Reconnect with Your Authentic Self: Navigating the Path of Personal Growth
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be FREE.” - Ralph Ellison
Good therapy is a path towards reconnecting with your truest self. Why? Because most of the difficult things we’ve experienced have either disconnected us from our core self, or impeded the development of our most authentic identity over time.
We are BORN with a unique, emerging, CORE SELF, yet, our ability to grow and get to know our true nature gets impeded by certain life experiences including trauma and/or inadequate caregiving.
When our connection with our SELF is impeded, we rely on outside feedback and/or the roles we play (ex. achiever, mediator, caretaker, etc) to experience a sense of mattering. We can become reliant on external approval or completing our role-tasks in order to feel OK. And, if we are not actively in those roles or receiving external validation, we can feel lost, terrified, shallow, invisible, or untethered.
How can we think about authentic self/identity?
IFS (internal family systems, a therapy approach founded by Richard Schwartz) gives some great perspective into what it FEELS like to be connected to core self. IFS informs us to think about what they call the 8 C’s.
The 8 C’s are qualities of being connected to our Core Self. One way to conceptualize this is that these are the qualities we exhibit when we are not in a fear or protective state. These are qualities that all humans are born with and will naturally occur and develop during times of stillness and safety (physical, social, emotional).
Compassion
Curiosity
Courage
Clarity
Connected
Confidence
Calm
Creativity
When we are safe enough, we can grow and foster these traits (8 Cs) while we develop a narrative of self. As we grow and develop, we write the STORY of our identity through a developmental learning process.
Our narrative of authentic self includes the discovery and integration of the following lessons over our lifetime (not necessarily a comprehensive list):
I exist (separate from others, separate from my caregivers)
I am allowed to take up space in this world, and this space allows for me to learn, grow, access joy, connect, and contribute
I have my own thoughts, feelings, desires, and perspectives
I have a unique set of values and the autonomy to prioritize them (for a list of values by the lovely Brene Brown, click here).
I have my own preferences and these activate my curiosity and development
My life experiences (memories) form a cohesive timeline/narrative that I’ve come to understand with compassion/meaning
I have a unique personality and was born with traits that have value
My experience of culture and heritage contributes to my identity
My connections (people, hobbies, spirituality, etc) contribute to my identity (ex. I’m a mother, sister, horseback rider, animal-lover, advocate, believer, Buddhist, etc).
Ways in which we become disconnected from our SELF – inadequate parenting and trauma:
Quality of Parenting (Children of Emotionally Immature Parents):
The quality of parenting we receive has probably the largest impact on our identity development.
Specifically, our authentic self-development can be hindered if we’re raised by emotionally immature parents.
Why? Since emotionally immature parents have difficulty regulating their own internal state (soothing their emotions for example) their children must shift from focusing on their own needs (developmentally crucial), to focusing on the needs of their parents. This can look like caretaking the parent or playing roles that allow the parent to feel good or in control. It’s important to note that at the time, this childhood adaptation was imperative to survival, despite the costly sacrifice of disengaging from one’s internal world.
On the contrary, emotionally mature parents will support their children in growing in ways that resonates with who they uniquely are (and what’s good for the them), not who the parents want or need them to be.
There are 4 categories of Emotionally Immature Parents:
Emotional Parents - unstable, chaotic, impulsive, driven by reactivity.
Driven Parents - often appear “normal” yet enforce a “my way is the highway” approach to parenting – often critical and hyperfocused on achievement.
Passive Parents - parent check-out or withdraw, neglectful or “disney parent.”
Rejecting Parents - avoidant of intimacy, sense that parenting is a burden/bother.
Interested in learning more about adult children of emotionally immature parents (EIPs)? Stay tuned to next month’s blog ☺
Trauma
Trauma can be any experience that drastically alters our sense of the world and ourselves by challenging our sense of safety. These altered perceptions often sound like some version of:
I’m not safe
I don’t have choice or control (I’m helpless/powerless)
I’m not good enough, or something is wrong with me
Depending on its level of intensity, a traumatic memory can fiercely wire into our neurobiology without accessing or integrating with our adaptive experiences. This means that the negative lessons of the traumatic event will be on repeat in our body and mind, and any attempt at reasoning with the trauma narrative will be unsuccessful. This trauma narrative (I am bad, I am not safe, I have no choice) will then begin to influence and shade our perspective of the present and the future.
This process keeps us stuck in a state of fear and self-protection, pulling our attention from the core self and preventing regular access to the core self qualities (8 C’s from IFS). Not to mention, our identity narrative begins to center around the trauma and our related attempts at keeping ourself safe (example: I’m bad therefore I have to look/act perfect).
These neural pathways of fear and protection can also be understood as dissociated parts of self – since they are kept separate from our other, adaptive neurobiology pathways at large. In IFS, these dissociated parts of self are grouped into three categories:
Exiles are vulnerable, often younger, parts of self that hold the story of intense emotionally pain (terror, rejection, loss, aloneness, rejection, shame)
Managers are proactive parts that try to keep us safe by controlling other people, situations, or parts (criticizing, planning, perfectionism, caretaking, etc)
Firefighters are reactive parts that impulsively show up to distract or numb from the possibility of overwhelm (drinking, binge eating, rage, dissociating, self-harm, etc).
How to find your way home - reconnecting to the authentic self
The good news is, despite your upbringing or experience of trauma, identity can be developed and strengthened. Both inside and outside the therapy office, there are approaches to support the process of reconnecting to the SELF:
In therapy this can look like:
Reprocessing trauma with tools such as EMDR
Strengthening adaptive, authentic SELF memories and experiences (often called “Resourcing” in EMDR
Building skills to feel your feelings and feel your body without getting overwhelmed or disconnecting (dissociating)
Building the skill of self-awareness or metacognition (authentic self-observation)
Integrating dissociated parts of self (in IFS these dissociated parts are called exiles, firefighters, and managers).
Clarifying and prioritizing your values
Creating and following through with goals imagined by core self
Finding your voice
Learning to set boundaries
Learning to disentangle from emotionally immature parents
Outside of therapy this can look like:
Self reflection via journaling or meditation prompts
Practicing boundaries
Practicing self-compassion (tools can be found here)
Building healthy relationships with others who practice self-awareness
Explore your passions
Embrace a growth mindset and related SELF qualities (patience, perseverance, courage, self-compassion, grace, gratitude)
Seek personal development and follow through with commitments to the self
Book recommendations that contribute to awareness and development of the SELF:
No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz
How to Meet Yourself by Dr. Nicole Lepera
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk
Bravo. If you’ve just read this, it’s a decent indication that you’re a self-reflective, curious individual, and therefore actively on the journey of self-discovery and development.
Today, we celebrate the courage it takes to do the work.
