Identity: back to my why

‘How are you? What’s it like to be back home? Is it difficult to re-adjust?’ These - and other much alike - are the type of questions we get to answer these days. Lovely, as at first it was impossible to answer any of them without hesitation. ‘How are you?’ I don’t know. ‘What’s it like to come back after a year of work and travel abroad?’ You tell me. But as of now - after five weeks or so - some answers arise.
 
So yes, we’re back. It sure has been an amazing year. We got to travel, met inspiring people and felt - or actually had - serious amounts of time to go our own ways. ‘Was it soul searching? Was it about finding our identities?’ No. That would suggest we lost them earlier; which we feel wasn’t the case. Nevertheless our identities raged and roared this last year. Let me explain.

First of all, let’s define identity. It differs from personality. Personality describes what you and me are like. Personality is about characteristics, such as shy, caring or outgoing. Identity tells us more about who you really are. Identity is also something we share with others: the people we identify with. It’s both heart and soul. It’s desire, it’s will, it’s creativity. Identity is how we feel, what we want and how we live. 

Now this is what happened when we started travelling and living abroad. First of all, differences were everywhere. Those differences made it all the more clear to me what defines me versus others. Secondly, travelling appealed to desire and stimulated ideas. Whereas nothing was self-evident and patterns snapped, it got easier - and perhaps even necessary - to understand our own needs, to make decisions and to get creative. Why? To be happy, to be there and then, and to feel home in a turtle kind of way. My travel companion and me both experienced what you might call identity-clarity: a wonderful, strong self-sense which makes it easier to enjoy, to be determined and to connect to others and each other. This is who we are and this is how we see things. Plus: we started to identify with groups and people we never knew before. That's how identities change and develop.

And then we moved back in. We dropped the turtle shells and took up residence in a real house. Our house; home again. Immediately differences became less sharp. We felt less appeal to creativity and didn’t want that much; as if it all suddenly seemed so self-evident again. What happened to uniqueness? What happened to willpower and ideas? For a few weeks it all flew out of the window. 'How are you?' I don’t know… But then identities re-emerged. And of course; life is as self-evident as we make it. When bored, isn’t that just a lack of sufficient goals? Nevertheless the identity-clarity for most is less obvious in everyday life. Recognizable? It takes awareness. For that matter - identity-wise - travelling is easy.
 
And now? Now we just feel lucky to be able to merge identities: merge the traveller with the worker, merge ideals with home economics, merge the global with the local and so on. This actually is great. Today we hold new keys to make everyday life more desirable, better connected and more creative than before.

It also brought me back to why I started these blogs: coaching and culture. Both coaching and culture relate to identity: who are you? People with mixed identities - born and raised somewhere and living elsewhere - bring in a lot. First, second and third generation migrants hold a uniqueness that constantly appeals to their desires and creativity. It makes people stand out. This is what makes different identities so special to work with. They add to our everyday life, our work force, our work life and our personal lives. That includes differences and changes of patters that make us - in our turn - more aware of our own identity. I can identify with that. Diversity is so much more than just ‘incorporating’ a few differences. Being around other peoples’ identity-clarity is both inspiring and contagious. On the other hand being different remains a serious challenge at times. A meaningful challenge: differences make sense. That is why putting Coach Cultures into practice inspires me.

Landing identities - www.coachcultures.org