Prompt!

What questions about your identity have you stopped asking? What made you stop?

I have had, for a long time, a desire to know every little detail about myself, to have an answer for every tiny thing that relates to my identity. Perhaps it was maturing that played a large factor in this, but I found that when I started to accept it was okay to not have an answer for everything, I started to feel a lot more confident in my identity. I often found myself wanting an explanation for why I identified any which way, what did this say about me, what did this mean for the bigger picture, to the point I’d never get a moment of peace. I think that this often came from a constant self consciousness and fear that I’d end up needing to justify myself to other people. What if they asked these questions to me?

I did not give up self reflection, rather at some point I decided to reframe the way that I approached it. Without feeling as though I had to pick apart every part of myself. And in doing so, I found I was able to be a lot more comfortable and confident in my identity.