The toughest question I've ever been asked was in Intensive OutPatient PTSD treatment, and the question was, "Who am I?" without any titles, accomplishments, stories, etc, who am I?
This question got the wheels turning, but I was unable to answer it until well after therapy, however in order to answer the question, "Who am I?" I had to first answer the question, "What am I?"
The answer came to me after diving into lessons about quantum physics geared for the layman, Realizing the essence of Albert Einstein's famous equation E=Mc2.
The calculation E=Mc2 takes much more into consideration than I know how to calculate, but it takes into consideration the physical makeup of our smallest physical building blocks, atoms. Inspecting them from the subatomic level.
Atoms are too small to be seen with the naked eye, however we were able to make one large enough to inspect and we were able to freeze time, we would see they are made of almost nothing, as our physical senses perceive physical matter.
Atoms, are physically made of tiny bits of energy known as protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons are positively charged, neutron are neutrally charged and act as the glue that holds the protons in a bundle, creating the positively charged nucleas of the atom, and electrons are negatively charged bits of energy that orbit the nucleus.
Okay, now that 11th grade science is passed, what does any of this mean, and how does it apply to me in my everyday life?
If what we perceive as physical matter is not actually physical at all, then what is it, and who am I realizing and observing it all?
This comes down to a realization of ourselves in operation of it all. The mind derives a sense of self identity somewhere, and the easiest place to find something to grasp onto the what we perceive in our physical world, including the bodies of ourselves, the cars we drive, the house we live in, how much money we have, etc. the possibilities are endless, and ultimately all empty.
We've never actually experienced the past or the future, it seems like we have, but it was all the mind working from the starting location of the present moment.
We are none of these things in the physical world, and can never be, however that does not prevent the mind from reaching for them as an answer, even a temporary answer, until it can figure out a more clear and definitive answer of where to derive a sense of self identify from.
We are not our trauma, we are not our story, and we are not who we were yesterday. We all have a past, and stories from it, but we are present, and we are not the future. We can direct our present moment actions to align with what and who we would like to be in the future, but once we get there it will be this same present moment we experience it from.
Our universe is made of energy and matter, we are in space and time in it, we have an inner world and an outer world. Our only job is realizing this.