WHO AM I, REALLY?

This question is really the topic of my Thesis Essay and I have been sitting with this question since it first appeared probably at a very young age but not in that form.  The question didn't actually appear in form until age 22 when I had left my husband at the time and was living in the apartment over his moms and I was sitting on the floor and realizing…if I am not someone’s wife, then who am I?  And then I started writing it down and could not understand, who I was.  If you took everything away that everyone and I had been saying that I am…who am I?  Who is the “I” that keeps appearing and making “me” miserable.  

Then it was said/heard that “I” am not needed…well where will “I” go.  Then a mass panic for so long of attempting to get rid of the “I” and then finally finding out that you can’t get rid of something that doesn’t exists.

That took 40 years (minus 2 for we don't have an "I" thought when we are born and until responding to it) and even still when the “I” thoughts come they can seem to have so much power, but then something Greater says “where is your attention?”  And the light bulb goes on that the attention had once again been placed on the “I” thought and not what the “I” thought appears in.

How subtle the shift and how Great the reward.  So simple and not dramatic … though all these dramatic events led to the simplicity of this.  Asking “who am I?” consistently for 20 years, not in a pattern but in a silent questioning…when there was horror or fear, when there was great love when there was passion … during all these things the question would appear…but “who are you?” and so all the attachments were slowly taken away.  All the wantings were not important like they once were.  Everything was lost.  But not the question.  One can lose everything in this world but they cannot lose the Self.  They can even lose theirself (small “s”) but they cannot lose the SELF.  You will not ever be alone because you are the Aloneness.  Looking out of the eyes is the most gentle, kindest, compassionateness.  It has no desire to make anything different.  It just SEEs and is Aware of itself…in all it’s many forms.