How often do we hear or state “I need to find myself”?

There is a belief that we need to find our self in order to feel complete, whole, content and fulfilled. The current buzz word being THE AUTHENTIC-SELF, living an authentic life. This journey may be as simple as choosing quiet, meditative practices to sit in stillness and ‘just be’, or to travelling half way around the world to the jungles of Peru to hidden healing centres and confronting the Shadow. I am certain there is value in any of these activities or introspective work.  But there is an important question I keep pondering over:

How exactly do we lose ourselves to begin with?

How does the Self vanish?

Or is it indeed vanished or just hiding?

And if it is hiding, what is it hiding from?

I mean … surely we are born and the self is present? There are numerous paradigms to help us to understand the development of the self from Piaget, to Erikson, Vygotsky and countless more, describing various ways the self and identity, develops.

What happens to thwart this process or to chase the self away into hiding? Why are we left feeling that most of our adult life is about searching for ME?

Two concepts helped simplify this immense topic for me … of looking for ME: ATTACHEMENT and the AUTHENTIC-SELF

Theories on Attachment describe the young self  – the infant – as being completely reliant on the primary caregiver. This primary caregiver, let’s say the mother for ease of continuity in this piece of writing, meets all the needs of her infant, physically and emotionally. The mother interprets, mediates and guides the infant in a process of learning about the world and interacting with others. Part of this process is also to teach the infant to grow into a unique individual.  The key here is to grow as an individual, through the relationships we have with others, a word we all know well – Ubuntu – I am through others.

The need to attach to others, firstly to our mother, is a vital, if not the most important part of being human. We are wired to attach, to connect with others, with our tribe. Maternal chemistry is set up to assist this process at birth in the form of the hormone oxytocin, and the infant’s reflexes and responses are wired to illicit care and love from the mother. All of this to establish attachment to our primary caregiver. As an infant we are vulnerable to the world and require a safe and secure attachment to our mother, in order to develop. When the secure base – the mother –  is established and experienced, the infant-self is able to begin the journey into the world to explore and connect with others, always coming back to the safety of the secure base/mother for reassurance and encouragement or comfort. This is the process of differentiation: of understanding that I AM separate from my mother.

But somewhere, somehow, as infants, we begin to learn that certain parts of our self, or certain responses are not always ‘acceptable’ to our primary caregivers. Perhaps we learn not to cry, not to shout, not to stomp feet, not to sulk. Or to put on a smile and be happy.  An intriguing hiding of the self may begin as we learn what will be tolerated by our family, by our culture and by society.

We learn that in order to maintain our primary attachments, we may need to suppress parts of our authentic selves. Looking at my own development I recognise, and am told that as a child I was a loud, talkative child born into a loud communicative family.  I grew up being loud and communicating. My mother said that when I had a temper tantrum she would first attempt to acknowledge and understand what had caused the frustration and then attempt to mediate the tantrum and guide me, as a feisty toddler, through the frustration. My authentic self was angry, frustrated and needing guidance. Which I received. My attachment to my mother was not threatened by the expression of my authentic self, in the form of anger.  If my mother had withdrawn her connection to me or her emotional availability from me, ignored me or perhaps shown anger at my tantrum, threatening my attachment to her, I possibly would have learnt early on that the expression of anger is not acceptable. My human instinct would be to suppress my authentic self which is in responding to my context, my self or my peers, in order to preserve the attachment to my primary caregiver. This is a survival instinct to maintain my attachment to my primary caregiver because:

I cannot survive on my own.  An illustration of how Anger is often a part of the self that is hidden from others as deemed ‘unacceptable’ instead of learning to integrate anger into the self and learning how to express anger in a healthy way.

Thus begins the constant weighing up of ATTACHEMENT or AUTHENTIC-SELF.

If I am me, as I am, am I still loved and accepted?

