Leaning Into Identity Change

In today’s session we contemplate the quote, ‘If someone presents a solution that you are not ready to hear, it is a threat to your identity. You have to let go of the things you found comfort and safety in, if you want to grow. The question is, what have you done to let go of your old identity, so that you can adopt a new one that is more aligned with who you want to become?’ From Chris Do, an American designer, director, speaker and CEO. This track is taken from my course, ‘Daily Contemplations For Living An Examined Life’, available now via my profile.

Transcript

Hello,

And welcome to the session.

I invite you to take a seat,

Or lay down,

And get yourself comfortable.

You can close down the eyes if you wish,

And take a deep,

Slow breath,

In through the nose,

And out through the mouth,

And just gently begin to open your mind to today's quote.

To contemplate the words with a free and open and subtle mind.

To welcome possibility and expansion and growth,

And to allow yourself,

For the next few minutes,

To just sit and be with whatever arises.

In a moment,

I'm going to share with you a quote,

And then we'll sit in silence for a minute,

And just let it percolate.

Then we'll talk about that quote,

And see where the discussion leads us.

Today's quote comes from Chris Doe,

A designer,

Director,

Speaker,

And CEO,

And it goes,

If someone presents a solution that you are not ready to hear,

It is a threat to your identity.

You have to let go of the things you found comfort and safety in,

If you want to grow.

The question is,

What have you done to let go of your old identity,

So that you can adopt a new one that's more aligned with who you want to become.

If someone presents a solution that you are not ready to hear,

It is a threat to our identity.

You have to let go of the things that you found comfort and safety in,

If you want to grow.

The question is,

What have you done to let go of your old identity,

So that you can adopt a new one that's more aligned with who you want to become.

So this quote is interesting,

Because it sort of makes you parcel,

Or sort of see the concept of identity from multiple perspectives.

All of self-help,

All self-improvement,

This course,

Every course that's on this platform and anywhere else,

Has the goal of effectively change.

Because if you were content with who and what you are,

You wouldn't be seeking to change who and what you are,

Through the taking in of courses like this.

Every form of education,

Every book you read,

Most every activity,

Is a desire to change.

But the problem comes when we realise that the thing trying to change us,

Our current identity,

Is in fact the thing that needs to change.

It's like an AI attempting to rewrite its own operating system.

Who we are has to determine that it wants to dissolve to become something else.

Our identity that we build ourselves up on,

And respond to the world and interact with the world with,

Itself is choosing to change itself.

There's an interesting sort of meta-discussion here on identity.

Because how many times have you been able to give other people advice,

That if only they took it they could change and most of their problems or many of their problems would be resolved?

Only when someone offers advice back for you just to cling on to who and what you are in this moment,

Maybe not believing that you're capable of the change,

Or that they don't get it,

Or some other excuse that really boils down to the idea of your identity wanting to stay solid.

This is like core ego stuff.

This is defence mechanisms.

This is looking at yourself as a static object,

Not as the process or flow of change itself.

This quote,

And indeed the talk that it came from,

Highlights the idea that if you want to become more,

If you want to change,

If you want to grow,

You have to let go of the things that you found comfort and safety in.

From a psychological or therapeutic perspective,

We develop coping mechanisms to best survive challenging moments in our life.

We shave the rough edges of our personality off,

So to speak,

So that we can better respond to the world in a way that helps us to keep responding to the world.

But then our worlds change,

Things evolve,

Stuff happens,

And we still hold on to those identities,

Those coping strategies,

Those defence mechanisms.

This quote asks us,

What have you done to let go of your old identity so you can adopt a new one that's more aligned with what you want to become?

There's an analogy that the author brings in that I think we can evoke as well.

This idea that we are a cup,

A full cup,

And inside that cup,

If we want to add anything new to it,

Anything more,

We first have to let go of something,

Let go of an aspect of ourselves to fit in something new.

Ostensibly,

It's better to be an optimist than a pessimist,

Because the optimist will respond to life positively,

And thus inspire other people to respond to them positively.

But if we want to move towards optimism,

We have to let go of some of that pessimism,

Because those two things can't exist in that cup in the same way.

This gets even more apparent when we go practical.

If you want to become fit,

Healthy,

An exercise sort of person,

You may have to let go of some other things that are in your life currently.

Some of the habits,

The intake of substances,

Certain lifestyle choices,

Because to fit the time and the effort and the motivation and ability to be able to go to the gym,

To be able to eat well enough to support going to the gym,

How can you do that,

And the other things simultaneously?

Or even practically based on time,

If you're out and about,

And then you need to get up to exercise,

Those two things might not marry.

And this applies to everything.

Can you let go of the victim mentality,

Of the fear,

Of the worry,

Of the judgments that everyone is out to get you,

Or everyone is inherently selfish,

To be able to put some of that down and work with other people?

Because through the synergy of connection with other people,

Stuff will happen,

Things will grow,

You can make more than what you currently thought you could make.

You can do more.

Their ideas will spur on your ideas and you will grow and it will be this beautiful unfolding.

If only you can let go of some of that fear and worry and past sort of muck that is sitting there.

If someone presents a solution to you that you're not ready to hear,

It feels like a threat to our identity.

Oh,

I can't do that.

Well,

Can't you?

Or do you need to let go of an aspect of your identity to be able to do that thing?

It is very easy to look at other people and go,

Oh,

They're born lucky,

They're this,

They're that.

They were meant to be,

They're naturally good.

Are they?

Or did they shave away the less useful things over and over and over again,

Until they were left with something highly functional that could help them to attain the goals that they wanted to attain?

