What is our Sense of Self?

What is our sense of self, and how do we get one?  Do we even need one?

When I speak about a sense of self, I am talking about an internal feeling, that you know who you are deep down inside, that you have a sense of ‘home’ or ‘anchor’ for who you truly are.  It is healthy to have a strong sense of self, but several factors can interfere with this including childhood issues (maybe you had a parent who was not really interested in who you actually were as an individual, or you experienced neglect, or trauma),  needing to put the needs of others before your’s on a consistent basis, or undergoing experiences and situations that were overwhelming and can whittle away at our sense of self.

It’s important to know that whatever has happened, we can rebuild our sense of self, we can strengthen it, and we can embed it to the extent that it is always there, always part of us, and always available, not just theoretically, but in our lived experience.

So, how do we go about doing that? 

I see three stages of building and developing a strong sense of self:  the first stage is knowing ourselves.  This is a function of our cognitive minds, requiring reflection, self-awareness, and a good bit of investigative thinking.  We are looking for our beliefs, ethical principles, or what we think is right or wrong, the way we perceive the world and what we are truly interested in, what fires us up and engages us.  We also become aware of our skills, our strengths and our weaknesses.  We find that we are not like everyone else, but that we have our own set of characteristics.

Living Well Counselling, Calgary, have defined that aspect of it nicely:

People with high differentiation have their own beliefs, convictions, directions, goals and values apart from those that surround them. They have a clear idea of who they are and who they are not. They know their strengths, as well as their limitations.

Healthline.com are even more succinct:

Your sense of self refers to your perception of the collection of characteristics that define you.

But anyone who has already undertaken this sort of investigative reflection will have found that there is still something missing.  It’s important to ‘know’ what makes us tick, what sets us apart from others, but it doesn’t mean very much for us if we don’t experience our sense of self, day to day as we live our lives.  If we can’t do that, it’s as if we are referring to some academic document each time we think ‘is this good for me?’  If we can’t experience then and there who the ‘me’ is, we are struggling.  It may even be that we are separating our heads from our bodies, our minds from our felt experience, and are left feeling incomplete or lacking something.  Well, that is indeed the case – we are!

Here we enter the second stage, which is feeling it inside, in the body, as a real experience.  Everything that happens in our minds has a counterpart in the body, which we experience through feeling, sensing, physically.  Denise Olesky of Good Therapy is getting close to it.

Listen to your mind and body.  If you pay attention to them, feelings and physical cues can help you develop awareness of your likes and dislikes. 

We can become aware of much more than our likes and dislikes, though.  Our sense of self can become a superb navigational tool for assessing what is going on, whether it is good for us (for our sense of self) or whether it is exciting or inspiring.  We can check in with our sense of self when we are contemplating doing something, or connecting with someone, or making a decision, and we will get feedback as to whether what we are contemplating is in alignment with who we really are, deep down inside. 

We can learn to interpret our physical sensations, our body responses, in the context of whether what we are doing or thinking is in true alignment with who we are. 

So what is the third stage?  This is a kind of background buzz (not a caffeine buzz!), a type of physical/emotional backdrop which tells us that we are on track with our life, whatever we are doing, and will feel absent or jarring when we are not living authentically in alignment with who we are.  This is the sense of self awareness that we speak about, that tells us that we are ‘home’, that functions as our anchor and our compass, whatever adventures life throws at us. 

If this is resonating with you and you want to experience more of your sense of self, find direction in your life and take action without doubt, procrastination or self-sabotage, click here to find out more and get in touch.  https://anne-cheshire-coaching.mykajabi.com/senseofself