Decades ago, before I had encountered the Gurdjieff ideas, when I had left the church I was "raised" in and first began my search for something that would fulfill my desire to be, in various religious and spiritual literatures I encountered the concept of dying to oneself.  To me, at that time, it seemed an extreme and frightening idea.  Recently, I find that how I identify myself, to myself, is an obstacle; a prison.  Interestingly, I notice that the behavior and reactions of others to me reinforces that identity.  I'm feeling the desire to radically shake up, break up, maybe even destroy that identity; in order to make room for the higher energy, consciousness, that is always there but with which connection is more often lost than present.  When I sense how I usually identify myself, the desire is there for that identity to be gone but I don't know how to make it go away.  What am I, if not that?  How do I function without that?  And, this is where I stand, on the edge of a cliff, wanting to jump but also afraid.