Living Out of Our False Identities (Part 2: How to Stop)
How do we stop being afraid, and find clarity?
This is part 2 of an ongoing series called "Living Out of Our False Identities." In part 1, we talked about how living out of our false identities causes a lot of downstream problems, ranging from broken communities to broken politics. In part 2, we'll start talking about how to stop living out of our false identities. False identity is an enormous topic, but I think a big part of the reason why we live out of our false identities so often has to do with fear. So in this article, we'll talk about how to feel less fear and find more clarity.
Edited May 4, 2024. From: “(If you're not Christian or not comfortable praying to God in this way, substitute in the appropriate terminology relevant to your own spiritual tradition. It is my belief, as I believe it is Jamie's, that God cares less what we call Him than that we seek Him)” to “(If you're not Christian or not comfortable praying to God in this way, substitute in the appropriate terminology relevant to your own spiritual tradition. It is my belief, as I believe it is Jamie's, that God cares less what we call Him than that we seek Him. In a recent podcast, Jamie described doing this exercise but posing your question to Infinite Intelligence, Wisdom, or the Universe).” Edited to clarify Jamie’s opinion on universalism, which is also my own.
Tip #1: Recognize That Fear Is (Generally) A Liar
For those who haven't read part 1, I want to clarify what I mean by fear. I don't mean a healthy sense of self-preservation. When I was living in Nairobi, I spent a couple of days in a former/current terrorist neighborhood. When I was getting ready to enter, I joked with my guide that I didn't want to get shot. He replied seriously that I was unlikely to get shot because most of the criminals didn't have guns, and that I should worry more about being stabbed.
Later on I lived in a neighborhood where there were weekly bomb threats and we were told to avoid crowded areas. In between, I rented a room in a rough part of town and saw daily fist fights outside my front door. I'm not blind to the reality that physical danger does exist.
But in the vast majority of cases, fear is a liar. As the old saying goes, FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real. Most of what we are scared of never comes to pass. Even if it does, it's often less bad than what we most feared. Our terror lies to us and tells us that we can never cope with The Bad Thing. But when The Bad Thing actually happens, we find to our amazement that we can cope.
Even when the danger that we perceive is real, fear clouds our judgment and stops us from making good decisions. I have a black belt in Ninjitsu from one martial arts dojo; and when it closed down, I began training ~10 hours per week at a different dojo. One thing that's been drilled into my brain over the past 10-odd years of training: when someone attacks you, don't seize up. Don't let your muscles tighten and your joints lock, and don't stop breathing. Instead, stay loose and calm, and fight from a place of relaxed intensity.
In other words, even in a fight, fear is not your friend.
Fear is even less helpful in any situation in which we have a moment—or more—to breathe (for instance, when we're worried about getting fired or about the 2024 presidential election). When we let our fear run the show, we get reactive. We make bad decisions, because fear distorts our thoughts. We perceive threats as greater than they are, and so we lash out. We fall into fight or flight mode when staying calm and grounded could help us to more accurately assess the potential threat. Our vision narrows, which prevents us from seeing possible solutions.
Like dark clouds rolling in, fear obscures the bright light of our discernment. Instead of fear, seek clarity.
Recognizing that our fear is lying to us might not banish the fear right away. But it gives us some perspective. It allows us to step outside of our fear and focus instead on tapping into our deepest wisdom. In other words, it helps us to put down our false self and start acting from our true self.
What is your true self?
Tip #2: Discover Your True Identity
Your true identity banishes false identities like a bonfire banishes darkness. When we know our true identity, we're much less interested in living out of our false identities and much more able to spot when we are. It's the same way that knowing 2+2=4 stops us from believing someone when they lie and tell us that 2+2=5.
So how do you find your true identity? You ask. Who do you ask? Well, who would know your true identity? The one who made you. I don't mean your parents. I mean God (or Spirit, Source, Gaia, or whatever force it is that you believe made you and enshrined your soul in your body).
I learned about true and false identities from the Christian pastor Jamie Winship. I'll include some of his resources below, but here's how he recommends asking God for your true identity in his book Living Fearless.
First, take a piece of paper (it is important that this be physical paper or a notecard, not a Word or Google doc) and write down all the names that the world calls you and that you believe about yourself. These tend to be negative. My list includes "worthless" "lazy" and "hubristic" (yes, it is possible to believe that you are all three. False identities are lies, and lies are rarely internally consistent). This is a list of your false identities.
