Episode Summary

Have you ever paused long enough to consider that maybe, just maybe you are living a lie? Is it possible that your outer shell, or your outer identity isn’t really you after all? What if all your coping mechanisms that have come to shape your identity isn’t the real you? Maybe you’ve spent your life operating out of your false self based purely on survival, but is that who you were born to become? I hope not.

At some point, if you don’t examine your false self, the real you will die. Father Richard Rohr writes, “Too much of both religion and common therapy seem to be committed to making people comfortable with what many of us call our “false self.” It’s just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, which is going to sink anyway. To be rebuilt from the bottom up, you must start with the very ground of your being.”

I’m not sure why it’s this way, but your true self is oftentimes hidden and must be sought out and cultivated. Your true self is who you are in God and who God is in you. Truth be told, you don’t need to create your true self, you simply need to awaken to the you that you already are. This is the point of real conversion, that moment in your life when you wake up to who you were made to be.

As you listen to Heather’s story of awakening to trauma and discovering the still, small voice within her, ask yourself what you need to do in order to be reborn from the false self that dominates your life and into your true self hidden all these years under the weight of ego, defense mechanisms, and posturing. Being human, or finding your true self, is a constant search for our divine nature as “children of God,” an eternal journey that will one day end back where it started, in mystical union with our Creator. Thankfully, you’ll know you are on your way to becoming your true self when love, compassion, grace, beauty, and truth take root in your soul and become actualized in your daily life. Our choice in life, C.S. Lewis says, is either “to be like God”—by sharing the divine life—or to be miserable.

Bio:

Heather first cultivated her storytelling skills through video production and editing. By listening to thousands of people share their stories, she learned to listen for authenticity and confront difficult realities.

The collision of certain truths with her religious worldview led Heather on a search for clarity and understanding. She prioritizes truthful answers over personal comfort. Heather writes honestly about the power of love, fear, beauty, angst, and courage. Heather’s background gives her a unique ability to pull up what is real from underneath the stories we tell ourselves about God and our lives.

Heather lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three precious children. She sometimes forgets to do basic things like put conditioner in her hair while showering or start dinner on time because her mind is busy pondering how the Universe works and why humans behave like they do.

You can connect with Heather on her website www.ReturningToEden.com or on Instagram @heatherhamilton1 or on Facebook: Facebook.com/heatherhamiltonauthor.

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Show notes:

http://www.sophiasociety.org/podcast/finding-your-true-self

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This episode was produced by The Sophia Society and written by Gary Alan Taylor.  Music is by Faith in Foxholes.