The Identity Gap
The size of the gap varies from person to person. “Who we really are” and “how we appear” are separated by
the feelings we memorize throughout different points in our lives (based on past experiences). The bigger the
gap, living in the middle, the greater the addiction to the emotions we memorize.
Layer by layer, we wear various emotions, which form our identity. In order to remember who we think we
are, we have to re-create the same experiences to reaffirm our personality and the corresponding emotions.
As an identity, we become attached to our external world by identifying with everyone and everything, in
order to remind us of how we want to project ourselves to the world.
How we appear becomes the façade of the personality, which relies on the external world to remember who
it is as a “somebody.” Its identity is completely attached to the environment cars a own, people I know,
places I’ve been ,things I can do, experiences I’ve had, company I work for….. is who we think we are in
relation to everything around us.
We create a set of memorized automatic programs that work to cover the vulnerable parts of us. We engage
a masquerade rather than let the world know what we are really like. The world is complex and scary, but it
makes it less frightening and much simple to conform with a group pick your poison.
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Life experiences define our identity but staying busy keeps unwanted emotions at bay however as we keep
the refractory period of emotion running we journey from a mere emotional reaction to a mood, to a
temperament and ultimately to a personality trait.
We use what we know in the external world to define our identity, and to distract us from how we really feel
inside. All these unique experiences produce a myriad of emotions that take away any feelings that we are
hiding, however carrying the baggage from our past will eventually catch up with us.
People unconsciously delve deeper and deeper into this bottomless pit, using different aspects of their world
buy a new thing, turn on the TV, surf the Internet, or call or text someone to keep themselves preoccupied in
an effort to re-create the original feeling from the very first experience that helped them escape.
Changing Relationships Breaking the Ties That Bind
Most relationships are based on what you have in common with others. We compare your experiences,
checking to see whether our neural networks and emotional memories are aligned. Relationships are formed
based on neurochemical states of being, because if you share the same experiences, you share the same
emotions and the same energy. Just like two atoms of oxygen bond to form the air we breathe, an invisible
field of energy (beyond space and time) bonds us emotionally.
Bonds between people are the strongest because emotions hold the strongest energy. As long as either party
doesn’t change, things will be just fine but if you begin to tell the truth about how you really feel, things can
get uncomfortable. Which translates to: I thought we had a good thing going here! I used you to reaffirm my
emotional addiction in order to remember who I think I am as a “somebody.” I liked you better the other way.
Maybe you need Prozac or some other drug to come back to my reality.
What Really Matters in the End
If you need the environment in order to remember who you are as a somebody, what happens when you die
and the environment rolls up and disappears? Do you know what goes with it? The somebody, the identity,
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the image, the personality (top hand) that has identified with all of the known and predictable elements in
life.
What you’re left with is who you really are (bottom hand), not how you appear. When your life is over and
you cannot rely on your external world to define you, you will be left with that feeling you never addressed.
Our soul’s purpose is to learn from experience and gain wisdom, but you stayed stuck in that particular
emotion, you never turned your experience into a lesson; you didn’t transcend that emotion and exchange it
for any understanding.
Addiction
When the same people and things in our lives create the same emotions and the feeling we are trying to
make go away no longer do so; we look for new people and things or try going to new places in an attempt to
change how we feel emotionally. If that doesn’t work, we go to the next level attempting to create a new
identity from the outside with addictions.
With addiction an unhealthy neurophysiological pattern develops in our brains involving the pleasure
chemical dopamine. This chemical is usually released and regulated in our brains to reinforce healthy life
sustaining behavior like eating, exercise, sex, and fellowship with others. Some drugs or behaviors can
artificially hi-jack this circuitry and release an overload of dopamine in to the system. With repeated
occurrence the dopamine receptors get overloaded and build up a tolerance to the level of dopamine in the
system.
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People keep needing more drugs, more shopping or more affairs because the chemical rush that’s created
from those activities activates the receptor sites on the outside of their cells, which “turns on” the cells. But if
receptor sites are continually stimulated, they get desensitized and shut off. So they need a stronger signal, a
bit more stimulation, to turn them on the next time—it takes a bigger chemical high to produce the same
effects. This is why with drug addictions it takes more and more of the input response to create the same
euphoric experience, and eventually leads to an unsustainable level required for a person just to feel normal.
This happens with drugs, alcohol, social media, gambling, pornography, video games, etc. Romans 6:16
Galatians 5:1 In the Kingdom of God freedom is an end in of itself. There is much we are released to do and
accomplish once free, but the freedom itself is the point. We were created by God to be free and reflect His
character inside us by how we take care of one another. Slavery in all forms, whether internal or external, is
anti-Christ. We were not created to be lorded over by one another or any substance or set of behaviors that
take away our capacity to be fully alive. This is what addiction does; it robs us of our joy and freedom.
