[Neurons] 2011 Meta Reflections #38

[L. Michael Hall]

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Meta Reflections 2011 - #37

August 8, 2011

 

 

 

SELF AND THE ROLES OF SELF

 

 

One of the most challenging questions to answer is a question that seems on
the surface so simple: Who are you?  How could this be a challenging
question?  Answer: It is challenging because you are not just one thing.
You are not a "thing" at all, you are a set of energies, activities, or
processes.  And you are a mystery.  It is challenging because you live and
breath and operate in a great number of dimensions.  And in each dimension
of experience- who you are differs.

 

Who are you?  To answer it here is a set of dimensions that will govern your
answer:




In your essential essence: in your beingness, in your basic humanness, in
your worth and value and dignity as a human being.

In your value socially: in your social skills, in getting along with others.

In your value economically regarding your business skills: in your ability
to create value and earn a salary, who are you?  What value do you
experience in yourself as a contributor who will be rewarded?

In your musical abilities: in your ability to create, enjoy, appreciate
music.

In your creativity and inventiveness: in your ability to think of new ways
of doing things and putting them together.

In your physical body: in your health and fitness, in your energy and
vitality.  In the things you do as exercise or the sports that you play. 

In your experience and skills of shopping: in making good selections, those
that are good economic buys and that bring high quality to the purchase.

In your relationships, especially with your closest loved one as a lover,
and your relationships with children, friends, colleagues, etc.

 

In these areas and many, many more-you have an identity and you experience
yourself differently.  Who are you in each of these areas?  You are not the
same in each of these.  Even though you may be the same person, in each of
these areas you play different roles.  And this, I think, is one thing that
often confuses us about our identity, about who we are.

Who am I when I'm with this person or that one, when I'm in this context or
that?

How many roles do I play in life?

What influence do these roles have on my overall sense of self?

 

Imagine a circle, and then a circle around that one and so on.  I have not
drawn it here in this email post, so you'll have to imagine it.  The
following columns provide the categories for these four layered circles. 

 

Inner Circle                 Embodied Self            Cognitive Self Roles
of Self

 

Self                                        Body, Neurology
Thinking, Emoting            Work, Career

Unconditional                    Physiology,
Meaning-Making             Finances, Status 

Value and                            Health, Energy
Cognitive Styles                Education, Degrees

Worth                                   Sexuality, Gender
Valuing, Deciding             Relationships

Core of your                       Predispositions
Intentions, Vision            Friends, colleagues

humanness                        Talents
Hobbies, sports

 

Calls for - 

 

Self-Esteem                       Self-Acceptance
Self-Appreciation             Self-Awareness

 
Self-Development           Self-Competence

 

Central Circle

The central circle represents you as a person, as a human being.  It is the
essential you-the you who transcends your situation, your history, your
body, your mind, and all of the peripheral aspects of you.  It is you above
and beyond all of the accidents of life.  This is the mysterious you.  It is
you as an unconditionally valuable and lovable human being.  It is yourself
that you can honor and esteem unconditionally because it is based and
conditioned on nothing other than the mysterious fact that you are a
valuable human being as is every human being.  This core aspect of you calls
for self-esteem, and if you esteem your core humanity unconditionally, then
you experience your core self as being innately worthwhile and valuable.

 

Second circle of Qualities - Your Embodied Self

Now imagine a second circle.  In this one we will put all of the features,
factors, and qualities that arise from your embodiment, that is, from having
and experiencing yourself in terms of your body.  So this facet of you
include factors that are very close to you and factors that seem a given-
your physiology, neurology, brain, mind, consciousness, emotions, gender,
sex, race, etc.  Yet while given, this aspect of your self is also
conditioned by your growth and development, how you use and develop these
facts of your embodied self.  Some of it is within your control, although
much of it is not.  It is what was given you at birth- your genetic
heritage, the talents within your body and mind, the predispositions within,
etc.   Other aspects arise over the years of your development, sometimes
through accidents and illness, sometimes through disciplined practice.  This
is you as you know yourself in your body.  And this aspect of you calls for
self-acceptance.

 

Third Circle - Your Cognitive Self 

If you next imagine another concentric circle, we can designate it your
cognitive self.  This speaks about you as you develop through your thinking,
evaluating, believing, deciding, understanding, etc.  Here you actually have
a lot of control over what you think and the meanings you give about your
core self (first circle) and your embodied self (second circle).  Here you
play such a critical role in your definition and creation of you.  Here the
quality of your thinking (cognizing) determines the quality of your
experience of yourself.

 

So, if you dislike and disvalue your core self or your embodied self or of
any of the roles you have in life (fourth circle), then you can undermine
your development and turn your energies against yourself.  If you take on
toxic and limiting beliefs about you, you can not only fail to actualize
your highest potentials, you can distort those potentials so that they
sabotage your best efforts.  Your cognitive self is your semantic self- who
you are in terms of the meanings that your create with your
thinking-and-emoting powers.

 

At birth your cognitive self was all potentiality and no actuality.  Piaget
and other developmentalists have mapped out how our cognitive powers develop
and we grow over the lifespan, how we move through various cognitive stages
of development.  And as you navigate those stages by learning and developing
your powers of thinking-feeling, you learn to take charge of your ability to
create positive meanings that unleash more and more of your potentials.
This facet of your require self-acceptance, self-appreciation, and a
commitment to self-development.

 

Fourth Circle - You in Your Roles 

The final circle of you is you as you are in the many roles that you play in
life.  These roles describe the relationships and positions that you operate
in- a worker, friend, mate, spouse, parent, owner of various things,
experiencer of numerous activities, etc.  Here's an experiment for you: make
a list of all of your roles for a couple weeks.

 

I was surprised when I did this.  I quickly made a list of the first twenty
or so, then over a week or two, another twenty roles emerged.  I am a son, a
brother, a father, a friend, a colleague; I have been a husband, a
therapist, a minister, a front-line counter server, a supervisor, a
backpacker, a homeowner, a tax payer, a driver, shopper, a workshop
participant, a student, a graduate student, a doctorate candidate, an expert
witness (in district court), a plaintiff (in county court), a premier
executive and a 1-K (with United Airlines), a committee member, president of
an HOA (homeowners association), and the list goes on and on.

 

The roles you play in life may be highly influencing factors in your life
governing how you think about yourself or they may be minor influencing
factors.  Here you use the activities of life (your work, sports, finances,
education, family, friends and so on) to define yourself.  The roles you
play in life may last just a few weeks or an entire lifetime.  This facet of
you calls for self-confidence as much as anything, that is, the confidence
that you develop in that role that you can effectively and skillfully cope
with the requirements of that role.   If you are competent in a given role,
then you feel confident in yourself that you can play that role well.

 

So who are you?  Well, you are lots of things.  You have multiple facets to
you- your essence, your physical presence, your semantic meaning-making
self, and the scores even hundreds of roles that you play in life.  And all
of these facets of you aligned and unified?  Are you fully congruent in
yourself?

 

How do you define yourself (that's your self-definition) and how do you
identify yourself (your self-identifications)?  Taking these four circles of
influences, which one do you identify yourself with? 

 

 

 

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L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Neuro-Semantics Executive Director  ----   <http://www.neurosemantics.com/>
www.neurosemantics.com

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA                             ----
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1 970-523-7877                                               ----
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