Who Am I, Really?

Exploring the question that refused to leave me alone

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Several years ago, I sat across from a life coach and tried to answer what should have been a simple question.

Who are you?

Not your name. Not your age, your job, your relationships.

You.

I remember struggling with the question then, unable to answer it. Back then, much of our work focused on finding what she called my authentic self. The person I am underneath all the layers of expectations, responsibilities, habits, and obligations that have accumulated over a lifetime.

Much of the coaching focused on identifying patterns I’ve learned over the years. Of seeing how I’ve learned to adjust myself to those around me, totally forgetting about myself and my wishes. In fact, when asked what I would really want from life, I couldn’t answer it. The same way I couldn’t answer the question of who I really am.

Coaching unlocks something in us. I remember the coach telling me I would be okay, that I would continue to grow after our coaching sessions ended. Halfway through last year, something happened in the universe, bringing my healing to the foreground.

Years have passed since those coaching sessions, yet the self-discovery and healing have never really gone away. In fact, recently it seems to have grown louder.

From halfway through April this year, I started having dreams. Dreams I remembered. I know we all dream every night, but frequently the moment we open our eyes, the images are gone, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot recall them. In a stretch of eight weeks, I remembered eleven of my dreams. It must’ve been halfway through those weeks that the question suddenly popped into my head:

Who am I, really?

Not who other people think I am. Not who I’ve learned to be or who circumstances required me to become.

Who am I underneath all of that; when all of that is stripped away?

That question — who am I, really? — began appearing in my dreams. No, not as words or direct messages. Dreams are rarely that cooperative.

I had to make sense of the strange images, the disconnected stories, the impossible situations, and the emotions lingering long after waking. To help me make sense of the dreams, I began exploring their possible meanings and looking for recurring themes.

The dreams were as different as day and night. The elements in the dreams changed, and the feelings in the dreams were different. Personally, had I not asked for an interpretation, I wouldn’t have connected the dreams with each other.

Now I think perhaps all those dreams tried to ask me the same thing: Who are you when everything familiar falls away?

The Woman of Many Roles

Most of us collect identities as we move through life. Some of mine are: daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, friend, colleague, neighbor, caregiver.

You might have similar ones to me, or yours might be totally different.

None of these identities are false. They represent genuine parts of our lives and real responsibilities. We cannot simply discard them. However, there is a difference between having a role and becoming that role.

Somewhere along the way, I became very good at being useful. Personally, I think this started at too young an age, as I had to navigate through the emotional unavailability and immaturity of my parents.

I learned to anticipate problems before they occurred. I learned to take care of people, where sometimes that care only was to give them room and shrink myself.

Adapting myself to others became my middle name. I learned to compromise, and learned to consider how my choices might affect others, then abandon them, afraid of the fallout.

These skills served me well. They helped me build relationships and navigate difficult situations. They also helped me become dependable.

At what cost? I now ask myself.

When your attention is constantly directed outward, toward the needs and expectations of others, how often do you stop to ask what you want?

Not the practical. Or the reasonable. Not what is expected.

What do you want?

What do I want?

It surprises me how difficult that question is to answer. Then again, it doesn’t surprise me. After all, if I can’t even think of one word when someone asks me who I am, how would I know what I want?

Milliseconds after asking that question, a chorus of internal voices appears.

What about your husband? What about your family? Your responsibilities? What about the consequences?

Those voices are not enemies. They have guided me through life. They are part of what makes me compassionate and responsible.

However, in coaching sessions, I have learned that those voices also hide my authentic self from the outside world. From me. I have listened to them for so long that it’s hard to hear my voice underneath. Of course, in the years after the coaching stopped, I’ve learned to notice when those voices took over, but as the coach warned, it’s easy to slip back into the familiar. Even if the familiar doesn’t serve me anymore.

It’s like the dreams I had in those eight weeks want to help me find my way back to my own voice.

The Dream of the Car

I was in a car. Whether I was parked or driving, I can no longer remember. What I do remember is that suddenly the car would only move backwards. The road was busy, and traffic approached. Cars were parked along the side. The vehicle moved faster and faster while I desperately tried to steer.

There was more in the dream, but the image of the car lingered. Why was I moving backward? Why did I have so little control, and was I trying so hard to navigate circumstances I had not chosen?

I knew the dream had nothing to do with cars. Perhaps it was about direction.

There are moments in life when we believe we are moving forward because we are functioning, coping, managing, and surviving, while inwardly we may feel disconnected from ourselves. We may discover that while we have been fulfilling expectations, we have left behind some essential part of ourselves.

Maybe the dream was asking whether I am moving toward myself. Or had I spent so many years moving in directions dictated by responsibility, expectation, and habit, that I had lost sight of where I actually wanted to go?

The Woman Being Observed

Another dream involved following strangers who intended to photograph me. My husband knew nothing about it.

I knew where I was going; knew what was happening. Still, I kept it hidden.

The dream felt uncomfortable. Not because of the photographs themselves, but because of the sense of exposure. Of being seen. Observed. Revealed.

Many of us claim we want authenticity, but that requires visibility. The authentic self cannot remain entirely hidden.

