As I was speaking with a client today, we were discussing ways that people learn who they are and how they re-create themselves when major life changes occur. I remembered a scene from one of my favorite films:  Joe vs. the Volcano. Tom Hanks plays Joe Banks who  has a dreary, gray life, with predictability, as if in a Groundhog Day existence day after day. He goes to see a doctor who tells him that he has a ‘brain cloud’ and has a few months to live. In the mean time, he is encouraged to go for the gusto. Hard to imagine for someone who doesn’t have a clue how to think outside the box. He meets a wealthy man who makes him an offer that he can’t refuse. He will be wined and dined, sail on a private yacht to a tropical island, be treated like a king ….. and then jump into a volcano to appease the island deities.

One of the perks of the job is a new wardrobe. He rides a cab to a city and asks the driver where he should go shopping and what kind of clothing he should purchase.  The brilliant response:

“Banks. Clothes make the man. I believe that. You say to me you want to go shopping, you want to buy clothes, but you don’t know what kind. You leave that hanging in the air, like I’m going to fill in the blank, that to me is like asking me who you are, and I don’t know who you are, I don’t want to know. It’s taken me my whole life to find out who I am, and I’m tired now, you hear what I’m saying?”

See, we are all very much like Joe. We sometimes want other people to define us. We want them to tell us who we are and how we should act. Then we feel constrained, judged, misperceived. We may end up thinking we are inauthentic. Perhaps we are. How can truly be ourselves, when we don’t have a clue who that is?

I have learned  that it is a whole lot of fun to find that out. What do I like? How do I choose to live my day to day? Do I surround myself with people and items, music and activities that nourish me?

One thing that would be fun to do is to make an I AM list:

Start with those two words and then let flow whatever comes through. Don’t censor or edit. Be raw and real. You may be surprised with what you come up with. Be aware if the adjectives or nouns have their origins in your childhood or if they developed later in life. Notice if you take on other people’s perceptions of you, or if you are your own woman or man, based primarily on your view of yourself.

Do you dress, act, look, feel the part of that person who you are discovering or perhaps re-creating? If you are not happy with the self- descriptives, who or how would you like to be?

If clothes do indeed make the man or woman, wouldn’t you rather be clothed in glory?