Think back to when you were young – about eight or nine. How did you think your life would unfold? What did you expect from life? What did you love to do? What values do you see in your nine year old self that is still evident in your life now? The idealism of life as a youngster is what true personhood is all about. The beauty of youth is that it is filled with pure unadulterated intention and dreams. Then life happens!
Disconnect happens! It is too easy to lose sight of what you originally intended for your life. You forget. You get distracted. You lose your memories which causes you to become fragmented. Sometimes, you are scared to hope again. You find you are living a life of roles: You are a mother, a sister, a wife, a girlfriend, a manager, an employee, a business owner, a pastor, a professional, a soccer coach. But those are just descriptions. You unintentionally end up associating your core identity with that role that you play. You create a mask. You have to make the proactive choice to reclaim your life back by stripping it of those labels, removing the mask that you have created. We are such a driven society that we somehow believe that what we do defines us. There was a time I thought the saying, “Be a human being, not a human doing” was corny. Today, I clearly understand that every day, each of us has to choose to “be” rather than “do” to know ourselves better. There is a crevice between who we are and the highest, truest expression of ourselves as human beings and, it turns out that many of us live in the crevice. Come out of the crevice.
We tend to pursue these labels in a search for self-esteem and security. We add on and pile on, kind of like applying more make up to our faces without washing off yesterday’s grime, sweat and makeup! Then the breaking point comes. What a gift! For many, it is a crisis that comes in and cleans us out. For others, it is a nudge, dissatisfaction, constant emotional upheaval, a feeling that “This cannot be all there is.”
One of my mentors, Bishop Kirby Clements, says, “We must cultivate the art of skepticism…..we are taught so much to believe that we have forgotten how to disbelieve.” Reclaiming Personhood is the art of unravelling the labels and facades that life has placed on us. It is a form of detoxifying from living as a human doing and blossoming fully into a beautiful, amazing human being.
Reclaiming Personhood is a space where you reconnect with the unique original intention for your life. Reconnection is a lifestyle choice that gives you hope, clarity and purposefulness. All the distractions begin to melt away as your coping mechanisms slough off to reveal your highest, truest expression of yourself as a human being.
How are you reclaiming your personhood today?
