Tag: Life

Unmasking our false self pt.1

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Everyone is on a search for authenticity.  It is something that everyone has a deep desire for.  We may not know what it looks like when we see it, but we all have an expectation and idea of what it may be like.  It is like the idea of perfection.  Know one really knows what perfection looks or feels like, because no one except Jesus has ever attained it, but we have an idea of what it would be like.  What we know about authenticity is how we give it our best shot to scramble after what we think it is and what will give us fulfillment personally.

We seek after authenticity and seek a way for living that leads us to happiness.  Unfortunately not all routes we may take are equally authentic.  It stands to reason that if there is a true self we are working to become, that there is a false self we can also be.  “If there is a way of being that is true to my deepest self, then there are also many other ways that are false.” David Benner.

It didn’t take us long in life to discover that we needed to look after ourselves.  Early on we began to develop a plan of coping with life and achieving our definition of happiness.  We began to figure out what made us feel good about ourselves and we worked at trying to fulfill those needs for love, survival, power and control.  This is where our basic identity began to form, and the way we lived and the experiences we had began to form in us an identity and a way of seeing the world around us.  It also began to form in us the deepest desires which will drive us throughout our lives.  Many of the behaviors we now have are a simple result of our souls searching for its needs to be met.  And a lot of it is subconscious, because we don’t even recognize the behaviors for what they are.

We grow up learning what our strengths are, or the things we thing we do well that bring us the things, or feelings we are looking for.  But some grow up learning what their weaknesses are, struggling to simply enter the world feeling like they have any value at all.  These feelings and behaviors make up our sense of identity.  And many times the identity we portray is not who we are at all.  It is just the way we handle life and we have lived it for so long we never question it at all.  It is something we simply accept, and expect others to as well.  The problem is we can often see the false identity in others, but it is very hard to spot in our own lives.  Because it is our “normal” approach to life that we simply accept is the way we all live.  It has become like the air we breathe.  We are so accustomed to it we are no longer aware of it.  In order for us to change we have to be willing to see ourselves as different from we see ourselves currently to be.  Our self-image and our desire to hold on to it, or be willing to let it go will decide whether we can break free from the molds we were put into, or we will continue to live in bondage to a way of living and seeing life.  A bondage to a self that was created for us and is not who we are.

Saul is a perfect example in scripture of someone with a false self-identity.  He was fanatically zealous and ruthless, consumed by personal ambition and terrorized the early Christian church.  After he encountered Jesus his life was completely changed, and he saw himself completely different.  He had exchanged his image of self for a new one.  He came to understand who he was, and who he was in Christ.

The core of our false self is “the belief that my value depends on what I have, what I can do, and what others think of me.” Basil Pennington.  Thomas Merton describes it as “… winding experiences around myself… like bandages in order to make myself perceptible to myself and the world as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface.”  Our false identity is always wrapped up in something other than us.  We make ourselves feel important by what we do, or how others think about us.  We place a value on ourselves by how many friends we have on Facebook, or how many people agree with our opinions.  “Because it is hollow at the core, the life of a false self is a life of excessive attachments.  Seeking to avoid implosion and non-being, the false self grasps for anything that appears to have substance and then clings to these things with the tenacity of a drowning man clutching a life ring.”  And so we have the race “keeping up with the Jones’ ”

This isn’t much of a way to live and without the willingness to see ourselves as different that we are we will never be able to break free of the cycle and discover our true identity.

The tragic part of your journey

tragicInside every one of us is a desire to know ourselves.  Many are able to numb this desire by a great variety of pursuits and focuses which allow them to be distracted from the search for self.  This is the biggest tragedy.  The fact that people can go through life never knowing themselves, never seeing and realizing their potential, never coming to know and release the gift that they are into the world.

Everyone of us was created with purpose, and there is not a single person born who was a mistake.  Every person was created with meaning and purpose and gifting.  And far to many of us miss out on the blessing we are by not taking the time to seek out ourselves.  Our world has an ability to exert great pressure on us and without an inner sense of purpose we will always get squeezed out.  The choice before us is never one of becoming.  We will always become something.  Becoming is a certainty.  The question is always what will we become.  If we do not decide to search out and become ourselves, our world and our relationships will decide for us.

The problem with identity is that there is a false identity.  For every truth there is a false.  And we have all developed a false identity.  The mask that we choose to wear that makes us acceptable to those around us.  We all have a false identity.  One that we use to protect our vulnerabilities, and that drives us forward to gain the things that our souls are longing for.

