This Week's FEEL (FindingEmpowermentEmbracingLayers) Practice: Who Are You, Not What Do You Do?
Discover who you truly are beyond your career and accomplishments with this transformative practice.
WHO ARE YOU, NOT WHAT DO YOU DO?
When someone asks who you are, how quickly does your answer become a list of what you do? Your career. Your relationships. The roles you fill. The people who depend on you. The things you’ve accomplished. We spend so much of our lives being recognized for what we do that it can be surprisingly difficult to answer a much simpler question: Who am I underneath all of that?
I kicked off September with an invitation to think about how you want to FEEL in this season. A few days later, I hosted a conversation on The FEEL Podcast with guest Merit Kahn, where we dug into the scripts we may still be following, the places where we’ve become “everyone’s everything,” and what we might choose if we trusted ourselves a little more.
September also marks the second anniversary of our book, Embracing Layers Unapologetically, which is built around getting curious about our layers and reconnecting with who we are underneath them, and then making choices for our lives from that place.
There’s a thread running through all three: Knowing who you are outside of what you do.
So let’s put that into practice.
Your FEEL Practice: YOU Choose Your 5 Words
Choose five words that describe WHO you are.
- Not your job.
- Not your titles.
- Not your relationships.
- Not your accomplishments.
- Not the roles you fill.
- And not what you do for everyone else.
Who are YOU?
Maybe you’re compassionate. Curious. Resilient. Creative. Loyal. Adventurous. Thoughtful. Courageous. Those are some of mine :).
The point is, though, that there are no “right” five words.
They’re yours to identify. Don’t ask someone else how they’d describe you. I want you to do this for yourself. It’s OK if it takes a little time. This may be something you haven’t thought about in a while.
Write them down.
Say them out loud.
Look at yourself in the mirror and say:
I am ________.
I am ________.
I am ________.
I am ________.
I am ________.
Then sit with those words for a little while. Notice how it feels to describe yourself by who you are rather than what you produce, accomplish, provide, or do for other people.
Because this is where so much of the FEEL Framework begins.
The more we understand who we are, the better equipped we become to recognize what nourishes us, identify what we value, establish healthy boundaries, communicate our expectations, and make choices that align with the life we actually want to live.
And here’s something else I’d encourage you to notice this week: How often do you introduce or describe yourself by what you DO before you say anything about who you ARE?
No judgment. Just curiosity. That’s part of embracing our layers, too.
Now, Live It.
Don’t let your five words disappear when you close this article.
- Put them somewhere you’ll see them this week.
- On your bathroom mirror.
- In your phone.
- At your desk.
- At the top of your journal.
Then pay attention to the choices you make.
Do your choices reflect the woman those five words describe? That’s where reflection begins becoming practice. That’s where listening begins becoming living.
Don’t just listen to FEEL. Live it.
Now I want to hear from you:
What are your 5 words?
Share them in the comments. No explanation or résumé required.
Just tell us who you are :).
