How Would it Feel To Have No Identity and Personal Baggage?
How Would it Feel To Have No Identity and Personal Baggage?
Who are you without your memories and your past? What is keeping you from dropping your emotional and historical baggage? What if your “identity” is the problem?
Personal identity
Imagine for a moment that you have no name, family history, nationality, or memories. These are all labels and layers of identities and memories pilled over your true essence.
Play around with the thought of waking up tomorrow without any of those.
Would it feel frightening, confusing, and horrible?
Or would it be freeing, light, and liberating?
Who you believe you are is nothing more than the stories, experiences, and lessons you’ve acquired during your time on this beautiful planet.
But is that really you?
Had these things not happened to you, what would that make you? Someone else?
What if you had forgotten them all of a sudden?
Does that make you someone else now?
Why do I mention this abstract idea?
There are undoubtedly things you don’t like about yourself and your history. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of, failed at something, and been rejected at one point in our lives.
We carry the baggage of our fathers as if it's our own. Just our family name sometimes carries with it certain limitations or obligations. By age thirty or forty, we’ve accumulated so many stories and memories that we are not the same person we were just a decade or two ago.
If you’re happy with what you’ve become and don’t find anything you would love to “forget and leave behind,” I’m happy for you. Most of us aren’t that lucky, though.
I, for one, have tons of baggage regarding religion, financial lack, sickness, and a full history of rejection and failure. If I could, I would immediately delete them from my mind.
So why don’t I just lose my identity?
Perhaps I find that it defines me. Most of us do. We can’t even imagine who we would be without them. Can you? All of these past mistakes and painful experiences compose our identity. “I’m a survivor. I’m working class. I’m a failed student. I’m depressed. I’m weak. I’m worthless. I’m not wanted. I’m limited in some way. I’m black, white, girl, boy…”
While it’s undisputable that, having learned the lessons, we are now wiser and stronger, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to hold on to these ideas and stories.
It’s widely known in psychology that even the earliest of our memories influence our lives today. Something silly from today’s point of view was imprinted as horribly important as a child.
Sometimes, I laugh at myself when I pass a group of little boys and feel my inner child cringe in some unconscious fear of being bullied. And I’m a 6.6 foot, 240-pound, strong, bearded man! I’m not afraid of anyone. But the hidden inner child still remembers how bad it felt to have to run away from bullies constantly and still hears the echoes of past insults. I feel it, wanting to avoid walking by the group of kids as if I’m still a little helpless kid. It’s insane!
Those experiences may have made me the man I am today, but are the memories of them still useful to keep around? Are they still who I am? Surely not!
Imagine being free from all of them!
Imagine how light it would feel to have no name, reputation, or history to defend, justify, and embody. Nameless, formless, anonymous. A blank page. No baggage. No memories. No identity. Nothing. Just your essence. Just you—the real you, stripped of it all.
What is left?
Who are you if you drop all of that baggage and layers?
Do you even know?
Are there things you’d rather forget and leave behind?
Do you think you can?
Test this idea, Mr. Nobody
Decide that you are a nobody. You have no name, no family baggage, no history. Nobody knows you, and you don’t have any relationships with anyone. There is no identity to hold on to and protect.
When you walk among people, walk like an empty page on two legs. I’m serious. When you go to work, imagine you have no history with work, school, or any career ambitions. You do the job, but none of it means anything to you. You have no identity to care for, no career to nurture, no reputation to protect.
Can you imagine the relief that would feel?
Perhaps for you, this would feel like pure terror. Anything is possible. I’m not suggesting you burn our bridges and stop socializing—far from it.
Treat it as a mental exercise. Try this “mask” of no identity and see how it feels.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine if your identity and all the baggage are useful for you—if you feel better holding on to them or worse.
I love walking through a foreign city or even moving to a foreign country for a prolonged time for this exact reason. I love disappearing into the crowd. I love being unknown. It feels so freeing and liberating, like a fresh start.
How helpful is this information for you?
Well, I would imagine it’s pretty obvious. You don’t have to hold on to your “identity” and keep dragging your baggage with you for the rest of your life, my friend. That is a choice—your choice. No one is forcing you.
If it feels better to hold on, then by all means do. However, if you find that losing your identity feels like a relief, freeing, and empowering experience, then think about how to lessen the burden it represents for you.
How can you let go of your identity and old baggage?
How do you let go of a heavy bag, for instance? You stop holding on and release your grip. It will fall away all on its own.
In this case, our baggage and identity are mental. We hold on to them with our minds. Mostly, they’re just memories of the past we hold on to. If you’ve come to the realization that your “fake identity” is a problem and that losing would feel immensely better, you will find a way toward that goal. Still, here are some ideas on how to go about it:
Let the identity, memories, and baggage go - intentionally. Over and over again.
Stop thinking about the past. Live in the now.
Make peace with what happened, and allow yourself to move on.
Forgive yourself and everyone involved.
Realize deeply that you are not the same person you once were.
Give yourself permission to change your mind, opinions, and beliefs.
Release the old version of you and be thankful for the lessons. Write letters to your old self, telling them you no longer need them and that it’s time to move on and become someone new.
Choose to stop caring about your identity, the past, and your reputation. They say one of the most freeing acts is to publicly embarrass yourself on purpose, just to let go of believing you have a reputation to protect, thus opening yourself up to new possibilities and challenges.
Repeat to yourself that you are nobody. You have no name and no past.
Decide that every day is a new day and a new you - anything is possible!
Change what you can change. Start doing things differently. Switch things up.
Create a new identity if you want. Decide on its properties, character, and beliefs, and find out how it feels to be that person. Think and act from that new identity. How would “the new version of you” do this?
In your meditation or quiet contemplation, continually ask yourself, “Who am I?” Don’t answer the question consciously; wait for answers to appear on their own. Then, keep asking repeatedly until all the masks and layers fall off. If you’re lucky, you might actually meet the “real” you.
Good luck shading the old you, and a warm welcome to the new you!
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