Integrating Aspects of Self: Affirming Identity is Affirming Life

Okay--it takes a group, a society to affirm actualization of self-identity. Without social affirmation, we may be relatively transcendental in some ways, but it won't establish in a gross-consciousness way solidly. I know everyone is tired of numbers and categories from me, but there are four steps that need to happen in order for one's actualizing self to be felt, recognized, and fully established in one's gross awareness and social identity (which necessarily involves subtle experience).

1. Experience of various types of healthy self.
2. Expression of...
3. Social recognition of...
4. Social affirmation of...

When we invest individual psychological energy or intention into self-expression, it comes out in noticeable and distinct ways that have distinct feels to them. As we actualize, we learn to intentionally experience, express, have recognized, and take in affirmation of these ways of being. When other people's sense of us does not change, when affirmation and recognition are not forthcoming, we have a surplus of attention and potential that ends up stagnating (actually rejected at the point of expression in this case)--also in somewhat particular and distinct ways (which are, as always, affected by temperament, situation, and culture).

To describe these types of self in line with the levels and skills I've already laid out. The first type is that of me as a playful self. Curiosity and creativity are part of this. The second type is of the able self. Third is the good and right self. Fourth is the mature self. Fifth is what I feel to be true self (dhyana, flow). Sixth is beatific self. And the last could be called many things that refer to eternity, peace, purity, the sacred, saintly, etc. (We can also posit a nondual self, the expression [...etc.] of all these as non-separate.) I'll call that last self the fruition self, as one comes into fruition of one's personality and realization.

This also provides a concrete means of identifying what we feel is lacking in reference to individual experience. We all have the desire to be recognized as each of these things. For some people, those "desires" are not as strong and noticeable as impulses or instincts (like hunger or lust) so they don't necessarily feel those desires as salient, tangible, psychological things. Typically, what I feel most lacking is a general awareness and expression of true self. That is different from what I'd call the genuine momentary expression of self or the right-now-moment expression of genuine self. Sometimes I want to feel able and affirmed as able, so acting able rather than from a center or psychological "place" of dhyana is fine or fitting and genuine in that particular the moment. A different expression may be genuine at the next moment.

People feel pressure when they are called upon to act from a "higher" place than what they genuinely feel at the moment. (Invoking idealization and the demand characteristic involved in expectation is often counterproductive at these moments.) We may also feel disappointed when we are not recognized and affirmed where we are at. (Experiencing and overcoming some disappointment is probably necessary and unavoidable.) In this way, expecting people to act from somewhere they are not feeling, we encourage an inauthentic self by idealizing and expecting something other than what people feel. This idealization or pull method is different from a more organic or supportive "push" method. We may find role models and try to live up to them--that is an example of introjecting an ideal. If we pretend to achieve acting from that idealized place without actually making it, we will probably project grandiosity; but if we can't pull off the pretension, we feel shame.

When we support people in their genuine experience of self, they tend to look for progress at some point. People look to push, we look to improve things, to make things better. It's natural. That is like having a surplus of energy (action potential, priming). If we put that surplus into expectation and idealization, we'll also tend to project our ideals and feel disappointed by--and maybe aggressive against--anyone not living up to our idealizations. When our idealizations become entrenched and habitual enough, they become unquestioned and often even unnoticed expectations (hidden justifications for disappointment and aggression).

We deny an individual and their human potential when we expect or hope for something other than a genuine expression of self. But, since all of these types or aspects of self are universal, we can also deny their genuine self by idealizing and projecting ideals as unrealistic idealizations. When people are supported--put into a context and relationships where they are healthy--they will naturally aspire to a full experience and expression of their potential. When our aspirations fit our expectations and our actions, we are living as inspired selves rather than not living up to idealizations or projecting ideal selves. Since we have different temperaments, we will show different types of inspired selves that involve different degrees of the various levels (or types or aspects of healthy selves).

Honing attentional skills can help increase the efficiency with which one deploys attention. Applying one's experience as to when to push oneself to achieve and when to just be genuine is an expression of individual wisdom. I call the fifth type of self "true self" because it involves a return to clarity and what buddhists call anatta (roughly, "no-self"--the center of my six points of psychological balance). Aspiring to clarity is worthwhile and reinforcing clarity as an integrated aspect of self is also worthwhile. You were meant to be clear and connected; I was meant to be clear and connected. Feeling something other than that is an expression of some sort of ignorance or muddle--it's something less than what we want and deserve. Denying or projecting our genuine desires diminishes our chances of actualizing the potential that motivates those desires.