I am not too sure why we have to, as a society, remind people that everyone is layered. We are not just one thing or the other. In my past life as a facilitator (trainer), I would often ask the session participants to think of five self-descriptors.  There were at times a few that couldn’t come up with even five and there were the ones that had over twenty self descriptors. I ask you to consider just five. What would they be?

As the trainer, I often would go first in order to provide an example to others and help them be comfortable with sharing about themselves.  What would fascinate me was when people argued with me as to what my self-descriptors should be.  I kid you not that there would be people who would tell me that I was missing something. My first listed descriptor was often that of being a New Yorker.

After I had a child, I often listed being a mother first. Everything else was quite contextualized. And that is where people felt that they could tell me what was supposed to be on the list of how I described myself. I tried to explain that we are layered and that there is rich texture to our beings and our self-perception.   How you view me should not define me.   It doesn’t.

A loving facade

A ripped sweater and v-neck

A bountiful trunk

Casted in shadows

Living in sunlight and butter

Dying to be me

Layered and covered

We’re an interplay of all

Bare and visible