WHO ARE YOU? vs What do you do?

Ever notice what's the most common question asked in a social setting or networking event?
Something close to: "So what do you do?" and the close cousin: "Where do you work?"

And then we commonly immediately begin to form ideas, opinions, make up stories about that person and size them up, right? As if we know the whole of them just by what they do and where they do it. Wouldn't it feel really different if we asked each other "WHO ARE YOU?".... instead? And how many of us could answer that question? Difficult, right?

If I met you on a deserted island and you did not have your job, your car, your partner, your kids, your family, your clothes, your usual favorite music, cafes and entertainment hot spots, WHO WOULD YOU BE? What would you tell me about yourself?

In the current day society we have created for ourselves, in our first world country, what someone does for work pretty much sums them up. Why have we done this? Do we really have no idea who we are? Perhaps not. At an early age between 4-7 years, we begin to take notice of other's opinions of us, sometimes so much as we get to adolescent and teen years, that we override the knowing of who we are. A false self forms.... the one we present to others. (I know most of you out there on some level know what I'm talking about.) Tuning inward became to uncomfortable, not safe, too difficult. The distinctions between doing, having, and being have become unavailable to use when formulating a vision of the good life. Our inner life has gone unintended as we have sought to find happiness without it. 

Nothing helps us better tune back inward to WHO WE ARE then daily meditation. Start with a few minutes. Quiet the outside and inside chatter. Find those fleeting moments of BEING, of safety, of knowing all is ok as YOU ARE. It's in the silence that you will get more clear of the soul inside. Rumi has a poem that suggests something like, "there is a voice inside that has no sound, listen for it." When you are in touch with that knowing, that being, less of the superficial labels and doings matter. 

HI! Have we met before? Let me introduce myself. I'm Vanessa... a witty, often irreverent, shy, friendly, loving, creative, empath, light being.