The freedom you truly want from all desires
How We Lose Ourselves Through Conditioned Identities and How to Return to Essence
When we’re young, we are often shaped by the messages we receive from parents, teachers, and society. These messages form identities that dictate who we think we are and who we believe we need to become. Over time, these conditioned identities create dualities within us—a tension between who we are and who we think we need to be. Let’s explore some common examples and how we can return to the essence, as suggested by Stephen Wolinsky.
Five Ways Conditioning Creates Identities
1. "You need to make something of yourself."
Explicit Message: Strive for success and accomplishment.
Implicit Message: You’re not good enough as you are; your worth is conditional on what you achieve.
Resulting Identity: The Overachiever, constantly striving but often feeling incomplete, even after success.
2. "Don’t embarrass the family."
Explicit Message: Your actions reflect on others.
Implicit Message: Your individuality is secondary to social appearances.
Resulting Identity: The People Pleaser, suppressing personal desires to gain approval and avoid rejection.
3. "Why can’t you be more like your sibling?"
Explicit Message: You should emulate others who are “better” than you.
Implicit Message: Who you are isn’t enough.
Resulting Identity: The Comparison Seeker, constantly measuring themselves against others, often feeling inferior or superior based on external validation.
4. "Stop being so sensitive."
Explicit Message: Emotions, especially vulnerability, are a weakness.
Implicit Message: Your natural feelings are unacceptable.
Resulting Identity: The Emotional Suppressor, disconnected from their authentic emotions and struggling to form deep, meaningful connections.
5. "Be nice to everyone."
Explicit Message: Kindness and harmony are more important than anything else.
Implicit Message: Your boundaries and needs don’t matter.
Resulting Identity: The Self-Sacrificer, putting others first to their detriment, often feeling unfulfilled or resentful.
The Cost of Conditioned Identities
These identities are strategies we unconsciously adopt to feel safe, loved, or accepted. While they may serve us temporarily, they often lead to disconnection from our true nature, or essence. Essence, as Stephen Wolinsky suggests, is our fundamental, universal self that exists beyond these layers of conditioning.
The dualities created by these identities—such as striving for success while feeling inadequate, or pleasing others while suppressing personal desires—keep us trapped in cycles of seeking external validation instead of finding completeness within.
Reconnecting with Essence
Stephen Wolinsky offers a transformative method to reconnect with essence by directly engaging with these conditioned identities. Here’s how:
1. Ask the Identities What They Really Want
Each identity, no matter how conditioned or artificial, has underlying desires. For example:
The Overachiever might want to feel worthy and secure.
The People Pleaser might want love and acceptance.
By asking these identities, “What do you truly want in this whole world?” they often realize that their desires—like love, worthiness, or connection—are actually aspects of essence itself.
2. Recognize That Essence Fulfills All Desires
Once an identity recognizes that what it truly seeks is essence, you can connect it back to essence. Through this realization, the identity understands that:
Love, worthiness, and connection are inherent in your essence.
You don’t need to seek them externally—they are already within you.
3. Embrace the Present Moment
Essence exists only in the now. Let go of striving for completeness in the future and recognize the wholeness that already exists.
4. Let Go of Resistance
Wolinsky emphasizes the importance of surrendering to chaos rather than resisting it. Allow yourself to experience emotions and sensations fully, without clinging to or avoiding them.
5. Trust in Your Natural State
Your essence is not something to be achieved but something to be remembered. By shedding the layers of conditioning, you naturally reconnect with your universal self.
Conclusion
The identities we form from childhood conditioning are not who we truly are. They are strategies born from external expectations and fears. Returning to essence, as Stephen Wolinsky suggests, is about dissolving these identities and embracing the completeness and wholeness that has always been within you. Through awareness, observation, and surrender, you can let go of the dualities that hold you back and rediscover your true self.
