We all have some sort of sense of self; typically an amalgam of experiences, feedback from our environment and internal visions of how we view ourselves in the world.
For some people that's a very loose thing and not very clearly defined while for other people it is very clearly defined and in extreme cases it becomes almost an obsession.
And — just to clarify — this is not necessarily about the classic stereotype of "keeping up with the Joneses," either... some self-images revolve around self-effacement and being invisible.
Regardless of which direction you lean, the problem with allowing your self image to play too large a role your reality — for example you are entirely focused on having precisely a specific appearing house in a specific location, and driving a specific car and having a specific kind of dog to the exclusion of all others — is that you run the risk of missing out on what's actually going on around you.
Moreover, if you define this self-image too strictly, you often end up not getting what you want and then end up living in a state of perpetual disappointment.
As I mentioned above, this is not about somebody whose self-image is all about keeping up with prestige and luxury — I'm talking about somebody whose sense of self is actually more like a caricature than a real human being.
It might be someone who's obsessed with how to present themselves as "an eccentric artist" while not actually being all that focused on their actual ART.
In many cases, this sort of tendency is some kind of trauma response, perhaps from a childhood where the parents either allowed the child to have no self identity of their own, or — conversely — they set extremely high standards for the child to fit into a particular box, with no margins for deviation... at least not without "consequences."
Regardless of how you turn it this is often an outward manifestation of some form of "conditional love" situation in the past... or even the present. Think in terms of "I will love you if you are specifically doing these things to make me happy, but if you stop doing these things I will abandon you."
And yes, situations like that really do happen, cruel as they might sound. And not just when we are kids, but also when we are adults!
Some people think of this particular behavior as a form of people pleasing, except in the case of these extremely tightly defined self-images there is no specific person the subject is trying to please.
The possibilities are extremely varied. The one I have most often bumped into are people who are highly intelligent who hold themselves forth to be very average, or even a little bit dumb.
I've been guilty of that approach, myself, mostly as a means of getting out of having to be in charge of certain things... but the difference was that I had no investment in any particular self-image.
But when the obsession with self-image takes over, you start wondering what lays beneath the carefully constructed facade.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!
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Created at 2025.01.13 00:48 PST
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