Self-Identity

Self-Identity

Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self.

B. R. Ambedkar

In the last post, we talked about self-awareness.  Of course, that post was only a drop in the bucket.  Self-awareness takes time, effort, self-understanding, compassion, and a true search of the soul.  Who we are and who we want to be takes more than a few minutes to discover and fully implement into our present worlds?  And I feel it is vital that we become aware of our identities during our journey into searching our soul.

Identity:

1.     The fact of being what or who a person or thing is.

2.     The qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions that make a person.

Within the context of who we are, our identities have a great deal to do with our belief patterns, values, non-negotiables, boundaries, and behaviors.  When I was working as a mental health counseling intern, I remember having a hard time with a client.  I kept saying, “I don’t like her.”  My supervising professor said, “Nell, is it actually the client you don’t like, or is it her behaviors?”  I was pacing the length of my home while having this conversation with my professor.  As I paced the length of the hallway of my apartment, I thought about what she asked.  The truth was that I did not know the client well.  She had only made one comment that set me off.  I was often embarrassed by some of the things she said and was frustrated that she just couldn’t get it.  Not only was I very wrong to think that my way of thinking was the right way, but I was having a bit of an identity crisis of my own at that time.  I had some realizing to do.  I had to realize that I was a bit of a prude.  I had to understand that I wasn’t angry with the client’s words, so much as I was embarrassed by them.  And that was on me, not the client.  I realized that I was not comfortable with my own sexuality and she nudged that button quite hard the day I met her.  I soon realized that yes, it was the client’s behavior that I did not care for but was I within my rights to assume that my way of thinking and behavior was better than hers.  Of course, not, but I also realized that no matter how much I grow, how often I examine myself, and regardless of the events that occur in my life: I had a great deal of learning to do not only as a counselor but as a person.  The values I held and still hold about sexual intercourse are far different from many people.  I also began to accept, as I grew as a counselor and person, that everyone has different values and beliefs.  Of course, this is a concept I knew about long before I ever studied psychology and started practicing as a counselor.  There is a difference between knowing about something and understanding and coming to accept a concept.  It sounds simple, but it is far more difficult than it sounds.  I learned to accept other people’s values and beliefs at face value, primarily, because I wanted them to do the same for me. However, as I began to truly gain a better understanding of identity and how it can affect not only who we are, but how we interact with the world around us, I began to truly take stock of what my beliefs were, if my values were so important that I couldn’t accept and offer compassion to those who chose to believe differently from me.  The whole point of helping others is to offer compassion, empathy, and a kind of unconditional acceptance they more than likely don’t receive from others.  I began to truly examine who I was and fell in love with my uniqueness.

Unique:

1.     Being the only one of its kind; unlike anything or anyone else.

2.     Very special or unusual.

In those introspective moments at a time in my life when I had so much going on.  I was in my master’s program.  I was working as an intern at a substance abuse residential facility, and I was working as an adjunct English instructor.  I kept thinking I don’t have time for self-reflection right now.  I kept wondering if I was going a little nuts.  It wasn’t the client that had the problem; it was me.  It wasn’t the stress of having so much on my plate that was the problem.  I can admit now that it shamed me at the time to realize it was me.  I was too busy to take the time to handle unfinished business, really?  One of the main tenants that are emphasized in the mental health program is that a therapist must be healthy.  I was going to burn out before I even became a therapist at the rate I was going.  And all because I thought I could handle it all myself.  I refused to ask for help at first.  And I refused to see that no matter how many hours are in a day, I can always make time for me.

I began to realize that I was losing who I was in everything I did for others, whether it was a client, friend, family member, associate, or co-worker.  I took on a lot in those days, and I can honestly say that I still do that occasionally, but I no longer neglect my spirit.  I no longer neglect the me I want to be.  I often sit on the side of my bed and analyze the way I feel about something even if it’s something as simple as how my feet feel in a pair of shoes or something more complex like am I falling in love and what the heck I’m going to do about it because I’m terrified.  I make time for me and my identity.

