The Identity Gap

The size of the gap varies from person to person. “Who we really are” and “how we appear” are separated by the feelings we memorize throughout different points in our lives (based on past experiences). The bigger the gap, living in the middle, the greater the addiction to the emotions we memorize.

Layer by layer, we wear various emotions, which form our identity. In order to remember who we think we are, we have to re-create the same experiences to reaffirm our personality and the corresponding emotions. As an identity, we become attached to our external world by identifying with everyone and everything, in order to remind us of how we want to project ourselves to the world.

How we appear becomes the façade of the personality, which relies on the external world to remember who it is as a “somebody.” Its identity is completely attached to the environment cars I own, people I know, places I’ve been ,things I can do, experiences I’ve had, company I work for….. is who we think we are in relation to everything around us.

We create a set of memorized automatic programs that work to cover the vulnerable parts of us. We engage a masquerade rather than let the world know what we are really like. The world is complex and scary, but it makes it less frightening and much simple to conform with a group pick your poison.

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Life experiences define our identity but staying busy keeps unwanted emotions at bay however as we keep the refractory period of emotion running we journey from a mere emotional reaction to a mood, to a temperament and ultimately to a personality trait.

We use what we know in the external world to define our identity, and to distract us from how we really feel inside. All these unique experiences produce a myriad of emotions that take away any feelings that we are hiding, however carrying the baggage from our past will eventually catch up with us.

People unconsciously delve deeper and deeper into this bottomless pit, using different aspects of their world buy a new thing, turn on the TV, surf the Internet, or call or text someone to keep themselves preoccupied in an effort to re-create the original feeling from the very first experience that helped them escape.

Changing Relationships Breaking the Ties That Bind

Most relationships are based on what you have in common with others. We compare your experiences, checking to see whether our neural networks and emotional memories are aligned. Relationships are formed based on neurochemical states of being, because if you share the same experiences, you share the same emotions and the same energy. Just like two atoms of oxygen bond to form the air we breathe, an invisible field of energy (beyond space and time) bonds us emotionally.

Bonds between people are the strongest because emotions hold the strongest energy. As long as either party doesn’t change, things will be just fine but if you begin to tell the truth about how you really feel, things can get uncomfortable. Which translates to: I thought we had a good thing going here! I used you to reaffirm my emotional addiction in order to remember who I think I am as a “somebody.” I liked you better the other way. Maybe you need Prozac or some other drug to come back to my reality.

What Really Matters in the End

If you need the environment in order to remember who you are as a somebody, what happens when you die and the environment rolls up and disappears? Do you know what goes with it? The somebody, the identity,

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the image, the personality (top hand) that has identified with all of the known and predictable elements in life.

What you’re left with is who you really are (bottom hand), not how you appear. When your life is over and you cannot rely on your external world to define you, you will be left with that feeling you never addressed.

Our soul’s purpose is to learn from experience and gain wisdom, but you stayed stuck in that particular emotion, you never turned your experience into a lesson; you didn’t transcend that emotion and exchange it for any understanding.

Addiction

When the same people and things in our lives create the same emotions and the feeling we are trying to make go away no longer do so; we look for new people and things or try going to new places in an attempt to change how we feel emotionally. If that doesn’t work, we go to the next level attempting to create a new identity from the outside with addictions.

With addiction an unhealthy neurophysiological pattern develops in our brains involving the pleasure chemical dopamine. This chemical is usually released and regulated in our brains to reinforce healthy life sustaining behavior like eating, exercise, sex, and fellowship with others. Some drugs or behaviors can artificially hi-jack this circuitry and release an overload of dopamine in to the system. With repeated occurrence the dopamine receptors get overloaded and build up a tolerance to the level of dopamine in the system.

