My Pick

I don’t even know who I am anymore.
I need to change, but I don’t know where to start.
This…isn’t me!

Those are the words of my pick for the Leave 2010 With No Regrets Challenge. She is a 30 something… wife, mother, and aspiring business owner. Her family has suffered a huge negative shift in their finances, and she is feeling extremely overwhelmed.

5 or 6 years ago I knew who I was and what I wanted. I was upbeat, energetic, and full of ideas. I was the one that everyone came to for advice…and now I am coming to you.

Most people who make the--- I don’t even know who I am anymore statement live their lives as characters, rather than taking the time to actually develop personal character. They create a persona that is based upon how they look, what they have accomplished, how much money they have in the bank, and how others see them. I know this to be true because whenever you ask them to describe who they were before, they say things like:

People loved me...
I used to go out more…
I would never go around looking like this before…

Those phrases have everything to do with the surface. Those are assumed identifiers and there is nothing distinctive about them. If someone was to ask for a description of me and I said, people love me, I go out, and I always look nice, what would that tell you about me?

In the case of my pick for the challenge, who I will call Stacy, she allowed her material gains, the amount of people surrounding her, and ultimately her personified self to define who she was. And when she could no longer keep up the appearance, she became unrecognizable to herself.
Now let me just say there is much, much more to Stacy. She is well educated, a dedicated wife and mother, and has a wonderful idea for a business. In order for me to find that out, however, I had to dig past the persona to find the Stacy that has been waiting for her opportunity to thrive.

Stacy’s first assignment is to spend time with her neglected self. I say neglected because she hasn’t spent much time in self reflection, assessment, or realization. For the next two weeks she will spent 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night, sitting alone and saying nothing. By doing this, the real Stacy will feel permitted to speak and eventually she will begin recognize her.

More of Stacy’s journey to come…


To Blog…Nakeia