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identity, identity crisis, inner persona, knowing yourself, public persona, real self, sense of self, soul, values, who am I, who are you
What is an identity? Photo by Flickr user José Luís Agapito (Creative Commons license).
I wrote this last week: “Knowing myself, being myself, even while chaos swirls around me, is my definition of happiness.”
Sounds great, right? A little gooey, maybe, but I was writing about happiness, and how to tell if you’re happy, because I was feeling happy.
But how do you know if you know yourself?
I ask because that very same day, I had a conversation with someone versed in these issues. This person asked me if I had a strong sense of who I was. I said yes, without hesitation. This person asked me to elaborate, and pointedly asked, “So, who are you?”
Me: I’m a writer and a mother.
X: That’s something you do, and a role that is contingent upon someone else. Who are you?
Me: An artist. A communicator. A creator. Someone who tries to figure out and show what things mean. A protector and teacher.
X: What does that mean?
Me: Um. Ummmmm.
X: Ok. What else? Who are you?
Me: I’m passionate and loyal. I love the things I love loudly, proudly, and forever.
X: Good. What else?
Me: Um. I love food. I love music. I love being outside–
X: I’m going to interrupt you because you are now just listing likes and dislikes, and those are preferences, not traits.
Me: Ok, so I’m someone who doesn’t follow directions?
We laughed. This person laughed harder than I did.
Hi, I’m Stacia, and I tell self-deprecating jokes when I’m profoundly uncomfortable because someone has matter-of-factly pointed out that what I thought I knew about myself, I might not really know at all, and I’m possibly in the throes of a full-fledged, trauma-induced identity crisis.
Honest to goddess, this really shook me. I’ve walked around my whole life with the swagger of someone who knows who she is, but the more reading on identity/sense of self I’ve done, the more I’m realizing the huge difference between the public persona and, well, the soul. Who you are when no one’s looking or listening. Who you are if you could see the true patterns of your psychology, your actions and reactions, and how they are influenced by external factors and your own self-consciousness. Who you are if you were stripped of your relationships and career, or all the external things that you THINK make up who you are, the way I thought that a love of music, among other things, somehow defined me.
What are my values–not the ones I want to have, but the ones I DO have? What are the values of my family of origin? Am I suppressing or controlling traits that do not fit my idea of who I am or want to be? How do I handle it when things don’t go the way I want them to? Can I even attempt to answer the question: How do I know and experience my inner self? (I can’t. Yet. I am so much more brand-new than I thought I was.)
I don’t have many answers here. I’ve only just arrived at the asking. I do have a few ideas about myself that I didn’t have last week, at least not as they pertain to comprising my inner, “real” identity:
I am a survivor. I persevere even while I despair. I have been through a lot, so I know I can live through a lot.
I over-analyze and worry a great deal, mostly about things that are not within my control, and I would like to stop doing that. The grand exception is that I worry deeply about every syllable that comes out of my mouth–and I’m, in theory, very much in control of that.
I have a deep appreciation for beauty, and a broad definition of the word.
I hate lying and liars and am bad at it myself, so I don’t do it. I value honesty, even brutal honesty, because I think we can find a compassionate and kind way to share even the most brutal truths.
I set my own pace. I don’t like to be rushed to decisions by others, and I don’t like to be told what to do (because that rushes the process by which I figure it out myself). I respect the process of learning and discovery. I ask lots of questions because part of my learning style is having a clear “big picture.” Further, I am ritualistic in my work. I never realized (in so many words) how grounding a practice it is to light the same candle every evening, or to wrap myself in the same throw when reading, or to read the same Audre Lorde quote above my writing desk every time I sit down: “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
There’s more, but I have this thing about being too naked on the internet…
I would love to read some quotes or thoughts on outward vs. inner personas, identity, and sense of self. Please share some recommendations or words of wisdom that have helped you. What a huge, heady topic.
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I identify with so much of this. I’m deeply fascinated by temperament, whether it is psychology or soul, how much of us is Self, in the spiritual sense, and how much is just a bunch of electrical impulse & brain matter. Some books I’ve really enjoyed: Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Three pretty disparate approaches to various forms of the questions, so it’s interesting to note the overlaps between them.
And thank you for that Audre Lorde quote — that’s going up on the wall right this minute.
