A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” James 1:8 KJV
This is a message of hope because knowledge is power. By understanding what a personal identity crisis is, you will have the tools to create real change not just in your life, but in the workplace, in your family, and in your community.
Don’t count yourself out of the game as too far gone or anyone you know until you truly understand what is behind the growing sense of lack that millions of people are suffering from.
Why should you care? Because the identity crisis is a pandemic far worse than Covid-19, the Black Death or any disease known to man. It is what is changing the face of communities at a breakneck pace. It is the reason the world order is being threatened. Like a chasm created by a shift in the tectonic plates, there is a vacuum — a no man’s land — that thousands of people every day are falling into as a result of a personal identity crisis and yet they don’t know why. Free falling in fact.
Those who are seeing doctors and therapists are being treated for their symptoms, not the root cause of their disease. Psychotherapists are struggling to figure out where and when their patients issues came about. They point to a childhood trauma, mommy or daddy issues, even blame the DNA for their patients issues. Issues such as depression, obesity, anorexia, bulimia, P.T.S.D-like symptoms, alcoholism, drug addiction, and anxiety. The symptoms that many people are suffering from cannot be traced to your DNA. The origin of many people’s problems is not something a doctor or therapist can help diagnose. Western medicine is of no use when it comes to a personal identity crisis.
Most of the people who are suffering from an identity crisis are looking for someone or something to throw them a life line. They think that a new partner, a job change, or a new life is what they need.
Many of these people blame an event from their past or a person for where they are in life and for the way they feel. They think that someone or something is responsible for their growing sense of lack. They can’t come to terms that they alone are responsible for their inability to lose weight, overcome their addiction(s), find true love, or get the promotion.
Blaming someone or something other than yourself would at first seem logical because you wouldn’t unwittingly harm yourself, hold yourself back, push the pause button on your life or assume the power is outside of you to create real change. It would seem unfathomable that you would be behind the unkind emotions swimming around inside of you. These emotions, which are ruling and ruining your life, have no doubt created many detours, regrets and misfortunes.
What if you discovered that you’ve been lying to yourself.
The hard, cold fact is that the growing sense of lack and their pain is, in many cases, caused by them identifying with something or someone and not their truth and the truth. They are in essence, assuming a false identity. Like actors, who tap into a backstory, even their own, to authenticate a part, real people are acting like actors. That is because real people are tapping into their backstories and others backstories and living their lives as if it is their truth.
Mark Seton, a researcher in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney, used the term ‘post-dramatic stress disorder’ to describe the sometimes difficult, and lasting effects experienced by actors who lose themselves in a role. According to Mr. Seton, “Actors may often prolong addictive, codependent and, potentially, destructive, life-long habits of the characters they have embodied.”
When you absorb, unknowingly, others prejudices, emotions, insecurities and fears, you are no different than an actor, stepping out of the seat of our soul and into someone else’s. Our ancestors, parents, family members, neighbors and even co-workers emotional imprints – their pain, shame, insecurities, prejudices, fears and sense of lack, even their limitations, and all their stories, – are not our truth. They have nothing whatsoever to do with us. My fear of poverty was not my own. It was my father’s. My father’s telling of certain events from his childhood made such a heart wrenching impression on me, that I freeze framed on them. In doing so, his pain unknowingly became my own. I was the one who kept hitting the rewind, repeat and replay buttons to the narratives he told my sister and I until I became deeply traumatized, afraid that I might someday become poor. As a result, I had a growing sense of lack for many years. I thought I lacked well being and financial security. This growing sense of lack produced a profound sense of loss deep within my soul. As a result, anxiety permeated my life. Every decision I made in business and my personal life was predicated on one simple question: “Will I be able to protect myself?” The answer was always, “No.”
It took many years for me to realize that I was living under a false pretense and false identity. That my identity did not come from my parents. Nor did it come from my job, how much money I earned or the person I married. As a Christian, my identity comes from the Lord himself. It is when I substituted my true identity for my father’s, that I forgot who I was. That is because I wasn’t being who God created me to be. I walked away not just from myself but from the One who gave me and my Christ-like identity.
Inheriting or adopting someone’s identity is one way to slip into a personal identity crisis. Another way people slip into a personal identity crisis is when they hold on to an event from the past – a painful moment in time. Like a rock between your toes, these remnants, if they are not removed, will not just cause you to stumble, but will completely disrupt your stride and halt your forward progress. The past cannot hurt you. But you can hurt yourself and literally traumatize yourself over and over again by replaying event. In this way, people are holding themselves hostage to unkind emotions because they won’t let go of what is not theirs.
Much like a caterpillar sheds the chrysalis and transforms into a beautiful butterfly, you can rise to new heights and change your life once you step into your personal truth and ‘the’ truth.
The story of Creation is where you can begin your journey tracing your genealogy back to the seat of your soul. That is because we are created as spiritual beings. Our heart and soul is where the knowing of who we are resides. It is our heart and soul that seeks out answers, meaning and purpose. This is intrinsic as the air we breath.
For us spiritual beings, life makes little sense without God in the backdrop. If you are discouraged and need someone to throw you a lifeline, do what Jesus did: study, search, ask questions, seek answers. You might just find every that you are looking for at the foot of the cross which is where the earthly story of Jesus ended.
Are you ready to take back your life?
Are you ready to uncover the real you?
Are you done feeling as if you are merely surviving life?
Let’s together change the trajectory of your life.
