Who Do You Pretend To Be

Those of us midlife women who experience a feeling of deep disconnection from our true selves (that we struggle to regain), I can tell you where that starts and how it happens. How you repair that disconnection will be very individual to each of you, but you're hampered in fixing it if you don't understand how it arose in the first place.

Most of us are lucky enough to be able to start off in life as fairly secure and cared for little toddlers and young kids who are open to the world and up for exploring and learning. As far as we know, there's nothing we can't do or be. Our imaginations are limitless. We have not yet developed the sense of "I'm like this, or I'm like that" or "I can do this, but I can't do that." Young kids have a "Who Am I" sense that is unbounded.

This is best illustrated in a story I read somewhere about an adult observing and comparing kids in kindergarten with kids in grades 3 and 4. When asked "Who can sing?" every kindergarten kid will stick up their hand. But just a few short years later, the same question results in only a few kids sticking up their hands because by then, they have been taught there is a distinction between "good singing" and "bad singing," and they've also gotten clear signals as to which category they belong to. Not being a "good singer" means I can't sing.

The unbounded, limitless freedom of the initial "Who Am I" explorations later gets corralled and fenced by well-meaning parents, teachers, coaches, and any other adult authority who gives you corrective feedback, that ends up in you allowing it to define who you are and what's possible for you. Because a lot of this well-meaning feedback is delivered in terms of your deficits, shortcomings and the things you need to work on (grades, athletic skills, musicality etc.), you develop a sense of "Who I'm Afraid I Am," meaning when someone feels they are lacking or not good enough in many areas in life.

You can then end up devoting your energies to addressing the aspects of who you are afraid you are. In your efforts to overcome these deficits or weaknesses (and please others in the process), you develop the next phase of disconnect which is "Who I Pretend To Be." This is why a lot of women live the majority of their adult years feeling they are faking it, or an impostor, and live in fear of being found out they are not as good as they are pretending to be. They'd love to stop the feeling of pretense but they have become very far removed from the starting point of "Who Am I".

We need to strip away those two added layers of "Who I'm Afraid I Am" and "Who I Pretend To Be" and get back to the basic question. You need to go back and figure out the true essence of "Who Am I?"

Todo bien. (It's all good.)