8. Who am I?
May 9, 2025
Considering the Elder-in-training curriculum, I am thinking that one of the first parts could be self-awareness. I remember a Sesame Street Song with the refrain: “The most important person in the whole wide world is you and you hardly even know you.” That is a fair description of the way I have lived a lot of my life, the way we all do, I think. As adults, tend more towards human “do-ings” than human “be-ings,” busy busy, always going. In middle adult years, we may be building a family, navigating a career, tending our living place - building a container is what Richard Rohr called this part of life in his book, “Falling Upward.” We live for the most part according to a mostly unwritten but well-understood plan – doing the things that are expected of us at certain ages. If we follow the plan, there is no need to explain, no need for self-reflection. We are doing it! (what is “it”? - more for discussion another day)
Then, as our children grow up and the busy-ness of our home lives eases a bit, some can relax and enjoy the empty nest, yet many of us start to wonder – what should I focus on now? Where should I put my attention? Some of us pour ourselves into our careers. Some maintain close ties with our children, their partners, and eventually their children (grandchildren are a dream that many have). Some of us take on physical goals – running a marathon, achieving certain poses in yoga, improving our tennis or pickleball game. Some of us travel – working our way through a bucket list of all the places we have dreamed of going. All of these may be expressions of true desires, but they may also be expressions of a fear of not being busy, not being relevant. Only you can tell.
Who am I when I set aside the roles I hold in relation to others or in the organizations designed by someone else? If I’m not a mother, employee, manager, sister, wife, daughter, friend, who am I? At an “Ancient Female Wisdom” workshop I attended, when we were asked to introduce ourselves, we were told to NOT introduce ourselves in relation to someone else. Not “John’s wife” or “Elinor’s mom” or even “Camelia’s manager.” Just Kara. What does that introduction even sound like? Where does it start? After living on this earth for 50+ years, how do I not know who I am?
At an “Awakened Life” workshop with Deepak Chopra this winter, we started by finding a partner we did not know, and asking “who are you?” every 30 seconds for about 4 minutes. What an intense exercise! After you dispense with the common replies, you have to go inside yourself and really consider the question.
As we slow down and move from doing to being, we can begin to fill the container. We can “do the work” as they say, to sit still, enjoy silence, reflect through journals, explore our art – in short, reconnect with who we are at a deeper level – not from any of the roles that we have taken on during our lives but considering who we are outside of those roles.
Maybe finally this time of midlife, late adulthood – this is my opportunity to have the time to think about my personal values, my own sense of what is important, my individual sense of what I want to accomplish, what I want to put my energy towards, how I want to spend my time, what I want to DO with my one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver puts it. How does this relate to my role in the world? How does it help with belonging and purpose?
A week or so ago, I saw an Instagram reel from Dr. Mindy Pelz (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DH3PA-ixsIm/?igsh=MThrdHd3dG9wZXIzdw==) talking about how women are impacted by hormones, starting from puberty and lasting through menopause, leading to a strong inclination to focus on relationships. She lamented the fact that so many women enter their 50’s without really knowing who they are, and that this hormone shift may play a significant role in that. If that is the case, then menopause offers the perfect time for women to re-center their lives on themselves, and re-discover the things that really energized them before they were impacted by this change. This type of self-awareness is critical, in my opinion, to be a thriving, comfortable, grounded elder.
