How to approach identity when you're not sure who you are
“What do you do?”
This popular question among strangers would probably make the ‘Most Annoying’ shortlist after “How are you?” and “Do you know why I pulled you over today?”
Regardless of whether it’s asked directly, or framed around passions (‘What makes you come alive?’) or interests (‘How do you spend your time?’), it’s all the same underlying query. People want to know: Who are you?
n five minutes or less though. Because either they don’t really care or they’re in a rush to be more time efficient because they didn’t read my last blog.
Who am I?
I used to spend a lot of time thinking about how to introduce myself. What linear narrative of how I got from ‘there’ to ‘here’ would be captivating? Which keywords would signal my worthiness? Which buzzwords would tick mental boxes? (These days it’s trendy to say “spiritual” or “creative”). Introductions were like verbal arts and crafts, a creative storytelling game.
I love games! I wanted to learn how to play. I went to ‘personal branding’ sessions and refined my social media headlines, taglines… and all the other lines. I rehearsed my ‘elevator pitch’: how to capture my essence in the time it takes for an average elevator ride. (Sidenote: the ‘elevator pitch’ needs a new name; people rarely make eye contact, let alone speak, in an elevator. Even when they know each other).
I honed my response to being asked who I was, until I had a prepared, manufactured identity to recite at networking events, social functions, and to myself in the mirror when I needed a reminder.
My resulting introduction, like that of many founders, was strongly identified with the organisation I started. I thought it was an extension of me, but it seems that I became an extension of it too.
I didn’t view that as a problem until I left my job and experienced a major health trauma that left me struggling to work.
I began to dread being asked to introduce myself.
Navigating my Ex-It
For the first few months after leaving my career, I maintained the same introduction, just applying ‘ex’ to the title. Ex-CEO. But I didn’t feel comfortable talking about my career or defining myself by my past: my work and life plans were still crystallising, and I was fumbling my way through a never-ending concussion. Ultimately I went with, “I’m in a transition.” I updated my LinkedIn heading appropriately. That seemed to satisfy everyone and gave me breathing room.
But a crack had formed in the identity shell I’d manufactured. And slowly, the whole of it started to crumble. This was deeply uncomfortable. So I moved straight into action – right into the Doing Trap (which seems to be my favourite trap, given how many times I’ve fallen into it).
My Identity Experiment
Being disconnected from my sense of self felt like being naked and in desperate need to put on some clothes before I could be seen in public.
I conducted an ‘identity experiment’, immersing myself in communities with which I used to identify. I spent a week with entrepreneurs, exploring myself dressed up in this identity – fun, but not quite right. Then I switched to social justice activists – inspiring, but not my size. I then planted myself amongst coaches – rewarding, but didn’t click. Each costume change brought me some aspect of connection to ‘self’, but none carried that feeling of unity that was Just Right. I was an unsatisfied Goldilocks.
I’d fallen into another trap: looking outward to find what was inward.
Instead of changing my outer garments, I had to brave metaphorical nudity. Even without a ‘work identity’ outfit, I was still wearing layers upon layers of other identity labels produced by demographics, societal conditioning, beliefs, values etc. I felt like an infinite onion: every time I removed one identity layer, another would appear underneath. And another. I was searching and searching and still not finding my ‘core’. Instead I discovered a multiplicity of parts of self, often paradoxical, and mutually exclusive. I became utterly confused about who I was. And at some point, I let go.
Oddly enough, that place of complete surrender to needing to be attached to my identity felt calming. And also, alarming. I wrote in my journal that it was as if “a strong gust of wind blew directly toward me with such force that it pulverised my body, disintegrated my physical shell, carried it all away. But there was still something that remained: my core, my “I”, a sense of “self”: there, warm, strong, intact, felt, and impossible to vocalise in words.”
I did not dissolve into the ether. Instead, I fully arrived in Transition: the in-between space, the void, the place of No Identity. Which prompted a good, old-fashioned existential crisis.
Transitions and Identity Crises
An identity crisis is like covid: as hard as we try to protect ourselves, we are all likely to have it at some point. Some of us again and again... and again.
