Quotes About Identity

We need you to be you. We don't need a second anybody. We need the first you.

Gospel is the divine announcement that you are loved and accepted exactly as you are, that everything has been taken care of, that everything you've been striving to earn has been yours the entire time, that you belong, in exactly this condition that you are currently in, nothing additional required or needed.

If anybody didn't have a Messiah complex, it was Jesus.

Gospel is the announcement of who God insists you are. You're a child of God, not because of how great you are but because God has all kinds of kids and you're one of them.

What happens is our lives become so heavily oriented around the expectations of others that we become more and more like them and less and less like ourselves. We become split. I was split. I had this person I knew I was made to be, yet it was mixed in with all of these other ... people. As the lights were turned on, I saw I had all of this guilt and shame because I wasn't measuring up to the image of the perfect person I had in my head.

And if you keep telling people who they are, who their best selves are, if you keep reminding them of their true identity, there's a good chance they'll figure out what to

Whoever you are and whatever work you do, no one has ever lived your life with your particular challenges and possibilities.

We create these identities around our roles and titles and job descriptions and achievements. They give our lives shape and form and meaning and definition. Ever so gradually over time our understanding of ourselves gets shaped by what we do and what we've done. We cling, we grasp, we hold tightly to these identities.

Soul doesn't care what it is or what it should be called. Soul just wants to enter into it. And feel it. And absorb it. And experience it. Soul wants to participate.

To be here is to embrace the spiritual challenge of your ikigai, doing the hard work of figuring out who you are and what you have to give the world. This is work we all have to do, because we're all a piece of work, in the endless process of exploring our ikigai.

I AM is less noun, more verb. Less a destination and more a direction.

Jesus did not use hell to try and compel "heathens" and "pagans" to believe in God, so they wouldn't burn when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God's love.

may have been done or said by someone else. That's a distinct possibility. It may have been done or said before. But it hasn't been done or said by you. It hasn't come through your unique flesh and blood, through your life, through your experience and insight and perspective.

He will always transcend whatever cages and labels are created to contain and name him, especially the one called "Christianity.

Gospel is the announcement of who God insists you are. You're

Gray is to Berliners what white is to Eskimos and red is to the Maori.

I didn't think of myself as American or German, but as a little of both. I didn't speak only German or only English, but used whatever words worked best for the situation.

I am nowhere. I am home.

While I threw myself into any social situation, could put on any mask—punk, preppy, artist—I also put masks on everyone I met, instantly judging them. I inhabited my masks, adopted the personas. Perhaps it was self-preservation, and stemmed from my itinerant childhood, which had forced me to form friendships quickly, potential allies or foes judged in an instant.

Even with my limited self-awareness

We of the South

he thought, "My own R. B. Russell, Jr.—I was crazy with happiness." He said then what he was to repeat many times: "That is me living all over again.

By trying to please everyone, Nice Guys often end up pleasing no one — including themselves. Seeking

Toxic shame is the belief that one is inherently bad, defective, different, or unlovable. Toxic shame is not just a belief that one does bad things, it is a deeply held core belief that one is bad. Survival