5 Ways to Know Your Genuine Self and Find Strength
“But I’d like to get to know you,” sang Spanky and the Gang. And why not? All of us in our own way are fascinatingly unique souls. Maybe we’re similar to our friends and family, but no one else is exactly us. And that’s what makes being social creatures so wonderful — from every person we know we can take a little something away that we wouldn’t have without them.
And that means we can give to everyone we know a little something they wouldn’t have had without us. We all have that little gift of our uniqueness to share. If you’re going through difficult times and feel that you’re struggling to get to know yourself and let others do the same, here are five ways that helped me look at and share myself fully, honestly, and with self-compassion.
- Say When You’re Not Okay
The most powerful thing I’ve done for getting in touch with myself recently was to admit to all my friends and family that my depression had returned, and I had to put on hold some big life plans while I worked on recovery. Afraid of looking like a failure, expecting some eye rolls, I was surprised with the amount of messages I got in support. More surprising were the people who I thought led “ideal” lives thanking me for my candidness, since it made them feel less alone in their struggles that they were in fact hiding.
It’s a cliche at this point that Instagram and social media remind us constantly that other people are happy and vibrant and we’re not. We also live in a world of toxic-positivity and Facebook-platitudes about best selves and sunset happiness that we struggle to live up to.
But for almost anyone, there is often a reality underneath the self-marketing and constant silver-linings that contains unresolved struggles. Maybe it’s financial, maybe it’s mental health, maybe it’s relationships. Maybe it’s a mixed bag. Whatever it is, I don’t know many people who don’t have worries or doubts about something.
And to present yourself as having got it all under control when you don’t, to say you’re doing great when you’re not, is to present to the people who care about you someone who isn’t you. And that’s going to leave you without emotional support, or even practical help for whatever it is you’re going through. It just makes it harder to support yourself when you also have to manage the image you’re presenting. Tell people who you really are; they want to know the real you.
2. Get to Know Your Selves
I’m not talking about multiple personality disorder here. What I mean is the idea in psychology that we exist in three selves:
- Actual self. Who you believe you are.
- Ideal self is who you wish you were.
- The ought self is who you think you should be.
Our actual self is basically if someone said describe who you are right now, the answer you’d give. Our ideal self is who we want to become in the future, with traits and accomplishments that match what we want ourselves to be. The ought self is shaped around what we think others expect of us, and what obligations we fulfill based on that.
Self-discrepancy theory says we compare our actual self with the other two, and if there isn’t alignment, we have internal struggles. Who hasn’t fantasized about being a famous writer, or making a groundbreaking movie, or just being the most organized parent you could imagine. If this isn’t your actual self you will be comparing your life now to this ideal. Feeling that we’ve done something to screw up getting to our ideal self — easier to do the more fuzzy and grand that ideal self is — can cause negative and lasting emotions like shame, regret, even depression. Same goes for not matching your ought self.
I don’t have answers for how to resolve the discrepancies if they exist; get thee to a therapist for that. What I do think is key is to be aware that they might exist. Do you recognize these selves within you? Are you able to clearly define what each of them is to you? Start to get to know them, write them down, see them each as valid.
3. Do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
If your life is going great and your coping mechanisms with stress are healthy, than in all seriousness good for you. You probably aren’t reading this far if that’s the case.
Therapy is amazing. Therapy opens your eyes to thought patterns you never even realized you had, patterns that can cause a lot of struggle. Therapy can safely help address past trauma and take back your own agency. Whatever you’ve got going on, exploring therapy techniques to overcome your struggles is key to a more fulfilling life.
Attending talk therapy helped me see a lot of root causes of some of my depression triggers. It helped me see faulty beliefs I have about myself and the world. But cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helped me see very distinctive negative thought patterns that I had that I didn’t even know were going on in my head every day, many times a day. And thoughts and perceptions can have a huge impact on your well-being.
For example, I am great at deciding that someone feels a certain way before I even know if they do. “So and so will be annoyed if I text them to see about getting a drink. My boss hates the work I sent in.” And that thinking led me to act based on my non-existent psychic powers that had pre-formed an answer, and those acts only made me feel worse.
The kinds of thought patterns CBT teaches us to recognize usually derived from some childhood protective mechanism that isn’t healthy anymore. But they can be so ingrained in us we don’t recognize them as unhealthy, or even that they’re happening.
By recognizing negative thought patterns and learning how to call them out on their bullshit and reshape your thinking into something more rational, realistic, you can start to act based on healthier thought patterns. It’s a great tool for understanding things about your own reactions to things you may never have even noticed.
4. Broadcast What You Need
Brené Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability didn’t become a sensation for nothing.
Let’s bring up being psychic again. Only this time you think it’s your friends and family who have some magic gift. Once we’ve started thinking about things we need, be it emotional support in some way, be it a job lead, be it just a friend to talk to on a lonely night, it can be very easy to just hope that people get it without you having to say it. Sometimes I think we almost even expect people to just know what we’re needing, and that can lead to frustration or resentment when their psychic powers fail.
It’s hard to put yourself out there. It can be hard to ask for help. It can be downright fucking scary. When you’re unemployed and looking for a job, you already can feel like shit about yourself. Saying, “hey I won’t manage this if I do it on my own, can anyone out there help me with leads or ask their company if they’re hiring?” can make you feel like you’re even less capable. So we wait for our psychic friends to come to us with a magic solution without us having to expose our need.
But vulnerability, hard as it is, is vital. Brené Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability didn’t become a sensation for nothing. And saying what you need means being vulnerable. I struggle even with close friends in feeling like I don’t want to think I need them too much. Telling a friend I’m sad we don’t see each other enough because I rely on our closeness makes me feel so exposed. But saying what you want and saying what you need closes that gap of communication that we keep waiting for psychic powers to fill.
And then you know what? People know what you want and what you need. Done. If they aren’t able to help you find job leads, you’ve put the idea out there that if they come across something they should let you know. If you tell your friends you want to stop going out to eat all the time to hang out because you’re on a budget, you’ve taken back control of that situation. Maybe it doesn’t solve the issue, but you’re not passively waiting for things to get better, letting life own you instead of the other way around.
Know what you want and need. Know that you deserve it. And know that telling people isn’t weakness; it’s self-respect.
5. Write it All Down
Yep, journaling. I struggle to do it consistently, as much as I’ve been told it’s helpful for a lot of situations. But when I’m able to do it and do it for a while, I can look back on what I’ve written and get a clearer sense of myself and my thinking. I can see what things I focus on at certain points. Maybe I let money anxiety be the focus a lot (I do), and looking back at my writing I can objectively see how much brain space that must be taking up.
I can also document what I focused on during good times. Did I think more about the great dinner I had with friends than other things that day? Did I come home and write with glee that a comedy set I did got a lot of laughs? I can see what makes me happiest and what drives me on those good days.
Knowing what you think was the most important thing to focus on can really give you insights into what matters to you, the good the bad and the ugly (and the beautiful, let’s not leave that out). Writing for yourself is also free of the worries we have when it comes to expressing ourselves to others. No one will read it, so put everything down no matter how scary, embarrassing, weird or wonderful.
If you struggle to journal every day, even just making a bullet point summary at the end of every day can be helpful. But keep it up; you will appreciate having a concrete and permanent picture of yourself.
These aren’t perfect techniques and they’re only a handful of ways to embrace who you are and share yourself openly. But they’re ways that have helped me feel a sense of validation in my skin and deepen relationships with others who know me, and love me, a little bit more. Good luck!
