I was recently in a 1 year coaching program with Dr. Fern Kazlow and, like most coaching or mentoring programs, there were assignments to complete. Now, I totally agree with giving assignments AND found myself avoiding the one where she asked us to answer the question, "Who Am I?".

I thought about it...for several weeks actually...and managed to consistently avoid answering the question during our group calls. Now, knowing what I know about procrastination, I knew there was some fear I had about answering this question. I mean really, what would I find out if I really answered truthfully? Some person I couldn't stand? Someone who was power hungry, selfish and nasty?

So I continued putting off completing the assignment until I was put on the "hot seat"...a dual approach to answering this question and figuring out what MamaRedSpeaks is about, stands for, is here to achieve in this world. The following is what I wrote...and when I was done, I knew it to be my truth, standing naked before the world, saying "Yes, this is who I am." I humbly ask your grace when I don't meet up with the high values I hold important and your celebration when I achieve what I set out to do.

So this is what I turned in...I would love to hear what you come up with when you answer the question: "Who Am I?". Let's discuss it and celebrate.

The original response follows.

Original Meanderings

Oh gracious, when I think about this question, I find myself in one of my most common spaces because I automatically reword this question to read "how am I different, how can I compete". Not only here...in most places I am operating and have operated in the past. So the "Who Am I" question has, traditionally, become one of competition, of comparing and, most often, coming up short. And although it is a common, comfortable, space to be in, it is also an uncomfortable space to be in. Ah, paradoxes, lovely paradoxes. Since I am in the middle of a huge branding effort and am looking at how to distinguish myself, yet remain humble, I find this a true challenge!

What is even more interesting to me as I process this question is the other voice, the newer voice, that is popping up to stay "enough of the old shit, already, enough! You *HAVE* written a new script, you simply haven't become comfortable with it!" So, time to get comfortable with it, with me, all of me.

Who am I?

• I am a human who often forgets that and who believes she can't be human or no one will "like" her (one of my biggest bugaboos...grin).
• I am neither better than, nor worse, than anyone else on this journey and quite often I find myself wanting to be better than (ah, that competitive little girl with the huge scarcity model is bopping out to be heard).
• I am a courageous person who has stepped into many powerful spaces and helped others, only to turn tail and run when the power was too much, when the memories of times when doing so brought the ultimate human pain---death.
  
  Note: The reason for this is because I believe in past lives and was a healer who died many times for being outside the "norm". If you're interested, you can listen to my story of how I came to believe in past lives in the first place.
  
  
• I am a loving person who loves to see joy and laughter in the faces she sees, yet I am a hateful person who sometimes wants others to hurt as much as I do.
• I am a healer who can provide comfort, ease and wisdom when I step out of the way and let Spirit/Source work through me.
• I am a woman who has fought that designation for many years, feeling that being a woman was somehow less than and yet fighting tooth and nail when others denigrated women for being less than.
• I am easily moved, transported, and affected by the emotions (both verbal and nonverbal) of those around me.
• I am both transparent and completely masked, depending on how safe I allow myself to feel wherever I am.
• I have been a shapeshifter, a chameleon if you will, trying to adapt, fit in, be what I *thought* others wanted me to be.
• I have craved approval for most of life and have recently been finding that is not so important to me.
• I am kind, yet unkind, judgmental, yet not. A safety net for those who come to me for comfort, yet many times unsafe in my beliefs about my own gifts and contributions.
• I am a believer in the Light, the gifts, each person brings to this world of humans, yet sometimes find myself mysteriously attracted to, and focusing on, the darkness in this world.
• I am an encourager who strives to find a way to help each person I meet feel important, loved, special, unique.
• I am totally clear on some topics and as dense as the densest metal on other topics.
• I am the person who wants to be rich beyond believing and who runs the other way since it is "not right" (smile, here is that voice again) to make money on what comes easily to you…and besides, that money is just going to "make" you selfish (I've had amazing transformations in recent months regarding this belief and yet it still rears its powerful head for more healing.).
• I am a woman who, at 50, is facing that being a woman was a choice I made long before I stepped into this human shape. And has been angry at that choice ever since, refusing, until recently, to step into the power that being female brings...with all the gifts and pain and joy and laughter.
• I am a mama bear and a gorgeous, multi-colored butterfly emerging from a dull cocoon of darkness.
• I believe I have a big role to play in raising the world's positive energy and yet shrink from what I perceive to be the enormity of the task. Only to step back and remind myself of the little steps that count.
• I feel a sense of urgency, yet I feel a sense of calmness…some days.
• I am passionate, powerful, loving, giving, caring, emotional, transparent, guiltless, authentic, committed, and guileless. And I am the complete opposite of each of those traits and horribly hard on myself for what I perceive to be any infraction of that commitment to myself and to others.
• I love to hear others' stories…listening for hours is a real treat to me. And, as always, there is the flip side…the voice saying "OK, now what, what's next?"!
• I love the call of Spirit, saying we are truly all one spirit with ever so many faces and variants.
• I am the woman who stood on a female vortex in Sedona and felt the wind whip up around me, rattling the teeth of the males who were sharing the space with me, and whipping up dust and fauna in a totally frenzy. Felt the power surge through me like I know I have felt in lives past. Who danced with laughter and joy on the crystal fields and felt an amazing sense of accomplishment when the "Crystal People" kept the males from stepping onto their fragile land (there is that competitive piece again!).
• And I am the woman who had a total physical, emotional, and spiritual collapse 2 weeks later from the sheer fear and terror of being near that bigness, accepting that bigness. The woman who has, step by step, walked back into the bigness…being "the wind" and allowing, and is stretching myself, challenging myself, by being part of this team of powerful change warriors when there are so many days I simply want to crawl back into my cave of unknowing and say "the hell with it".

And I am, in the end, a passionately joyful warrior who is on earth to be and bring healing and love.