Are you a castle or a cottage?
“Be yourself.”
“Get in touch with your true self.”
“Follow your heart.”
How many times have you heard this advice? It’s so central to the way that we talk about happiness in the West that you probably take it for granted. Of course it’s right and good to find your truest, most authentic self. How could it be anything but?!
Who Am I?
Many of us embarked upon the seeker’s adventures with this question thrumming in our hearts. We set out to find our true self, to connect with it, and to bring it back to the world, so that we might live a more authentic life.
I did it, too.
I felt, in my bones, that I was not my true self and that I had to go out and find that real self, figure out how to harness her, and bring her back home to help me live.
I know this isn’t uncommon. Every day, I get messages from people saying much the same thing, wanting help with their journeys. They feel that they aren’t living the lives they are supposed to, that they are separated from their truest nature, and that they are lost in the wilderness. What I’m going to share with you today is what I wish I had known before I embarked up on my journey, and what I learned along the way that might help you.
What is The “True Self”?
When we stop and inquire about the self, and it’s nature, it starts to become obvious that it can’t possibly be something that we could ever find.
Every part of us is also a part of our true self. It’s a mess of contradictions there, but it’s our mess. All parts of our mind, our body, our relationships, our experiences, and our deepest values and beliefs roll up together into it. If we have a soul, and that’s what you’re looking for, well, it’s in there too.
People are far too complex and too multifaceted for there to be one true version of you, and even if you could possibly find it, you could only grasp it for a heartbeat before it changed again, for your self is always changing and evolving. I’m not at all the same person I was five years ago; I’m not even the same person I was a month ago. Somewhere inside of me is the teenager, the little girl, and the baby that I once was, but that self is lost to me, much the same way my current self will be lost to me soon.
The self is just a mental label that we attach to our body and our consciousness and the things we incorporate around us. It isn’t real. It isn’t something we can find.
Unfortunately, a lot of times, the pursuit of the true self has some undesired side effects: in the long run, it’s likely to lead you away from the sources of happiness.
The More We Focus On The Self, The Unhappier We Become
The realer and more distinct we choose to make the self, ironically, the worse implications for our well-being. When we think often about our true self – and in some cases, idolize it and seek it out obsessively – we end up assigning it the qualities of permanence, uniqueness, and separation. We make it A Thing. A Thing that is solid. A Thing that is “mine." Everything starts to revolve around it.
This is reflected in the way that Westerners, who tend to treat the self as our primary focus of attention in the quest for happiness, describe themselves. When researchers ask Westerners to complete the sentence stem, “I am _______”, they describe themselves by their personal characteristics, emphasizing their independence and how stable their selves are. I am smart, I am kind, I am muscular, I am hard-working. I am me.
(Interestingly, when people from Eastern cultures answer that question, they describe themselves by their relationships and group memberships. I am a daughter, I am a wife, I am a Christian, I am from this town. I am part of us.)
In the Western world, we talk about the self like it is a castle, perched up on a high, high, hill, surrounded by thick, strong walls, with drawbridges and moats and ramparts galore. It’s a solitary thing, self-contained. Sometimes the castle sends messages to the other other solitary, contained castles that sit spotted around the neighboring valleys, but never do they mingle. How could a castle mingle, anyways? Each is busy being a castle.
When we hold fast to ideas like “I am this way,” or “I am that way,”, or “I need things to be like this”, we are solidifying our castle walls, running up the banners, practicing our battle cries. When we focus exclusively on our needs and our wants and our hopes, we end up creating a stronger and stronger idea of our self. The stronger it is, the less we are connected to others and to our world around us. The more we invest in it, the more we care about upholding and maintaining it, and the more likely to lash out at those who threaten it.
Solidifying your self as a castle is just an attempt to protect yourself from pain and loss. By creating the illusion that you are separate from the world, that you are not subject to the whims of the planet and the impact of others’ choices, you are simply trying to avoid suffering.
Most people out there who are suffering are locked in castles of their own construction.