I remember when I was in a leadership program right before I started my internship.  We had a speaker come in to talk about being a successful leader.  I was fascinated by his story.  His life was interesting, and I hung on his every word.  But what resonated with me the most was the fact that he woke up at three o’clock in the morning in order to make time for self-introspection.  When he said that, it kind of woke me up even more than his story inspired me.  What? I thought.  Is this guy crazy?  Even the birds are still slumbering in their nests then, I thought rather disconcerted by this man’s efforts to be as successful as he could.  No way am I waking up that early, I thought, and continued to listen to his story with a little less enthusiasm.  Funny thing, when I lived in North Carolina for a while.  I would get up at four o’clock in the morning to have an hour for myself before I walked my guide dog, fed her, and got both of our bags together for the day before work.  I made sure that everything was ready to go before I had to get on the bus to Durham.  Four o’clock is only one hour later than three.  Why did I have such a problem with three?  The birds weren’t awake at four in the morning either.  My values had changed from when I lived in North Carolina.  I tend to take my me-time in the afternoons or evenings.  I tend to lay in bed and do a mindfulness exercise as I fall to sleep or self-reflect before I drift off.  My idea of me-time had altered in only one way.  I refused to rise early to have that me-time and discovered that I liked having it before bedtime.  I was no different from this man.  He decided to wake early, and I decided to go to sleep late.  Those are the only differences.  And in truth, both may be an inconvenience to someone else who may like to take their me-time before the kids get home from school, or in the parking lot before driving home from work.  Me-time is your time and it offers you a moment to breathe, wonder through the layers of your soul.  Don’t be afraid of doing it wrong.  There is no right way to find ourselves.  There are no wrong ways to become acquainted with our identities and shape ourselves into someone we life and can accept and be content with.

In next week’s post, we will discuss how to identify our core values and beliefs ad how this can impact not only our lives but improve them.  I invite you to comment and have a discussion.  I would like to know what you think; I look forward to interacting with you again soon.

Until next we meet, stay encouraged and affirmed,

Nell

Self-Awareness

Self-Awareness

“I wake up and play a different person every day. Playing all these different characters and trying to figure out who your true authentic self is at the core of that as you're playing all these different roles, and man, that self-awareness starts to come into effect. And you start to see who you really are”

(Eliza Dushku).

As we learned last week, we all have several different roles in life that we play in the world around us.  This is not a failing, as we have very specific tasks and behaviors we tend to associate and follow in certain situations.  For example, we do not talk to our supervisors and managers the way we talk to our friends, family members, and significant others.  There is certain appropriate language for certain situations and people we speak to.  Sometimes, this can get in the way of our authenticity because we concern ourselves with the way we are perceived by others.  There is nothing wrong with this.  As a society, we tend to think that we shouldn’t care how we are perceived, but the truth is that we do care.  We even go so far as to think we should care.  However, there is a balance to this dance that many of us tend to fumble quite often.  The balance comes with knowing ourselves, what we are willing to accept from ourselves and others, understanding our boundaries, and caring more about what we want and need than what someone else wants from us.  This sound rather harsh, as stated above we care about what others think and want for or from us.  The truth is that if we have self-awareness, we can be better spouses, family members, friends, co-workers, and associates.  We can understand and accept compromises a little better if we are aware of our beliefs, values, moral compass, and who we are?  But, how do we do this?

When looking at self-awareness, we have several parts of ourselves.  We are not unilateral creatures.  We are complex and filled with all kinds of intriguing personality traits, emotions, needs, desires, and all of these parts of ourselves can be contradictory and even contrary.  We have those moments of unbalance.  We have moments of great despair and in the same moment we can laugh at something we find extremely funny.  We fall down; we get back up; we find ways to survive; we find ways to adapt and go on.  What is concerning in all of the morass of indecision, ambiguity, and conflicting feedback from ourselves and others is that somewhere in all this confusion, we have lost who we really are.  There is nothing wrong with occasionally needing to reevaluate who we are.

