Unravelling Individual Identity

( Geography, class and faith agnostic evolution of midlife women)

September 2023 Issue

Attachment To Identity

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The dust covers on our sofas at home are a color so boring that even dust will not stick to them.

It exasperates and amuses me on hindsight, since now I recognize it as my inner child’s revolt to my mother in laws obsession with keeping our sofas free of dog fur, since the in-laws moved in with us two years ago. For her, pristine looking sofas are very much a part of who she is- appearance is identity.

?Before she moved in, for 25 years, I never had sofa covers- through all our various house moves, the covers kept changing. Now my mum in law feels that she has tamed me by teaching me ‘civilized’ ways.

Both my 'inner child' and busy adult feel the covers are a waste of time and energy- you need a lot of both to constantly worry about taking them off and putting them back on.While I concentrate on feeling clean energetically in my body-mind, I recognize that MIL's conditioned child is only geared towards appearances.

My husband and I are very comfortable with change- me more than him.

He has been the steady one professionally, and that identity is front and center to his existence.

My in-laws, quite like my parents, dread change and cling to aspects of their past and legacy that no longer hold true.

I remind them constantly to not look back, but many of the older generation are clinging to illusion.

The problem with most people even in midlife is a soul-calcifying attachment to our identity.

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On hindsight, I feel grateful that circumstances forced me throughout my life to explore ways to reinvent myself and find meaning in different avatars of the Self leading to introspection and inquiry.

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While women get these opportunities quite inadvertently since the burden of family is predominantly theirs, men suffer from getting deeper and deeper into a sort of limited association with predominantly an external professional role.

So in effect our personal identity gets merged and the slave of the identities of the dominant family member(usually male), family history and our roles within it.

If we are single , then we are usually at the mercy of the identity and function of the corporate entity or any kind of job role we perform.

When we ask questions or assert individuality in our childhood or anytime in our evolution,? we are labelled rebellious and rebellion is not popular.

Over time and tide our individual spark gets flatlined and we conform to a robotic stereotype defined by history and function.

Our earliest sense of identity comes from the conditioning absorbed subliminally and consciously from our parents and early caregivers.

?You might like to go here if you are confused about what Im saying.

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https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/sex-gender-identity/what-are-gender-roles-and-stereotypes

?Those that can see the impending 'what next' crisis of personal faith in the system, begin at some point to gather tools for reinvention.

?Others get further down the fight, flight and freeze rabbit-hole.

?Sadly, as any therapist will tell you, the redemption that anyone is seeking can only come from within.

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Identity At Work- Attachment To Outcome

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The Bhagawad Gita astutely points to the merits of continuous action without getting stuck on a egoic idea of ‘what the outcome should be.’

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In a result oriented world which is constantly geared towards targets and tangible goals for the individual as well as the collective, it is no wonder that people, particularly once they feel settled in their careers, they cling to their positions and their contributions within the system, both expecting and anticipating rewards and validation.

?When and if it does not happen, there is a sense of personal failure and ‘not good enough’ that often triggers mental and emotional anguish.

?The psyche of people who have been through trauma, or physically and mentally unstable environments have a highly altered version of what they need to feel safe and sound.

Quite literally, their frames of reference are very different from the 1950s workbook of ‘socially acceptable ways of doing and being.’

Sadly, that is still the textbook most of us are operating from, quite simply purely out of ‘conditioning.’

While Covid did wake us out of a slumber creating legitimacy for new ways of working that were fluid, time, space and even gender agnostic, the back from Covid wave has created a new sense of wanting to be perpetually visible and perennially validated.

?A large amount of moral injury that is caused by staying on in institutions that are not aligned to ones personal value system shows up as burn out. A clear example is visible in the medical profession and mental health space where regular training in ethics and creating safe spaces for sharing dilemmas is desperately needed.

Recently my conversations with many medical doctors and healthcare professionals about feeling torn between the need to help themselves deal with huge emotional exhaustion first or do their 'duty' inadvertently always leads to ?

questions about how they see themselves on the inside.

Simultaneously contributing to existential angst - newer technological advances leave humanity grappling even more with words like ‘crypto’, ChatGPT, Meta, AI feeling increasingly left out of an ever growing universe of concepts to be learnt. ?

?Add to that is the never ending gender battle that can be completely draining.

?The existing system is set up in the socio-economic framework makes networking easy for men but not for women.

While organizations make provisions for smoke breaks, after work drinks and golf for men, there is rarely any time or place that a woman not inclined to any of the above gets to socialize with peers safely , without compromising her 'family life' in some way.

?As a sort of ?relief to women, the system looks at giving challenging assignments to men rather than giving them to women, but facilitating their back end issues.

This would include giving them flexi-timing, facilitating remote work, reliable day care and also identifying their core competencies using different parameters than those for men.

?All these factors add up as sort of micro-aggressive assaults on ones identity, gnawing away at self worth and inner well being.

To be able to take a minute and a breath to sit back and consider how one’s Identity needs careful redefinitions in the workplace is worth it.

