“I am…”: The Story I Tell Myself
What is “me”? In my dabblings in Buddhism, this is a concept that’s called into question. If me is my physical form, how much would my physical form have to change to no longer be “me”? If me is my brain, am I different person if I experience a brain injury that causes me to lose my memory or a chemical shift that changes the way I think, feel, react?
There’s a mantra I learned in yoga: This is not my body; this is not even my mind. The message here is that “me” is a spiritual being that goes way beyond the physical form of how I think and feel.
At times this concept feels totally valid and others it’s completely nonsensical (this is how I relate to pretty much any spiritual concept — wavering between deep understanding and it sounding like complete bullshit).
Let me get less philosophical with the question of “Who am I?” and present it in terms that are more tangible for me: what are the parts of myself that are ingrained and therefore necessitate acceptance and what are the parts that I could let go of or shift?
Like… am I destined to forever be socially anxious? Could I actually be a successful writer if I dedicated myself to it? Am I simply a moody, sensitive person or with mindfulness, awareness, and practice, could I alleviate myself of this struggle?
The things we tell ourselves about ourselves become self-fulfilling prophecies. If I tell myself I’m a moody, sensitive person, I’ll probably continue to react strongly to minute situations that don’t actually carry weight. But if I tell myself that I can let things roll off my back, I might find that little comments don’t sting nearly as bad.
So if my identity is a story I tell myself, that makes me the author of who I am.
Now where I find this gets tricky is differentiating between manifesting qualities I desire and denying parts of myself. It’s the difference between denying myself that someone hurt my feelings because “I’M NOT SENSITIVE.” and recognizing that someone hurt my feelings but viewing it in the framework of being human versus being “me.” Saying to myself, “Oh, that wounded my ego, because I think of myself as a considerate person, and that person believes otherwise. If my intentions weren’t bad, we must have misunderstood each other. What a human thing to happen.” And then I can fix it or just let it go. Instead of how I’d previously relate to it, which would be along the lines of, “That really hurts my feelings. I try so hard, and it’s just never enough. And now that person think I’m a piece of shit.” I’d then overanalyze the situation with the hope of avoiding it from ever happening again. The first option offers humility and self-compassion. The second is ego-driven self-indulgence.
When people talk about having spiritual awakenings, such as through taking hallucinogenic drugs, epiphanies often stem from dissolution of ego (responsible for our sense of personal identity).
In Michael Pollan’s new book, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, he discusses the use of such drugs to treat people suffering from depression, addiction, and life-altering diseases.
“The drugs foster new perspectives on old problems. You know, one of the things our mind does is tell stories about ourselves. And if you’re depressed, you’re being told a story, perhaps, that you’re worthless, that no one, you know, could possibly love you, you’re not worthy of love, that life will not get better. And these stories, which are enforced by our egos, really, trap us in these ruminative loops that are very hard to get out of. They’re very destructive patterns of thought.” (I bolded the last statement because that’s what resonates with me when I’m in a depressive state.)
Maybe it seems preposterous to tell someone who’s depressed to simply change their mode of thinking. When I’m in a state that mirrors depression (without a professional diagnosis I’m reluctant to actually call it depression), it’s debilitating, physically and emotionally. I feel fatigued and hopeless. And then I start talking to myself, saying, “Well if no matter how hard I try I still end up feeling this why, then why even try?” And this is the true danger of that state of mind for me: allowing it dictate my actions, becoming stagnant in it.
Last time I felt that way, which was a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to my boyfriend and was sharing with him my feelings of hopelessness and complete dissatisfaction with life, and he countered me with the question,
“What if it’s not real?”
This was a hard pill to swallow, because in that moment, nothing felt more real than the feeling that life would never be enough. But it was exactly what I needed to hear. Because it allowed me to detach from it, to take action (in the form of a guided meditation) to begin to work myself out of it. Now, it’s not that this detachment meant that I was then cured of feeling that way, but it shifted that feelings from being reality to a transient experience.
I remember telling a close, wise older friend, “I’m just a moody person,” and she interjected sternly yet kindly. “Don’t say that.” she said. “In saying so you’re giving it credence.”
This is a comment that a few years ago I would’ve rolled my eyes at, skeptical of how the way we talk to ourselves, relate to ourselves, describes ourselves, manifests who we are. I believed who I was was this thing set in stone that I could simply build upon.
As I work towards developing into someone I can live with on a day-to-day basis, I believe more and more that the way I talk to myself is the most definitive factor in how I experience life.
I’ve been experiencing stomach cramping and back pain after I eat for almost two weeks now, and my initial reaction was self-pity, frustration, and fear. Because I was in a victim mentality. After 4 days of being pissed off and frustrated that it wasn’t going away, I decided I had to shift my mindset, that being positive and appreciating and enjoying life couldn’t depend on feeling good all the time.
So now when I’m in pain (like right now as I’m writing this), I tell myself a different story: that this pain is giving me compassion for people who suffer from chronic pain that I could not have had otherwise, that it’s providing me gratitude for the majority of my life in which I’ve been able to eat without consequence, that it’s reminding me to take inventory of all the other parts of my body that are functioning well. (Note: I’m also going to the doctor. I don’t want it to seem as though acceptance means not taking action.)
And much like during those unpleasant emotional and mental states, this shift doesn’t take the pain away, but it makes it bearable and provides me the ability to see beyond it.
Because there are no guarantees in life. The contract of life simply states that we’re alive until we’re not. So if I can only appreciate life when everything is running smoothly without struggle, pain, discomfort, or frustration, then there’s a lot of life I’m missing out on. So the story of myself is: I am someone who lives in acceptance and appreciation of all that life has to offer, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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