Who Are You REALLY? And How Do You Figure It Out

0:00Speaker 1:Your true self might actually feel really unknown and familiar. It might actually feel really foreign to you. And it's really easy to do that because when we don't know who we actually are, of course we're going to try and hold onto anything that makes us feel like we do. We will want a sense of purpose, we will want to know we belong. Welcome to a Really Good Cry podcast. A Really Good Cry is here to help you understand your body, feel confident in your skin, manage your emotions, and take back control of your health. Because growth doesn't always start with answers. Sometimes it starts with a really good cry. Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry. I hope you've had a really good week, And if you have had a really good cry, I hope it really helps you to have that really good week. I don't know whether you guys are like this, I definitely am I. Very often in my life my mind goes through these existential spirals.

0:47Speaker 1:Unfortunately I have them very often. They're always this like, who am I? What am I doing here? Am I doing the right thing in life? Am I even the person I think that I am? What am I supposed to be doing? You? Know, like all all the questions that you usually ask maybe once or twice in life, I tend to ask quite often. And I've been thinking why these questions keep spiraling in my mind and what it really does mean, Like what does it really mean true be your true self? How do you even get closer to being whatever this true self is? And also what even is there. I've studied and taken interest in so many different spiritual paths and the different versions of what that looks like for different people, the different philosophies, and I've really found myself drawn to the Vedic philosophy and its explanation of life and how to process and understand myself and the world around me. So usually whenever I have these really big questions, I try to tend back to the text and try to dig deeper. And I feel like it's so easy to think that you know who you are and make yourself really believe it, Like it shocks me at how easy it is to

1:51Speaker 1:create a false sense of self, a false sense of identity, a false sense of this is who I am, and truly believe that this is who you are because I you've believed it for so long, or it's something that you've created, and you're so scared of breaking that facade, so scared of breaking that idea that you've created, because the idea is pretty pretty good. I really thought that I'd done so much self work, but there was this feeling that I just kept getting that something's missing or overthinking or changing my mind on certain things depending on who I was with, and fundamentally not knowing what it really meant practically daily to really work to uncover who that is. So I thought it might be helpful if you've ever been in that place, or you're in that place in your life right now, or whatever, are in that place, to share the things that I've been exploring and reading and learning about how to really discover this true self and what that really means. So in Lady philosophy, there's a really specific word for it. It's called Artaman.

2:51Speaker 1:Artaman is your unchanging eternal consciousness. So we'll covey up this by saying that if you are someone who doesn't believe in the spirit, if you're someone doesn't believe in consciousness, and you're someone that believes only in the body and the body is what it is, this might not be what you've been looking for. But if you are someone who believes in this idea that there is an eternal part of us, that there is a different level of consciousness that exists within our body, then you're in the right place. And then I feel like you'll really be able to take this information in with so much depth.

3:21Speaker 1:So this is arthman. It is your unchanging eternal consciousness, essentially your soul, and it's a part of you that's actually been there the whole time, regardless of what your body's changed, regardless of where you've been in this world. We're in this universe over time, your soul has always existed. And when texts like the Bagla Ghita talk about who you really are, they do something really interesting. They actually start by telling you what you're not. And so they say you are not your body because the body changes, It changes day to day, it changes yet year, but it also changes body to body. You're not your thoughts, they come and go, You're not your emotions because they fluctuate.

3:56Speaker 1:Your body at five years old is obviously not your body. Now, your thoughts ten minutes ago. On the thoughts that you are having right now, the emotions that might have really messed you up last Tuesday. They might be gone or they don't matter anymore. And so the Giara basically separates you into two layers. And this framework alone really changed how I think about myself. So the first layer is the temporary self. This is the stuff that you usually call me, your body, your thoughts, your emotions. I feel this, I am this, I believe this. Your roles, your career, your relationships, your identity, the way that you might introduce yourself at events. All of this is emotion all the time.

