Identity | Politics | Poetry

We Become the Stories We Tell. Who Are You When You’re Not Blaming or Complaining?

Identity, opinion, trauma, triggers

Often, as humans, it seems we don’t know how to communicate with each other. That we don’t know how to love one another.

We go through our days defining, proclaiming, and defending the territory of the self. The domain of me and mine.

My trauma. My identity. My diagnosis. My story.

Meanwhile, our wounds slam against each other. Meanwhile, our tender hearts get trampled in the fray.

Sometimes, maybe, there’s another path.

I’d like to take a go at it.

I do take a go at it — at this other, heart-sourced path.

Sometimes.

But far too often, I do not.

Wounds demanding attention. Wounds declaring themselves mine.

My trauma. My triggers.

Repeated enough, wounds and words come alive and weave themselves into stories, histories, worlds.

These constructs of human tongues and imaginations stir, rise up, overtake.

Opinions. Beliefs. Us. Others.

All that we think we know and pretend to know and assume has always been.

All that we repeat and rehearse and refine.

Shaping the lens just so.

Sharpening the point til deadly.

This power is not neutral — the power of words come to life and self at centre.

In hoisting the flag of me and mine…

In declaring: My identity is this. This is the hill I will defend to the last…

We cut off.

We extinguish.

We say no to the fullness of life and the course of continuous becoming. To ourselves. To others.

Peering through a distorted lens lifetimes in the making…

Placing block upon block in our cement cell…

Imagining we are safe here, inside these walls.

Cut off from the infinite.

Except, of course, we are not.

Except, of course, the Universe carries on.

Regardless.

Without us.

So, how about telling a different story.

How about imagining who we are beyond boxes and labels and me and mine.

Beyond whatever it is we’re certain is right.

Who are you when you’re not declaring or defending?

Who are you when you’re not blaming or complaining?

Who are you when you’re not distracting or numbing?

Who are you when you’re not clamouring for approval or validation?

In ways big and small.

In ways obvious and impossibly subtle.

Who are you when they take your labels and boxes and opinions away?

When they say,

Oh, I’m sorry, dear. You misunderstood. You cannot take those with you, in the end.

These questions. These are what I’m asking lately.

Because sometimes, maybe, there’s another path.

I’d like to take a go at it.

Some of the time.

More of the time.

Ever and always.

Note: This story was inspired by Liz Porter, who is showing up with courage and questions.

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Thank you for reading. I’m a doctor of Chinese Medicine and write about sobriety and soulful living. Find all my links here: