Lynn Sumida

Lynn’s Story

Most of my life people have politely asked, in one way or another “What are you?”. I know they are asking about my race given my unique appearance, but the answer is a bit tricky. My biological parents were Chinese and German, but I was given up for adoption at birth, adopted by an English and Japanese couple within whose cultures I was immersed. Was my identity from my biology? My upbringing? Being adopted? And I could also say that I’m a prairie girl from Manitoba, Canada. But does any of this really tell you who a person is? I’ve discovered none of that information is truly “me.” Yet I spent much of my lifetime constrained by the identities and roles I took on.

The pull away from my constructed identity started in church on a very ordinary Sunday. The minister asked us to turn and speak to a person near us. I turned around from the front row where we always sat and fell into these beautiful eyes. The woman was old, at least to my seven-year-old self, but her eyes radiated energy, love and something more than I could ever put words to. It was amazing. I remember thinking “Wow, I want that!”

Yet it was far from what my upbringing conditioned me to be. My English mother, Japanese father and all six of us children were reserved, polite, well behaved and constrained. This “script” began running on autopilot in me very early on, yet it was the very opposite of the authenticity that I craved. I followed the prescription of “well behaved” and did what any “good girl” would do. I went to school, got good grades and eventually went on to do my master’s degree in social work.

Although my educational path was to get to a place of helping others, it was also a quest to try and better understand myself. By the time I reached graduate school I found myself surrounded by people who were highly educated but devoid of the personal authenticity I sensed was essential for the job. It was then that it landed for me that this authenticity was not one that could be found in formal education. So then, where does one attain it?

This question continued to tug at me until, one day, a series of campus rapes led me to find a support group. It was here that I found the space to start delving deeper into who I really was. Here, shockingly, politeness was not valued. Honesty was. The rules I was raised with were suddenly thrown out the window and I tasted emotional freedom for the first time. I was euphoric! Week after week I discovered I could expand, feel, change and the “sky didn’t fall.” In fact, I was thriving! My sense of self as the good, polite, proper young woman which I had been formed into, was falling away bit by bit. It felt like I was finally on the path to being authentic and climbing out of the box I had been raised in.

But my conditioning was like my skin as were the roles that accompanied it. Expectations were deeply ingrained, unconscious most of the time, and not easy to shed. It turned out I still had “my” list and was checking off items in rapid succession; a master’s degree, marriage two months later, a good job, the building of a new home and, last but not least, a baby. Talk about following the script! By thirty-one I had checked all the boxes. Success! So one would think, but by forty the question started up again. Isn’t there more?

My career was going well, at least from the point of view of being busy. My private practise was filled with people dealing with abuse; physical, emotional, and sexual. Ironically, these clients reflected my search for authenticity! In the early years, the goal was to help people survive but it wasn’t long before I realized surviving was not thriving. They were so enmeshed with their traumas that their identities had become their experiences. Although they were surviving, they were not feeling free to live authentic and expansive lives. But how was I to help them when they had made “surviving” their identity, just as I had made my identity being “the polite, good person”? This was the challenge, and I knew this personally and professionally.

It was after my second divorce that I realized I was still caught in some aspects of my old conditioning. My self esteem was still tied to conditioned ideas of success and being divorced twice was not the “picture of success”. This discovery was highly demoralizing, yet it was also the catalyst for the exciting next chapter of my life. And so my quest continued.

In my search I was blessed not to be alone but two other colleagues who shared my vision. We had each come to the conclusion that a shift in identity was the key. At this time no one was talking about how to help people shift their identity. In fact, a person’s identity was really considered sacred. But through our research we came to know that this very shift was the key, and we had to discover how!

Together my colleagues and I intensified our search for answers. After much exploring and testing, we had finally created a process that could assist people in shifting their identity from the early conditioning they grew up with to a more authentic identity based on their true essence. It was an early version, the Model T so to speak, but this ultimately became the current process of Prime Potential* and the deeply fulfilling and purpose-driven work I do now.

Who could have imagined a “moment” in church would shine such a bright light! Even today I can feel the power of those eyes, beckoning me forward into my future, into authenticity. This moment propelled me into my personal search and has continued to lead me to the transformational work I do today. Helping people discover there is, and always has been, a true identity within each, is thrilling. My days are filled with teaching, mentoring, helping people individually, and building a global community of people committed to creating a truly wonderful world for all. As each one of us discovers our true identity, it magnifies what is possible for the world.

This is my vision, a world filled with people living from their true essence of love and joy.