How To Go From Identity Crisis to Identity Creation Kathy G. Lynch   © Copyright 2020 by Kathy G. Lynch

Photo by Daniel Páscoa on Unsplash

a) Ask someone for advice and immediately do as they say;

b) Look for information on the internet, taking the advice that’s more popular;

c) Observe what others are doing and have done and do what they are doing and have done.

Or instead,

d) Seek information from those who have solved that problem.

When I was in my twenties, I experienced what could be called an identity crisis. I was working as a waitress when I wanted to be a horse trainer. And I got so tired I didn’t have the energy to ride my horses.

So I felt frustrated … and lost. I didn’t know what to do. Or where to turn. It was the 70’s … and the internet was in it’s infancy … and few people had access to it. And I definitely couldn’t afford it back then, even if it had been the solution-finding opportunity then that it is today.

So since I could see no opportunity to get what I really wanted, I did what is possibly the stupidest thing I could have done. I relied on the MAGIC of marriage to solve my problems …

For just the idea of Marriage Automatically Gave Immense Comfort to many, especially many women. Even after the sexual revolution.

Yes, the MAGIC of Marriage is that it is (or maybe just seemed to be back in those days) an Answer when you’re Going through an Identity Crisis.

Marriage seemed to be the Antidote for Giving in to Insidious Compulsions that create chaos in your life… the Antidote for Giving in to your destructive Inner Critic …

All because you can Grab onto the Idea of Certainty instead of Giving Insecurity Control of your life.

Yes, Marriage seemed to be the Antidote when Grappling with Inner Conflicts. Especially when Glimpsing your Identity Crumbling.

But I failed to recognize that it is a big mistake to get married to escape yourself and your inner conflicts. For married or not, there is always a CHASM between the Character we Habitually Activate as our Social Mirror … the fact that we are mirroring the action of others in our lives, and in the world, whether we realize it or not …

and the Character Hungered for and Assumed as the Self we see in the Mirror.

For every day we secretly hunger to be the person who we desire to be … an individual who is independent, honest, trustworthy … and faithful to our IMAGE of self, where the Image Mirrored is an Accurate Glimpse of what we Expect to see.

I expected to see the me who was a successful horse trainer, and since I couldn’t seem to make that dream a reality, the CHASM between who I was and who I saw myself was too great … so I had to Change How I Actually Saw Myself.

So I changed my dream from seeing myself as a horse trainer to seeing myself as a wife.

I didn’t realize what I was doing. I didn’t know because it was my unconscious part of me that was running my self. I didn’t even know that part of my identity was crumbling, didn’t see that I was using marriage to shore up my self-image that had been falling apart.

All I knew was that I was determined to realize that dream of getting married.

Even when I came face to face with the fact that my intended was having a crisis of his own. For he had a problem with alcohol that was creating financial chaos and crises in his life.

And when I discovered it, I failed to take it as a danger sign. I just ignored it, thinking everything would be all right.

So when we got married, I had no idea that we were both, according to Tali Sharot in The Influential Mind: What The Brain Reveals About Our Power To Change Others, “like any humans … carry[ing] inherent biases, [and] it is inevitable that falsehoods will sometimes increase when individuals come together, creating expanding bubbles [of false beliefs] that will eventually burst.”

And quickly, the MAGIC of the Marriage-Mirage Advanced from Glimpses of Inner personal Conflict … to Growing Interpersonal Conflict.

More and more, we saw all those things we didn’t like about each other grow into bigger and more obvious obstacles. Grow into immense consternation. And fierce battles.

Battles interwined between bouts of sincere promises and passionate intentions to make things better … promises and intentions that melted away in moments of anger and resentment created by broken dreams.

It took years before I came face to face with the truth … finally seeing the CHASM between Choosing Him As my Social Mirror had grown into an even bigger CHASM of Choosing How Acceptable I Saw Myself.

Had grown into a CHASM where I Chose Habits of Abdicating the Self I saw in the Mirror. Had grown into Choices of Habitually Annihilating and Sabotaging Myself.

But the day of reconciliation of self had to come. And decades later, the day finally came when I had to face myself and recognize what I was doing to myself …

and make a choice.

Either continue doing what I was doing … which amounted to suicide.

Or change.

