Bonfire Of Identities: Who Are You, Really?

Sovereignty is inextricably linked with your personhood. Your inner sense of who you are, and your ability to create your life in harmony with your own values, desires, and creative capacities, determines the health and vibrancy of your kingdom. When you allow someone else to define who you are, you lose your sovereignty.

This can happen in insidious ways. There are so many voices out there, trying to tell us how we should be and what we should do to fit in. Voices that masquerade as political correctness. Voices that urge their agenda, their version of goodness, truth, perfection as being the one you ought to aspire to. Voices that say: if you buy this, reject that, eat this, cleanse that, believe this, shun that…then you are The Right Kind Of People. And if you don’t…you are…

All of these voices attempt to seat themselves on the throne of your inner kingdom.

They become dangerous when you accept the identities they impose on you as your own. They become truly painful when you internalize them so thoroughly that you believe the identities you’ve accepted or constructed are actually you.

Those habits of thought that say: I always love this, or I could never do that, or this is just the way I am…get in the way of your evolving self, and undermine your sovereign capacity to grow, change, discover, embody more of your soul’s potentials.

So, here’s a practice you can play with. Just for today…

Make a bonfire of your identities.

Write them on slips of paper, all these ideas you hold about yourself, all these beliefs you’ve chosen or inherited, accepted, clung to or fought against. I am__________, and _________, and __________.

Bring them to the clear blue flame of your soul’s boundless truth. Place them in its fire — watch them burn. Watch them curl into smoke, leaving no residue behind.

Say goodbye. Grieve the loss of who you’ve been, the loss of your ideas about yourself, about your place in the world.

Breathe the sweet breath of freedom. It may feel cold, at first, too rarefied for lungs accustomed to the tar of deprivation. Breathe anyway. Breathe until you know yourself as freedom, as truth, as the hand of justice, the heart of the universe.

You are the Sacred incarnate. Know the creative power of who you are, with each in-breath. Give yourself to your world with each out-breath.

Know this in the whoosh of your blood, in the temple of your bones. Know it in your salty sweat, in the honey of your cells. You are the Mystery made flesh. There is no other like you, on this earth — no other inhabits your form, lives in your shape.

You are the essence of the Beloved, in the shape of you. The infinite in your particular heartbeat. Take that into your day.

Notice how you feel now. At home in your own skin? Contented? Clearer? More calmly confident?

When you aren’t burdened by the heavy layers of identities you’ve carried around with you, perhaps for years, what are you capable of doing, that you couldn’t do before? What creative power do you have access to now? What opportunities shine before you like glimmering beacons, leading the way to the next steps in your personal evolution?

Notice how this practice restores the vitality of your inner kingdom.