Who You Are Is Not What You Think and That is Keeping You Chained
A series of articles on the distorted ideas we have about ourselves
There are a great many fictions we carry about the nature of self. These fictions are distortions of how our embodied and embedded natural minds interact as a part of, but never apart from, the ongoing natural systems we engage with. Our stories of who and what we are matter because they set the stage for the actions we find possible, and therefore are inevitably placing limits on how our lives are lived. This isn’t to say that limits can be removed; we are still and always will be finite creatures, but it’s truly remarkable what we’re capable of doing when we see that all our stories are, while not fake, at least artificial and not always to be taken seriously.
The following are four articles that go into several of those distortions.
The first is the idea that there’s some authentic self you’re trying to display, when the reality is that you’re always you, and every social context will draw out variations of what that means. The important thing is to be aware of what’s being pulled on.
This next article is concerned with the distortion of a singular you arising from the disparate labels, identities, and social connections that you’re embedded within. It’s an issue of flexibility, and much like the trap of authenticity, attempting to find the singular you only gets you trapped when adversity finds you.
Speaking of flexibility, here we have the third in a series of articles about the psychological theory I operate from, what I often refer to as Relational-ACT. Once we acknowledge that who we are is a perspective embedded in a social context, behavior becomes a means of expressing what matters to us, no matter the situation. We may not always act exactly the same way in support of our values, but that doesn’t mean we have ceased to care about them.
Lastly, flexibility often leads to an increase in uncertainty and, therefore, stress, as behavior is seen more as a tool for expressing personal meaning instead of declarations of what must be from a position of authority. This is one reason why rigidity, dogmatism, and fundamentalist ideologies are so enticing: they are a bulwark against the complexity of reality by providing ready-made answers. Essentially, they’re the hotpockets of worldviews, requiring no skill to make and satisfying only if you don’t question what you’re putting in you.
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