Who the heck am I?

Today I had a million ideas to write about, but I picked this one. I decided to write about me, and you, and everybody.

Who am I? THE big question that we’ve never asked ourselves. Up to one tipping point in our lives. Either a grandiose purpose that has been revealed to us during a trip to Costa Rica, or a very low moment when we reached rock bottom.

For me, it was neither. I was living my Life as a human being, working, working, working. I did not do much more than that. I was working as a Chef, and did not have the mental space when I was getting back home late at night. I wasn’t necessarily happy, but I was just playing along. I liked my job, but realized later it was my ego who liked it. Every time people were asking wat I was doing for a living, they were so impressed when I had pronounced the magical letters. C-H-E-F. Add to this fact that my country of origin is France, and there you have it. People had stars in their eyes, and I was content to live up to their expectations. I knew though that there was more to Life, but I did not have the awareness to understand it yet.

Everything was routinely the same thing, until the world collapsed one year. Yes, you know what year I’m talking about, the (in)famous 2020.

One night in April, I had a dream. A dream that changed everything. Not the kind of dream in which you find yourself walking naked on the street and then going to bowling with your coworkers and then meeting your ex. I’m talking about those specific dreams that carry an energetic trail after you wake up, and during the day. For me, this trail lasted for days. I won’t get share the dream with you here, but it stuck with me. I could not do anything else than feel it, as I was carrying its imprint with me. This dream turned my world upside down. This dream saved my Life.

This is when my Life began for real. I opened up to a world full of unknown things: presence, awareness, state of Being, living in the moment, thoughts becoming things, that we are not our thoughts etc. The list goes on and on.

And a question was raised in my mind: who am I? Big one. You can stop reading here if you’re looking for the secrets of The Universe, the answer is not below.

Who am I? I started to look for answers within. I questioned everything: my looks, my tastes, my behavior, what I was eating, how I was reacting to people’s opinions, my relationship with my family, with friends. How was that possible that I had not been aware of all this before? Well, considering that working was my main preoccupation, I had my nose to the grindstone and was not able to see anything else.

During this time, I fully went into monk mode, and I experienced huge amounts of pain. But this was necessary for me to see. To see the Truth. Who am (was) I? Someone who was living to work, who did not pay attention to what she was putting in her body, was performing to a T emotional eating, who had shallow relationships with “friends” who were running on the same track of Life, and who thought the Truth was coming from the mouth of older family members or people high in the hierarchy. Ah, and also, a constant state of fight or flight in my body, that was leading to chronic physical pain.

How did I feel when I realized that? I was in awe. Truly. In awe of how blind I had been, thinking I had my shit together, while I was not even close to 1% of where I am today.

I remember having a conversation around this time with a coworker younger than me. He was raised in Nepal and from 11 years old onward, was sent every school holiday to this “spiritual camp” for kiddos. He learned meditation there, how to deal with thoughts and regulate emotions. He was very much self-conscious, and I couldn’t help myself but notice the gap of awareness between us.

So, I rolled up my sleeve and applied myself to go through my own spiritual camp. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

And oh boy, how hard it was! How big was this gap between the Life I was living in the 3D, and my lack of spiritual health. Step by step, bit by bit, one minute, one hour, one day after another, I started to find my pace. My awareness was up to the roof, I was having many psychic dreams (I call psychic dreams those dreams that you remember and in which you feel yourself deeply involved), and many synchronicities happening to me.

In my opinion, we all must go through this in our lifetimes. I call it finding our Truth.

For me, Truth means to experience, express, demonstrate and fulfill our identity in this Life. Who we really are.

How the hell do we do that? Well, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. That’s what they say. I was ready on a deep level, but was my Human ready? Not sure. It came like a tornado and took away most things she believed were true.

Since I’ve walked this path, I cannot unlearn some concepts, some truths, some ways of Being. It’s just impossible to go back to the old self. I’ve come to be at peace with the fact that I will never be able to know the truth of it all, or to experience all the wonders my mind has in store, in this lifetime. And that’s totally fine. For me, the most important thing in my Life is to be of service as best I can, be a good Human, and evolve and grow following my dreams with what Life has in store for me.

Life has so much to teach us, so much for us here and now. Everything we need is HERE AND NOW. Trust me. We are just so blinded by the hows, or by something that happened in the past, or by something or someone we want in our lives in the future. How can I be there if I’m not present? How can I enjoy the future if I can’t let go of my past, or rush in my present? How can I be joyful and free, if I keep clinging onto the things that bring me suffering right now?

I’m sure of one thing, it’s that whatever we need to learn in this Life will be presented to us, and if we don’t make peace with it, we will keep experiencing it over and over again. And it takes WORK. And it takes going to battle with oneself. It’s not easy, it’s not pretty. It’s lonely.

It never stops. Life never stops happening. No matter how far we try to run away, from a country, an ex-lover, a job. No matter in what drug or addictive behavior we drown ourselves into. No matter the excuses we keep telling ourselves, or how victimized we pretend to be by our past or current circumstances.

Life will keep happening for us to redirect to our Truth. It’s up to us to acknowledge it and make changes.

With love and gratitude,

Caroline

© Caroline Caanl 2025. All rights reserved.