Do you know who you are?

That’s a big one isn’t it.

I wonder what you think of these words from the author Michael Meade:

“If you don’t know who you are, anyone can name you”.

When we don’t know who we are, our lives are more easily dictated by those around us. We lose our agency and our ability to walk our own path. It can also result in lives that are unrecognisable to us and a difficulty in trusting ourselves.

Most of the people I work with recognise that they’ve lost a part of who they are. Sometimes that part is being obscured by self-doubt or anxiety. Other times they’re too distracted to pay themselves attention.

Whatever the cause, they don’t feel ‘like themselves’. Or they ‘don’t know what they want’ anymore. Except…they do really, they just haven’t listened to themselves for a while.

Significant events from the past play a role in this, as can caregivers who wanted you to be or live a certain way.

A culture that wants to name you

The additional challenge today is living in a culture that doesn’t want you to know who you are.

After all, if we knew who we were, we wouldn’t need to buy all the stuff. Or consume endless information. The news. Your Instagram feed. Even that health and wellness podcast. It all adds to our burden of overwhelm and contributes to the noise that drowns out your inner whisper.

2025: My year of information sobriety

I’m an information addict in recovery.

After recent escalations in Musk/Trump/Zuckerberg drama I took myself off Instagram entirely. I’ve flip-flopped about this for about 5 years. But aside from my fears of the meta-verse I felt (dare I say it) totally backed up – a kind of mental constipation from my consumption habits. It was leading to a lot of unnecessary confusion and paralysis.

For me the last few months have been about sobering up from distraction so that I can look my clients clearly in the eyes and know that I’m living a truer reflection of me.

Not the distracted, dispersed version, but the wholehearted one. It’s a work in progress, but I know I’m feeling clearer, calmer and more creative which feels like a big win.

Journal prompts to know yourself

• What qualities do you believe represent you, deep down? (e.g. integrity, love, honesty, compassion, playfulness, loyalty, vitality, punctuality etc (for more inspiration look at the list here). List the top 4 or 5 that are most important to you.
• How much are you demonstrating these qualities in your daily life? (on a scale of 0-5, with 0 being not at all and 5 being optimal, what number would you give each quality?)
• What gets in the way of you being the person you know you truly are, deep down?
• What distractions can you let go now so that you can feel more like yourself again? How can you let them go?

Do you want to know yourself better?

If so you’re very welcome to book in for my free no-obligation clarity call. We’ll spend 30 minutes exploring what’s getting in the way of you knowing yourself better and what you can do to change it,