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People keep needing more drugs, more shopping or more affairs because the chemical rush that’s created from those activities activates the receptor sites on the outside of their cells, which “turns on” the cells. But if receptor sites are continually stimulated, they get desensitized and shut off. So they need a stronger signal, a bit more stimulation, to turn them on the next time—it takes a bigger chemical high to produce the same effects. This is why with drug addictions it takes more and more of the input response to create the same euphoric experience, and eventually leads to an unsustainable level required for a person just to feel normal. This happens with drugs, alcohol, social media, gambling, pornography, video games, etc. Romans 6:16

Galatians 5:1 In the Kingdom of God freedom is an end in of itself. There is much we are released to do and accomplish once free, but the freedom itself is the point. We were created by God to be free and reflect His character inside us by how we take care of one another. Slavery in all forms, whether internal or external, is anti-Christ. We were not created to be lorded over by one another or any substance or set of behaviors that take away our capacity to be fully alive. This is what addiction does; it robs us of our joy and freedom.

Addiction can become a dark beast that may have started with us picking it, but leads to the experience that it’s picking us. Because the dopamine response is part of our internal survival system it can literally feel like death to not get the euphoric response related to the substance or behavior. Someone who is addicted begins to lose capacity to care about anyone or anything that doesn’t relate to getting the next fix. The power of addiction usually lies in the darkness it creates through shame and secrecy. The beauty of God is that no matter what depth we’ve sunk to, or problems we’ve created of our own free will, He does not leave us there. He is always at the bottom waiting for us. If we wait for the outside us to make us happy, then we are not following the quantum law. We are relying on the outer to change the inner. If we are thinking that once we have the wealth to buy more things, then we will be overjoyed, we’ve got it backward classical Newtonian thinking.

• We all have a choice.

• Every choice leads to a predictable outcome.

• The middle is miserable.

• All of us, no matter who we are what we’ve done, can begin a new life.

• Romans 6:12

In survival mode Galatians 5:19-21 we are living in the middle, separated and in bondage, the penalty eternal death; Ephesians 2:12 but we have a choice Romans 6:5-7 to live in creation mode Galatians 5:22- 24 from Slaves of Sin to Slaves of God. Romans 6:20-23 2016 Nobel Prize Literature Bob Dylan born Robert Zimmerman and raised in a tight Jewish community in Hibbing, Minnesota. “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you gotta serve somebody”. (Mimetic Theory)

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Forget about past events validating the emotions you’ve memorized that have become part of your personality. Your problems will never be resolved by analyzing them while you are still caught up in the emotions of the past. Looking at the experience or reliving the event that created the problem in the first place will only bring up the old emotions and a reason to feel the same way. When you try to figure out your life within the same consciousness that created it, you will analyze your life away and excuse yourself from ever changing.

Instead, just unmemorize our self-limiting emotions. A memory without the emotional charge is called wisdom.

Then we can look back objectively upon the event and see it and who we were being, without the filter of that emotion. If we take care of unmemorizing the emotional state (or eliminating it to the best of our ability), then we gain the freedom to live and think and act independent of the restraints or constraints of that feeling.

Closing and even eliminating the gap between who we are and who we present to the world is likely the greatest challenge we all face in life. Whether we term this living authentically, conquering ourselves, or having people “get” us or accept us for who we are, this is something that most of us desire. Changing, closing the gap, must begin from within.

At those critical moments when you are really, really grown tired of being beaten down by circumstances, you can say: This can’t go on. I don’t care what it takes or how I feel [body]. I don’t care how long it takes [time]. No matter what’s going on in my life [environment], I’m going to change.

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Using the powers of non-judgmental observation, through meditating, you unmemorize that negative emotional state.

By doing so, you will surrender that emotion to a greater mind, the mind of Jesus, 1 Corinthians 2:16 closing the gap between who you are and who you have presented to the world in the past.

It is a good sign when we can recognize we have a gap, Romans 7: 15-20 but we need to acknowledge the truth Romans 7 21-23 refuse to blame and follow and Jesus Romans 7: 24-25.

