Do You Know Who You Really Are? - by Carna Zacharias-Miller

Do you know who you are? I am not talking about your social role as a daughter, a mother, a teacher, or the funny guy in the office. I mean, who are you at the core of your being?

When I work with clients, peeling off layer after layer of painful emotions and memories, this question tends to come up either in a direct or in an indirect way. We are so used to our stories ("I am a childhood abuse victim") and our feelings (chronic depression, chronic fear, chronic anger) that sometimes, we cannot even imagine living without them. Everybody promotes "joy" and "happiness", nowadays - but are we really ready to own these feelings? A lot of resistance comes from the fear of losing our identity when we let go of the old stories and emotions, and no amount of "happy talk" can take the fear away.

Here are three methods that help you discover who you truly are. All of them are non-verbal because the mind is completely clueless.

• Relax and place your attention in the heart area (heart chakra). Breathe slowly in and out, and ask softly: Who am I? Don't let your mind take over, just stay centred in your heart. Notice what sensations and feelings are coming up. Do this exercise repeatedly until you get a satisfying, non-verbal "baseline" feeling for who you are.


• Often, you feel authentic when you do what you love. Next time you dance, paint, build model planes, jog or whatever it is you love to do, stop for a moment and become totally aware of how you are feeling. This feeling is who you truly are. Again, store it in your emotional memory.


• Do you have a picture of you as a child that captured a moment in time when you were truly you? If you do, place this picture on your desk and look at it often.

Carna Zacharias-Miller, EFT-CC, EFT-ADV, is an EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) practitioner in Tallahassee, FL. She offers live and telephone sessions for stress/fears/weight loss/trauma/self-esteem. Her specialty is the emotional and spiritual healing of women who suffer from childhood rejection and abandonment by their mother. Click here