Why it’s a GOOD thing that you’re still figuring out who you are in your late 20s.
My later 20’s have been the hardest of my life so far. Despite everything I thought I knew about myself — this period feels like a constant challenge to all I thought I knew — overall this period has felt like one big question mark ; the toughest question being: WHO AM I? It turns out that identity crises are not only normal but NECESSARY and make us stronger, more self-assured adults. Welcome my friends to Episode 3 of Read That Again.
“Crisis of identity, while painful at the time, are necessary to forge a stronger, more commanding self.” (Butler-Bowdon, T. 2019).
Read That Again is a series that is a compilation of the incredible wisdom that has been published and that I have accumulated and use daily as a psych major as well as in my own practise as a holistic health and life coach.
WHO AM I?
This all important question of “WHO AM I?” underlies the answers to all other important questions ranging from: Who do I want to spend my time with to how do I want to raise children? Do I even want children? What’s my contribution to the world? If you mistakenly thought high school or University was the time to figure it all out then you aren’t alone. 90% of people I polled on my instagram felt the same way. So imagine my comfort when reading Erik Erikson’s work.
Just when you thought you were supposed to have it all figured out you realized you were EXACTLY where you’re supposed to be.
This “ego” psychologist somewhat fathered psychosocial psychology. So I feel pretty great believing him as my source when understanding that this identity question will come up many times in our life time. The real crisis he says usually comes in our late 20s!
Phew, what a relief that we’re not behind but rather just experiencing the necessary crisis that often comes after we likely overcommitted to some path we feel is “not us”.
Let’s list what we’re covering today:
- What is identity?
- Why Rebellion Matters
- What you are NOT is as important as what you ARE.
- Why working on yourself might be the most important thing you can do.
- How to become unstoppable.
Identity
Identity: fundamental organising principle which develops constantly throughout the lifespan.- Erikson
The best part of Erikson is that in his late 30s he changed his surname from Homeberger to Erikson, he chose Erikson because he was the son of himself. WHAT A KING! (This was after a lifetime of never feeling like he fit in due to his mixed ethnicity). Butler-Bowdon says Erikson “shattered the myth that life after we turn 20 is one flat line of stability.”
Erikson believed we have 8 stages of psychosocial developement.
- Stage 1: Trust vs Mistrust (Infancy from birth to 18 months)
- Stage 2: Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt (Toddler years from 18 months to three years)
- Stage 3: Iniative vs Guilt (Preschool years from three to five)
- Stage 4: Industry vs Inferiority (Middle school years from six to 11)
- Stage 5: Identity vs Confusion (Teen years from 12 to 18)
- Stage 6: Intimacy vs Isolation (Young adult years from 18 to 40)
- Stage 7: Generativity vs Stagnation (Middle age from 40 to 65)
- Stage 8: Integrity vs Despair (Older adulthood from 65 to death
Find the stage you’re in and feel free to do some more research about it — (I got this list from VeryWellMind). This is just a worthy mention of the stages, today we are focusing more on his belief in the identity crisis that comes in our late 20s. It is THIS crisis that leads us to figuring out our truest selves as adults.
Why Rebellion Matters:
Erikson explains that in order to rebel we must first have gone through the experience of complete devotion and attachment. It seems like we must have really believed to taste that betrayal that leads us into a phase of rebellion. That’s the stage where we question everything and decide for ourselves what feels most true to us. Erikson noted that great historical figures often spend years in a passive state. In this stage it seems like we might be (unconsciously) waiting for a particular truth to form so that we can make our mark on the world.
The Second Birth:
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” — Mark Twain
A second birth is an idea from William James. What I found fascinating was that he didn’t explain this as a natural phenomenon that everyone went through. Instead he saw the world as divided into once born and twice (or more) born people. While once born people “rather painlessly for themselves are fitted into the ideology of their age”. Twice born people are often “tortured souls who seek healing in some total conversion experience that will give them direction”. I don’t know about you but I do not want to just be fitted into whatever society deems is important in this era. But being a tortured soul doesn’t sound much better. Luckily I think I was born that way and don’t know “any better” so I will just continue to yearn and hunger for the experiences that give me direction.