4:33Speaker 1:But none of it is stable, none of it is certain. Layer two is a true self, And this is the athma. This is the observer. It's the awareness behind everything. It's the part of you that was there in childhood that's still here now and that will be there in every phase ahead in your life. And that is actually what you are. And here's the simplest way that I've heard it, per Your true self isn't who you perform, think, or feel. It's the part of you that's still there when all of that changes. And if I'm honest, when I hear that, even now, I feel like it's something you just have to keep exploring and learning. It's almost like too vast to put into a sentence or too big to truly understand in one moment. It's something that has to keep revealing itself and that you have to keep uncovering. And ever so many times that I felt confused about which is which, because it's become such a deep part of me who I think I am versus who I actually am.

5:26Speaker 1:And if you've spent yourself acting or performing or trying to be somebody that other people say you are, or identifying with a certain aspect of yourself, like your job more than anything else in your life, your true self might actually feel really unknown and familiar. It might actually feel really foreign to you, and it might feel very uncomfortable. It's just like change, when something might be right for you but you're not used to it, the familiar negative thing might end up feeling better for you than the unfamiliar positive thing. And I guess it's the same for this.

5:56Speaker 1:When you feel like you already know someone, you feel comfortable and so you really know this other verse of yourself. But if you've never really tapped in or tuned into this real version of yourself or who your authentic self is, then it might feel really foreign and uncomfortable to experience or explore that. And the thing is, it's not saying you shouldn't have your jobs, your relationships, this body. Obviously we have them. But the problem comes when we start thinking I am the moment I have a job becomes I am my job, and it becomes your whole sense of self for becomes your whole identity. And it's really easy to do that because when we don't know who we actually are, of course we're going to try and hold onto anything that makes us feel like we do.

6:33Speaker 1:We will want a sense of purpose, we will want to know we belong. And so whatever these different hats are that we have, or these titles that we have that makes us feel like we belong, we're going to hold onto. We're going to latch onto. Another thing that can really have an impact on how we connect to our to we self is attachment. And I think this is a really big one. The GI that talks about this chain reaction that once you see it, you can't really unsee it, and it kind of makes so much sense.

6:55Speaker 1:It says attachment can need to desire, Desire leads to frustration, frustrate to confusion, and then confusion to loss of clarity. So soon as you start attaching yourself to outcomes, to validation, to how life is supposed to look, slowly, without noticing, you stopped acting from a place of truth and start acting from a place of fear and control. You then end up not making choices anymore. You're just protecting a specific outcome that you believe is yours. I notice this a lot when I catch myself doing something not because I want to, but because I'm scared of what happens if I don't, And that brings the ego into this.

7:27Speaker 1:In this context, ego doesn't mean arrogance. It's something actually a lot more subtle than that, and honestly, way more pervasive. It's this false identity that's built around I meet mine, I am successful, I am rejected, I am the type of person who and you attached to these outcomes, this validation how life should look, and slowly you really do stop acting from this place of who actually am I, but you start acting from fear and control and ego.

7:53Speaker 1:And the fact is that ego is so fragile, it's constantly under construction and constantly under threat. So if you live from it, you naturally feel unstable because you are functioning from a place of instability, because anything that contradicts this story will end up shaking you. Anything that doesn't fit within this idea that you've constructed of your belief of who you are. If it doesn't fit in that it feels like a threat, which actually stops you from exploring or from doing the work required to understand who it is you actually are. I think there's also this difficulty in wanting to understand who you are because maybe sometimes you become someone that you don't actually want to be, and the reality of who you truly are might actually scare you, and it might actually become as a shock to you because you've created this version of yourself that you believe is the best version or who you should be, because it protects you from actually thinking, Wow, I didn't know that I had these thoughts. I didn't know that I had these feelings. I didn't know that this is what I actually believe about these certain things. And sometimes

8:50Speaker 1:it might disappoint you, and sometimes you might realize you've become someone that you absolutely had no idea you were. But I think that exploration is what's really necessary, and the willingness to know that you might uncover things that you might not like, and it's quite likely that you might do that. I think you have to be open to that. Otherwise you're constantly digging, but you're not looking in the right places. I think one of the biggest hurdles that we all have right now is that we have constant noise around us. Like if you think about the last time that you actually just chose to sit with yourself and do absolutely nothing and just hear your thoughts.

