“It is what it is.” A priest was playing on that cliché the other day during his sermon.

We all have heard this endlessly. It is what it is.

If so, he said, this also is true:

It isn’t what it is not.

Can we accept that? Do we welcome or reject God’s Plan for us, when it doesn’t conform with our immediate (and often carnal) desires?

What about people (as opposed to circumstances)?

Can this be said:

“You are who you are — not who you are not.”

That’s relevant because too often many of us fail to feel comfortable in our own skin.

We try to be someone others want us to be, perhaps.

We aspire to something in life, perhaps status — and when we see someone who has accomplished that goal, we may try to be that person, or as similar as possible.

We create false gods (making idols of others). And this never quite succeeds. It only creates anxiousness. We have to focus on who we really are — who God created. You can’t improve on that!

Who you are should not rely on what you do; what you do should rely on who you are. “You are who you are,” one might say, not what you do for a living, not where you live, not how much money you don’t or do have.

Ask always if you are a child of spirit or a child of this world.

Our cars, our homes, our stations in life: all should conform to our essence instead of the other way around.

Yet we live in a society where emulation — and dissatisfaction with how God made us — is rampant. Plastic surgery and tattoos are ways we seek to improve or change what and who we are. More profound are the things we change on the inside that aren’t meant to be altered. That’s often why we lack peace: our inside is not in congruence with our outside. We should not look in the mirror and see someone who really isn’t there.

How far have things gone? Men want to be women. Women want to be men. Young women want to be Taylor Swift. Young men would love to be Tom Brady, or Aaron Rodgers.

This is very worldly and a poor definition of God’s perfect intent.

In the case of blurring genders, it is evil manifest.

Did you know that? The way God made you — before you began altering things — is a perfect person. You were born of holiness. See yourself and others as spirit. The real you is holy. The real you, the eternal you, is a glorified body.

No. Not a flawless person. Not one who will go through life in a way that is always pristine. No. Not perfect like Jesus was perfect.

But perfect in our essence — the part of us that, by the end of life — with all the costumes we have thrown on ourselves, with all the baggage we carry — can become so obscured that only God knows the true us. In purgatory, we shed sullied clothes.

We can be distorted by relationships. We can be distorted by friends. We can contort ourselves to please coworkers — or allow them to define us. We can be distorted by those who cling to and suction energy from us. So ask: do we lift up others or allow them to drag us down?

While many in charismatic circles speak of “soul ties” (when we have a lingering spiritual connection with a past relationship, which should have been severed), we can also be bound by those who are currently around us, in our midst now. The bondage is caused by people who consciously or unknowingly cling and attach themselves to us. In their presence, we are not the real us. We view ourselves through their eyes.

Stare more at the Crucifix than you do at a mirror.

And so pray ardently for the Holy Spirit to shed light on this and see if this is a factor, large or small, in your life. “Lord, please send Your Holy Spirit upon me to show me the person You created. Guide me, Lord, as to where I may be tripped up by myself or others. Cleanse me of overattachments, cut unhealthy ties, sever tentacles, and Lord, in Jesus’ Name, break unhealthy soul ties. Let me always see and be who I am really am, and feel that way always.”

It’s worth trying. The real you should feel like a comfortable old shoe.

You may be surprised at what the Holy Spirit reveals.

[resources: books on breaking soul ties, and Michael Brown Retreat]