However we have a role to play. We need to close the gap throwing off our former ways. Ephesians 4:21-31

Steps to closing the gap:

• Ask for and receive forgiveness: Acknowledging that there is nothing we can do to earn His forgiveness and that the love we receive from Him is not, nor has ever been, dependent on our worthiness or choices. He loves us because that’s who He is, it’s His nature.

• Rest in Christ: 2 Cor 3:17-18 The Spirit of the Lord brings freedom and has the power to unveil our faces. Unless we experience love as we are (warts, faults, and all), we’ll never be empowered to become anything better. Satan will tell us we belong in the manure, and shame and secrecy will keep us there, but God desires to use the past manure of our life as fertilizer to help us grow in to the life He created us for. He weaves our mistakes in to a beautiful tapestry.

• Embrace the problem: Allowing the brain to recalibrate when we stop a substance or behavior can be painful. This is why we need to use faith to get a concrete vision of where we’re going.

• Lean on others. Letting embarrassment about what has grabbed hold of us have the loudest voice will keep us in bondage. We all have baggage. We need to embrace it together.

ROMANS 5:6, 8 ISAIAH 53:6 COL 3:1-3 2 COR 5:17 ROMANS 12:2 PHIL 4:8 Remember the truth of who you are in Christ. Power of your Thoughts! Practice Forgiveness. (Again, and again, and again, and again....) Matthew 18:21

From a Follow Jesus Perspective

What if I tell them there are no lists? What if I tell them I don’t keep a log of past offenses, of how little they pray, how often they’ve let me down, made promises that they don’t keep? What if I tell them they are righteous, with my righteousness, right now? What if I tell them they can stop beating themselves up? That they can stop being so formal, stiff, and jumpy around me? What if I tell them I’m crazy about them? What if I tell them, even if they run to the ends of the earth and do the most horrible, unthinkable things, that when they come back, I’d receive them with tears and a party?”

– TrueFaced (Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, John Lynch)

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We all have a God-shaped hole, and when we don’t fill that hole with God, we suck it in from things and people around us.

The answer is to express more vulnerability and authenticity. Vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.” It’s when we show our true selves, reveal the things we would rather hide, and open ourselves up to judgment and shame. So naturally this is something we all avoid. But the only onramp to authenticity is vulnerability — the courage to look imperfect (because we ARE).

How did we get here? The fall.

In Genesis 2:25, before the fall, it says that both Adam and Eve were naked (“arum” in Hebrew) and they felt no shame. This is how we were created — to be vulnerable (naked) and NOT be shameful about it.

But then came the fall. In Genesis 3:1-10, the serpent comes and tricks them with lies. The serpent is described here as “crafty.” Interestingly, this uses same the Hebrew word “arum”. Arum hints at both vulnerability itself, and the tricks we play to hide this vulnerability. It hints at the existence (or lack thereof) of a hidden agenda.

And as we know, shortly after Adam and Eve ate the apple, their eyes were “opened” and “they knew they were naked.” Adam tells God, “I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid.”

This hiding is shame. Shame stems from an acute awareness of our vulnerability (and the resulting lie that we are not enough) — and so we try to hide.

With respect to shame, we can break the cause and effect of the Fall into four main aspects:

1. The LieGenesis 3 starts out with the serpent fooling Eve by suggesting that God is not trustworthy, and is somehow holding out on them. It all started with a lie.

2. HidingOnce Adam and Eve were aware of their nakedness, they 1) hid, and 2) blamed others. As soon as they are “caught” by God, Adam blames eve — he throws her under the bus to protect himself — he hides behind her. Eve in turn blames the serpent. Blaming IS hiding.

3. Idolatrous PerformanceOnce we have hidden ourselves safely away, our God-shaped hole stops receiving love from God and the others we love, it begins to feel hunger pangs. So we attempt to fill it, by grabbing worth from outside of

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ourselves. To this end, we perform, and show the world a false self. We don’t trust that our “real” self would be accepted if it was visible to others. So we rely on things like money, certainty, perfection, being funny, beautiful or competent. And then, if we get recognition for our show, it just perpetuates the desire to perform. Approval demands more of the same.