Some questions that could invoke introspection are:

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1. Is the ‘Why’ of the organization in alignment with my own?
2. Is the ‘How’ of the work culture in alignment with my own?
3. What aspects of my identity are being fostered or thwarted in the work environment?
4. What is the contribution I am able to leave behind?
5. 20 years later, will my memories of this experience over this length of time have contributed significantly to my life?
6. If I am having some sort of jarring experience, what is an ideal solution of the crisis?
7. If I cannot make ideal, how close to it can I get with my own action?
8. Who are my allies here whose values resonate with mine who can be called upon to help??

Identity at Home- Attachment To Non-Commitment

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If work identity was not complicated enough, the matter of choice has created a situation of so much fluidity that one can only really ever worry about the current crisis at hand.

Long term character and personality building which was the foundation of the 60s- 80s era has been cast aside of choosing who to be and how to be in an ever evolving personal space.

The concept of the traditional family has been overthrown, but not yet replaced.

People are still figuring out their pronouns, spectrums and becoming commitment phobic even about buying homes.

Child and parent-free nomadic existence, with temporary partners and a couple of side hustles ‘since the job is on a different circadian cycle’ is both probable and possible.

While growing up in the 80 s and earlier meant you were born to adhere to certain social systems and a certain strand of family conditioning, the millennials and beyond revel in their defiance to prove any old model of being irrelevant, regressive and oppressive.

?While this rebellion has created much disruption in the old order, there is no credible long-staying new order yet.

?Many don’t want children, or families or obligations and commitment of any sort.

?Once one’s so called youth passes, or habits and ‘hedonism’ becomes repetitive the thinking being begins to ask themselves:

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1.‘Who am I when I’m not working?

2.Does anything in me need an overhaul or refinement?

3.What is my idea of love and belonging?

4.Who do I care for and who cares for me? ?

5.Who is there for me in times of crisis?

6.What or who drains my energy and what or who revives me?

7. What do I need to do to incorporate fun and laughter in my life?

8.What are the conditions I would need to feel self love?

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These are merely indicative questions that come up for all of us some of the time and scarily, some of us all of the time. Time out from routine, and especially travel breaks in nature can be restorative no matter what you feel is your stuck-place in life.

Perspective can only happen with a shift in your energy. The easiest way to enable that is connecting with nature.

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Identity in social and solitary life- Attachment to Doing Vs Being

?Why wait for someone else to celebrate you? Unlike olden times, with so much emphasis on the individual and self, we learn to withdraw the most essential parts of ourselves and put them in a sort of freezeframe or cold storage.

Our outward persona has on all the masks and roles that life demands of us.

Internally we are zombies and the plant that no one water, least of all -us.

?Since I am an extrovert in nature, and my backstory amplified that part of me, I like to connect the dots constantly between everything that happens to me outside and what is going on with me internally.

I grew up talking to myself in the mirror so I can almost say that I am very comfortable with the internal dialogue or more than most.

?Some of the pointers for internal self inquiry could be:

1.???? What are 5 things that I can count on when I’m alone?

2.???? Who is one person who I can count on -if not to help concretely but at least give reliable advice?

3.???? What are the things that make me unique?

4.???? What are some weaknesses that I could focus on removing?

5.???? What are some relationships that could be better if I tried, or what could I contribute to one or more relationship to strengthen it?

6.???? What are the areas of my health, wellbeing or ‘to-do’ that need attention?

7.???? What is the treat I can give myself today?

8.???? What is the one new thing I can learn or do that would amplify my confidence?

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I sense and see that there is a huge amount of overwhelm in all of us, unable to reconcile feel the processes and roles of the daily grind with the messy ifs and buts of our inner being which miraculously survives enough to give us a sense of vacuum.

?As someone who read, re-read and delighted in a childhood favourite book ‘Mr.God this is Anna’, I feel post 45 I have certainly been Anna more than anything else. Asking, chatting with and reconciling with ‘Mr.God.’

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The crux of the book is individual thought, feeling and one’s own agency in negotiating life.

I have tried to hold onto my own personal questions, just like Anna… finding that sometimes they lead to answers and sometimes they lead to other questions.

Sometimes, it is ok to be messy, unstructured, confused and just breathe into our own beingness. Especially when no one on the outside is giving one the permission it is desirable to honor oneself first.

?As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke said, it is important to hold onto the questions and not try to find all the answers.

As children, we are conditioned far to early to be constantly seeking answers- to become fixers, solvers, cleaners and constantly seek the new.

The search, especially at so many multiple levels is exhausting, and just causes adrenal burn out if one is not comfortable with our own path.

We are in the business of recycling ideas and putting a spin on the same regurgitated material from thousands of years ago, and yet we don’t know how to encourage creativity, insight and genuine authenticity. We label this being ‘cultured’, ‘educated’ and shut down our own personal spark.

This month, here’s to keeping alive and stoking the independent parts of our being and reveling in the permission we give ourselves to be.