A few years ago the expression “Become who I really am” came to my awareness and slowly transformed into a life-changing revelation. When I first heard it, I felt empowered; it was like a call to become who I always intuitively knew I was. However, it didn´t stop there – it got complicated as I went through a lot of thinking:

• Who was I really? If normally I am not who I really am, then who am I most of the time?
• Am I being invalidated in some way?
• Is someone going to know who I am, better than I do?

I had found relief in defending that I am both my shadow and my talents. After all, it seemed impossible to get rid of my darkness; therefore I should stop fighting against it and accept it as part of me as well. I also thought about what I had done in my life: my studies, working life, abilities, insecurities, relationships, and projections onto the future. However, I was still a bit unclear about “Who I really was.”

My mind came with a possible list of qualities that could define me. They were more like talents I had been trying to cultivate, ideals I had picked up in my psychological researches and spiritual searches, values I had taken from all sorts of institutions such as family, school, friendships, and things that I had admired or envied in others.

What became clear though, was that I spent most of my time in my mind; I used self-criticism a lot, tried to control how I came across, and was always trying to better myself as I craved being recognized.

The expression, “Be who you really are,” expanded and I was offered the possibility to know myself by my essence of Love, Harmony and Joy.

Could someone be described through these qualities and nothing more? What about all the things I´ve done? What about my intellectual knowledge? What about my hidden cravings and not so nice stuff?

Being Love, Harmony and Joy sounded quite simplistic… like a new age passage, nice to hear, but proclaiming from one day to the next that I was Love, Harmony and Joy felt a bit far-out and uncomfortable.

I also didn´t like that, if I was these, or had these qualities in myself, I was not the only one, the rest of humanity had them as well. It implied a sort of dissolution of the attachments I had to my personality, my little stories that felt very important and authentic. All my efforts to become someone in a world where recognition, identification and standing out over the crowd are very much appreciated, all of a sudden became meaningless.

Even though accepting this reality would mean the liberation from the many struggles in my life and the end of the separation I felt to others, I just wouldn’t accept it so easily.

What change would it make to know myself through my essence rather than through what I did, my achievements, losses, all my behaviours and ideas on weak and strong self-esteem?

If I could stop identifying myself with all the heavy stuff I´ve been dealing with for ages, could it be that everything that was holding me back, keeping me messy and re-creating more of the same, would start to finally shift?

What if all the struggle and dissatisfaction of never feeling enough had no true foundation after all? What if we are all equal in our essence, but express in many different ways and it is never about validation, competition or defence?

Lastly and gradually, I gave myself the chance to possibly accept something grander – even grander than my old ideas on the higher self, God and spirituality – ideas that were always outside of me.

Accepting myself as being Love, Harmony and Joy has made me go through lots of self-doubt and hesitation. Sometimes I have felt apprehensive about losing my identity and certain relationships.

What I never imagined though, is that my acceptance of something so simple, yet so powerful and universal, would take me through a journey of deep self-transformation and acceptance of humanity.

My well-known imperfections haven´t magically disappeared from one day to the next. I am actually more aware of my past, the way I used to live and the unloving consequences of my past behaviours come back at me sometimes in discouraging ways.

However, what has truly changed is my understanding and how I relate to all these in ways that no longer seek to indulge in a debilitating self-loathing or self-condemnation and the evasiveness of aloofness and avoidance of responsibility:

• I now know that all of those shabby places within myself shouldn’t be accepted as normal or inevitable parts of Who I am, but ways I have ignorantly used to self-protect, and self-defend, from all sort of deep emotional hurts, and ultimately for survival and self-gain.

• I have come to understand that the connection to my inner amazing being was progressively lost when growing up as I learned to adhere to ways of living and being that allowed me to fit in and gave me accepted identities, but in truth didn´t support my loving qualities to expand from within and express out confidently.

• I know I am in a process of healing, saying goodbye and discarding issues that have a strong hold on me because for so long I believed they were me. When feelings of emptiness and misery look like me, or when sabotage looks like an easy way out of difficult situations, I use honesty, discernment and detachment to support me with these.

My focus is not anymore about changing or judging my personality, my looks, my nose, my job, my family, my friends, my country, but how to live in a way that allows all the beauty I am reclaiming back to come out and express. This has required a new level of acceptance, as to claim who I am is not something I can get by only using my mind, incrementing my knowledge or changing my beliefs, but through how I live in my body.

My body was just `something´ I took everywhere without much care or awareness and respect for its powerful intelligence. I now know that Harmony, Joy and Love can only expand and be expressed through my body and how I connect and live in it.

The more I discern and keep aligning back to a quality that to me feels closer to harmony, the more I organise my movements, my choices and all of myself in ways that allow for a more loving way of living to unfold naturally, without sacrifice or becoming alien in a very busy world. It is not perfect, but a deeply powerful process that is forever unfolding and deepening towards the true Harmony, Love and Joy I am.

Accepting our natural essence of Love, Harmony and Joy and looking at how to live in a way that lets it expand from within can really make a difference in human life. It is something that deserves true consideration and a commitment to be explored in each one of us. It is true evolution!

I have been inspired by Serge Benhayon and deeply appreciate the trust he brings back in the deep knowing of Who We Really Are.

by Luz Helena Hincapié, Bogotá, Colombia

Further Reading:
Essence
How Amazing it feels to Be Myself
Inspired By Universal Medicine…Just Being Me