Who we think we are: our dynamic identities
Who we think we are as humans, what we think it is to be human, can be a pretty wild topic. It is just as large a topic to think about your identity: who you know yourself to be, or what you identify with, what is the nature of identity. Since this can be such a multidimensional topic, I’m going to put my thoughts down in several blog posts. There are many ways to consider, define, and engage with the nature of identity, personality, and the Self, from many disciplines and from many people within each discipline. I’m learning a great deal about this now, in my life, so I’ll start this series of blog posts with that. (I put a link to a great song at the end of this post for you.)
I’m in a PsyD program, which is like a PhD in clinical psychology except it is more clinically oriented than academically oriented. I did realize I would have some changes in who I know myself to be, but not like what is actually happening. For starters, being in this program requires that I travel once a month. I’ve shifted from not traveling very much to flying across the country every month. I realized who I know myself to be would shift from “one who stays close to home” to “she who travels often and really loves it”. I realized that getting this degree would change my professional status and potential, like an ‘update’. I did NOT know how deep and broad the ripple effect would be or how the changes would actually seem compared to my mental imaginings.
My professors have encouraged all of us in the class to stay aware of our professional development, and to make sure to take care of our well being in this process. After the last couple of months, I’m realizing how little I know about either part, and how much I thought I did, because I’ve served as a practitioner in an agency before and still do through my work with Metapoints. However, it seems I thought about professional development from a mental kind of place: learn this skill, learn this set of material, produce this result by this time. Somehow, I did not realize the extent to which learning a new skill, or producing a paper by a certain date, would result in me becoming someone new. I did not suspect how much I would be learning through other aspects of intelligence, such as emotional intelligence or intuitive awareness, for example. I did not realize that by facing the difference between the world/functioning I had before starting school and the world coming into being through being in school, that I would become a different person. Sometimes this has shown up in the course of having a big success, embracing or absorbing that “I am she who succeeded at something I did not know for sure I’d succeed at”. Sometimes this has been through facing a fear, facing a shortcoming, or dealing with some logistical aspect of my surroundings that doesn’t work for the accomplishment to come to fruition. Wow. I had no idea that changing where I study would have anything to do with who I know myself to be. I love working at my desk area, but my desk area is too close to distractions for me to be effective in getting my schoolwork done. Before starting school, those distractions were such habits that I did not even notice I was often distracted and interrupted in my work and flow. In fact, over several years, my flow had become based more on what others’ needed in the moment, whether family/children or demands of work. Who I knew myself to be, and my sense of being important, without my even knowing it, was based on being needed by others, and helping others fulfill on their goals, for example. As soon as I had to stop being interrupted in order to succeed in school, this changed the family system. It changed howI had to and wanted to interact with the world. It has made me choose other ways of knowing I am valuable. Letting go of the way I used to know myself was not as easy as I thought it would be or should be, either, even once I was aware of what was going on. It has been an amazing journey, that has barely begun since I’m not even finished with the first year of school yet and because the more I keep going in this process the more I’ll change.
Many of us are in the midst of changes in who we know ourselves to be for many reasons. For example, the entire world is changing, requiring changes of each of us, most of which none of us planned for or anticipated. The world is becoming a global community. Many local and world structural systems, such as economies are changing. There is a lot going on regarding humans’ relationship to nature and the environment that are calling for choices and changes in individual and community lifestyles. Some of us are experiencing spiritual awakenings. Some of us are changing just because our children are growing up and we have to design new lives once the children leave home. Some of us are changing because of choices such as mine to return to school, or reasons for getting new jobs, moving to new communities, and more. All of these examples call for growth, change, development. All of this can seem very unsettling, especially if you don’t realize that your identity, who you know yourself to be, is designed to be flexible and malleable as you grow and experience life. It can seem a bit overwhelming even if you do realize you are meant to have some fluidity in what you identify with, how you know yourself. But being aware of the fluidity can help you be more ‘response-able’, less stressed, especially if you reach out to others in your circle of family, friends and community as I did today.
There is a lot more to say regarding the nature of identity, but I’ll continue in a next post to begin to share some of my personal ideas regarding where we get our identity and some of the body of knowledge around this from my work with Metapoints. Many of us are hip deep in these kinds of changes in this day and age. I welcome shares and comments from any of you.
There are many resources to suggest for your support. One very good one is a CD called “Moving with Transition” produced by METApoints. It is restful, restorative and informative. You can view this product on www.metapoints.com , but while the storefront part of our website is getting completed, you’d need to call 614-940-1667 to order the CD.
Here’s a great song: Who Do You Think I Am? by Sinead Lohan: http://metapoints.audioacrobat.com/download/whodoyouthinkIam.mp3
Deb,
You show such striking, naked honesty in this post. It is true that when one is embarking upon new education, one expects to change through learning. I do agree with you that the expectation, at least in the beginning, is not to change from within. That part comes as a surprise, and sometimes is met with great resistance (which is where we fall the most behind in schoolwork, family time, self-care, those types of things I think). Once we start giving in to the changes, though, we are surprised by how easily things flow.
I am reminded of the family walk we took last night, in the pouring rain, on the street in front of our house. Sebastian (6 years old next month!) decided he was going to put his rain boots to the test and get right there in the puddles.
He would walk a little way down the street, then stop and watch as the water drained from one driveway to the next driveway, following its preset course to a drain several houses down. He threw a petal in the current and followed it all the way to the drain, certain that the petal would wind up swirling around and around and lose itself in the momentum of the water crashing into the pipes well below our neighborhood.
Instead the petal got caught up on a pile of dead grass and leaves, leftovers from a sunnier day when someone mowed their lawn and missed a spot raking. The petal fluttered there, and then settled in. Sebastian looked up at me, disappointed that the petal had been stopped in its grand adventure. Surely it wanted to travel into the depths? We watched the petal for a few moments, content in its spot, all snuggled in, making friends with the leaves and grass. Finally Sebastian grew tired of the petal’s unwillingness to venture out, and he went over and kicked the pile of grass, loosening the whole bundle and sending all of it down the rest of the “mini river” together. The petal joined the grass and leaves as they traveled, and together they all went down the “whirlpool” into the great cauldron below.
Maybe we were really comfortable as petals, all snuggly, and then this PsyD program came and kicked the grass and leaves right out from under us! But now we’re headed toward the big whirlpool and greater adventures!
Keep on keepin’ on!
| Posted 1 year, 8 months ago