How do you know if you’re in the castle? You believe that your own condition is more important than that of others and that it takes unquestionable priority.
It’s of course possible - and highly advisable - to go within and find peace. That’s not what I’m talking about here: to seek out inner peace is in fact, a practice of dissolving the idea of your self. Anyone who has meditated and felt a moment of stillness knows what it means to lose yourself, and you return from that practice more loving, more generous, and more present. What I’m talking about is noticing if journey is taking you into a place where you are focused more and more on your own needs, for you might be unwittingly setting up camp the castle. However, if you find yourself becoming more flexible, less rigid, more tolerant, and less stressed, you know that you’re walking down the hill, towards the village cottages, and away from the castle.
But why do we still feel an impulse to seek out our true self?
The Real Impulse
People do feel authentic things differently from inauthentic things. So what’s going on there? Is it possible to be authentic to a true self if we don’t have one? The answer, from Scientific American, is so enlightening:
“What people refer to as their "true self" really is just the aspects of themselves that make them feel the best about themselves. All around the world, people show an authenticity positivity bias: people include their most positive and moral qualities-- such as kind, giving, and honest-- in their descriptions of their true self. People judge their positive behaviors as more authentic than their negative behaviors even when both behaviors are consistent with their personal characteristics and desires.”
When you’re seeking authenticity, you’re not actually seeking your true self.
You’re seeking your best self.
A self that is not focused on your needs, but instead, focusing on supporting others’ needs. A self that is kind, giving, and moral.
Unfortunately, if you listen to the noise telling you to focus on your self, you’re going to end up locked away in a castle, far away from the sources of happiness.
To find your best self, all you need to do is walk out of the castle and go down to the village, and take up residence in a cottage, surrounded by others. This is the path to happiness and making an impact on the world. Your best self is not found, but created, by reducing your focus on the self. And that is also, not coincidentally, the path to happiness.
Try to Be a Cottage, Not A Castle
We will all have times in our life when we need to focus on something that is important to us, and the castle is a good hideout. But keep those times rare, and on the whole try to live your life as a cottage: connected to other dwellings, sharing courtyards, sitting around the fire as a community, and keeping an eye out for your neighbors. See your self as small, as deeply interconnected with others, as part of a greater whole.
The more that you release your hold on your ‘true self’, the more that you will be able to help others and meaningfully contribute, and thus, the more you will be able to gain back in well-being. That is the path to lasting happiness.
The next time someone tells you that they are on a journey trying to find their true self, let them know that their true self is right here, hoping that they’ll offer a helping hand to that friend, a few dollars to that charity, or a bracing word to someone who’s struggling. Their true self is right here with them, just waiting to be unleashed to do more good.
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The New Happy Links Of The Week
97-year-old D-Day vet reunites with lost love after 75 years
“Army veteran K.T. Robbins had never forgotten the French girl he had fallen in love with in 1944 when he was fighting in northeastern France during World War II. After having to hurriedly say goodbye to Jeannine Ganaye when he was transferred to fight on the Eastern Front, he eventually returned to America after the war, got married and resigned himself to never seeing her again. He held on to a black-and-white photograph of her as the only reminder of the time they shared together when he was 24 and she was 18 during the war.”
Come blubber with me.
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Use these breathing GIF animations to help you to practice mindful breathing with ease and joy.
How to live it: Bookmark and save it for when you need a break at work!
New study proposes a theory why injury and inflammation can lead to depression
Mind-blowing science of the day: a new paper proposes that chronic inflammation - something that is linked to many of our most pressing health issues - actually leads to demotivation as a healing response. The brain takes the natural drive and energy that humans have to do things, and devotes it towards healing the injury or illness.
This theory proposes so much about why people with chronic illnesses are also simultaneously forced to confront challenges with demotivation, lethargy, and depression. While it’s still early days, it tells us a lot about our natural healing response, and what we should expect when we are facing illness.
How to live it: Go upstream to reduce your chronic inflammation by 1) reducing and managing your chronic stress, 2) eating healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, and nuts, and 3) exercising as often as possible.