Questions that open doors #4: What if you didn't have to be the same person forever?

Newsletter created by Erika Marchioro

We like to feel consistent. We say: "This is just how I am." "I always react this way." "That's not for me." "I'm not the kind of person who..."

Sometimes we say it with pride, sometimes with resignation, as if at some point we were handed a final version of ourselves and all that was left was to perform it.

But how much of what we call character truly belongs to us? And how much of it was simply what we needed to get by?

Maybe you became the one who never asks for anything because, back when you needed something, asking changed nothing. 

Maybe you're the strong one because someone had to be. The one who keeps everything under control because the unexpected once hurt too much. The one who cracks a joke when the air turns heavy. The one who looks after everyone else before even asking how she is. The one who leaves first, so that no one can leave her.

Repeated often enough, these defenses start to look like our personality. And then something strange happens: we keep protecting ourselves even when the danger has passed.

Not because we can't change, but because that version of us worked. It got us this far.

Perhaps, then, the point isn't to reject her, but to thank her. And then to ask whether she might finally rest.

Whom would you be without what you had to become?

It's a hard question, and it may not have an immediate answer. You might discover there are parts of yourself you want to keep: that the strength born in your worst moments truly is yours, that caution taught you how to choose, that certain scars left behind abilities you wouldn't want to lose.

But you might also notice that something has become too tight. An old definition. A role. A way of loving. A promise made to a version of you with very different needs.

Changing doesn't mean being inconsistent. Sometimes it simply means recognizing that an answer that was once right no longer fits the question your life has become.

Trees don't experience losing their leaves as a betrayal. They don't try to look like their spring while they move through winter. They change shape without ceasing to be what they are.

Maybe we could grant ourselves the same freedom: not the freedom to become someone else, but the freedom to stop, now and then, having to prove we're still who we used to be.

So here is the door I'd like to leave ajar today:

Which part of yourself do you keep calling "character" when it may just be an old form of protection you no longer need?