Who defines who you are?

I know that the title of this particular line of thought sounds sermon-ish and so a number of people may attempt to answer the question by quickly saying that we are spiritual beings having human experiences (which I must confess is an opinion I personally uphold as true).  Well, I do not desire to preach rather I hope to just candidly share something that has been on my mind for a while.

Through the years, I have discovered that I have been a victim of what I call 'identity loss'. It is a syndrome that masks who a person really is by replacing that information with other external views about the person. By external I mean, opinions sustained by friends, family, colleagues etc. This is how it works: you begin to tag yourself what certain people have called you and you don't believe otherwise. It sounds a bit like inferiority complex but its different actually. Let me share a vivid example: in my undergraduate days i hated skirts and also hated myself each time I had to wear one. Hmmmm..I wasn't born that way (lol). I just grew to hate them 'cause a close friend of mine told me repeatedly that my legs were too thin for skirts. So I stuck to trousers. In fact, I hated even the idea of wearing them and saw them as my reproach. Meanwhile, I didn't have any opinion of my own as to whether they looked good on me or not. During  my one year of mandatory service to my country, I received another shocker when a colleague told me that she wished she could look as amazing as I did in skirts( I had to wear them a couple of times). I didn't know what to believe anymore. I had to seek the opinions of many other people, with the hope of holding on to the majority party. Eventually, I ended up wishing I had bought more skirts before that time. For me, it was another case of putting other people's view about me before mine. I had to take some time to x-ray many things I believed about myself that weren't from the me inside, and to my amazement what I believed about myself was pale in comparison to the borrowed beliefs that I had sustained about my life.

I decided to share this with you 'cause i currently feel freer than I have ever done in a long time. This is because I began the journey of exposing myself to the truth of who I really am, by first asking God to reveal the me in me and help me enjoy that person. I also decided to cut myself some slack, enjoy the choices I make and stand by them. I made the choice of  being proud of the progress I make each day deliberately. It probably sounds silly but it is working for me. I ask myself questions, give myself time to answer and consciously do not allow worry steal the moments. If I do some of these same things for others, I should do same for me too. Its a whole new terrain and I am exploring it with subtlety and relish...