We hide, we perform and we don’t show ourselves to others, so we remain fundamentally disconnected with each other — we are isolated on a deep level, which is what causes us to “suck life” from around us.

4. Death. The last element of the fall. Whether it’s death of the body or the long slow strangling of the soul, the ways of the fall always result in death.

Salvation! The reversal of the effect of the Fall:

1. Truth always dispels the serpent’s lie.As we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus it dispels the lies of the world that we are constantly barraged by. When we take our every thought captive to what we KNOW to be true according to Jesus, it melts and penetrates through the serpent’s many lies to reveal the all-encompassing love of God, no matter what you feel you have to hide.

2. Grace dispels performance.The truth is that we are all — each person and each living creature — filled to the brim by the love of God — our flaws, secrets and sins notwithstanding. So we don’t *need* to suck life out of people or things, we only need to pull back our cloak of idolatrous performance and open up our true vulnerable selves to others. We uncap our God-shaped hole to be filled with forgiveness, love and compassion from others and from God.

3. Vulnerability dispels hiding.When we drop the act and take the risk to expose our true selves to others, when they accept us just as we are, it feeds our deepest need for love and belonging. (And by contrast, if we are rejected when we are vulnerable, it can cause us to build even higher walls. So it is important to know how to recognize when and with whom it is appropriate to be vulnerable.) Risky though it is, vulnerability is the only onramp to connectedness. We can be fed in a deep and meaningful way when we know we are loved during and in the midst of our imperfection, since this is exactly how God loves us. And this in turn allows us to flow that love out to others.

4. Life and wholeness dispels death!The truth is despite our deepest darkest fears of exposure, in reality we have nothing to fear! When our deepest hunger, our longing for love and belonging comes from God, then this world cannot hurt us. We truly have nothing to lose! We are loved as we are. This gives us the freedom to stop caring about which version of yourself you have to be around whom, or what this or that person thinks of you, and just drop the act and be ourselves — in all our flawed, fearful, and awkward glory!

When a person in power declares entire countries or regions populated mostly of black people (in this case, Haiti and Africa) to be “sh**-hole countries,” we know that despite the improvements we’ve seen, we still suffer from a deep systemic problem of racial disconnection.

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N.T. Wright, in his book The Day the Revolution Began, talks about the third world dept. In one example he tells of a country that initially borrowed five million has paid fifteen billion and now owes 27 billion. Many of these countries cannot even pay on the principle and just continue to sink further in debt. Haiti never wanted industrialization. They were happy in their huts. The debt was an off shoot, appended to the freedom they gained after WWI when their colonization ended. All of their land is used to pay on their debt. 98% of the exports apparel, manufactures, essential oils (Vetiver), cocoa, mangoes, coffee, and bitter oranges (Grand Marnier) comes to us to increase our prosperity at their expense.

Wright thinks, using Gandhi, Martin Luther king and Nelson Mandela as examples, the next great step in moving forward in the gospel of the Kingdom is to forgive the third world debt. But what effect would that have on the prosperity gospel?

Racism is based on a lie: that some have more worth than others. This is where we need to take our thoughts captive — and remember what we KNOW to be true is that humanity was made in God’s perfect image and so by definition they/we are ALL equal and all worthy and all valuable. All deserving of freedom. God loves us like the rain falls and the sun shines, on every single one of us indiscriminately: Black, white, red, brown, green, or striped!

Racism is the embodiment of the Principalities and Powers, the perpetuation of Satan’s lie. So we must call out and fight against racial injustice when we hear it. But this fight must be nonviolent and loving. As ambassadors of the Kingdom it is not our job to be involved in politics or judgment of others because our battle is not with flesh and blood. The hope of the world is not in “hating the right people” but in loving ALL people, regardless of status or likability or skin color, oppressors and oppressed alike.

But, while loving all people, as ambassadors of the kingdom we must also call out those things that are inconsistent with the kingdom, and proclaim & live out God’s truth that ALL are loved and worthy of love and belonging.

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