Profound Healing, Forgiveness and Self-Love: The Extraordinary Outcome of Asking Yourself "Who Am I?"
Charisse Joy- Apr 17
- 6 min read
An insightful video interview that explores the way trauma impacts our sense of Self, and how healing, forgiveness and self-love are experienced when we remember who we really are.
Charisse Joy - Reiki Master Teacher and Life Coach is interviewed on the Freedom to Feel podcast, with host Valeria T. Koopman.
Freedom to Feel: Interview with Charisse Joy
This interview gently explores my personal experience of childhood trauma, and looks at why I believe that asking yourself "Who Am I?" leads to profound healing, forgiveness and self-love.
Various topics that encompass healing and spirituality are discussed throughout this 45 minute interview. While watching it in its entirety will provide a more thorough explanation, I have included topic summaries and noteworthy timestamps below to help you jump to areas of interest.
How Trauma Adversely Affects our Sense of Self
Like many people who experience childhood trauma, I suffered with painful feelings of guilt and shame. As a child I mistakenly began to identify with these feelings, eventually coming to believe that these awful feelings were who I was.
As I grew up, the distance between who I thought myself to be, and who I really was, grew wider. And the volume of a significant question grew louder.
The question "Who Am I?" burned intensely inside of me, calling me to remember the truth of who I was. So the search for my True Self began.
1:05 Who are you?
Reiki as a Spiritual Practice to Remember Who We Are
Carrying the question "who am I?" into every interaction and experience, I searched the world for answers. I searched in my job, in spiritual groups, in the roles I took on in my family and in society, but still the question felt unanswered.
While I became more self-aware with a deeper understanding of myself and my behaviour, I still carried a sense of emptiness. There was a strong feeling that I hadn't gotten to the heart of it all.
My search eventually led me to learn Reiki - a Japanese spiritual practice and energy healing method that aims to increase your happiness while improving your heart, mind and body.
The core practices of Reiki are meditative and in practicing these meditations daily, my search turned inwards and I began to uncover the truth about who I really was. At last I had found what I was looking for!
Exploring Who We Really Are from a Spiritual Perspective
By embracing Reiki's philosophy and meditation practices, I repeatedly experienced an expanded awareness of who I really was.
Attempting to put words to this sense of Self feels so limiting because it feels like everything, everywhere all at once! But it could be described as powerfully compassionate, unconditionally loving, joyful, boundless and timeless.
Tapping into my True Self showered me, my trauma, my fear, guilt and shame in pure love. I experienced compassion and forgiveness towards myself, and had the realisation that even if the trauma had been my fault - that it wasn't who I really was.
On a personal level this realisation was incredibly healing, and it blessed me with the deep knowing that at our core, everyone is this powerful love.
It led to feeling genuine compassion towards everyone and their unique situations, and the belief that no matter how far we may have drifted from our True Self, there is always the possibility of returning to it.
The Transformational Experience of Awakening and Enlightenment
Sitting in daily meditation creates the perfect environment for cultivating an expanded consciousness, eventually leading to heightened experiences known as "Awakening".
Awakening creates an immense sense of clarity that profoundly changes the way we view ourselves and our lives. Having seen the truth of who we are, we are transformed and we begin to live differently.
Awakenings can feel so blissful and ecstatic that we seek to have more, but it can't be forced. If we start chasing this bliss we have already forgotten the point of the original experience!
While we want to encourage further awakening to deepen our awareness of spiritual truths, and put us on the path to full Enlightenment, these experiences must unfold naturally.
Having naturally occurring, repeated awakening experiences is possible when we approach all of life with an open-hearted state of mind. To cultivate this state, we can practice sitting in meditation without trying to achieve any particular outcome.
We are Spiritual Beings Having a Human Experience
Our True Self is powerfully loving, compassionate, boundless and timeless. As human beings we are all this spiritual energy at our core, yet we experience a sense of separateness and individuality that makes us forget our oneness.
We can think about it as if we are all one drop in an expansive, loving ocean of energy. We experience life and what it means to be that droplet, but if we can remember that we are actually the ocean, we connect with all the wisdom of every other drop and we see that we are actually all one.
It's as though life is about remembering our True Self and allowing its expression through this human body, in a way that brings out the best in others so that they may also remember and express their True Self.
We create a better world by blending the strength gained from remembering we are the ocean, with the wisdom learned from being a droplet: our personal life experiences, our body's particular skills and strengths, and our personal interests.
When we remember that were the ocean, even our traumatic experiences can be blended with the power of our True Self to create positivity in the world.
Experiencing Profound Healing, Forgiveness and Self-Love: The Extraordinary Outcome of Asking "Who Am I?"
The question "who am I?" permeated my being. It became a filter that all my life experiences passed through as I searched for meaning and understanding.
It led me to the practices of Reiki and meditation where I experienced the expanded consciousness of my True Self, and came to realise that I wasn't the shame of my trauma. I also realised that even if the trauma had been my fault - it wasn't who I really was.
At a profound level I knew that at our core, everybody is the bright light of unconditional love. Those people who hurt others have just drifted a really long way from remembering this - but there is always the possibility their soul will call them to remember the truth.
These realisations allowed me to begin forgiving myself, and those who had hurt me. As I stopped putting my energy into suppressing my pain, I had more energy to put towards what really mattered to me. I began to feel stronger and more vibrant as I reclaimed my energy.
Knowing Who You Are Encourages Authentic Self-Expression
Experiencing the expanded consciousness of who we really is not just healing, it's empowering.
When we know with our whole being just how loving and powerful we truly are, we find that we don't have to hide from ourselves or our pain anymore. We develop the courage to compassionately embrace it all.
We begin to express ourselves more authentically because we love who we are. Our self-confidence increases as we express our True Self and we feel a sense of freedom.
We come to realise that the world needs our unique life experiences, personality traits, skills and talents, so we begin to confidently bring all of who we are to the world in a way that helps others.