What you are NOT is as important as what you ARE.
Nothing stings more than that first betrayal. I still remember my own first true belief being shattered by my pastor committing suicide. My very core was shook when one of the people I looked up to most did something that he told us sends people to hell. It was soon after this that I started questioning EVERYTHING and becoming a (rather angry) activist of many causes. This continued until I found the ones that truly resonated with me. I have this Imagine Dragon song stuck in my head and this line describes exactly what I want to talk about in this section:
The path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell
- Imagine Dragons
The key point here was realising that figuring out what I was against was often far easier than knowing what I was wholeheartedly for. I’ve theorised that there are stages of becoming an ally to any cause.
- The first one was mentioned above: wholeheartedly believing.
Next your reality is shattered and you go - To stage 2: curiosity, questioning and confusion.
- Thirdly you realise just how blindly you followed something that you might not even have liked. You realise that you might have been even been lied to in return for your loyalty to a cause. This stage is: Betrayal. This stage isn’t pretty, I also characterise this phase as the anger stage.
- Now you start to question EVERYTHING and realise there is a lot you have blindly followed but didn’t believe in. This stage syncs up with the angry stage and shows up as stage 4 moving from realising to taking action; this stage is: Rebellion.
- Finally; you’re less angry because you realise the world is just full of misguided people wanting to believe in something. This leads us onto a path of realising what we are not; stage 5: The NOT.
- Stage 6: I am. You realise also that there will never be enough time to be an activist and/or advocate for every cause so you start to eliminate what doesn’t move you deeply to uncover what truly does.
Why working on yourself might be the most important thing you can do.
I have, in the past, believed that all the work I do on myself might be a little self centred. Surely all the time I spend studying, meditating or reading self help books could have been spent in service of others. Then I read that Erikson’s most intriguing point was that “Luther did change the world via his theological position, and that position was the result of working out his own personal demons and identity crisis.” What inherently matters to you is important. It does have the power to change the world, and it starts with facing your demons and getting through this identity crisis.
He goes on to say that it might have taken Luther a while to figure out who he was, but once he knew — “not even the Pope could stop him” I went on to read how Psychology matters because “history is essentially the acting out of individual psychologies”.
READ. THAT. AGAIN.
Working on yourself. Figuring yourself out won’t only prevent you from living a life you’ll regret, mental illness and not reaching your potential. It is actually the most important work we can do. It is the realisation that “you are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop” -Rumi.
Knowing what you believe in, being bold enough to stand up for that which you believe, healing yourself, working on yourself IS in service of the world. If true change starts at home, then the work you are doing on yourself is the work that will have the ripple effect of ending wars or preventing them from ever starting.
This made me think of generational trauma and healing and how when we heal ourselves we help heal 8 generations before and 8 generations after us. Of course this is not healing everything but rather that one tiny thing that we were intended to face and heal in this blink we call our lifetime. That is how we raise the collective consciousness. THAT is how we live a fulfilling life.
How to become unstoppable:
Erikson wanted to normalise people taking time to figure things out. When a man this ahead of his time has an idea — we listen. If we want to become (so) unstoppable (that not even the Pope can stop us) then it starts firstly with the audacity to believe in something wholeheartedly. It starts with the bravery to stand for something, knowing it likely won’t be something we stand for forever. If life is teaching us anything it’s that we need to get comfy being uncomfy which is going to entail us being wrong A LOT.
As we saw above this doesn’t mean being the loudest person in the room. Even the greatest historical leaders took their time AND changed their minds (often more than once).
Realise that you’re going to have these questions again and again in your life and that at the end of each stage you’ll be presented with a choice:
Growth or Stagnation
Choose wisely because the entire collective consciousness is depending on you to LEARN the lessons you were put here to learn ;).
I’ll leave you with this:
If you feel like you’re having yet ANOTHER identity crisis. Know now with confidence that you are EXACTLY where you are supposed to be. I hope this article helped ease your anxiety as writing it did mine. I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes of all time:
“Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.”
— Walt Whitman