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Thank you so much for book recs. I’ll read anything I can get my hands on. One thing I’ve noticed when Googling around on this topic is a lot of posts on Buddhism and meditation. Of course, Buddhists believe that preoccupation with the self sort of creates another persona, which distances us from…what, the soul, a divine being, our real selves (so not a Buddhist)? Still, releasing ourselves even temporarily from our desires might be very illuminating. In other words, maybe if I could do that, I wouldn’t be so quick to respond to “Who are you?” with “I like music, food, and books.” I WANT those things; they are not me, my identity.
The Lorde quote is vital. It’s been with me, on a tacked-up postcard, for at least a decade. #wordsIwouldtattooonmybody
Question you can answer or ignore: Can someone be an introvert and also have these bursts of wanting to be hyper-social? I love being alone (because I almost never am?). But when I do want to go out or be with people, it’s a very strong urge. I talk talk talk, am exuberant about connecting and relating, and then as quick as the urge came on, I’m all, “Ok, peace, I need to go home and listen to the house settle now.” I’ll feel almost suffocated by everyone’s energy, even though I craved it only a few hours earlier.
It is possible I am completely screwed up.
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Yeah, the Kabat-Zinn is focused on meditation, and taught me something I never understood about the practice — which is that the goal is to observe the mind, to watch where it goes, rather than to deny it. I’ve always been drawn to Buddhism, but I’ve never remotely studied it.
I was absolutely astonished the first time I took a Myers-Briggs & discovered I was an introvert. As you may recall from the Lyco days of lore, I love to yammer on & on and to have lots of friends around. But, like you, that burst of social activity is short-lived, which is one of the major hallmarks of the introvert. Extroverts are energized by that interaction, while introverts are depleted by it. So you are an unusual introvert, maybe, but you’re not screwed up! (That we are both INFJs, which is pretty unusual in itself, may explain that particular in greater detail. We are social by way of wanting to help, to protect, to forge deep connection. We love people. We wear ourselves out to love them.) There are, if I recall, four different scales on which introversion/extroversion is measured, and capacity for social interaction is only one of them. The others are fascinating, and straddle the soul / physiology divide
One of the things I learned from Quiet is that some introverts perform extroversion, often out of a perceived necessity in a particular social context, whether family or workplace or whatever. I perform the hell out of some extroversion when teaching, but it so, so exhausting.
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This is something I’ve been writing about for years. I really enjoy your musings Stacia–hope you don’t mind me borrowing some of your comment space for a few thoughts…
Trying to separate and what you do and what you like from who you are is a good practice in self-reflection. I think ultimately part of the difficulty is that it isn’t necessarily possible, but it does help reveal the layers of self. The outer layer is not inconsequential; it’s a symptom, effect, or expression of the layer beneath it (terms depending on how you view yourself).
As the layers peel off, our social (and functionally mortal) nature is exposed. There is cause and effect, adaptation on a physical and psychological level. Studies indicate some of the things we experience in life not only change us physically in our own lifetime, but genetically alter our children and predispose them to certain behavioral and personality traits. If what we are is not solely the product of our experience (and those who came before us), then what else is there?
My answer would be self-reflection. Just understanding more about what has and continues to shape us–this alone can change us too, but from the inside. it’s almost like identifying the various sources of energy that shape the world; once we know how each kind of energy works, we can redirect it, refine it, make better use of it.
I think if you (the general “you”) can really figure yourself out, that’s when you’re in the best position to choose who you want to be, as opposed to being a living reaction to everything else. As an existentialist, I believe the question “Who am I?” isn’t nearly as valuable as “Who do I want to be?”
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I deeply appreciate this comment, J.D. I agree that “The outer layer is not inconsequential; it’s a symptom, effect, or expression of the layer beneath it…” I think what I’m realizing is that often our outer layers are too affected by what we hope others think of us. Our self-consciousness. I swing between being a loudmouth who acts like she doesn’t care what others think, and an anxious introvert who desperately wants to not care, but does, and so second-guesses herself. I don’t know which one is more real, only that they both seem very real. So I’m digging inward, as you suggest. That our children might be genetically altered by our experiences gives me shivers of both joy and fear. It can’t be any other way, can it? Cheers to self-reflection. It speaks to the “trying” efforts of this blog, and to what it means to be human. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
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I would love to–need to–read some quotes and thoughts on this, too, as I’m sharing a similar journey.
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Andrea, check out the comments by J.D. and Vanessa. I hope you find them as helpful as I do. Be well!
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