My own exercises for discernment and identity;

I remember who I am: “You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify  you?” – Thomas Merton.

I never tell other people that I have been where they have been or are. I never tell other people I know how they feel.  I never tell other people what to do.

I never accept the thought that other people know how I feel. We are all different. We are all individuals, no two of us are exactly alike. We all know joy, suffering and pain.

Every morning, I ask myself “who am I?” I name myself, I see the different roles I play during my life. I never lie to myself, even when I lie to others.

I seek every day to live by the values and beliefs that are at the heart of my existence, and of my life long challenges. This is my work, private and personal, and no one  can share this with me, or enter into my soul. A life without beliefs is lonely and cold.

Who am I? “I am no bird, and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” – Charlotte Bronte.

I cannot know who you are, you cannot know who I am. “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinion, their passions a quotation.” – Oscar Wilde.

I tell my  own story, every day in one way or another: I live in my own myth. Everyone tells a story about themselves inside of their head, that is their myth. My myth makes me who I am. My story becomes who I am. I build my myth from that story.

I promised that I will never again lie to myself. “Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.” – Hannah Arendt.

I think of Jesus who said “whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater works than these…” I seek to honor my beliefs and practice them in the wider world. Every day.

I practice Belovedness. My first and foremost spiritual  task is to love myself unconditionally, so that I might learn to love others and live a meaningful life.

My identity is not about success, popularity, or power. Once I discern my identity, I will be free to live in the world without surrendering to the world or being owned by it.