The Art of Remembering Who You Already Are

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” - RUMI

I think about personal growth the same way Rumi thinks about love.
Your task is not to search for who you really are, but to remove the blocks that obscure your view of it.

It took me a while to get here.

As a coach, I’ve always sworn to honour the belief that humans are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole.

Not as a nice idea. Not as a coaching slogan.
But as a fundamental orientation to how I see people.

This perspective is embedded in Co-Active coaching. It’s validated by nervous system science through ventral vagal states. It’s echoed in Internal Family Systems through the idea of the Self. Across disciplines, languages, and lineages, the same truth keeps appearing.

There is a part of us that is wise.
Grounded.
Steady.
Already whole.

In my bones, I know this.

And yet, in everyday life, my negativity bias forgets it.

I felt the tug of this just last week in a coaching call. A part of me subtly focusing on what my client might be doing wrong, rather than shining a light on what they were already doing right.

The belief that we motivate ourselves through the stick is a hard one to unlearn. Be harder on yourself. Point out what’s wrong. That will make you better.

This belief isn’t just cultural. For me, it was also religious. External self-flagellation may no longer have been practiced in my Catholic church, but internal self-flagellation absolutely was. Always searching for the sin. The mistake. The way you fell short.

I notice how deep this shaping was now that I catch this pattern more quickly.

I see it in the way my growth mindset has matured - the emerging ability I have now to reflect on a coaching call from a place of compassion. To say, that part went well, and next time I could improve here.

I see it when I’m genuinely in awe of the courage and vulnerability clients bring into coaching sessions.

We aren’t broken. There is nothing to fix. The real us is already here.

If I could, I’d clear out the self-help aisle that quietly teaches us something is wrong with us. And instead, I’d orient us toward the contemplative section. Toward the reminder that the love, wisdom, and beauty we’re searching for already exists within us.

Because the work isn’t striving to become someone else. It’s slowing down and getting still enough to remember who we already are.

How do we do this?

Notice the moments when it feels easiest to be with yourself, and return to those moments more often.

Get still. Get quiet.

Go somewhere it’s easier to feel yourself. In nature. On a walk. On a run. Sitting with a cup of coffee. With a friend who brings you back to yourself without effort.

Notice what happens in your body when you’re there.

You don’t need to look for yourself. You’re already there.

Instead, find the practice that helps you remember it more often.

The stress and chaos will have you forget.

So find the practice that helps you catch yourself in the state of not-remembering.

Find the practice that helps you remember more quickly and remember more often, no matter how the world tries to pull you away.

Until over time remembering becomes your new baseline, and forgetting becomes the exception.