Existential crises often accompany moments of major life transitions: retirement, mid-life, even quarter-life (and the youngest generation seems to be splurging with an eighth-life one). During transitions, something fundamental within us changes.
It’s enough to modify or lose even one small part of our identity, to threaten the whole of it. “A person’s identity is not an assemblage of separate affiliations, nor a kind of loose patchwork; it is like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound.” - Amin Maalouf
The more closely affiliated or dependent we are on a singular identity label, the more affected we will be if we lose it. In the Western world, where we’re assessed based on our productivity, this tends to be work. What we do becomes a core component of who we are. Our output is our worth. But the same problem exists for any identity tag to which we become attached: roles, activities, demographics, relationships, status – or vaccine stance (a trending one among hippies, I’m finding).
An existential crisis: what’s the point?
Is an existential crisis a necessary component of major life transitions? Perhaps. But there’s a way to lessen the magnitude. If you feel a little more nihilistic than usual, here are some suggestions to retain your sense of self:
1. Diminish attachment to any one aspect of self. Have you formed a principal identity? Be aware of one or several overriding affiliations becoming more important than any other aspect. You will still retain your sense of ‘self’ even without being an athlete, musician, founder, parent, spouse, foodie - or believe it or not – a lover of this blog. The more enmeshed our identities are with a role, person, belief or behaviour, the more vulnerable we are to an existential crisis.
2. See the self as a composite of countless aspects. Set aside the words and narratives you normally use to describe yourself. Instead of focusing on your ‘usual suspect’ labels, get to know the parts that feel more distant or unfamiliar. See yourself from multiple angles, perspectives and time periods. Give yourself the spaciousness to be anything. One overarching identity is “a violent constriction of our expansiveness” (Maalouf).
3. Approach a change in identity with curiosity. When we lose an aspect of our identity, we might feel pain. While our first instinct might be to run, it is much more beneficial to investigate that feeling: where is it coming from? What underpins it? There is a natural grieving process that occurs when we lose a sense of self, and that is best honoured with our present and compassionate attention.
4. Treat identity as transient. We can have a tendency to look at our identities as static or absolute, but they’re not. They’re fluid and dynamic, as is the relationship between aspects of self. The beautiful curiosity is the evolution that connects our current and childhood selves.
5. Acknowledge the latent paradoxes in our identities. Even if we take a behavioural trait that we think defines us – for example, ‘caring’ – do we always behave this way? No. We can be caring. But sometimes, we’re uncaring too. Those of us who self-define as always open-minded are already close-minded. A mindset embracing paradox allows for the inner conflict of identities torn in diverging directions at the same time.
6. Let go of the need to have a narrative. Instead of trying to comprehend our identity, allow it to reveal itself. Identity forms through a dynamic interaction with life. There’s an unfolding process to it. We acquire our identity; we don’t just become aware of it.
Moments of transition are a unique opportunity to embrace an expansiveness in identity. Viewed this way, it’s more like an existential opportunity. There doesn’t need to be a crisis (unless you want to identify with drama in which case, enjoy it).
Bye Bye Bio
I was discussing the topic of identity with a retired man.
I asked him: “How would you answer the question, ‘What do you do?’”
“Whatever I want!” he said.
“How about, ‘Who are you?’”
“I’m a component of the greater ‘is’.
“What does that mean?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” he replied. And we laughed.
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Reflection 1: When you ask people to introduce themselves, what is it that you really want to know? What’s underneath the question?
Reflection 2: How do you present your ‘self’ to others? When you’re asked to introduce yourself, what do you say? What do you write in your biography or social media profile, if you have one? (Notice mention of labels, roles, activities, affiliations, achievements, beliefs, values, hobbies, etc). How attached do you feel to the nouns or adjectives used? It may be useful to test your emotional attachment by describing yourself as having the opposite identity (e.g. for me: “I don’t write. I don’t dance. I hate cookies.”) What comes up somatically in your body?
Reflection 3: Imagine your life unbound by narratives. How would you introduce yourself without telling a story?
Meditation to reconnect with sense of self: Visualise an encounter with your childhood self at an age before societal conditioning had a strong footprint. What did you love to do as a child? How did you prefer to spend your time? What did you talk about?
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