Addiction can become a dark beast that may have started with us picking it, but leads to the experience that
it’s picking us. Because the dopamine response is part of our internal survival system it can literally feel like
death to not get the euphoric response related to the substance or behavior. Someone who is addicted
begins to lose capacity to care about anyone or anything that doesn’t relate to getting the next fix. The power
of addiction usually lies in the darkness it creates through shame and secrecy. The beauty of God is that no
matter what depth we’ve sunk to, or problems we’ve created of our own free will, He does not leave us
there. He is always at the bottom waiting for us.
If we wait for the outside us to make us happy, then we are not following the quantum law. We are relying
on the outer to change the inner. If we are thinking that once we have the wealth to buy more things, then
we will be overjoyed, we’ve got it backward classical Newtonian thinking.
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We all have a choice.
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Every choice leads to a predictable outcome.
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The middle is miserable.
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All of us, no matter who we are what we’ve done, can begin a new life.
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Romans 6:12
In survival mode Galatians 5:19-21 we are living in the middle, separated and in bondage, the penalty
eternal death; Ephesians 2:12 but we have a choice Romans 6:5-7 to live in creation mode Galatians 5:2224 from Slaves of Sin to Slaves of God. Romans 6:20-23 2016 Nobel Prize Literature Bob Dylan born
Robert Zimmerman and raised in a tight Jewish community in Hibbing, Minnesota. “It may be the devil or it
may be the Lord but you gotta serve somebody”. (Mimetic Theory)
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Forget about past events validating the emotions you’ve memorized that have become part of your
personality. Your problems will never be resolved by analyzing them while you are still caught up in the
emotions of the past. Looking at the experience or reliving the event that created the problem in the first
place will only bring up the old emotions and a reason to feel the same way. When you try to figure out your
life within the same consciousness that created it, you will analyze your life away and excuse yourself from
ever changing.
Instead, just unmemorize our self-limiting emotions. A memory without the emotional charge is called
wisdom.
Then we can look back objectively upon the event and see it and who we were being, without the filter of that
emotion. If we take care of unmemorizing the emotional state (or eliminating it to the best of our ability),
then we gain the freedom to live and think and act independent of the restraints or constraints of that
feeling.
Closing and even eliminating the gap between who we are and who we present to the world is likely the
greatest challenge we all face in life. Whether we term this living authentically, conquering ourselves, or
having people “get” us or accept us for who we are, this is something that most of us desire. Changing,
closing the gap, must begin from within.
At those critical moments when you are really, really grown tired of being beaten down by circumstances,
you can say: This can’t go on. I don’t care what it takes or how I feel [body]. I don’t care how long it takes
[time]. No matter what’s going on in my life [environment], I’m going to change.
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Using the powers of non-judgmental observation, through meditating, you unmemorize that negative
emotional state.
By doing so, you will surrender that emotion to a greater mind, the mind of Jesus, 1 Corinthians 2:16 closing
the gap between who you are and who you have presented to the world in the past.
It is a good sign when we can recognize we have a gap, Romans 7: 15-20 but we need to acknowledge the
truth Romans 7 21-23 refuse to blame and follow and Jesus Romans 7: 24-25.
However we have a role to play. We need to close the gap throwing off our former ways. Ephesians 4:21-31
Steps to closing the gap:
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Ask for and receive forgiveness: Acknowledging that there is nothing we can do to earn His forgiveness
and that the love we receive from Him is not, nor has ever been, dependent on our worthiness or
choices. He loves us because that’s who He is, it’s His nature.
Rest in Christ: 2 Cor 3:17-18 The Spirit of the Lord brings freedom and has the power to unveil our faces.
Unless we experience love as we are (warts, faults, and all), we’ll never be empowered to become
anything better. Satan will tell us we belong in the manure, and shame and secrecy will keep us there,
but God desires to use the past manure of our life as fertilizer to help us grow in to the life He created us
for. He weaves our mistakes in to a beautiful tapestry.
Embrace the problem: Allowing the brain to recalibrate when we stop a substance or behavior can be
painful. This is why we need to use faith to get a concrete vision of where we’re going.
Lean on others. Letting embarrassment about what has grabbed hold of us have the loudest voice will
keep us in bondage. We all have baggage. We need to embrace it together.
ROMANS 5:6, 8 ISAIAH 53:6 COL 3:1-3 2 COR 5:17 ROMANS 12:2 PHIL 4:8
 Remember the truth of who you are in Christ.
 Power of your Thoughts!
 Practice Forgiveness. (Again, and again, and again, and again....) Matthew 18:21
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