Who Am I? What Am I?

This is another hack/field report mashup. I'm sharing as a gift because it has seriously helped me on several occasions, and I frequently find in reading OYSes and comments other men here who might profit from it.

"Who am I?" "What am I?"

If you're here, you've been asking yourself this with increasing urgency, or you you soon will.

When you see the matrix, you feel a sense of loss ... of status, of identity, of self. The loss is certainly angering for most of us for awhile. You've invested so much time and effort in making yourself appear a certain way (good dad, husband, productive member of society, etc.) in the matrix, but it all means jack shit in absolute reality. You're angry at lost time and effort.

But, at least you now know and can do something about it. So, you feel liberated and invigorated. You're a blank canvas now! What shall you paint?

You start putting sketches down. Some are really cool and fun. Others are kind of crude imitations of things you've seen.

But you feel a bit fake in all of them ... like you're LARPing with this "new" self you're authoring into existence. What is this feeling? Is it incongruity? Inauthenticity? Well, if all I've ever been is the lie of the matrix that I've rejected, what am I incongruent with? What is the authentic me?

These are maddening fucking questions. So, you turn here to MRP, only to be met with token responses of "be congruent", "calibrate", "keep looking", "stop LARPing", "stop lying to yourself" etc. No one dismisses the importance of the questions, but no one really has any actionable advice or answers other than to persist.

Why?

I don't know. What I know for myself is that these maddening questions are also the threshold to the most centering and invigorating forces in my life. When I probe them and work with them, it teases out all of the joys and challenges in my life. Every pain is a bit sharper, every sweet is a bit sweeter, every color is a bit more vivid. Life kind of pops.

I've had episodes of this in life before and during my MRP journey, and prior to my MRP journey I always thought they were chance encounters where some unknown cause would trigger them and I could ride the wave as long as they'd last, if I could be so lucky. But during my first winter of MRP, and studying some of the psychological theories on which some of the sidebar materials were built, I did find a hack I have used with varying degrees of success to return me to this. Last week I had the occasion to do it and it reminded of the gift it is in my life, which I'm sharing now.

The hack is a simple meditation loop. To do it, get a piece of paper. You're going to write three questions. At the top, write question A: "What am I?" About one-third of the way down, write question B: "What more am I that is not (A)?" And about two-thirds of the way down, write question C: "How do I know?"

Get somewhere quiet, taking with you a pen and this piece of paper. Give yourself plenty of time. Twenty minutes is not too long.

Ask yourself question A, and answer with simplicity and honesty. Wait until you can feel the answer in your bones. Seriously. This is really important. Wait until your body settles (you should be able to feel it) on the answer before you give it. For me, the feeling is the feeling I get right after I get goosebumps. It's like a body-wide relaxation - just a very settled and sure feeling. For this first round, the answer should be very concrete and easy- e.g., "What am I? A dad." Write the answer under the question A prompt, then move to question B.

Now, before you ask yourself question B, say to yourself "Is (answer to question A) [i.e., "a dad"] all I think I am?" Wait again for your feeling in your body to answer this with "Of course not" or something similar. Then ask yourself "Aren't I more than (answer to question A)?" Again, wait for your body to feel the answer of "Of course I'm something more" or the like.

Then, ask question B: "Well then, what more am I that is not (A)?" This time, try to feel a sense of exploration, curiosity, and inquisitiveness. Try to be a seeker here. You can flip through several ideas, but don't rest upon an answer until you feel that feeling in your body. When you have that answer, write it down under question B - e.g., "What more am I that is not a dad? A philosopher."

Then, ask question C: "How do I know?" and wait for you body to acknowledge the answer, and write it down: "Existence itself is a wonder to me."

At this point, notice how positive you feel about yourself. Notice how you are giving yourself your sole attention and love. And notice too that you feel like you're learning something new, but also that it feels very familiar (an extremely satisfying sensation, I think). Hopefully, this should be really invigorating to you. If you wish to go further (and I suggest you do) simply repeat the loop back at question A for as long as this satisfaction in the process endures.

Don't be afraid to get weird and vividly figurative and metaphorical with your answers. See the lights. Feel the cold or the warmth. Taste the tastes. Smell the smells. Just be sure that your answers are honest and you can feel them in your body when you give them. That's how you know you can write them down. When you've done several cycles, you'll see an amazing trail of breadcrumbs on your paper - "philosopher" to "ant enjoying a sunny day on a log" to "a vast warm ocean teaming with life within".

Afterward, keep the paper if you want to compare to it later or just pitch it, knowing you always have the ability to sit down and find the answer another time.

I like to conclude on a really vivid scene and call that scene to mind throughout the following days and weeks.

As long as you are really waiting on that feeling you get in your body, your loop will probably very different every time you do it (but don't fret if it gets repetitive). And you will demonstrate to yourself that you are always far more than you can comprehend. And that's a good thing, because you'll never be bored or stop growing through exploration of yourself. And it will be you (and no one else) who is supplying the answers to the questions of "Who am I? What am I?"

Postscript:

Blarg rightly pointed out that I failed to make the connections to the sidebar material explicit. Here's a key:

• Mental Point of Origin: Dudes around here are all dealing with an ego that's been a coping mechanism of trying to cram the square peg of their masculinity into the round hole of the Disney fantasy. Their sense of self has been dominated by the identities they have internalized after being foisted upon them by others. A man becomes defined by his utility to others. An exercise like this is for actually and directly taking action against that, and instead start trying to use your own powers of perception and experience to form your own sense of self that serves your own desires and interests. For me, this exercise focuses my consciousness on what I enjoy doing and what I want for myself and my world, as opposed to what is expected of me by others.

• Self-Validation & Abundance: Chad likes Chad for who Chad is, without apology. Chad doesn't have a bunch of other people's concepts interfering with Chad's evaluation of himself. If Chad doesn't like something about Chad, then Chad either changes that thing or starts liking it. Chad won't tolerate living with his shitty self. Chad has a deep well of love and validation for himself. He knows how to get to that well quickly and goes often. Chad doesn't need it from anyone else; he's flooded with it. Most MRP tards think it's DNGAF, but it's really abundance. If a tard is looking to results in the world as his sole measuring stick, he's just becoming outcome dependent and subject to all the frames gatekeeping those outcomes. But if Chad can play in the world of outcomes always knowing his real needs will always be met with the well of abundant self-love he has, Chad is invincible. The only way to use such a well, is to get familiar with where it is and how to draw from it. That's what this exercise does for me.

• Mission: Most MRP tards' missions are still just adopted roles imposed on them by the matrix - it's all they've ever known. Their missions aren't really for them in particular. They are roles to be played. Without a deeply-felt sense of self, they can't really identify their mission if it ever occurs to them. And they don't know enough about themselves to ignore calls to missions that aren't for them. This exercise helps me break through those periods that TWOTSM mentions where the mission seems to have been wrong, or become stale, or where I seem to be outgrowing it, but unsure of what's next.