The Problem Isn’t Knowing Who You Are

I’ve forgotten who I am.

It’s easy to do.

It happens so slowly, so methodically that I didn’t know it had occurred. It was an intensive training of old beliefs, patterns and habits, that aren’t mine, but I adopted them anyway. I absorbed them, allowing them to take over until I became distant from my true essence.

But, I realize, on a deeper level, that I am so much more than this. Every now and then I have to remind myself, find that connection back to my true essence. If I’ve been away too long, it can feel like a challenge to return home; and, most of the time, the return home doesn’t stick.

Gnōthi Seauton

Inscribed at the ancient Temple of Apollo at Delphi is one of the three ancient maxims: Gnōthi Seauton or Know Thyself. While there have many interpretations of what it means, I believe it is a subtle invitation to go within and to remember ourselves more deeply. Underneath our identity, roles, wounds, and expectations is who we really are– untouched, beautiful, whole. Higher consciousness. The Divine within. The true self.

The Divine is the consciousness calling us back into wholeness.

Aristotle had said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom,” while Pythagoras said, “Man, know thyself; then thou shalt know the universe and God.”

Truly knowing the self is the realization of who we always have been beyond the identity, the titles, the career, and the relationships.

So, where do we start? How do we realign our inner world with the true self while our outer world is in shambles? Especially when we are in a job we hate, a relationship that is mediocre, or our lives, in general, are not what we want them to be.

The Re-membering

The ancient Egyptian myth of the Goddess Isis (or Aset) and the God Osiris tells the story of how Osiris was killed by his brother, Set, who scattered Osiris’ body parts throughout the land. Osiris’ wife, Isis, travelled far and wide to gather all of his scattered pieces, one-b- one putting him back together.

At first glance, it is a story of devotion, death, and resurrection. But it goes much deeper than that.

It’s a story of remembering. Or re-membering.

It is an allegory of how we have forgotten who we truly are through the scattering of the self, our energies, our identities and the forgetting of our essential nature.

We’ve accumulated versions of ourselves, of who we thought we should be based on our jobs, relationships, society, or family.

We bury our true nature beneath the facades, the careers, the beliefs, fears, and old patterns.

When we step into awakening and awareness, we become Goddess Isis and begin the search to retrieve the missing parts. This isn’t a goddess that is found somewhere outside of ourselves, but the goddess within that re-members that we are so much more.

The Goddess Isis represents healing, magic, motherhood and fertility. I feel that she helps us to retrieve what is forgotten, what has been scattered, and brings the pieces back home. She can see the true self when we can’t, and re-members and nourishes the self back into wholeness.

Re-membering the self isn’t about finding yourself because the self hasn’t disappeared.

We try to heal, reinvent, and improve ourselves, but maybe it isn’t about that.

Maybe it is about the death of the old self and the resurrection of the new.

How Do We Re-member

I have been out of my meditation habit for a long time and I can feel it. I have become overly focused on the outside world, what needs to be done on the physical plane and pretend to be who others expect me to be. I get sucked into the drama and flashiness of the outside world while being pulled away from my connection to my true wholeness.

Coming back to meditation is where I begin to re-member.

I call in my three favourite meditation buddies: The Goddess Isis, Goddess Brigid and Mary Magdalene, and ask for their support. The Goddess Isis gathers what has been fragmented; Goddess Brigid gives it creative fire, and Mary Magdalene teaches the heart what to do with what emerges.

I dive into my heart and my soul and quietly listen, connecting with my deepest being. This means moving beyond the ego, beyond my problems, arguments, frustrations, and daily battles; my have-tos and shouldas; my old beliefs, patterns and conversations.

I go deeper.

All of the outside stuff doesn’t matter. What matters is my connection to my Divine Being where wholeness lives. When I am away from it for too long, life is less interesting, less fulfilling. When I tap back into it, I return home. I call back all of my energies and re-member.

The journey isn’t about finding something that was lost; it is about re-membering what was always whole.

When it comes down to it, knowing thyself isn’t about knowing if I like apple pie more than pumpkin pie, or if I identify as a vegetarian or a carnivore. Knowing thyself isn’t about how I react in a certain situation, or what I do for a living.

It’s about knowing who I am at my foundation.

In the depths of the soul.

That’s where I find myself. That’s where the heart of my being lives.

It’s the quiet voice that guides me when I take the time to listen.

It’s the soul voice that speaks with love.

It whispers to me that I am one with the all.

It is the voice that guides me home.

The alchemical journey is at the heart of my book, Love Alchemy: The Sacred Journey to Self-Love.

In the book, I explore self-love as a process of transformation—an inner alchemy that asks us to look honestly at what we carry, release what no longer serves us, and transmute our experiences into greater self-awareness, self-worth, and love.

Love Alchemy isn’t about becoming someone new or fixing who you are. It is about peeling away the layers that have accumulated through experience, expectation, fear, and conditioning so that you can reconnect with the self that has always existed beneath them.

It’s a journey of remembering, reclaiming, and ultimately returning home to yourself.

Find it at: Love Alchemy: The Sacred Journey to Self-Love

Much of the work I create through The Inner Temple is rooted in this same journey—learning to listen inward, deepen the relationship with yourself, reconnect with your own wisdom, and create a life that feels more aligned with who you truly are.

Through my online workshops and meditations, The Inner Temple offers a space to pause, turn inward, and put these ideas into practice.

If this article has stirred something within you—perhaps a recognition that you are changing, outgrowing, or being called toward something more aligned—I invite you to keep following that thread.

You don’t need to know exactly who you are becoming.

Sometimes you simply need to honour the knowing that you are no longer who you were.

Nourish. Transform. Awaken.

Receive 20% off on Inner Temple online courses by using code Alchemy20.

Explore online courses at: The Inner Temple .