Becoming Yourself
Image by Chela B
In order to become yourself you must first get in touch with the self that already is. Before you fully grasp the concept of a self, it is already formed, already having things added to it and taken away from it by virtue of experience, the impacts of which we are not fully conscious of in the moment. Becoming yourself requires taking psychological ownership over those core characteristics that define who you are. Characteristics which may or may not be amenable to change, so that ownership becomes something more closely related to guardianship, and the development of a self that is consistent becomes about protecting those core parts from negative influences.
There are many who think that changing your physical appearance is the quickest way to demonstrate that you have become yourself. This is the personality ethic approach that Stephen Covey wrote about, defined by taking of shortcuts and making superficial changes in hopes of appearing different, but without doing the inner work on yourself these attempts fail because they are not authentic.
Even if I do have success with this strategy, if I am constantly changing for others, for their approval or appeasement, or whatever else I’m angling to get, the core self gets lost in this process, and the only way to get back in touch with it is to find wrestle with that question of who I am. The answer to which can only be found by understanding why I feel the need to keep making changes in the first place. That’s the core of the issue, the behavior most often carried out, which by default comes to define my existence. That’s the making of the inauthentic self.
Exactly how the self is made is still mysterious and ultimately might not matter–there are things we have to accept as inevitable and outside of our control, and how I got to be who I am might be one of them. It might be that the assumption of responsibility is more important than the act of creation. After that moment of discovery, when you get the first inkling of how significant the phrase I am really is, then you have to intentionally decide about how you will develop the self. If you don’t, it still develops on its own, but it does so in the shadows, trapped behind whatever part in life you feel you must play. Which leaves you weak, fragile, and insecure, like everything else that is forced to live without light.
The goal is not to become disagreeable, but you should certainly want to nourish the self you are creating to the point of it becoming tough, immutable, and essential.