The Jungian Psychologist James Hollis said,

"The hero in each of us is required to answer the call of individuation. We must turn away from the cacophony of the outer world to hear the inner voice. When we can dare to live its promptings, then we achieve personhood. We may become strangers to those who thought they knew us, but at least we are no longer strangers to ourselves.”

Welcome to The Soul Podcast, I’m Stacey Wheeler

Today I'm going to start a series about the importance of becoming ourselves -or what Carl Jung called individuation. We'll look at how individuation works and what famous voices have said about the importance of becoming our true selves. Stick around until the end and I’ll share a simple tool you can use to better understand yourself… and help as you become your more your authentic self.  

We’re living in a challenging time. The changes happening in our culture are significant. And I’m not talking about the constant changes in technology or the surreal nature of politics. I’ll let other shows cover those topics. I’m talking about the changes happening inside of you and me… and so many others. It doesn’t take much to see the shift towards authenticity in the world today. More than ever in my lifetime, I see people being encouraged to be true to themselves, authentic …and vulnerable. 

Think of the people you find most appealing in media, arts or in daily life. I’m willing to bet that among the traits you find most appealing about them is authenticity. 

There are many layers to this topic. So let me start by reviewing the definition of authenticity.

Here’s how Psychology Today defines it…

“Individuals considered authentic are those who strive to align their actions with their core values and beliefs with the hope of discovering, and then acting in sync with, their true selves. When people act in ways that violate their self-concept, they may experience negative feelings, ranging from mild discomfort to heavy guilt.”

For many of us, aligning with our true selves takes intentional effort. This work comes from the need to peal back the layers of identity. Since childhood, we’ve all been delivered, both subtle and direct messages about who we should be. These messages came from: our parents, friends, society, religion, pop culture and even advertising. And we strive to be who we believe we’re expected to be. 

These messages, when believed become labels we take on for ourselves. 

Examples: If you get a message saying you are shy. You may accept that as truth and now you own the label of being shy. As long as you accept that the label is true, you will live that truth. 

But there’s power when you realize that label is not law. It’s just an idea you accepted as true. When you understand that, you can reject the label of “shyness” and push back against it until you change your way of being. 

That’s how it works. You get a message. And you either internalize it (and take it as a label) or you reject it. If you take it as a label, it becomes part of how you are. If you reject it, it becomes a footnote. Just something someone said, which didn’t mean a thing. Some of us are more resilient than others to messages. But none of us are impervious to them. We all accept labels without realizing it. 

Because of this, by the time we’re adults, most of us aren’t completely sure where our genuine self is. We’ve taken on labels and they’ve changed our way of being, because they’ve changed the way we see ourselves. We now project the person we believe we are… or the person we believe we’ve been told to be. And our true selves are hidden beneath the version of ourselves we project to the world. To be genuine, we must get back to our true selves. For most of us, that’s not a simple task. Because our genuine self is buried beneath the labels we’ve accumulated. 

Consider all the different labels we’ve taken on as we grew. Even just the simple ones affect us.  

I’ve been told I am:

An American, Male, A Protestant, and a caretaker. 

I am: Someone who grew up poor, A survivor of a deadly disease, A child of a single mother, a child of an alcoholic father, the youngest child…

These are labels which defined me and influenced the way I saw myself as I evolved. 

And that’s just the childhood messages. As a man there have been countless subtle ways, I’ve judged myself unworthy or imperfect, through messages I’ve received. I’ve turned messages into labels. 

It’s like being covered with post-it notes. Each with a definition. Shot. Tall. Smart. Dumb. Slow. Fast. Rich. Poor. Pretty. Ugly. Average. We all accumulate labels.

You’re the same. Each day we evolve a little, as we skim across the lake towards our final destination. Our direction is altered as we take in new messages from the world. Some are stronger than others – the ones we feel define us are especially strong. The strongest massages come from ourselves… (the ones we construct and embrace). 

For instance, years ago I told myself I’m a writer. No one else had to tell me I’m a writer. I defined myself that way and I embraced it. I am a writer. This self-definition changes the way I move forward in the world because I believe this message.

And there are the labels others put on us. These can affect us in one of two ways;

We believe the label we’re given -and our belief of the definition steers our life.

-or-

We react to the label, and work to prove it’s wrong. And this need to prove ourselves also steers our life.

Here’s a small example.

When I was a small child, I learned to tie my shoes. The way I did it was to make two “bunny ears” from the laces and knot the two together. One day at school I stopped to tie my shoe and a little girl laughed and told me I tied my shoes wrong. She also said I did it slowly. I asked what she meant, and she showed me the way she tied her shoes. He made on bunny ear and looped the other string over to make another bunny ear as the pulled the two into a knot. It was a little faster. And the result was the same. Two bunny ears tied together.

