You know you aren’t a mental health label, but have you ever asked yourself who you actually are? It may seem like the most simplistic of questions, yet pausing to answer it can be a protection from an inaccurate diagnosis.
For example, if you don’t have a concept of “who you are”, it’s easier to fall for any number of diagnoses or other labels from society when you are feeling down and overwhelmed.
“Maybe I am crazy”, “I think I am just different from everyone else”, “There’s something fundamentally wrong with me and that’s why I’m not happy, can’t seem to get along with people, no one likes me” yada yada yada. Or even, “I’m too sensitive“.
Some thoughts on sensitivity by one of my favorite bloggers, Monica Casani.
If any of these phrases resonate as things you tell yourself on bad days or things others say or imply about you, there is a solution.
It’s called the “Who are you? exercise”. Try it. Sit quietly with a blank sheet of paper and a pen and ask yourself who you are. Allow all preconceptions to soften and relax and let yourself write whatever comes out.
Here’s mine from yesterday (which let me just say was not a great day where I was feeling on top of the world or really inspired or anything). In fact the moment I took out my pen and paper to write it was one of the lowest points of my day. I was feeling cranky and overwhelmed, getting surprise a minute texts and emails from friends in crisis and feeling ready to scream myself. So you don’t have to be feeling good or inspired to do this.
Who Are You?
I am a being on a spiritual journey crafted by mandala consciousness. I am always loved and a being of love. I am beyond all of the things that trouble me and capable of true ultimate freedom. I have a destined journey nonetheless where I come in and out of awareness of this.
I am bigger than any health concerns and beyond hatred and fear. I am here to express infinity many times over-infinite in fact. I am un-damageable and unbreakable thought many times I will feel and have felt damaged and/or broken. In the essence of me are infinite possibilities and I can be healthy and powerful if I chose, and if I am willing to release that which I am not and fear of judgement and criticism from others.
I am here to win actually. To win the love vs. fear game. To let my love go everywhere and not inhibit it one bit. I am a wellspring of love that is complete and never ending and reaches, touches all things.
Now…Who are you?
After you do this exercise, please share your response in the comments below. Sharing who you are increases its power and helps people overcome the limitations of diagnosis. By writing and speaking it, you become it. In voicing it, you are it. Say it and it is so.
This is why diagnosis is so powerful, and why it is effective in advertising and promoting drugs that are causing so many problems. But you can change that for yourself. Rather than using a diagnosis to describe yourself, which focuses on the flaws needed to form a diagnosis, you can create a “positive diagnosis” replacement. This way there is something in place that is so much stronger than a diagnosis, it will be nearly impossible to believe in one as a core part of who you are.
You become invulnerable to advertising and propaganda when you KNOW who you are. So find out and try the exercise. Please post your results!