I am.......

I wrote a blog yesterday regarding who we are. Trying to identify the characteristic of who we are, examining the question "who am I?"

The last part I posted a question, a test for you to challenge yourself with. Think of a character from fictional literature and the first one you think of examine and see if they highlight who you currently are.

When I heard this the first time I automatically thought of Bigwig from watership down. I love the story, and if I am honest read it a few times a year, but thinking of the character I would have thought I wanted to be like Hazel.

Hazel, is a natural leader, who has foresight into his wrongs and mistakes, pushes forward with foresight. He is gentle and it is said that he is slender and not a born fighter, therefore wouldn't have joined the Owsla and would have never been seen as a leader, even if it was put upon him. He is the type of character that I would have like to have seen to be. So why did Bigwig pop up first?

After hearing this, I'll be honest i didn't examine the thought of Bigwig, however a few things changed for me a few months on.

Shortly after the summer conference I lost my mother, it was a devastating blow for someone who doesn't mind saying he was a self proclaimed mummies boy. Following this, my depression flared and with a combination of other outside influences, I ended up having a nervous breakdown. I don't particularly want to go in to that now, but feel that at some point I will discuss it.

Whilst being in hospital it was advised i try and do a few things that make me happy and comfortable to help my recovery. Dad brought my copy of watership down in, my drawing pad and pencils and a few keepsakes of mine. After the staff saw my drawings they signed me up for art therapy, with some background in the topic they decided that individual sessions would benefit.

Within the therapy, I was asked if I am currently reading anything, obviously I told them watership down. I was asked to draw a rabbit as my first process.

Starting with the outline and a few bit of footing within the picture, my drawing was taking shape. I discussed the fact that I had the challenge in the summer and came up with Bigwig, so my fragment shape of a rabbit would become Bigwig.

During the session we wrote things that I saw myself as and then had to look up the characteristics of Bigwig, this is what I found:

Bigwig was a large and strong rabbit known for the tuft of hair on his head. His lapine name is 'Thlayli' which, translated literally, means 'fur-head'. He was part of the Sandleford Owsla with his friend Silver. Because of his stubborn nature Hazel hesitated at first to bring him along, thinking Bigwig might be a bully and trouble maker. Luckily for all Bigwig left with them anyway and proved to be one of the most valuable members of the party. Bigwig is notably the strongest of the Sandleford rabbits and an accomplished fighter. He survives two normally fatal situations, being snared in Cowslip's Warren and a brutal fight with General Woundwort, and is very brave.
Along with his strength Bigwig has a short temper, especially for those who question authority he condones such as when Hawkbit, Acorn and Speedwell threaten Hazel's authority. Despite that he is not blind concerning those in power, he knows well enough when it is time to leave the Sandleford Warren and would never submit to the authority of a tyrant such as Woundwort.
Bigwig is one of the more superstitious rabbits. He values stories and is irritated by Cowslip's Warrens dismissal of them. He also curses General Woundwort in El-ahrairah's name. Despite this he initially was very cynical of Fiver's visions, especially in Cowslip's Warren. His encounter with the snare changed his mind, however, and for the rest of the novel Bigwig is a believer.
Bigwig forms the closest relationship with the gull Kehaar.

There were so many characteristics that i had in common here. Even the negative ones of being stubborn and dismissal of the things that I don't understand.

Without really realising it my drawing showed much of this, even before we read this information. The scares that he would wear, his stern look etc.

The therapist showed me that one of the reasons that I drew the scars and marks, showed that I had drawn a "completed" Bigwig, a bigwig that would have appeared at the end of the story. This showed that all the characteristics that he had, that he had gained by going through trials of growth, made him a stronger better rabbit than what we saw at the beginning of the story. And maybe, just maybe, all the darkness that had happened to me made me stronger, even if I am carrying the scars visibly. I thought about this, and the affinity that I had for Bigwig grew more. He really became such a sense of comfort and reliability of hope for me.

So try the challenge, look at the character, write, draw or paint them. Explore them in a personal way, through that discover who you are, especially if you are having a dark time of it, it might, like it did with me, give a little bit of hope to the coming light.

For me though, I now know I am Bigwig.

Who am I?

It is difficult to tell someone you don't know who exactly you are. Have you ever tried to tell someone who you are by describing yourself in three words? It isn't easy to be able to describe yourself and often even harder to describe yourself in a positive light.

If you are anything like me you struggle and usually your first thoughts turn to negativity.

There is a story of a world famous philosopher who apparently was in the search for answers for almost anything. On one day he thought a change of scenery would help unravel more, but something strange happened and his day became even more confusing. Sitting there looking rather shabby, probably the cost of long hours and late nights of thinking, he seemed by on lookers to be a homeless vagrant who needed help. On seeing him a policeman ask him a question. “Who are you?”

