“You are not who you think you are. Rather, you are who you have always been, though you have forgotten again and again.” — James Hollis

Reading this again, I felt it land differently. Maybe because I’m in a season of questioning everything — institutions, authority, approval, roles. Or maybe because I’m finally beginning to see how many of the choices I’ve made weren’t really mine.

So much of my life was shaped by trying to be “good.” Good son. Good student. Good partner. Good father. Good trainee counsellor. But beneath that was always a question I hadn’t quite found the courage to sit with:

Who am I when I stop trying to be who they wanted me to be?

That’s the ache Hollis touches in this first chapter — the quiet grief of realising we’ve lived on autopilot longer than we’d like to admit.

And at the same time, there’s this strange, tender kind of hope: That even though we’ve forgotten who we are, there’s something in us that hasn’t forgotten. It’s been there all along. Waiting. Watching. Ready to return, if we’re willing to walk back through the wilderness of our own false selves.

That’s where I am now. Not fully there. But turning back toward it.

And while the path forward may look uncertain — one thing is clear: I’m not going to let anyone else tell me who I am again.