read—the page turners which enlighten your soul and cannot put down. You are the movies you watch, the ones that transport you to another dimension, where you lose track of time. You are the art you produce and the masterpieces you create. You are the wisdom behind your experiences and the passions that lighten up your eyes when you speak about them. You are the music you listen to and the ambitions you envision yourself achieving. You are the the wisdom you have built over time, and most important, the peaceful, healed person underneath the wounds you carry.

All the identities you have held for yourself are nothing more than illusions you have inherited from your environment and internalized as your own. You are not your trauma, for you have learned to adopt protective measures to keep yourself safe. You are not insecure, for you have adopted other peoples’ insecurities that have been projected on you, then believed that there is something wrong with you. You are not your fears, for you have learned through experiences to walk on eggshells so that you can protect yourself. You are not your anxiety, but the person lying beneath it—the perfect, healed person that you have always been, and always destined to be.

Do not fool yourself by accepting the false images that have been given to you. Once you learn that every person walks into this world with a biased perception of the world, based on what he or she has been through, you will learn grace. You will learn that nothing is ever personal, that you can tell a lot about a person by what they choose to see in you. Remember the little child that still lives within you, because this person never left you. It just needs you to witness it, to make it feel safe, and to feel its pain, for it to flourish. It did not leave you, and it never will.

It is by no coincidence that you imagine yourself in a better place, because this reality exists. Everything you can imagine is real. Our fantasies of being elsewhere or achieving our dreams or becoming a better version of ourselves is actually our potential revealing itself through the lense of the future. You are destined to be a leader in an organization, a writer, a parent, an artist, or in a loving relationship.

Give yourself room to flourish, and you will.