Identity

 How do you define yourself? Are you a smart? dumb? fat? fit? an athlete? a couch potato? Are you clever or funny? Are you a gamer? Republican? Democrat? Right? Wrong? Good or bad?

Is your identity firmly fixed in your mind? Are you constantly adding new definitions of who you are? What if I told you that the way that you identify impacts huge pieces of your life. 

Let me provide a quick and easy to understand example. Let's take an imaginary husband and wife couple. They have been married for a decade. She identifies herself as a happy wife and mother. He identifies himself as a father and a married but mingling man. In other words, his identity includes the idea that situationally he can flirt and sleep with other people. His wife is unaware of this identity. He likely doesn't give much thought to it himself except when he lets his extramarital partners know that he is married. 

This system works for him. Because she is unaware of it the identity doesn't case the wife trouble until one way or another she is confronted with it. Very likely hubby is sorrowful about getting caught. His internal identity has collided painfully with his wife's contrary perception of him. Perception is reality and both of their realities have been shaken. 

One or both of them are about to change their identities. He may shift to loyal and loving husband and father. She may remain unchanged in her identity as a mother, but it is likely that her wife identity may add modifiers like reluctant, begrudging, or cautious. Her identity of wife could dissolve entirely with or without the legal paperwork to match. 

Identity is a powerful and tricky thing. It gets people in trouble all the time. I have been thinking quite a bit about it because my own identity has had some changes lately. I made a decision to remove the components of my identity that correspond to podcaster and YouTube personality. Doing that came with a bit of self examination as to why those activities gave me a sense of pride and satisfaction. Removing those aspects could have come with sadness, depression, or even self recrimination. 

They didn't. Those identities were wrapped up in a couple of good things and a few bad ones. The good aspects were collaboration and spending time with friends. The bad ones were egotist, show off, and a need to gather attention and (although it doesn't happen because of any of my podcasting, blogging, or YouTube work) admiration from others. Being loudly and publicly needy is a pretty bad way to self identify. In fact, that complicated aspect of identity were directly in conflict with so many other ways I see myself. At times, I felt that conflict when I was slipping into my podcasting persona and it created a dissonance and discomfort in me. 

The number of people on this planet who have heard me sing are extremely few in number. I would be willing to bet that none of them have any clear memory of it. Why is that? I have a decent speaking voice. My singing voice shouldn't be that horrific. If I had the heart to take a lesson or two it might even be pleasant. 

That isn't going to happen though. Why? I don't identify as a person who can sing. Alone on my motorcycle or in my car, I will belt out all of my favorite song. Somewhere around elementary school I identified myself as a person who has a bad voice. I stopped vocalizing in music class. I won't even sing along to Rocky Top when it comes on. That is the power of identity. I am not sure I could sing in front of another person if I tried.

With identity there are things you can change and things you cannot. I could begin to see myself as a singer much more easily than I could identify as someone who eats a lot of PB&J sandwiches. That whole allergy has me fairly fixed in the belief that idea that I live a peanut butter and tree nuts free life. I could believe differently and add those things, but my body would remind me in not so subtle ways that the allergy is all too real.

Which is the secret of identity. You form it based on your experiences and feedback. If someone had sold me on the idea, as a child, that I had a lovely singing voice then I might have come to believe it. Then based on people's reactions and my own feelings each time I sang around other people that identity would have been either reinforced or rejected through trial and error. 

All of that tells me that if I want to change a part of how I identify I can practice things that reinforce the idea in my own head. If I want to identify as fit an athletic then I could begin exercising every day. Even if these work outs don't actually have a major impact upon my actual fitness, completing them routinely creates a neural pathway in my brain between the action and the identity. One reinforces the other. I want to be a fit so I exercise. The exercise tells me I can be fit. 

In the process I am likely to change what I wear. It isn't that comfortable to ride an exercise bike in jeans. Practicality is likely going to change what I wear to something more functional to exercise. One day I may notice that I am dressing the way fit people dress. My identity clicks up a notch. Add a pedometer, heart rate monitor, and a new pair of sneakers and I am strongly reinforcing my identity as a person who is healthy and gets regular exercise. 

Oh and a by product of doing all of that is I am actually getting more fit along the way. If I try to also think to myself,' What would a fit person eat,' I probably make better nutritional choices. At bare minimum the number of twinkies passing through my gob goes down a bit. The change in nutrition produces more results and, you guessed it, reinforces my identity. 

The same idea works positively or negatively for anything in life. Ever find yourself saying,' I just cannot do this.' Just by saying that you are negatively reinforcing the identity in yourself that you cannot do it. You are essentially manifesting failure through negative self imaging. Negative self talk is do dangerous. We all do it to one level or another, but when you tell yourself the same thing over and over it is like casting a spell that is certain to work. 

I think anything you want to become requires the proper identity frame work. If you want to be seen as more of a professional then you mentally armor yourself in the trappings of a professional. You work to exude professionalism in thought, word, and deed. Next thing you know you are seen in that light. 

The danger to identity, beyond negative self talk, comes from your social support structure. The way the people you love support you shapes you even if you do not want it to. Do you have that one friend or loved one who constantly gives you a hard time or teases you about your dreams? Hurts doesn't it? Well, the reason for that pain is that it is tearing at a part of your identity. 

It might be time to think about how much the loved one or the identity means to you. I would encourage anyone to surround themselves with people who reinforce the sense of self they want to have. Set healthy boundaries at the bare minimum. Even constantly negative people can drag you down without realizing it. Saying something like,' Well, Mark, I love you dearly and enjoy spending time with you. I have noticed that you have been really negative lately. Can I do anything to help you feel better because I am working to surround myself with super positive people and I want to include you in my growth?'

Yeah. That conversation isn't likely to go well. Negative people are trapped in the identity that keeps them that way. Sometimes though, you have to make the right choices for yourself. One thing I have learned is that I cannot do anything for other when I am all torn up. Self care and self maintenance come before most everything else. 

Right now, I am identifying as someone who needs a Sunday afternoon nap. Catch you later!