The Growing Self

The Landscape Of The Mind

The question of “who am I?” has been asked and answered throughout time and has never been fully satisfied. If it were, then I wouldn’t be questioning how it all works and would just go through someone else’s process.

So I got down to business and came up with my best idea of how things go. I wanted something objective and clear. I want to be able to put a mirror up to my nose and see who is up there. I need to make a distinction, a line that separates me from the not me.

Who is the “me?”

It is so much more complicated than I ever imagined. There are so many things to think about and it is all coming from my point of view. How do I reconcile my own bias when I’m trying to watch myself in a mirror? Am I accounting for the lighting and how far away the mirror is?

How can I see myself in motion?

The question of “who am I?” led me down and around, but no closer to anything significant. The “me” in motion is elusive and always seems to be a step ahead. So the self-reflection didn’t do it, but it did lead me to something. Why do I want to know this self and what am I going to do with him when I find him? If I’m doing all this searching around, what am I expected to find and what do I expect that to bring me?

I quickly realized that my intention was not just to answer the question. I wanted to fix what I found. To make myself better, stop wasting time, correct the deficits, and bring happiness that I didn’t have. To make sense of things and bring myself some peace. To help others and continue my work. There is a lot of motivation to find something “wrong” with me so I can stop the bad from happening over and over again. If I can understand the mechanism of the self, then maybe I can “fix” me.

Our actions are influenced by our past experiences. What has and hasn’t worked is remembered, and we develop meaning from that. That meaning becomes the automatic thoughts we make action from. Let’s say I grew up with big dogs that were very loving, but a cat that was mean. I developed an understanding that big dogs can be nice and cats can be mean.

Today when I see a big dog, I treat it as something that could be nice. I smile at the dog and talk to it in a voice it likes. I might even try to pet the dog and get close to it because big dogs can be nice. But if I see a cat, that goes differently. I treat the cat as something that can be mean. Instead of looking for its niceness, I look for signs that it is going to hurt me. I don’t pay attention to the purring as much as the fast movements when it might attack me. There is a barrier in the relationship because all my actions are based on “cats can be mean.”

This is a serious problem.

When we think there is a problem, we tend to find one that works with what we already know. But what if what looks like the problem isn’t actually the problem? If a washing machine is making lots of noise and violently shaking when it is running, we might jump to saying the motor is going bad. We need a new one and this washer is defective. But the issue might be something else entirely. The shaking we think is the motor could really be uneven legs or blankets inside creating an imbalance. If we only focus on what we think is wrong, then we miss the actual issue.

We do this every day.

If there is a problem at a store, a manager might see lazy employees as the reason the work is not getting done. Meetings about accountability and motivation follow. But in reality, the issue might be constantly changing priorities, bad scheduling, or interruptions. The friction between expectation and reality becomes visible, but the actual problem may exist somewhere else in the system. I see a plant with wilting flowers and bugs on it, so I move it into the sun and give it chemicals, but really, the roots are rotting because the soil cannot drain.

We fix the symptoms but not the cause. It is exhausting and discouraging. What happens if I look for problems within myself? I have learned a lot about myself over the years. I know I have my own issues and I know those issues pretty well. I have worked through things and become more aware. Nobody knows me better than me.

But that’s a problem.

How I see myself is built on the meanings I have made throughout my life. The millions of situations I have gone through have shaped me into the person I am today. If those meanings have been wrong or incomplete, then my picture of myself is skewed.

If I see myself as a nice person, then I will look for the niceness and not pay as much attention to the meanness. If I believe I am a great manager, then the employees will seem like the issue. If emotions and life feel erratic and constantly jumping around, life itself can begin to seem defective and we start looking for a new one. If I only see my angry reactions as the problem and try to control those reactions, that does not mean the anger is the actual issue.

The anger may just be where the pressure escapes. The real issue could be fear, shame, exhaustion, insecurity, loneliness, or years of feeling unheard. If I only focus on controlling the reaction without understanding the system creating it, then I may become quieter on the outside while the inside remains unchanged.

The Growing Self is a model to help explain the dynamic nature of people as we move through life. It’s my attempt to understand the factors that shape us, the meanings we create, and the ways we adapt to the world around us.

In order to understand this, I’m going to ask you to step outside of what you believe about yourself and the world around you. I’m going to ask you to question things that feel true and reevaluate your situation. If something does not line up for you, that’s okay. There is nothing wrong with disagreement. I only ask that you explore the reasons why.