To live authentically means allowing others to see parts of us that may not fit neatly into the roles they expect us to play. That can be (and is) frightening, especially when we have spent years earning approval by being reliable, accommodating, and predictable.

What happens when we reveal desires that don’t align with other people’s expectations? What happens when we admit we want something different, when we stop performing and start showing up as ourselves?

Those are uncomfortable questions.

Maybe they appear in dreams because they want me to explore; want me to continue the process the coach started some years ago. The process of returning to my authentic self.

Things in the Wrong Place

One dream featured something oddly mundane: a lawnmower standing in a bathroom.

The image made little sense. I mean, come on! A lawnmower belongs outside. It doesn’t belong in the bathroom. Yet there it was…

Dreams often communicate through disruption, by placing familiar objects in unfamiliar locations. They create a feeling that something is not quite right.

Thinking of that image now, it makes me wonder how many things in my life occupy places they were never meant to occupy.

How many obligations have expanded beyond their proper boundaries? How many responsibilities have become identities? How many adaptations have become permanent? How many coping mechanisms have become personality traits?

What if some parts of me are not actually me at all?

Maybe they are simply strategies I learned long ago and never stopped using? The question feels both unsettling and liberating. Because if something was learned, it can also be unlearned.

Listening to the Dreams

I don’t believe dreams predict the future. I also don’t believe every dream contains hidden wisdom. Sometimes a dream is simply a dream.

However, I do believe dreams can reveal what occupies our attention beneath conscious awareness.

During the day, we are busy. We solve problems, answer messages, make appointments, have conversations, buy groceries, and complete tasks. There is little space left for deeper questions.

At night, however, the mind begins making strange connections. Emotions become stories. Questions become symbols.

Maybe that is why certain themes keep returning. Not because dreams are trying to tell me who I am, but because they refuse to let me ignore the question.

Looking back at the dreams, it isn’t the symbols that strike me most. It’s the role I seem to play within them.

Again and again, I find myself navigating unfamiliar situations. Trying to adapt. Trying to understand what is happening. Trying to regain control; to work out what is expected of me.

Rarely do I move through those dreams with certainty. Rarely do I simply exist.

Even in my dreams, I seem to search.

Perhaps that is what connects these dreams despite their differences. Beneath the changing scenery, the same question seems to repeat itself:

Who am I when I stop adapting to everyone and everything around me?

The Grief of Looking Back

There is another part of this journey that comes into play: Grief.

Not grief for something I lost. It’s grief for something I may never have fully known.

As I examine the patterns that brought me to where I am today, I sometimes wonder how many decisions were driven by adaptation rather than desire.

How many times have I asked what others needed before I asked what I needed. How many opportunities I dismissed because they seemed impractical. How many parts of myself quietly stepped aside to make room for everyone else.

I don’t ask these questions from a place of regret. Regret suggests I should have known better.

I didn’t.

I was doing the best I could with the tools I had at the time. The adaptations that now feel limiting were once the very things that helped me survive. Still, there’s sadness in realizing how little space I sometimes gave myself. And sometimes still do.

Sadness is not to be avoided. It’s part of the process of coming home to myself.

Beyond Usefulness

One possibility occurred to me recently: Maybe I’ve spent much of my life defining myself through usefulness.

Helping when someone needs it, even before they ask for it. When I see someone struggling, I support them. In my opinion, those are admirable qualities, but they answer a different question: What do I do?

They don’t provide an answer to: Who am I?

Those two questions are not the same.

If every responsibility disappeared tomorrow, I would still exist. If nobody needed anything from me for a day, a week, or a month, I would still be someone.

But who?

Who am I?

That question feels strangely vulnerable. It forces me to consider an identity not based on service, productivity, or obligation. An identity that exists simply because it exists, and not because it is needed.

The Question That Remains

I wish I could end this essay with a revelation; a moment of clarity. Or maybe a list of answers. An epiphany.

The truth is… I’m still searching.

The woman my life coach encouraged me to find years ago hasn’t suddenly stepped into the light, but remains partially hidden.

Sometimes, in moments of curiosity, moments of creativity, I catch glimpses of her. I catch glimpses of her when I stop asking what I should do and begin asking what I want.

I also catch glimpses of her in dreams. Not because dreams provide answers, but because they continue asking questions.

Maybe authenticity is not a destination we arrive at. It might be a lifelong process of gradual uncovering. Of a willingness to notice which voices belong to us and which voices were inherited from expectation, responsibility, fear, or habit.

Maybe the authentic self is not something we create, but is what remains when everything else is gently set aside.

For now, I’m still learning how to listen. Not to the voices telling me who I should be. Not to the roles telling me who I must be.

I listen to the quieter voice underneath them all, the one asking no more and no less than this: Who are you? Who are you when nobody needs you to be anyone at all?

It might be why the dreams keep returning. Not because they know the answer, but because some part of me keeps asking the question:

Who am I?

Not the wife, nor the mother, nor the caregiver. Not the woman everyone can depend on. No, just me.

The coach started the process some years ago, and it looks like the dreams are helping me continue it. Now, finally, I’ve reached a point where I’m ready to listen. Ready to discover who I am underneath all the roles, expectations, habits and obligations.

Ready to meet the woman who has been there all along.

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