One of the most important questions you can ever address is, “Who am I?”  You might think of identity as an adolescent issue. But, while adolescence might have been the last time you paid any serious attention to your identity, it has continued to evolve since then and where it has settled has crucial implications for both your psychological and spiritual wellbeing. 

The reason this is so important is because how you understand who you are either supports or compromises your inner development. If, therefore, you value becoming the fullness of who you truly are, pondering your identity is one of the most important gifts you could ever give yourself.

Surprisingly, identity is almost absent from spiritual teaching and practices. Christian spirituality places great emphasis on being “in Christ,” but typically, this is reduced to a matter of beliefs rather than experience. However, what counts is not what you believe about who you are, but who you actually experience yourself to be.

Your Essential Self

No one is born with an identity. What is present at birth is what I call our essential or true self. This should be the template for our identity but we quickly lose sight of this truth when we seek to create a self rather than be the self we already are. In this process we accept personas as substitutes for an identity grounded in the truth of our being. But, just as forged art lacks authenticity, so too does a forged identity.

The way God self-revealed to Moses gives us an important clue to the nature of our essential self. One day while tending his father-in-law’s flocks Moses noticed a bush that seemed to be on fire but wasn’t being consumed. Sensing that he was witnessing something sacred, he drew closer and when he did, he encountered the Divine Presence that was manifest in this burning bush—a Presence that self-identified as the “I AM.” 

“I AM” is such an insubstantial identity that it seems to cry out for a noun to complete the sentence. Some people feel a desperate need to add things like love or goodness to this Divine identity. But rather than adding substance this limits the Divine self. 

The One who identifies as “I AM” is not a being but is Being. God is being-itself, not merely one being among many other beings. The “I AM” does not merely exist but is Existence. 

The gift of our being is to participate in the single state of Being that is shared with different qualities and degrees by everything in existence. Everyone and everything is sacred because it is a manifestation of the One Who is Being—the One Who is All. 

Made in God’s image and animated by the very breath of God, everything and everyone is full of God. It is the Christ in us that is the ground of our sacred “I am.” This is our essential self. The trouble, however, is that we find this self to be almost unbearably light and insubstantial. We feel naked if it is the only available clothing for who we consider ourselves to be. And so we wrap this vulnerable self up in ways to make it seem more substantial. But this involves settling for identities that we have created rather than accepting the self we truly are. This is how we lose awareness of our sacred “I Am.” And this is how we develop what I would describe as a spiritual identity disorder. 

I Am . . .

But let’s make this more practical and personal. Stop reading this blog for a few minutes and consider how you would end the following sentence: “I am . . .”

* * * 

Now notice how you answered this question. Whatever you felt you needed to add to that sentence “I am . . .” is the bandage in which you wrap your sacred but fragile essential self. The range of possible things that this might include is vast. 

One of the most substantial things you can wrap around your essential and sacred “I Am” is your body. This includes things like your beauty or handsomeness, but can also include your pain and suffering. All can easily lead you to conclude that “I am my body.” Sometimes this is built around a sense of being a victim. Or it might be that a physical disability shapes your sense of who you are. But, the truth of your being can never be reduced to your history, experiences—or to your physical wholeness or wellbeing. These things are part of your story but you still have to write that story. And the way you write and live that story always reflects your answer to the question of “Who am I?” It reflects your identity. And it begins to give hints about the nature and extent of your spiritual identity disorder.

But your body is far from the only option for anchoring your identity. Perhaps rather than feeling that you are your body, your identity is anchored in thinking. 

Recently I met a woman who told me her name and then immediately followed this by saying, “I am a sceptic.” I found this very interesting and told her that I didn’t recall ever meeting someone who built their identity so clearly and strongly around scepticism so I wondered what that meant for her. What I learned was that she considered her defining trait to be her capacity for critical thinking—and the fact that this led her to avoid opinions and beliefs and accept only verifiable facts. Not everyone who is strongly attached to their thoughts views themselves as sceptics, but this woman illustrates well the sort of investment of identity that can be found in a strong attachment to thinking.

The reason I speak of this in terms of an attachment is that our strongest attachments will always be reflected in our identity. Perhaps your strongest attachment is to your beliefs and, if they are religious beliefs, there is a good chance that your religious identity is central to who you think of as your essential “me.”  Or perhaps you are strongly attached to you feelings, image, or opinions. But in each case your strongest attachments tell us a good deal about your identity.

If we think about each attachment as part of the bandage with which we wrap our naked self to make it more substantial, we begin to see the complexity of our identity. But each wrap of that bandage and each attachment serves as a contraction of our essential self. Contrast this to the way Hildegard von Bingen description of herself as a feather on the breath of God. This was her identity. It was her naked self. 

Most of us are terrified of the insubstantiality of being a feather on either the breath of God or the winds of life. We want an armoured self that makes us invulnerable to the risks of life. But inevitably that comes at the cost of the arrest of our continued unfolding.

The Importance of Our Identity

The more your essential self is encumbered by the weight of strong attachments and identifications the more your psychological and spiritual unfolding will be blocked.  This is why the sort of pondering of identity that I am encouraging you to do is so important. 

Identity is the leading edge of consciousness. This means that if your identity remains constricted and has not continued to draw you closer and closer to your essential, naked self, your level of consciousness development will remain stuck at a low level. But, if your sense of who you are continues to enlarge, your consciousness will follow.

Why is this important? Because the unfolding of our self that lies at the core of the spiritual journey requires continuing expansion of both our identity and consciousness. We can’t do much about changing our level of consciousness. But we can lighten the burden of excess bandaging of our essential lightness of being. You do this through ongoing, honest pondering of the question, “Who most essentially and truly am I?

Try making this a regular reflection and notice the invitations to shed layers of the bandaging of your essential self that follow. 

2022 © Dr. David G. Benner

For more on the way our attachments and identifications encumber our identity and block our spiritual unfolding, see Dr. Benner’s most recent book, I Am The Love That Flows Through Me. This book was written as a workbook to assist you with the sort of pondering he discusses in this blog. It is the sequel to his much-loved, The Gift of Being Yourself. 

“I Am The Love That Flows Through Me” is available for pre-order, the title will be released on December 10, 2022