So last night I flew back home from Auckland to the Kapiti Coast.

I had been staying with my friends Tracey and John and in a curious twist, they were to be flying to the Coast for a few days while I was at theirs . They live about an hour’s drive from the airport and were also to be returning independently from each other.

In an amazing flash of inspirational brilliance of the practical, logistical sort that comes a little slower for me, Tracey concocted this plan whereby their car would serve as the transport for all of us independently at just the right time required. She and John drove in together on Saturday and parked the car at a hotel carpark. John would return using the car on Sunday; I would drive back on the Monday returning the car to said park, and Tracey would return on Tuesday collecting the car once again to drive home.

Ingenius!

She booked it twice to allow for the transition times. All that was required for me to do was to drive in and collect the parking swipe card under the name Tracey B. Having grown up a paragon of honesty and civil obedience, I could feel that small tug that told me that –  for a brief moment – I was going to pretend to be someone else.

I have to psych up for such moments. Not that anyone else in the whole wide world would care. But there it was. I was to be an assumed identity for 15 seconds at a hotel reception.

It was no big deal at all really until the moment I walked up to the reception desk. I was remarkably calm – it’s not like I had forged a passport or anything. I was now Tracey B – a difficult task to live up to! I had my brightest clothes on and tried to be my most charming self. Interestingly enough, the words that came out of my mouth were something like “I’m here for parking for Tracey B”.

Who says that when they’re parking their car?!

What a giveaway. I mean wouldn’t I usually say something like “I’m Christine White and have booked parking”. Not “I’ve booked parking for Christine White and look….here I am!”

The receptionist seemed to have her own problems as she was finding it hard to see the lighter side of anything. Suffice to say, she didn’t look up smiling and say something like “You don’t look like a Tracey”….or….”Your voice sounds different than on the phone. Have you come down with a cold….or is this a case of ASSUMED IDENTITY?!”

No, she merely handed me the card that had details of the car and Tracey’s name in shakey handwriting. I felt like saying “That’s not what Tracey would write like….I mean me….” It just looked weird to have someone’s name written in weird shakey writing that didn’t reflect them………or me being them for that matter.

Anyway – I let it go and took the card and listened to the instructions for parking the car.

On the way out to the car I saw the shuttle driver and grabbed my chance for reassurance for the next part of my journey. “You’re going to the airport at 5? I just need to park this and get a lift”.

“Yes, you’re all good”, he replied.

I went and parked the car and snapped a photo of it’s position for Tracey to see. I was starting to feel a bit like a super sleuth in some type of Bond movie. Car drop-offs, pick-ups, assumed identities. I would be hopeless at such things.

The airport was a mere 10 minute drive. We arrived and I said to the driver “How much?”.

“It’s free” he said. “Part of the service”. I was pretty excited about that and started to bound out of the van door. As I was in mid air – he said to me “When are you coming back?”.

“I’m not!!” I exclaimed.

And that’s when time slowed down and where the wonders of the brain started to occur. In split second timing, I could feel myself think, what makes him think I’m coming back?

ONLY BECAUSE I PARKED MY CAR AT THE FRIGGIN’ CAR PARK!!

Quick as a flash I spun around and said – “uhhh tomorrow…” (‘only I’ll be probably wearing a dress and will be a lot better looking’ I thought to myself).

He smiled and handed me a card. “Here then, give us a call and we’ll come and get you. Just make sure you stand over there”.

“Sure thing. Great thanks”.

I have only just now given these instructions to my friend who is in mid air as we speak.

How easy it is to forget ourselves. To forget who we were. Or, more to the point, to forget who we told ourselves we would be.

If our memory can lapse this easily in a real life situation, how much more so does this happen when we are making changes and assuming new identities.

From now on I am organised. I am a confident, concise speaker. I am whole of heart. I am fit, energetic, purposeful.

I believe in myself. I am creating a better life. I will meet that challenge. I will stop eating that crap. I will start saying brave things. I WILL NO LONGER COWER! I AM DOING THIS! Starting from now!!!!

5….4…..3….2….1…. (cue Mel Robbins tone here).

And then, as quick as a flash, in the blink of an eye – halfway out the door of a Toyota Hiace – it disappears.

Joe Dispenza says that if we want to change our personal reality we need to change our personality. The act of BEING different creates a new reality. We are different and therefore our life falls differently. We train ourselves to feel the new way we want to be.

It’s the same with creativity – in the creative act we seek to make something that wasn’t there before and that will initially feel strange and uncomfortable.

Thankfully, we have neuroplasticity. We are able to make ourselves into new beings. I’m doing it now. And, as Joe Dispenza says, if you really want to break the habit of being yourself, then it will hurt a little at first. The old body, the old brain…will rear up. I have experienced this too. But we can train it like a puppy, to feel different and to be different.

Yes, for a brief moment I forgot that I was Tracey B.

And yes, sometimes, halfway out the door of a Hiace, we can forget all that we planned on being 20 minutes earlier.

I sometimes forget that I am the new version of me – it happens quick as a flash. But it’s not permanent. You just crack a smile and go back to the new story, the new identity.

And one day we won’t forget who we were because it will be an integral part of us.