Then, Jamie recommends that you turn your attention to God (or Spirit, Source, Gaia, etc) and say the following:
"Father, thank you that you are always with us. You never leave us. You never forsake us. Whether we want you here or not, you are here. You are omnipresent, and you love us. You never give up on us. You never just walk away from us out of frustration. You are always with us. You don’t ever want us to be afraid. You want us to be filled with love and joy and peace and patience and the things of the Spirit. Lord, I know that you are moving among us. You are making us think through things we wouldn’t normally think about. Lord, we’ve been down in the trash pile [our list of false identities]. Now we want to lift our eyes up to you. We’ve looked at the false and we want to speak truth about it. Lord, clean us out as we give these false identities to you. We give them to Christ. As Christ bears the false identities in his own flesh, he exchanges false identity for true identity. When we give him our shame, he gives us back honor. When we give him our guilt, he gives us back innocence. When we give him our fear, he gives us back power and authority. It’s an exchange at the cross. That’s why the cross is so beautiful to us. We can leave our burdens there, and you hand us back life. Father, as we have given you these false identities, and as we are safe within your protection and your silencing of the enemy and all the false things in our lives, in your beautiful voice, Lord, would you speak back to us the name or the identity that you call us? What do you say about us, Lord? What do you call us?"
(If you're not Christian or not comfortable praying to God in this way, substitute in the appropriate terminology relevant to your own spiritual tradition. It is my belief, as I believe it is Jamie's, that God cares less what we call Him than that we seek Him. In a recent podcast, Jamie described doing this exercise but posing your question to Infinite Intelligence, Wisdom, or the Universe).
Then, Jamie writes,
"Quickly write down the first thing you hear, see, think, or sense from the Holy Spirit. If you don’t hear anything, that’s fine. We’ll address that later. For now, write down your first impression, even if it doesn’t make any sense to you.
How do you refer to us, Lord Jesus?
This is the way Jesus serves us. He calls us by name. The sheep hear his voice because he calls us by name. How does God refer to you? Even if it’s hard to believe, just write it down."
When I first asked this question, the answer that came to me was "Healer" (hence Heal the West). As I went deeper in my understanding of identity and asked again, I got a deeper and more nuanced description as "Warrior Healer." I want to heal people, and contribute to healing our discourse and our country, by waging war against what I see as bad ideas (never people) and false identities (never true identities).
If you'd like to go deeper with this (and I highly recommend it), here are my favorite resources from Jamie talking about true identity and how to find and live into yours:
Tip 3: Learn to Recognize When We're In A False Identity
Last week, a family member and I were discussing Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). He's a big advocate of SEL, and I am…not. But I found myself getting pretty heated. I was having a hard time really hearing where he was coming from, and it became very important to me that he start seeing things the way that I do.
I realized that, in that moment, I was living out of a false identity. In my 20s, I spent 5 years working with a very SEL-oriented therapist who almost killed me by accident. I came to her suffering from intense depression and abuse, and she encouraged me (with the best of intentions) to ruminate and dwell on my negative feelings. As we worked together, I became sicker and sicker. When I finally left her, it was like my first breath of fresh air in five years. I started letting go of my fear and finding the man I was supposed to be.
But when my family member praised SEL, it threw my brain into flashback mode and into fight-or-flight. I could feel something going on in my mind when we were talking, but it wasn't until midway through the call that I realized that I was, in that moment, living out of a false identity of fear. Like SEL or don't, but the conversation I was currently in posed no actual threat to me. My false identity, grounded in fear and pushing me into fight-or-flight, was simply lying to me.
I took a deep breath and consciously regrounded myself, and then was able to hear what my family member had to say without getting reactive again.
If you find yourself getting reactive, if you start getting defensive and start to feel scared of the situation around you, take a deep breath and ask yourself, "What am I scared of in this moment?" If you're talking to a person and that's what's making you reactive, another route to the same place is to ask yourself, "What am I hearing, and how is that different from what they're saying?"
Listen to the answer, and then consciously reground yourself.
Action Item
So what's our action item this week, as a community of practice? Do the exercise and find your true identity. Everything else flows from that.
And then leave a comment saying what your true identity is.
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