But she had laughed at me and told me I was wrong. That was her reality. The way she learned was right. The way I was taught was wrong. I didn’t have anything to compare it to so I assumed she was right. I became subconscious after that when tying my shoes. I didn’t want others to tell me I was doing it wrong. I didn’t want kinds to think I was different. It played on my mind every time I tied my shoes. I eventually adopter her way of tying and I’ve tied my shoes that way since. Even now, when tying my shoes, I sometimes remember that little girl. The label I got that day was one that said “different”. And I didn’t want to be different. Today I embrace the “different” label. Different is good. Different is unique. Back then I wasn’t ready to be different. 

Now, this is a simple example. The way I tie my shoes doesn’t have an impact on my daily life -but it’s interesting how something that happened at the age of five or six can stick with us our whole life. 

So, the question is… what else has stuck with us, which we don’t even realize is there. 

When we see those things, we can reject them. And that is how we evolve. But that rejection doesn’t always lead to good evolution.

When we see and push against the labels, that desire to prove the labels wrong can also alter our life course. If you grew up with the label “poor”, you may become determined to become rich and that desire will guide your life choices. If you grew up with the label “dysfunctional family.” you may decide to never have children because you’re determined to not risk being a bad parent also. So still, the label is influencing your evolution -only in a different way. You’re living your life to prove them wrong. 

But these labels don’t have to continue to alter our personal evolution. They don’t have to become a permanent part of who we are. As we recognize the labels we’re carrying, and how they’ve influenced who we’ve become, we can reject the ones that don’t serve us. But it’s a little harder than pulling a post-it note off our forehead. To do this we must dive into our personal work. In this work we can start to remove the layers of labels. As we do, our authentic self begins to emerge. 

I say layers because there are many different messages we receive and labels we’ve accepted. Our upbringing has influenced our evolution greatly. Consider things like, our religious conditioning, our parent’s ways of nurturing (or lack of), the messages we took from society…. advertising, pop culture. We’ve all felt messages land on us and felt the were about us. Each of these alters our way of being slightly. Some more than others. Picture your life as a boat on perfectly calm water, on a windless lake. From birth you’re given a hard push from the shore, towards a destination, unseen in the distance. 

As we glide towards our destination our direction is altered slightly along the way by small things. A slight breeze from our right might change our direction slightly to the left. A small piece of wood on the water might slow our forward progress. Each little gust of wind changes the direction we’re moving. In the end, the only thing we can be sure of is we’re not going to end up where we were first heading. 

These are small, subtle changes I’m talking about. But most of us have some traumatic moments on our journey as well. Trauma can be as small as a pet dying to anything else which makes us change our understanding of reality. Trauma is like striking a log on the lake we are skimming across. It’s unexpected and jarring. And it alters our direction. 

In our life we’ve internalized countless messages and accepted countless labels. From our socio-economic status, to the color of our eyes, to the shade of our skin, to our height, gender, and way our family compares to other families we’ve met. We compare ourselves and we’ve internalized countless perceived judgements, which have influenced how we’ve evolved. 

But when we understand the things that affected our personal evolution, we’re able to release some of those effects and change our way of being. 

In doing the work to understand how you’ve evolved; you learn to reverse your adaptations. You learn to love yourself as you start to understand your journey. And in the process, you’re able to express empathy for the journey you’ve been on, and you learn to love yourself in a way you never have before.

When you do this work you will change in tangible ways. As you continue there will be a moment in this process where you will be challenged by yourself. You understand others will notice you’re different if you continue to evolve in this way. The fear of judgement from family and friends might make you second-guess yourself. What if they don’t approve of the way you’re changing? What if you feel a pushback from them -as they see the changes happening. Your inner voice may encourage you to stop this evolution, as you walk away from the version of the person you’re used to being. And in this moment, you choose if you’ll continue moving towards your authentic self. 

This is a critical moment in your journey back to you: In your journey to authenticity. 

In this moment, you will decide if you will continue to live your life to please others, or if you will choose yourself. Maybe for the first time in your life. 

And you change. 

You’re in the same body, in the same home… maybe we still drive the same car -but you’re no longer the person they once knew. You’re growing into the person you know you truly are, as you bravely step into a more authentic self. 

There are many ways we can do this work. Some more extreme than others. 

One growing trend is the practice of choosing a different name. In the next episode I’ll jump into this topic. We’ll talk about how easy it is to do this. We’ll see how fast the trend is growing…. And I’ll talk to a friend who changed his name and see what that experience was like. 

So, come back for part two. And be sure to stick around until the end of that episode, where I’ll share that simple tool, I mentioned.