What's inside your core identity?

Today, I had a fascinating discussion about the essence of one's core identity.  We have discussed in our Webinars the Mental Pilates concept of creating separation between your core identity and your patterns of behavior.  Last evening I used the analogy of a musical instrument.  A musical instrument's core identity is not the songs that it plays.  It is capable of playing all sorts of music, both beautiful and downright awful.  But in the end, it's core identity is still just a musical instrument.  Likewise, our human bodies are capable of developing all sorts of behavior patterns, both beautiful and downright awful.  But believing that our core identity is these expressed behavior patterns is as inaccurate as thinking that an instrument's identity is the songs that it has played.

What I learned this morning is that patterns of behavior can become so dominant that it appears they are not only "with you" but actually are you.  Using the bear analogy...it is not as if there is some trigger that initiates the process of your awareness getting co-opted by emotion; it is as if you simply live with the bear, day and night.  When you wake-up, there's the bear; when you are driving, there's the bear; when you look in the mirror, there's the bear; at the dinner table, there's the bear...co-opting your awareness.  The bear uses your awareness to feed itself all of the frames of evidence it needs to grow stronger and stronger.  The bear has no interest in the health and well being of his "host"; the bear is only interested in its own survival.  Overtime, the person being co-opted realizes that they no longer have a say in the matter and they resign to the fact that the bear's in charge.  Who's driving the bus?  That would be the bear, using your body and awareness to take a joy-ride through life.

But even in these cases where the bear has moved in to stay, there is an inkling of desire to regain control.  This desire is innate.  In the practice of Mental Pilates, this innate desire to gain control of your life is the signal being sent out by your Core Identity.  Your Core Identity recognizes its self as instrument.  An instrument that is capable of forming all sorts of behaviors.  Your Core Identity, recognizing that you are an instrument, understands its Core Purpose.  Your Core Purpose is to become skilled at playing your instrument; to be able to form patterns of behavior that elicit vitality and fulfillment.  That is simply the lowest  common denominator of our being; we are instruments capable of repeating patterns and our purpose is to be aware of this truth and consciously participate in the process.  That's it.  Plain and simple. 

The first skill in the Mental Pilates practice is to strengthen you core identity.  What this means is removing any shred of doubt about your Core Identity and Purpose.  You see, the common thread that enables all "bears" to exist is doubt.  It is the doubt that one has about their own identity that the bear uses to co-opt your operation and move in.  By strengthening your own Core Identity and Purpose to a point that is beyond doubt you create the possibility of separating the "bear" from your own identity.  Once separation is achieved, then we can redirect any negativity that we had been feeling about our self towards the "bear" (i.e. pattern of behaviors).  This is a milestone event, a tipping point, where you co-opt the energy back from the bear and use it to push the bear out of your picture.  Hands on the wheel, you are back in the driver's seat!!!!