Many people fail to distinguish between their true nature and their personality traits, particularly their less desirable traits. The fact is you are not the worst characteristics of your personality. It is the nature of the untrained mind to want what it perceives as advantageous and to fear or hate what seems painful. Discovering how your heart and mind can work together to use these feelings allows you to move beyond them. [But..]It is not an easy task. You may feel overwhelmed by the circumstances of your present life or bound by past traumatic events. Again, this is a failure in perception. They are just mind-states which can be known. They can be seen as impermanent and not belonging to you and, therefore, they do not ultimately define your true nature. A spiritual practice can provide you with the knowledge and discipline to investigate and work with these conditions.

You can do this investigation within the parameters of your present life. There is no need to wait until you can go to a monastery or get your life more together. The intensity of your desires and fears can be a source of energy that propels you to look more deeply for that which really matters. Life delivers you a series of challenges in the form of small and large good fortune, as well as petty and great misfortune. In the struggle to learn how to respond to the resulting joy, pain, and confusion, you are repeatedly challenged to seek and to act from your essence.

Phillip Moffit, Realizing Your True Nature