Do you know who you are? The question might just be as old as humans themselves! Or perhaps not... I wonder about the past that might just have been a world where we were more connected to our planet and the cosmos on an experiential level. Perhaps in this long forgotten time that feels more like legend than myth, we knew exactly who we were. Or were we already like Aristotle, pondering the great problems of existence while walking on beaches covered in infinite grains of sand? We shall only ever find out should that time come again.

For the time being we are confronted with the great riddle of existence and for many of us, it begins with ourselves. This is a good thing. Mystery traditions teach that we can only ever know the world for what it is if we truly know ourselves.

So, who are you? Do you define this sitting in a dark room like Descartes, satisfied by knowing that you think. Are you more like Montaigne, pondering the experience that your cat has of you and thereby being more than just you or another human can perceive, but also that which any being around you can perceive? Are you like Plato including shadows in a cave? Or, just maybe, Finn Skårderud is your spirit guide and what really connects you to your essence is having a glass of wine, beer or perhaps even a strong drink.

Regardless of whether your affinity is with a philosopher or not, in can be very useful to explore in many different ways, not just one, who you might truly be. Here are three very impactful reasons that will hopefully motivate you in circling round to this task of lifetimes more than once while you walk this earth and breathe the air we know.

1. Discovering your essence gives you clarity about yourself, which in turn helps you see the world more clearly. This is because you will know which lenses you tend to perceive the world through and at which times. It gives you a better chance at perceiving everything for what it is rather than through the obscuration that emotions, projections, and other parts of our self tend to layer over reality.
2. Perceiving the world more clearly helps us make better choices and understand what choices we have in the first place. You've probably experienced days where you felt nothing will ever work and other days where you think absolutely everything is possible and you're standing on top of the world. Neither are true except for the rarest of cases! Seeing what actually is will give you the ability to actually recognize the choices and options you have, which gives you the ability to act or not act, upon them no matter what else is going on in your internal and external landscapes.
3. Connecting with our own essence is a key to acting with more kindness and a better understanding of how everything in the world is connected. Do you know how when we zoom out into the universe, everything becomes endless? The same is the case when we zoom in to the depths of our own being. What we find there more often than not is a sense of the infinite. What's even more wonderful is that it gives us the experiential knowledge of what lies within all of us, not just humans, but everything in this beautiful universe or multiverse. How could we not treat everything except with the utmost respect and reverence?

So, how do we get there? Apart from signing up to our Magic is the Key membership where we explore this regularly in multitudes of ways that include meditation, ritual, journaling and community connection, you can try the following three interesting steps.

1. Begin by reflecting on your sense of identity. What matters to you? How important are elements such as your name, how you look, what you own, and what you do, to how you identify yourself in your daily life? What elements of your identity can you identify when you really take the time to think about it?
2. Consider how important is it to you how others perceive you? You might not care what anyone in general thinks but still care deeply about what the people you love think of you, or a group or community you might be connected to. Consider also how other people have shaped your identity, starting with how you grew up, who raised you and how, what experiences you have lived through, and how school might have helped shape your talents or put big hurdles between you and the things you are passionate about.
3. When all is said and done, sit down in a meditation and visualize, bit by bit, how all these parts of your identity are stripped away. How does it feel as you remove each layer? What do you discover underneath? This will bring you closer to the true essence of who you are.

We hope you found this article useful, beneficial and of service to your life. If you love it to the point where you want to support us, why not follow us on instagram, sign up to our newsletter below, and share this with a friend? We promise to keep things interesting!

If you want the full experience, join our membership today.