What is the Essence of YOU?

A few years back at a dinner party I asked a few quests, “what is the essence of you?”, “what is the one thing that if someone said you cannot be or do any more you would rather die?”.  Their answers were things like, “my relationship with my husband”, “my children and family”, “working with the disadvantaged”.  But none of these answers really addressed my question, I asked “what is the essence of YOU?”.  It struck me how few people really know themselves.  Since the suicide of my husband, in my quest to try and understand it (which I know intellectually I never will), I have read many articles about depression.  One common thread I found is that people experiencing depression often don’t really know themselves and this unknowing often manifests as hatred of oneself or the inability to tolerate life (sometimes covered up by other behaviors such as addiction, superiority, overhelping, etc).   (Please note I said one common thread, I am by no means an expert on depression and this is only my interpretation based on my life experience and where I am currently at on my journey).

Why is it so hard to get to know ourselves?

Yesterday my daughter said she read somewhere “happiness is not a permanent state but wholeness is”.  We know this to be true because we have ALL had times of happiness but we have also had times of sadness, anger, frustration and disappointment. And yet we continue to seek this temporary state again and again and put little to no effort into finding wholeness.   Is it a lack of understanding of what wholeness is or how to achieve it?  Is it fear that if we do see our wholeness we won’t like it and others definitely won’t? Probably something different for each one of us.  So how do we teach this to people? How do we bring awareness to it?  Do people really care or are we just living in a superficial world going through the motions of life with little understanding of why? And okay with that?

Dictionary.com definition of wholeness: (as a noun) – the whole assemblage of parts or elements belonging to a thing; the entire quantity, account, extent or number. -A thing complete in itself, or comprising all its parts or elements. -An assemblage of parts associated or viewed together as one thing; a unit or system.

My definition of wholeness:  the ability to know yourself on a deep level, to be able to acknowledge your good and not so good qualities.  To be able to self access your reactions and responses and find the things inside yourself that need healing and give yourself the time and space to heal them.  To be totally honest with yourself, even when it would be easier to blame another. To love all of yourself, including the things that you don’t like or don’t want to show the outside world (watch for this info in your judgement of others).  And last but not least; to have compassion for ALL of yourself ALWAYS.

Would you rather spend your life energy looking for a temporary state of happiness or would you be willing to put some effort into using it to find your wholeness?  You’re answer to this question may surprise you, and so might your answer to What is the Essence of YOU?

Much love,

Tracy