I made the right CHOICE … I Conquered my Habitual Obsession of Insecurity Controlling my Expectations … Conquered my Habitual Obsession of Inner Conflict as my Experience …

And instead I Chose the Habit of Observing the Ideas I Considered as Experiences to act on. I Chose the Habit of Owning Ideas that were Courageous and Empowering.

For I let go of the idea that marriage is the cure for all my problems, and instead faced that IMAGE of myself in the mirror … and Imagined Myself Actually Good Enough … and made the decision to work on mirroring that image.

Because whoever you see yourself as being when you look in the mirror determines who is reflected out in the world around you.

Whoever you see yourself as being when you picture yourself in your mind is the person you will become in reality … for whatever image you actually, determinedly, picture is the image that is realized.

And your choice of choosing you …choosing the best you can possibly be as your reflected image … is the difference between the emergence of the reality of your independent self instead of your insecure self.

Is the difference between the illusion of magic … and really making MAGIC by Meaningfully Activating the Game of Identity Creation.

For you make actualization a game of identifying consciously who you really are … what makes you happy and fulfilled … and then you work on making that identity your reality. Because that’s how God-given independence is crystallized.

Then you experience growth of innate capabilities like intense curiosity and inner courage and the incessant capacity to like yourself as well as like others in the world.

But it’s not easy. For as Dr. Robert Anthony says in his April 6, 2020 email, ”There is a lot of fear tied up in leaving the tribe” … giving up the TRIBE who Think the Reflection of your Identity is Becoming what’s Expected by others, society, and your insecure self, as well.

Dr. Anthony believes you won’t be able to really be free and independent unless you learn to think for yourself. He says, “To do this, you must be capable of critical thought – which is something the members of the tribe cannot do.”

For, explains Dr. Anthony, “most people don’t know how to think. They have been told WHAT to think for so long, they no longer know HOW to think.”

Dr. Anthony says to really think requires you to “think contrary” to what others think, think contrary to what you have been taught. Dr. Anthony continues his explanation, revealing, “it ALWAYS requires you to question the beliefs you hold. On everything. This is not easy because we are addicted to certainty. We would rather be certain about our beliefs than face the fact that what we believe may not be ‘true.’”

But, as Dr. Anthony states further, the more you question what you believe, the more you see you and others around you “have been hypnotized.”

Hypnotized and mesmerized into being just like everyone else, doing what everyone else is doing. For going along with others is, in Tali’s words, “a simple, easy, effortless way to make decisions – a mental shortcut” … a shortcut that creates more … and even bigger … problems.

Dr. Anthony concludes that “you don’t have to wait for [others] to wake up from the trance. You can do it right now!”

 Then you can lessen the gap … the CHASM … by Choosing the Habit of Actually Seeing Me … the real me … in your mental mirror.

And you can then make MAGIC in other people’s lives, as well as your own, helping yourself and others Manifest Acceptance of self by Genuine Identity Creation…choosing who one really desires to be, who one really is … and making a Game of Incessantly Conjuring up that identity for yourselves.

For the truth is, you are who you’ve chosen to be … and if you don’t like who you’ve become, you can change it. You merely choose a different identity to manifest, a different picture of you to focus on.

You choose the image of you that you want to see mirrored and reflected back at you.

The choice is yours. You merely have to see … become aware of the fact … that you have a choice … and then make your choice.

So who do you see yourself as being? Choose wisely. Its all a matter of making MAGIC and Manifesting by Achieving the Greatness of Independent Choice. Intelligent choice. Introspective choice …

instead of reacting to the thoughts and ideas of that insecure child in you who just wants to do what everyone else is doing, just to be safe, just to experience certainty, just to not be different from everybody else.

You’ll know you’re on the right track when you feel good about yourself even if, and when, you’ve made a difficult choice. You feel okay about your choices. You feel good about being able to be free to be “the real me.”

So wake up from the society-imposed trance called reality. Learn to tell the difference between the you who you choose to be the mirror of your life … the person you decide is “really you” ... and the person you and others expect and demand you to be.

Don’t settle for that ‘imposter you’ just because it’s easier. Decide to find … and be … you.

Sure, it’s more difficult … but you get a more satisfying return on your investment: real happiness.

My name is Kathy G. Lynch and I own the website at www.acronymstoliveby.com/ where I use acronyms to help others who experience difficulties achieving their goals and getting what they want reprogram their mind with a mental makeover. I help them get rid of the darkness in their mind by inspiring them and helping them see the light in their souls.