He replied....”If only I knew”.

Who are we then to explore this thorny subject? Personal identity is a difficult thing, its how we see ourselves and then goes into how we present ourselves and our self image. It can be a great influence with relationships, friendship or interactions on a whole. You may think that it is a little self indulgent but coming from someone who has health issues, and is incredibly self conscious it really makes me wonder how many traits we produce because of the issues we bear. These things that can be produced can easily be taken away, I mean this by working through the issues until you create the person you are meant to be. Growing outwardly, but with every stretch, stretching the old parts off, in some ways shedding your old skin. We need to recognise this and honour the desire to grow as this affects all of our relationships, affecting our own lives as well as the lives of the world.

Who I am today, is not who I was this time last year, and even more different than I was 2 years ago and 16 years ago. Today I have a better reflection of who I am, even though I still suffer from low self esteem and am not overly confident, but I hold the most important thing here and that is that I am willing to grow and have growth. There is a hundred or more different things that I don't like about myself, yet when I became a Christian I was happy to see that things were changing and that I was becoming greater than I expected. The one thing that I didn't account for is that many changes of growth can rip you out of who you are and change you completely and allow many battles to happen, many battles into darkness. There is a song By Florence and the Machines called shake it. In this song there are a few lines that I want to bring out:

Regrets collect like old friends. Here to relive your darkest moments, I can see no way, I can see no way. And all of the ghouls come out to play. And every demon wants his pound of flesh, But I like to keep some things to myself, I like to keep my issues drawn, It's always darkest before the dawn.

And I've been a fool and I've been blind, I can never leave the past behind, I can see no way, I can see no way. I'm always dragging that horse around. And our love is pastured such a mournful sound. Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground, So I like to keep my issues drawn. But it's always darkest before the dawn

These lyrics and this song stood out for me,I started to change, my friends would tell me so, but the strange thing is they all said the same thing, they didn't like the person I was changing into, I thought about this but shrugged it off to some irrational thinking but I look back and see that they were right, I didn't like who I was turning into either. This made me see things that happened to me last year and realise that what I had been asking for previously were being answered.In doing so my life entered a era of darkness. Yet as the song also suggests, its darkest before the dawn, and my time to shine is coming, I know that now.

All these things, all the dark points, made me have all these negative thoughts that came with the issues that I had. But with the growth that I mentioned I know that this will change.

Yet to stand here today and say these things doesn't mean that I am protesting my goods and my achievements, more that these things have changed me and has now allowed me to see things differently and to see that there is growth.

So back to who we are.

Sometimes we forget ourselves and we mask who we really are creating identities for different people for different situations. Today I am a Managing Director of a company, tomorrow I am the sides person at our church, the Thursday after the full moon I will be Uncle. All of these situations are easily created.

So a few things to consider:

How important is position and status to you? Are you defined by your job, your role?

Are we easily threatened?

When you compare yourself to others do you feel inferior or superior?

What do you keep hidden in fear that others might find out about you?

And finally are you a giver or a taker in life?

Do you know the answers to these questions?

If you struggle with these things then it is usually the reason that we need to look at who we are, as if we question these points we come up with a few alternative thoughts: I'm only a teacher, only a wife and mother, I am only.....Whatever it is, where is the pride in what we do and why we do it?How do you feel when there is something available to you, a role, a job, but it has been position and offered to somebody else, why didn't we speak up for it in the first place?

But it is often unforeseen that we put things on others, because of these points and take out unresolved issues to create burdens for others as well as ourselves.

This is just the expectations that others put on us, rather than putting ourselves out at our own time and allowing individuality to grow.

But how to recognise your positive attributes when others put pressure on you to conform, to make you less individual, pushing more and more negativity onto you?

It's difficult, but I found a way that I would like to share with you that might work for you.

I heard this at a conference lest year, and at the time the though of it just made me smile, but at my breaking dawn it happened again (although I will discuss this more in another post)

Think of a character in literature. The first one you think of, may it be through books, childrens stories, poems, plays, films or t.v. Whatever. Once you've done that take a time to think about the character. Write a list of the positive attributes that you think that character holds, even better look that character up on line and see what someone else sees as that characters attributes. In doing so look, and I mean look, at all the positives and negatives. Does any of that ring a bell with you? It is suggested that we see a lot of ourselves and our characteristics in this fictional character, do you see the resemblance? As I said, It may not shake you as a person now, but at a moment it will. It definitely did for me, and to be honest it shook my life at my breaking point so much it shook me into a new dawn. Which I truly hope that it can do for you. Try it.

I will do my next post on exactly what happened to me and shook me up and hopefully it might give you a better confidence in which character first springs to mind for you.