It didn’t take us very long to learn in life that we could manipulate the way people saw us to gain something we wanted to have, or  to elicit a certain response from people.  We began to develop mannerisms that we used to gain the things or relationships we desire.  This is how we began to build our false identity.  Add to that the situations we grew up in and the expectations of those around us to fit in and measure up to and we have an identity that is built on illusion.  One that we have had for so long we don’t even think about it any more

Because our false identity is build on illusion it will always fight hard to protect itself.  One of the easiest ways to identify our false identity is to begin to name the areas of our lives that are the most sensitive to outside influences.  We all have irrational defense mechanisms that almost instinctively arise within us.  These are the defense mechanisms of our false identity.  “Because of its fundamental unreality, the false self needs constant bolstering. Touchiness dependably points us to false ways of being. And the more prickly a person you are, the more you are investing in the defense of a false self. Some people bristle easily if they are not taken seriously, thus betraying a need for others to see the self-importance that is so obvious to them. Others take themselves too seriously, perhaps being unable to laugh at themselves. Both reactions suggest ego inflation. Others have learned to mask these outward displays of defensiveness, but inner reactions of annoyance or irritation still point toward the presence of a false self.”  Benner, David G. (2009-09-20). The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery (p. 83). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

As you begin to know yourself and remove the false identities you no longer have a need to defend anything.  Because you are built on conviction instead of illusion there is no need to defend something that cannot be destroyed.  And this causes those around us who have not chosen to begin their own search for identity to become uneasy and defensive, and many times they will begin to attack the person we are becoming, usually without realizing they are doing it.  We are simply a threat to their sense of identity and they are responding because of the insecure nature of their false self.

Which means that there is going to be some pain along the way.  Unfortunately we cannot avoid it.  But it shouldn’t keep us from digging.  It should cause us to seek out those who are on their own journey of discovery, and we can then seek support from those who are working on the same things.  It is very important that we don’t make this journey alone.  As we begin to see ourselves for who we are it is a fragile state to be in, and we will need the support of others to carry us through the early stages of discovery.

A great benefit to us growing into who we really are is that we will inspire others to do the same.  As others see the strength and security growing in us they will begin to ask the same questions that got you started, so the journey is exceedingly worth making.  Don’t allow the tragic attacks of those around you stop you from discovering who you really are.  Otherwise you will add to the pile of people living out the greatest tragedy of never discovering who they are.

The labels we wear

labels Labels.  We all wear them.  The things people have spoken about us or to us have stuck to us and changed the way we live.  For some it is trying to outlive the labels, and others try to live up to them.  Everyone of us has experienced the labels our world puts on people.

As humans we love to categorize people, and have them fit neatly into a slot that makes sense in our minds.  The standard we use for people is usually ourselves.  When people behave the way we want they are great people, and when they don’t we usually get upset.  If people behave differently enough from us we categorize them as different and set them aside.   We have labels for just about everyone we meet, and we relate to people based on the labels they have.

Growing up there were jocks and geeks, preps and Goths, punks, metal heads and grunge.  But there are more than the social labels we wear.  There are a lot of things spoken to us over the years that have labeled us as well.  Useless, bum, jerk, loser, worthless, good for nothing, dumbass, and many others.  The struggle to be yourself is especially hard for young people still discovering who they really are as they grow into adulthood.  And the labels can be extremely hard to live with as evidenced by our teen suicide rates.more than a label

We are more than a label.  And we don’t have to be the labels that others have placed on us.  Even our parents placed labels on us as we grew up and were told to be something.  Part of the journey of self discovery is learning to discern yourself from the labels.  Under all the labels our world has placed on us is the real you and I.  An extremely valuable person to find.  One that Jesus thought was worth leaving heaven and dying for.

All of those labels have created ways of relating and interacting with our world, and many of them are learned behaviors and are not the real us.  The journey is to help us decide which ones are not us and which ones are.  As we discover ourselves under the labels we can then begin to express ourselves for who we really are.  It isn’t going to be an easy path to take because some of the labels we wear have a depth of pain attached to them that will take some working through.  But the rewards for doing so are incredible.  Don’t let the worry of what you may discover keep you from searching.  There is a great wealth inside each one of us if we are willing to look for and discover who we really are.