Finding Truth

Hi, guys. My name is Donnie Rouse. And you were listening to the podcast One Life. Identity is one of the most powerful forces shaping our lives. The question then becomes, well, what is the identity that we have? Or more specifically, what is the identity that we choose? See, everything in life, everything we experience, is a choice. Look at your identity now, how you describe yourself. Get a piece of paper out and write it down. Is it true? And then you might want to make it. Fold your paper in half and make a separate column. How do other people describe you? Is that true? See, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Because identity is the strongest force. Because what we will live by, what we hold true to, is the identity we believe about ourselves and the people that are the person that other people think we are as a result. The easiest example of this is childhood. I had a friend when I was in high school. I had a friendship that went bad because of drugs. One of my really, really good friends. I had to make the decision to cut off that friendship because it was becoming toxic. He was addicted to a specific drug and promised that he would get off it. Never did. Until I found him one day in the bathroom sniffing a line. Years later, I saw him out and he came up to me and said, you know what? I don't blame you for cutting off ties with me. I'm a junkie and I do not believe him to have been a junkie. He had poor self worth. I think in school people knew him as this kind of party guy, maybe even as a fuck up. And as a result of what other people think, he took on that identity. He made that identity real. See, identity is nothing but a belief system we have about ourselves. And in the title of Finding Truth, which is the title of this podcast, Finding Truth is to discover who we really are. But first it's really important to discover who we're not. If you close your eyes and you picture in your mind's eye what you want to become, write that down. You write down the person you want to become. You write down the experiences you want to have. You write down the emotions you want to feel on a daily basis. And with this identity, how you approach life, what is your outlook on life? How do you treat others? And then you have to find the truth. See, the truth is that this identity that we just created, this identity seems to be so far out in the future, this hypothetical that we want to attain, that is our identity. That is who we are. There's nothing that separates who we are. It's nothing but a thought that's all it is. One thought you're giving more belief to, the other you're denying. Right? One thought you're buying in and the other you're rejecting. So then how do you. How do you create, how do you make this shift in identity? It's been a lot of the work that I've been focusing on. These last, probably the last, I mean, well, literally since like 2010, but even more so in the last few months. And what I found was this. One identity over another has nothing to do with anything except what you're putting your focus on, what you're choosing to leave. See, if you look at this disempowering identity, you're putting focus into that and saying this is true. You might even be around people at home, friends, who believe this identity to be true. So as a result of that, you're conforming to this bullshit identity that you have. And then when you look at this identity you want to have at some point in the future, it seems so far off in the distance, but in reality it is not. In reality, it is just as real as the headphones. You're listening in to hear this podcast right now. And let me explain why. When you were younger, did you ever play. When I was younger, I used to play this game. I used to be outside when I was young and it was freezing cold and I would be shivering. I'd be like. And in my mind I'd say, watch this. Or maybe I would say to a friend, like, watch this. I could shut the cold off and all of a sudden the shivering would stop. And my mind was in control of that. Did I get any. Was I warmer as a result of shutting it off? No, I didn't move. I was still outside playing in the snow. Nothing changed. So what happened in that moment? I decided that I was not going to put attention towards being cold. I was not going to put attention towards that physical reaction that was happening in my body to shiver. Instead, I wanted to focus on being warm, focus on being comfortable. It's the same with identity, really. That simple. I'll give you an example. Currently, so I have. I would say one of the things I noticed was that I would bend to other people's wills or I would try to avoid conflict. I was reading the book by Isaac Litsky called Eyes Wide Open, where he talks about his. His experiences seeing the world as a blind man and how he navigated the world is also. He gives a lot of metaphors and uses some of his experience as a lawyer. And in this, he talks about how we see ourselves, how other people see us, and like how the personality is kind of bended in order to adapt these views or these views others have of us. So I was doing this affirmation saying, I am trying to think what it was. It was, I am happy. I'm a happy, passionate international millionaire. Or I could say, I exude confidence, gratitude, self worth and love. So if you say that right, let's play a game right now. We'll amuse each other. So think of yourself the way you are right now. Take an inventory of this exact moment. Next, I want you to picture yourself. Say, I am confident. And I want you to picture yourself in a confident state. Maybe there's a memory that you could evoke, a memory from the past where you felt very, very confident. Maybe it was a sports competition. If there's memory, I want you to pull it into your mind, close your eyes and just get into that physiology, get into that same body that you were breathing the same way, speaking to yourself the same way you would have in that moment. How does it feel now? You don't have to tell me, I know much, much better. So then now, what is the difference? Why can't we stay in this state? For the same reason we chose to be shivering in the cold. We chose to put the energy into that negative identity that we held for ourselves. We choose to. We're in this new identity of this confident that we just did. But then our bodies are like, you know what? That doesn't really feel right. Let me revert back to this because I know this is more comfortable. I know this to be true. The only thing you have to do is be aware of it and say, you know what? That's no longer me. This is who I am. This is who I am. Keep reaffirming it and that is what you'll become. So finding thyself to find yourself means to know yourself and know your truth. Every single one of us are born with the same opportunities, born with the same abilities in the sense maybe yours might differ. Maybe I'm a great coffee maker, maybe you know how to do oil paintings, whatever it may be. But we are all born with something unique to us, something to give. So we got to get over this bullshit identities that we have for ourselves and really to select who we want to become, what we want to do, but do so in a place not from lack, but from a place of abundance. And what that means is not saying, you know, I want to be confident. I want to have, I don't know, want to be beautiful, have a ripped body. So this way people will accept me or I will be good enough. That's coming from a place of lack. You want to come from a place of abundance, seeing yourself for who you really are. Do that enough. I promise you. That will become your identity. Change your voice, I mean, change your language, change your physiology, and you will soon become. That was my little bit of. That was a little rant for me. And I felt like in that episode or in this episode, I feel passionate about it because it's something that I've noticed reoccurring in my own life. So in a way, kind of not upset, kind of like not upsets me, but it pushes my buttons because it's something so, so simple. And yet we fall into these default settings, these default ideas that people have that we take on. So this week, just do exactly that. Like I said, affirm and say into that state, realize that there's no difference between one or the other. The only difference is where you put your thoughts. Guys, thank you so, so much again for tuning in. I hope you have an awesome week. If you have any messages or if you want to share some of your own experiences with this, I would love to hear your hear those experiences. You could tag me on Instagram at Donny. D O N N Y R A U S again D o N N Y R A U S and if you like coffee, I highly encourage you to check out my coffee company's webpage. Right. Rousecoffee.com, r A U S coffee.com if you put in the discount code OneLife, you will get 10% off your first order. And I highly recommend the cold Roman espresso primarily because I think it's the bomb dot com. You will not find another bottled espresso anywhere and it is brewed to perfection. It's the only bottle espresso you will find anywhere in the world that I know of. That's actually really brute. And this whole process, I promise you it's something very, very special you won't find anywhere else. Thank you guys. God bless and I will see you next week. This podcast is brought to you by RouseCoffee. I believe that coffee is one of the most powerful rituals in our day and that it has the power to shape our day for better or for worse. More than that, it's a moment to just be. It's about taking time for ourselves to stop the busyness of life and to make time for what's important to us. If this resonates with you. I encourage you to Try Rous Coffee Company at www.rouse r a u s coffee. C-O-F-F e-E dot com. Use the discount code One Life, All Capitals, One Word to get 10% off your first order. Remember, life is short and is what we make of it. So remember to take a moment and enjoy now.