Depending on how the family dynamic functions, an infant learns very quickly, due to a highly tuned and adaptable nature, to maintain attachment at all costs. These ways-of-being are further reinforced by society through messages, either implicit or explicit, of how a child, a teenager, an adult should behave. I am not questioning that there is need for many social norms and rules, however, how many of these rules restrict the AUTHENTIC-SELF? How often do we feel that we would love to be free do to something else, to say certain things? And what prevents us from doing this? What prevents us from revealing the authentic-self? I have begun to see, in myself and through my conversations with others, very often, it is indeed the fear of losing our attachments to others, whether these others are parents, siblings, friends or the-people-out-there.  We continually sacrifice the authentic self in order to maintain the attachment. How often do we take on more than we can handle or say yes to something when we really want to say no? Why do we do that?

So if we understand this relationship between attachment and the authentic-self….. how do we allow the authentic-self to manifest more? Perhaps just to ask the question in any given situation:

What is more important at this moment…..

Is my attachment to this person, or object, worth the risk to my authentic self?

What do I sacrifice of the authentic me by maintaining this attachment to a relationship or object?

The truth is that we have not lost our self.  We have just forgotten to listen to the Self. We need to remember and honour the voice that whispers “just say no”, or “sorry I can’t”, or “I am not accepting that”, or “This is what I want to do”, or “I am sorry, I love you but this is hurting me”.  That voice is always there, trying to be heard.  The journey is beautiful and daunting, exciting and terrifying. Sometimes our attachment to certain relationships is no longer needed or perhaps we have outgrown them and that may be frightening and destabilising because it is all we have known. That is part of our development… recognising when the Authentic-self needs to manifest itself and break free of its restraints.  Relationships to others are what humans are wired for and finding the balance between attaching to others in a way that honours the authentic–self is where the peace is…… a thin grey space, elusive at times, a place where it is quiet and calm ….where ME is.

The Song “Read All About It” has many different interpretations, but listening to it this morning reminded me of this journey of finding our voices and remembering we are all “wonderful, wonderful people” as Authentic, unique individuals. I hope it reminds you too in some way.

Read All About It, Part III

Emeli Sandé

You’ve got the words to change a nation
But you’re biting your tongue
You’ve spent a life time stuck in silence
Afraid you’ll say something wrong
If no one ever hears it how we gonna learn your song?
So come on, come on
Come on, come on
You’ve got a heart as loud as lions
So why let your voice be tamed?
Maybe we’re a little different
There’s no need to be ashamed
You’ve got the light to fight the shadows
So stop hiding it away
Come on, come on
I wanna sing, I wanna shout
I wanna scream ’til the words dry out
So put it in all of the papers,
I’m not afraid
They can read all about it
Read all about it, oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
At night we’re waking up the neighbors
While we sing away the blues
Making sure that we’re remembered, yeah
‘Cause we all matter too
If the truth has been forbidden
Then we’re breaking all the rules
So come on, come on
Come on, come on,
Let’s get the TV and the radio
To play our tune again
It’s ’bout time we got some airplay of our version of events
There’s no need to be afraid
I will sing with you my friend
Come on, come on
I wanna sing, I wanna shout
I wanna scream ’til the words dry out
So put it in all of the papers,
I’m not afraid
They can read all about it
Read all about it, oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Yeah, we’re all wonderful, wonderful people
So when did we all get so fearful?
Now we’re finally finding our voices
So take a chance, come help me sing this
Yeah, we’re all wonderful, wonderful people
So when did we all get so fearful?
And now we’re finally finding our voices
Just take a chance, come help me sing this
I wanna sing, I wanna shout
I wanna scream ’til the words dry out
So put it in all of the papers,
I’m not afraid
They can read all about it
Read all about it, oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
I wanna sing, I wanna shout
I wanna scream ’til the words dry out
So put it in all of the papers,
I’m not afraid
They can read all about it

Songwriters: BARNES THOMAS ANDREW SEARLE / JAMES IAIN

Read All About It, Part III lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing (Uk) Limited, David Platz Music, Bucks Music Group Ltd., Bucks Music, Stellar Songs Limited, STELLAR SONGS LTD