9:23Speaker 1:This last weekend, I had so much going through my head, and I consciously made a point to specifically do that. Not sit and watch something, not listen to loud music, not talk to your friend, but just genuinely sitting with myself. I watched the leaves move outside. I had no music, no conversation, no cause, just sitting on my own in one place with my thoughts. And actually something that really helped me was speaking out loud. I felt like I was speaking to God. But like having this conversation with yourself, with your soul, with whoever it is that you want to connect to that helps you reveal what that is.

9:57Speaker 1:Really taking time out to do that because I think it can re feel so much more like silence can reveal so much more to you than anything else can, than all the noise around you possibly can. And I realize I've not done that in so long, and so much can come to you in those moments. Even if you don't get incredible realizations of yourself, it's still sending a signal to your mind and your body and your consciousness that you're there and you are willing and wanting to listen to it. With all of the distractions, the stimulation and the overthinking, we're always reacting and never really observing ourself. And if you're never observing, you can't really get to know or begin to learn who your true self really is. And that's actually something I feel I'm deeply trying to go through right now is uncovering and exploring and really seeing into my thought processes, the things that I believe in the ideas that I've had about life, like so many different parts where I'm like, is this my thought or is this someone else's? Is this my belief or do I think I should believe this? And really breaking that down and understanding where all of this

10:57Speaker 1:comes from, whether it's something I truly feel feels right for me, and then whether it's something I actually want to continue. I think the more that you try to build an identity, the further you actually move away from your true self because you're trying to build it, and the true self isn't constructed, it already exists. So it's actually less about building and more about exploring and uncovering. I think we're so used to creating things, like you create the life that you want, you do your job, you create your family, you find your partner, like we're so used to doing, rather than actually stripping back and uncovering.

11:27Speaker 1:And so it's this process of actually less of creation, less of you trying to control a situation and create, and more to do with you uncovering and digging really, really deep, which is actually a lot more scary and a lot harder than the other bits. So even if all of this makes sense, the next thing I thought was, Okay, so how do I actually uncover all of this and how do you work your way through this to reveal who you really are? So I'm going to share some of the things that I've been doing in the process so far. I'm still in the beginnings of it, but to try and help you go through this process. Maybe at the same time we can go through it together of doing this work every single day or every single week to uncover and what that looks like. So the first thing is removing before you add things in. We're so used to asking who should I become? Or like these bigger, better and more impressive, healed, more enlightened versions of ourselves. But in maybe philosophy, it actually changes the question to what isn't me? Which believes did I just inherit?

12:22Speaker 1:And never question conditioning? Where does it come from? Where does it show up? And how can I amend it? Which habits keep draining me? But I keep doing because I think that their mine. Which identities am I performing and for whose benefit? Whether it's fear or attachment. So the work is an addition, it's subtraction. You're not building a new self, You're peeling things off an existing one. I'm making sure I have moments of stillness every single day.

12:45Speaker 1:I think this is definitely the non negotiable. Truth reveals itself in silence, not in more thinking, not in more journaling, just in silence, when you can actually hear what your inner self is actually saying, When you can actually hear what your thoughts are and discover where they're coming from. You can only do that if you're willing and have the opportunity to listen to them and hear. And this does not have to be like a forty minute meditation.

13:08Speaker 1:It can be you going on your walk without your AirPods. It could be the first ten minutes of your morning before any input. It could be sitting in the car after you park somewhere and before you go inside and just hearing and sitting with your body and thinking what is going on right now? Or there's this new obsession online called raw dogging, where you just sit on a fly or in a waiting room or on a couch with no input, no phone, no music, no podcast, no book, just you and your mind. A lot of people are doing that to help reset their distractions and their life and to help reset their nervous system. But I also think it's like the perfect way to also do this, And I think the initial reaction, like when I did it this weekend, it felt really uncomfortable. It felt unbearable.

13:46Speaker 1:I felt like I needed to reach for something or do something, or be productive in some way, or be talking to someone. The idea of just sitting and just being felt really uncomfortable to me. But I think that's the point, because still this lets you process your identity and let's things settle so you can actually see what's at the bottom, which is usually parts that we never get to because you're always living on the surface layers of ourself. And the next thing is noticing where you perform.

