We’ve all been there. We’re feeling nervous, about to do something that’s outside our comfort zone. A well-meaning friend or family member is trying to reassure us. “You’ll be fine!” they say. “Just be yourself.”
Let me ask you, has this ever made you feel better? Has it boosted your confidence? My experience has mostly been no, it has not. In fact it has often made things worse.
“Be myself? How can I be myself when I don’t know who that is?” I spent many wilderness years in my 20s, 30s and even some in my 40s not knowing who I was. I lived for, and through, other people. I defined myself by other people’s responses. There was a gaping hole where “I” should have been.
After various forms of therapy, counselling and personal development I learned a lot more about myself. I discovered the notion of subpersonalities, or parts, of the self. And I came to understand that what I had been identifying with as me were just parts of a much bigger whole. We are all made up of hundreds of these parts.
I had been overidentifying with a small group of selves that included The Controller, The Inner Critic, The Perfectionist and The Organiser on one side and The Party Animal, The Risk Taker and The Rebel on the other.
These are all parts of me but they didn’t reflect the truth of who I am. And what’s more, these parts were often in conflict. “I” didn’t stand a chance. I remember when I first came across this quote from American poet Walt Whitman: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large – I contain multitudes.” It explained so much about the way I was and the battle going on inside me.
Since then I have integrated many of these selves and had a profound experience of connecting with my true self – that part of me that knows exactly the right response in every situation, the powerhouse of inner wisdom that transcends yet includes all these other, smaller selves.
As a human potential coach it has been my privilege to witness the amazing shifts that can take place when someone integrates their ego selves and reaches a place of calm, stillness and freedom.
It may have taken a while, but at least now I know who to be when someone tells me to be myself.
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