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- #26: knowing YOU
You can’t trust someone you do not know.
Welcome to part 2 of the Self-Trust Series. In the last newsletter, we talked about the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which we participate in our own abandonment, and how this can contribute to the erosion of the trust we have in ourselves.
We talked about the importance of keeping the promises we make to ourselves, and of being brutally honest about how we’ve been showing up for ourselves until now.
This week’s episode + newsletter are about setting a strong foundation for self-trust, by getting to KNOW you. And not just any version of you – the real you. The core of you.
But if personality is fluid, is there even such a thing as “me”?
What parts of me, if any, are fixed? Is personality just an illusion? This is a complicated paradox to wrestle with, so bear with me.
You can choose to change your thoughts, actions, and mindset at any given time; and there is a core essence of YOU that is fixed and eternal.
Call it your soul, your authentic self, or your inner child – the core of you, the parts that are innate and eternal – that’s what we are contemplating today.
“Remember who you are”
My maternal grandmother passed when I was 22, but while she was still with us one of her favorite phrases was this:
She created hand-embroidered version of this phrase like this one to hang around the house – a constant reminder.
At the time, my understanding of the phrase could be boiled down to something like: “remember where you came from” – but as I’ve gotten older and further along on my own spiritual journey, it’s occurred to me that there is a much deeper meaning to contend with here.
To “remember who you are” is to remember the Soul of you; to start asking yourself the hardest, most important questions:
Why are you here?
What did you specifically come to Earth to do?
Who Are You?
Understanding WHO WE ARE requires that we differentiate the parts of ourselves that have been learned or programmed, vs. the parts that are authentic or innate.
This can be challenging to do, because some of these parts have been with us for a very long time – perhaps since early adolescence, or even childhood.
Some tools that I’ve found helpful on my journey:
Human Design
Human Design is a part-science, part-spiritual system that provides you with a blueprint of how you’re meant to do life. Human design charts are complex, but the two most important components of anyone’s design are their Energy Type and their Authority.
Your Energy Type tells you how you create or access energy.
Your Authority tells you how (or where) you feel/hear/sense your intuition—in other words, how you are specifically designed to receive divine guidance.
I’ll resist the temptation to do a full deep dive into Human Design in this newsletter, and instead point you to a few resources:
Run your chart: http://myhumandesign.com/
Dive deeper: Download the Align App by Jenna Zoe, plug in your information, and listen to your chart. I recommend doing this on a long walk when you have plenty of time. I still remember the walk I was on the first time I heard my full chart – I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Core Values Exercise
To Be Magnetic: While I don’t agree with everything in this program, their Pathway membership has some helpful resources for this – I found The Authenticity Challenge to be quite useful. As always, use your own discernment to determine which parts of any of these tools you choose to integrate, and which ones you leave to the side. TBM also has a pathway called “Unblocked Inner Child” that may be a helpful resource here.
Inner Child Work
A large part of “remembering who you are” is un-remembering the things you learned to be, so the truth of you that lies beneath can rise to the surface.
There are, again, so many different tools and containers through which you can choose to begin reconnecting with your inner child, or the core essence of You.
I’ve personally found hypnotherapy to be an excellent tool for resurfacing childhood memories. We cover aspects of this in the episode with Caroline Leon, a Guinness World Record-holding mountaineer who doubles as a hypnotherapist (I did several sessions with her while living in Dubai).
Here are some journal prompts you can use to get started:
What did you love to do as a child?
What was your personality like before you learned to “perform” for others?
What did you dream of becoming when you were little?
💭 ICYMI
Listen to last week’s episode “You can’t trust someone you don’t know” (Part 2 of the Self-Trust Series).
That’s all for now. Thank you so much for being here.
Love, Brooke
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