Self-Awareness:

1.     Conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires.

2.     Awareness of one’s own personality or individuality.

As you can see, being self-aware is not our usual idea of awareness.  We tend to be aware of our surroundings.  What people are doing around us.  We even listen to the different conversations that are going on around us.  But, we rarely take the time to simply be.  When I was in my internship, my supervisor said something so profound to me.  It resonated in the depths of my spirit, and the truth is that not only was she right, but I still haven’t figured out how to change this about myself.  She said, “Most of us are human-doers instead of human-beings.”  Now, you may be scratching your head; I know I certainly did at first.  What she was trying to say is that we are always on the move.  We never take time to just be.  If we are by ourselves, we listen to music, read or listen to a book, write something, do the dishes, and are always in motion or doing or playing something to fill the silence around us.  Just being is far different from this.  Even though, I love to be alone, I rarely have silent moments.  When someone says they are bored, I always wonder why.  When someone says they are lonely, I think of all the time I spend alone and wonder to myself if I am ever lonely.  The answer is no, but I’m rarely lonely because I’m surrounded by either characters in a book I’m reading or surrounded by my own characters I’m writing about.  The thing is that I’m not fully quiet or being, as my supervisor would have put it.

Those quiet moments that so many of us rarely seek are good times to put in a search of the soul.  When I was younger, I did this more often than I do now.  I would sit on the swings outside the dorm.  It was the first time in my life that I learned to be alone and enjoy it.  I would sit in the swing with my feet on the ground and rock as if I were in a rocking chair.  To this day, as an adult, I love playground swings.  It’s the first thing I head for in a playground when I get to one.  I would swing and contemplate the state of my life.  People often think that teenagers have very little to think about, but they are wrong.  As a teenager, everything was extraordinary, complicated, and seemed bigger than it really was.  So, contemplation was definitely necessary to me.  I didn’t understand what I was doing at the time.  I only knew that my mind was full of all these conflicting emotions: the he-said, she-said stuff that was going on, the clicks around school, and the sadness of being single again.  Looking back, it’s sort of sweet the way I sat on that swing and thought my life was falling apart because my boyfriend and I broke up and all the girls had ostracized me.  I was full of teenaged angst.  But, those quiet moments taught me a great deal about myself.  I learned that the person I was, wasn’t who I wanted to be.  I learned that I didn’t quite know who I was, nor who I wanted to be.  I started to plot and plan my own characteristics even at the age of fourteen.  In some ways, it’s sad that I had this epiphany at that age, but I’m glad I did.

What I was doing all those years ago on that swing was what we call self-introspection or self-reflection.  We can utilize that quiet time that we rarely find as adults to look inside ourselves.  What do I really want?  Is this who I desire to be?  Today, I told a cashier off.  Was this really the person I want to be?  If you say, “yes” to this question, then there is no need for change or even further contemplation.  If you say, “no,” to this question, then your contemplation and discovery may need to go further.  How could I have handled this situation differently; you may ask yourself.  How would I have liked to respond to the way the cashier behaved with me?  in that moment could I have found a better way of dealing with him?  After answering these questions for yourself, the next time you encounter a similar situation you can try one of the solutions you came up with during your self-introspection.

Self-Introspection:

1.     A reflective looking inward.

2.     An examination of one’s own thoughts and feelings.

Self-Reflection:

1.     The capacity of humans to exercise introspection and to attempt to learn more about their fundamental nature and essence.

2.     The search for intrinsic meaning and purpose.

It is possible to find ourselves in the quiet moments.  It is difficult to find quiet moments, especially for those of us who have so many roles we play such as employee, parent, spouse, friend, and so on.  However, your self-introspection time, which I call me-time, is just as important as our forty-hour weeks, being parents, being a husband or wife, and friend.  The reason being is because if you are not taking care of yourself; if you’re not happy; if you’re always stressed out: it is reflected in your behavior with others.  If you take that me-time, you can reflect on who you are and how and who you want to be in all of your relationships and the roles you’re playing in your life.  You can say to yourself; I know who I am, I am who I want to be, and I am content to be a part of all of this.  No matter what contentment or happiness means to you personally, you will achieve it for yourself and your family, friends, and especially, important, yourself.

In the next post, we will continue the discussion of self-awareness by discussing identity and how self-identity play a major role in understanding and accepting ourselves.  I invite you to comment and have a discussion.  I would like to know what you think; I look forward to interacting with you again soon.

Until next we meet, stay encouraged and affirmed,

Nell