That that doesn't serve us,

Burn it all away.

Do you need to burn away,

To let go of,

To become someone that's more in line with who you want to become?

The end part of that quote,

What have you done to let go of your old identity so you can adopt a new one that's more aligned with who you want to become?

This part of the quote invokes practices,

Rituals,

Therapy,

Self-care,

A variety of different things.

What have you done to drop some of that old junk?

It's a hard one because there's this idea of identity being insidious and self-replicating.

I've had this feeling of,

I established routines every day to sort of help me to become a better person,

Exercise,

Meditate,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

Every morning.

But then I sort of found myself becoming a slave to the rigidity of that.

Morning routines,

Those morning rituals helped to pull myself out of a dark phase,

Helped me to sort of be more than what I thought I was ever going to become.

But now they're holding me back because they're too rigid.

I needed to establish the discipline of doing something every single day,

Every single day,

So that I wouldn't become like my father,

For example,

So that I could get my body back in order,

So that I could clarify my mind.

But then I found myself worrying excessively when I couldn't do it,

To the extent that if I couldn't do the thing that I wanted to do every day to get a clear mind,

That would cause me to not have a clear mind.

Not because I didn't do the thing,

But because I had the routine and the expectations that I was going to do the thing.

I was someone who meditated and exercised every day.

That was my identity.

But isn't a healthier identity to be someone that's just chill and flowing and healthy?

Someone that isn't bound to the rigidity of such a structure.

That's a part of my life that I had to let go of.

I had to let go of the identity originally that I couldn't do it,

That I couldn't establish such a routine,

Into the identity that,

Okay,

I don't need to adhere to such a strict and rigid formulaic process that my world won't fall apart if I was to let go of that.

This is where I'm at now,

Playing with a bit of freedom and flow.

I'm looking at the different aspects of my life and questioning what can I do better here,

Asking for help,

For guidance,

Because that was a scary process for me.

Scary to see,

Scary to let in,

Scary to ask,

Because what if you judge me?

What if I'm seen as little,

As wrong,

As vulnerable?

I have to let go of all of that to become someone that I want to be more in line with who I want to become.

That is quotey sort of future planning now.

Who do you want to become?

Where do you want to grow?

I'm not someone that can pick a single goal and sort of hunt it tenaciously,

But what I can do is move towards values.

I think everyone can.

What do you value in life?

Time,

Money,

Status,

Power,

Friendships,

Love,

Connection,

Food?

Whatever it is,

Pick that distant mountaintop and head towards it.

You may not know the exact way that you're going to get there,

But you will get there if you head towards it over time.

Adjust course and let go of that that isn't serving you.

I myself want to teach more,

Like what I'm teaching here,

To coach people,

To practice spiritual healing,

To write poetry,

To express myself fully,

To be the best father I can be,

To train and practice my martial arts.

Now you can obviously insert all of the things that you want to be doing into these spaces,

But the reason I'm saying this is that in order to do those things,

I need to let go of some of the older things.

I need to let go of some of the older ways of thinking,

The expectations,

The idea that someday I'll just be able to work a full-time job like other people.

That's an expectation.

That's an identity that I wasn't ever living up to.

I could never properly do it because that lifestyle didn't suit who and what I am,

But the letting go of that identity is a process and the acceptance of a new identity,

Of a new way of functioning in this world is vital because I can do this sort of work,

But I can't do that.

Doing this sort of work and accepting it and fully embracing it and leaning into it leads me to further success and more aligned with who and what I want to become.

Obviously,

This is my approach.

I can only speak from that perspective,

But what I see when I work with clients is that they're desperately craving to become something more,

Something different,

Something bigger,

Beyond what they are,

But they've got these hang-ups.

It's like,

I can't do that because.

.

.

Well,

Why can't you?

What is stopping you?

Sometimes,

It's a practical issue,

But most of the time,

It's an internal identity issue.

Most of the time,

It's them not believing they can do it.

Other people can,

But they can't for some reason.

Why?

Because they're trapped in the grooves in the rut,

In a comfortable existence of where they have been,

And it is very hard to get out of that rut,

But it is possible,

And the way you know it is possible is because you can see other people changing and tweaking and altering and going through their life.

Similarly,

They can change and so can you,

But it does require work,

And it hurts.

It is an ego cut.

You have to let go of what you valued,

What you built up as the way of being,

Because as the quote says,

If someone presents a solution that you are not ready to hear,

It is a threat to our identity.

You have to let go of the things that you found comfort and safety in if you want to grow.

The question is,

What have you done to let go of your old identity so you can adopt a new one that is more aligned with what you want to become?

If someone presents a solution that you are not ready to hear,

It is a threat to our identity.

You have to let go of the things that you found comfort and safety in if you want to grow.

The question is,

What have you done to let go of your old identity so that you can adopt a new one that's more aligned with what you want to become?

So,

Well done.

This brings us to the end of the session.

At the bottom of your screen,

You have the option to view the classroom,

Or to ask a question.

Before moving on,

I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights,

To read the answers from other students,

And to hear my replies.

Remember to start your responses with Chris Do,

Or to restate the quote,

Identity,

So that we all know which one you're referring to.

This is an opportunity for deep learning,

Further introspection,

And insight,

So please don't miss out.

I look forward to seeing you in the next session.

Thank you.

This track was taken from my course,

Daily Contemplations for Living an Examined Life.

It's out now on Insight Timer,

And available via my profile.

I invite you to join in.

Reviews

I paused this a couple of times to make notes in my journal. A lot came up, & I’m curious to keep exploring the idea.