It is human nature that we seek a sense of belonging through discovering our identity. Throughout life we find ourselves doing this almost without question. From the moment we are born, immediately, we are given our first identity, a name. As a brand new soul coming into an unfamiliar place, we are handed a role simply by being assigned that name. Our duty to figure out how to be the person behind that name happens pretty quickly within the first 10 years of life. We spend a great deal of time being told how to feel, how to act and how to do the things all based on someone else’s perception of how to do them. When taken outside to our natural environment, freedom ensues. As children, if you can remember, those moments were the freest you would ever experience. That part of us that we came into this world with, was still there and breathing. The parts of us that were untouched by the crisis of figuring out “who we are” were thriving.

As time moves forward we begin placing ourselves in the life experiences we are told to follow. While every culture, religion, and individual seeks different ways of living, the basis is pretty common. Find your place in the workforce, find the person to procreate with, and continue the human race. If you remove all the deeper parts of that, that is truly the foundation. There are some of us, that struggle deeply during this experience. We are given categories such as rebellious, out of control, depressed, psychotic, etc. While some of us have succumbed to those emotions, I can’t help but wonder; if we had the chance to be our natural selves; would we have had a shot to be something more authentic. With that sort of authenticity, would our lives have been less painful along the way?

Some of us spend hours and years, trying to figure out who we are. Whether the role is wife or husband, Mom or Dad; the need for identity is all the same. There are also the people that never find a role at all and ultimately believe they have failed. There are those of us that spend countless dollars and minutes, trying to figure out where and how we failed; so we can become “better versions” of ourselves. Where has the truth gone, that we are all so perfect as we are from the moment we were born.

My perspective has been different from many since I was a child and I have suffered painful experiences trying to learn what and who I Identify as. In this current generation it has even become a thing; that people assume identities and share them in aspects of pronouns and sexuality. The mere fact we have reached that place in this world validates my belief that something has gone inherently wrong.

Follow me when I ask, has a tree or rock or stream, ever expressed itself to you who and what it is? The answer would seem obvious because they can’t speak. But that is not the whole truth, they communicate just not in the language a human can understand. We as humans, identified those things to be what they are. So the biggest truth here, is that a tree isn’t even a tree. The bird sitting ever so gracefully is not a bird at all. The rock underneath me is not even a rock. So it is safe to say, that I am not me and you are not you.
Not in the way we have been taught throughout history.

When that separation is removed; the sense of identity is depleted. I am no longer a possession, I am no longer a human being; I am no longer separate from everything else around me. I am everything around me.

When you begin looking at the world in front of you with a unity consciousness you can see why our experiences have been so painful. When something so naturally itself is placed in an environment that tells it to be something different; there is no hope for sustainability. That tree will not grow if it is treated as paper. It will be cut down because of someone’s need to turn it into something useful to them. When that idea sinks in and begins to ruminate, the way forward begins to have clarity.

I watch the natural world around me existing. The graceful tree has parts of it dying and falling away. As the leaf separates itself, I do not see the tree reacting in desperation reaching for it before it hits the ground. That leaf may have been a part of that tree for years, yet the tree has made no distinction that it must remain so the tree can keep identifying as a tree. It falls to the ground and soaks back into the life source bringing new growth opportunities. How enticing it is to watch this process without the need to be anything else but what it naturally is.

The degree of separation we have from our natural habitat and authentic selves to me; is the root cause of all of our suffering. When the respect is found that I am you, and you are me, the realization is very powerful. We cannot exist without the other. When the need to identify ourselves as any different than the souls we came into this world with disappears; the unity consciousness can take us to freedom we have never thought possible. Although the chance of seeing this in my lifetime is slim; I can be grateful that I, myself, can know and share this truth. May we all take the chance to be nothing at all in this life. That is the moment you will see that the goal was never to be anyone but who you are. When you see that you were never meant to belong anywhere, you find that home is everywhere.