Become Your Own Person
“When we stop naming ourselves, who we think we are disappears…” Adyashanti, Falling Into Grace We use thoughts and the words that enable those thoughts to define ourselves, others and the entire world. As children, we allow the thoughts and words of others to define us: child, white, black, chubby, skinny, pretty, plain, shy, aggressive, good, bad. And we become, in our minds, whomever others have defined us to be. We believe their words. We capture those words in our heads as thoughts. And we come to define ourselves by the words that adults have placed upon us. We own their words and we become their definition of who we are. How many of us still define ourselves today by the words that others assigned us as children? Probably all of us do to some degree. How many of us ever take the time to challenge these outer-imposed identities? Probably all too few of us. So let’s start today. As Adyashanti says, when we stop naming or defining ourselves with the thoughts/words others origina...