Who Am I?

I was born in Wichita Falls, TX in 1963...and for most of my life I believed that I was that person whose name was written on my birth certificate. As I grew, I looked to the world to tell me who I was.

I learned that I was a son, a grandson, a preacher's grandson...and that last one is significant because it was then I learned that different responsibilities and behaviors are required for different identities. I learned that because I had unique identities that more was expected from me than other children.

As I grew, I accepted the other identities...growing up with divorced parents, being a student, being a new student many, many times, taking on roles within my family that were not appropriate for a child...changing who I was whenever I believed that something else was required in order to fit in...in order to be accepted.

And though no one ever actually told me, somewhere along the way I developed a belief that who I was...simply wasn't acceptable.

But I really wasn't ever conscious that I thought that. I did, but it wasn't like I thought that specific thought. I thought things that were more like, "I don't understand why I can't ever have what I want." "Why is it that everyone always leave ME?" "What's wrong with me?"

Actually that last one was brought on by my caretakers constantly asking that question when I was upset about anything? Instead of asking about what I was feeling, I would be asked, "What's wrong with you?"

To my young mind, this insinuated that if I was feeling angry or sad, hurt or afraid...that there was something wrong with that. And from that, I learned to repress what I was feeling instead of allowing myself to feel and understand it."

But again, my parents couldn't give me what they didn't know themselves.

And so throughout my life, I lived in this insane thinking world.

Growing up in a church only served to confused me even more about who I was. I was taught that from the moment I was born, that I was a sinner...and that by nature I was bad. It wasn't that I wanted to be bad. I just was.

And so again, I learned that who I was...wasn't acceptable. Except this time, it wasn't that I was simply unacceptable to the family I found myself with...it was that I was unacceptable to God!

From all of that, I developed a belief that I was always going to do the best I could...but I knew deep down that no matter how good that was, it wasn't going to be good enough.

Is it any wonder, that from all of these negative unconscious beliefs that I managed to manifest dis-ease in my life?

There was once a time that I thought that the morning I woke up with that blood clot in 1990, that my life ended right there.

But this was an error in my thinking...because it wasn't the ending.

It was the beginning.

It was the beginning because all of my life, I just willingly accepted my identities and the responsibilities and behaviors that went with them.

But sitting in that doctors office and being given such grave news about my prognosis...well, it was the first time that I didn't accept it.

The setting was perfect if I had chose to just accept it.

I was in the military as an enlisted man and having been taught to accept my "orders," I found myself being address by a Captain...a 20 year internist and being told that there was little hope that I would survive or ever walk again.

And I refused to accept it. I refused to believe it.

And over time, I refused to accept anything that man told me as having any basis in fact, because he obviously didn't understand that I wasn't going to...just die.

He lost me after my second blood clot and having asked him why this was happening to me, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know. Maybe your blood clots faster than normal people."

And so in not believing anymore that I was who they were telling me, that left me with one small problem. If I wasn't that, who was I?

Over time, after reading books from authors such as Louise Hay, Sanaya Roman and Shakti Gawain, I started to understand that I was not who I had been told and I rebelled against anyone who ever had told me that.

Now the rebellion didn't exactly feel good. It didn't feel good to have all of this anger towards my family...but I felt I didn't have any choice. I knew I was not who they thought I was and treated me like I was...and if it meant separating myself from that in order to find out who I was...well, that was just something I was going to have to do.

For the next 14 years, I got to live my identities over and over again though. I got to keep having the same sorts of experiences that reflected those inner beliefs. And it didn't matter how many affirmations I did, how many meditations...I still kept having them and the question that kept coming back was, "Why is this happening to me again?"

"Conversations with God" was the first book to really explain that perhaps I was not what I had thought myself to be. It didn't however, really explain how to undo what I didn't even know needed to be undone.

In 2004, I started to really learn about my ego. I started to see it for what it was. I learned that it was designed to have been my protection system at a point in my life when I didn't know how to protect myself any other way.

I learned that it created these beliefs and my ego defense mechanisms as a way to cope with what at that time, was not a safe environment for me to be who and what I really was. I learned that over time, my ego created the walls that separated me from others in order to keep me safe. I learned how it used tactics of avoidance, denial and minimization.

And I started to learn who I really was...and the best part, what it felt like to live my life from that perspective.

Now again, over time I had experienced many different meditations in the pursuit of experiencing my spirit and while I had found a calm and peace before, it just never seemed to translate into my daily life.

But Hu Dalconzo taught me a short, almost deceptively simply meditation that he calls, The Spiritual Distinction Meditation. What this exercise did for me is it helped me to distinguish...how to physically feel the difference between my Body, Spirit, Vision and Mind.

For the first time, I was able to FEEL my spirit, to FEEL what that energy felt like and to be able to distinguish it from the fearful, neurotic energy of my mind!

And THAT, was something I could translate into my life's experiences. Because in any given moment, I could sit back and FEEL if my decisions and behavior were coming from my Spirit...or from my Mind.

The energy of my Spirit feels calm, peaceful and loving. In contrast, the energy of my mind felt frenetic, always on guard and exceedingly sensitive.

I learned that the relationship between my Spirit and my Ego was like "two people riding on a bicycle built for two." This was a great analogy for me and it helped me to see that my Ego had been riding up front for so long, saying, "I know where I'm going. I don't need directions." "Okay, we hit a wall there and ran into that pothole, but if you'll help me get the bike back up, I'll take over again."

Which meant that my mind only asked my Spirit...only asked God for help when it was in trouble...but for the rest of the time, my primary thought was, "I don't need help, I can do it alone."

However, in learning that I can allow my Spirit to ride up front and put my Mind on the back to "just pedal," I learned that life can be SO much easier. I find that when I simply focus on what I am...Love, Peace, Joy...that life reflects back to me those aspects of me.

I learned that my mind can be my servant...to focus on the tasks of living...but that I don't need it to be my protector anymore and it is not who I identify myself with.

I learned that I am "God in drag" and so are all of you. But in learning that and knowing that and experiencing that, how could I learn to create the specific experiences that I desired?

Throughout the Self-Mastery process, I found that it wasn't what I needed to do that was so important. It was what I needed to un-do. I learned a process called "Dis-Creation" and I'll talk about this next.