Day 34…Mistaken Identity

One will make a myriad of mistakes in life – fact.

One mistake that cannot be made is that of mistaken identity – fact.

It took Jim Gant 262 days to answer the very first question of Discovery – what are your signature strengths?

262 days.

That is ridiculous, right? The question truly disoriented me. In the process of losing my profession – I lost myself. Or so I thought.

I had to lose my identity (years), go through an identity crisis (more years), and then put great effort into peeling away tons of bullshit before I could even begin to find my true self.

But it is happening.

I had Practice 0 with Brother John and Brother Andy this past week.

It was incredible. Powerful. Meaningful. And I walked away knowing myself better and received steps to take in order to learn more about myself – and the world.

Thank you BTL band for accepting me as I am. I am no one’s builder. I am not in charge of a company, nor do I work with one. I am not an athletic coach. I am just a broken human who wants to find himself so he can be of use to others…and to be able to reflect God’s love back to Him and everyone I encounter.

Build Thyself.

Today, I will share a gift. It is an email I sent to the BTL band a long time ago. In italics is the response that I received that enabled me to move forward and gain strength.

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The identity I built for myself was authentic but not true. It was not a lie but a facade. AUTHENTIC BUT NOT REAL?

I thought that what I was doing was the highest possible good. (Worldview)…??? I WAS WRONG.

It is strange, last night I told my soulmate, that for the last two years or so I have for the first time in my entire felt comfortable within my own skin but feeling great dissonance at the same time? A great assurance and fearlessness in the ultimate destination but wanting so dearly to ‘hold up my end of the bargain’…which is simply to reach to the very highest ideal that I can imagine…which is simple. Be a ‘servant of Jesus’.

The sureness of my conviction is in fact soothing and peaceful.

My signature strength?

I believe.

I believe that there is power within the universe to claim that I can be a true man. One who irrevocably commits his entire consciousness, being and world to God – to divine love and truth as a way of life – for the greater good of all beings. A servant of Jesus.

This acceptance has claimed me in a deep way…but has exposed for all of ‘me’ to see “my” ‘self’ as it is behaving and thinking in a way that is contrast with how I want to behave and think. It feels like there is a million miles between ‘me now’ and ‘true me’.

But I in fact know that this is not true.

Is healing what I need? Acceptance? Cutting away? All of these?

Is worldview the same as consciousness? I think and feel that this is the case? Inclusiveness…inclusiveness…

As best I can tell, I ‘planted my flag ‘ in the wrong place.

“Warriorship” vs “Servantship”

When I look up and listen, I hear, “Serve, serve, serve…”…but in there is my ‘duality’ ‘my pain’ my darkness’…I cannot do this right now in the way it needs to be done.

Wait. Just had a thought. I serve. I serve my wife and my family…I take care of my sweet father-in-law as if he were the last man on earth…I am loving and kind to both neighbors and my neighborhood sees me as a nice dude…I am here for all who call me…and yet?!@#$%^&*…what? I feel like I cannot be ‘this’ because of all of ‘that’.

Then I think of Paul. I am Rome. Then I think of what was said in our practice…From “Saul to Paul” …

So, I have a plank in my eye…but I am attached to ‘others’ who see things clearly. I wake up each day and go to sleep each night next to a person who is everything that is good and light and love in the world. A ‘bodhisattva’…I am alive. I am on ‘borrowed time’…New clarity, alignment, depth, and comprehensiveness in my consciousness and then the way in which “I” truly am will be present.

Another intellectual roadblock here. I am already that.

I am a child of God. Promise made. Promise believed. Promise claimed. I believe.

Too. Many. Gaps.

Yes. I actually push away with…disbelief when I read my old “Who am I” statement.

Response:

It’s kind of a reverse-engineering process.   Jim – the writing you “slid under the radar” to us this morning about “who you are not” was rooted in an old worldview.  Instead of de-constructing your old identity, first go deeper and gain more conscious clarity about the difference between the worldview you had 10 years ago vs the worldview you hold today.    Linger here – this is the path to gaining more clarity into who you “were” vs who you are today.    Make sense?

“Mute”?   We think NOT.

I stand as a testimony of the impact that demanding work and belief can have on a person.

“You belong,” Chet said to me.

I believe him.

And I finally did answer question number one ‘What is your signature strength’…and I answered it with some clarity.

There is no going back now.

TOGETHER WE TRANSFORM

Jim

1COR13:13