14:09Speaker 1:Like this week, I've been trying to really see what are the places that I perform the most. Is it in your relationships? Is it in your work. It doesn't mean that you cut those places out, but sometimes it's just about noticing where you're doing it and then trying to uncover why you're doing it, because sometimes there are actual legitimate reasons for you to have to perform at work. It might be part of your role there. The next thing I started doing was just really trying to see where am I performing the most? In what conversations with which people, in what environments am noticing myself putting on this performance of this identity that I've created. And you might notice that with specific people, You might notice that in specific relationships, you might notice that when certain things are triggered in you. And so I think this first week is really just well, every week is about observing, but it's right now you're just trying to understand where these things come into play. So just start noticing where do you soften your opinions? Where do you agree with things that you might not really agree on. Where do

15:03Speaker 1:you feel like you really shift in personality that you come out of there You're like, well, I don't know who that person was. And then the last concept that I really appreciated what I was reading through about this in vading philosophy is this idea of derma. And it's actually the word is used in many different ways. The most common is to describe your life's purpose, but another meaning of drama is your natural expression, the way that you would move through the world if nobody was watching and nothing was at stake. So the question really asking yourself is what feels inherently like me? What feels natural to me? What do I do that doesn't feel like effort even when it's hard work? How would I talk, act, or be in this situation as my full self? What feels right? I don't think you find this idea of true self by searching harder. You find it by becoming quiet enough to recognize what's always been there. So you're doing less doing and more noticing, less becoming and more remembering.

15:51Speaker 1:If you look at it from a self help point of view, the question makes you feel like you have to optimize your way into yourself. You have to read more, you have the general more, you have to heal more, you have to manifest more, you have to do more. And honestly, I feel like I did a lot of those things thinking that I was doing the work, but actually sometimes that just adds so much more to it. It's like, when you're trying to understand this idea of who am I, you could listen to lots of people's opinions on it, you can listen read lots of books about it, but that sometimes might just add on the layers of everybody else's voices and opinions. And so sometimes when you have a question, I think it's often better to just sit with yourself and come up with something for your own mind and then go and explore, rather than hearing everybody else's opinion and then coming back to yourself, because that could always cloud your judgment because by that point you've still got too much information in your mind.

16:37Speaker 1:So this is your reminder that this is honestly just the beginning. It's not a work, it's not a project with a finish line. It's just a practice. And some days you'll feel really close to it, clearer and calmer, like you're really moving through life as you and other days you'll be back in the noise, performing attached spiraling. But that's not failure. I think it's just part of the rhythm you have to go through. The more you end up doing it, the deeper you end up getting in your realize. So this week I'm going to leave you with three small practices that you could maybe do to try and help you to start this journey. So the first is ten minutes of stillness every single day, no phone, no input, just to you or I would say a minimum of ten minutes a day. Obviously, if you could do more, that's great. A question that you can maybe ask yourself is what am I performing? Where am I performing and for who? And one subtraction that you could do is pick one belief or habit or identity that you really suspect isn't actually yours and just hold it up to the light. You'd have to do anything with it. Yet just see it and let the

17:30Speaker 1:discomfort take over you and allow yourself to actually live with that thought and see how it actually influences so many aspects of your life. And so there's going to be a slow process. It's not something that you just can do overnight. I'm noticing that very vividly in my life right now, and it's actually a beautiful thing to even have these questions and to be in a position where you want to explore it rather than avoid it. And so I don't know whether I've answered the question of what it is and who are we and what doing?

18:00Speaker 1:But hopefully I've given you some sort of push or some sort of technique or a method for you to at least start figuring that out for yourself, because I think the fact is, no matter how much you end up doing with all of these other parts of ourselves, you could build and build and build, but you can still end up feeling so not great in your life because you haven't truly understood who you are or what it is you want, and that will keep coming into play in different aspects of your life until you address it.

18:28Speaker 1:And so I think no time like the present, And so that is what I'm trying to do for myself, and I hope that you can do that for yourself too. Sending out so much love and I hope you have such a wonderful week