88. Pros and Cons of Defining Yourself

How do you define yourself? There are benefits to defining who you are...are there are significant drawbacks to hanging too tightly to these definitions of who we are.

As always, all women welcome here!

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Transcript

How do you define yourself? This is a question that philosophers have been asking since the beginning of humankind, and there are benefits to defining who you are. And there's some significant drawbacks to hanging too tightly to these definitions of who we are. In this episode, we are talking about the psychological benefits and drawbacks to defining who we are. 

I'm Doctor Amy Backos, and I am the founder of the Art Therapy Center of San Francisco. And one of our forward facing programs is the modern Creative Woman. And I know you've heard about that. It is a incredible space for women to thrive and the kind of. Space that this program occupies is similar to other academics, who have transitioned from strictly research and writing into a position of bringing value to a much wider audience. So think Brené Brown, Carol Dweck, and the idea that we can bridge academics and knowledge and give it practical application is so important, and it's often missing in society. In the past, I was chair of two different graduate art therapy psychology programs, and I still work on dissertations and teach art and trauma in those programs. I serve on two peer reviewed journals as a reviewer, to understand the research and determine if it's appropriate and considered evidence based, and it passes a peer review. I'm part of that process for two creativity journals. I also wrote the book on art therapy and post-traumatic stress disorder. That's the name of it, and you can find it. And it's an incredible tool and a resource for anyone who's lived in the world. We've all experienced trauma, so you can find it anywhere. You find your books. Your local bookstore would be happy to order it for you. My short term project that I'm working on is taking women on retreat in Paris, and the power of leaving your usual day to day routine and being in a community of like minded women has the power to transform. It's an incredible experience. I'm really excited about a one day women's retreat that I'm hosting in San Francisco this Saturday, and it's all about figuring the tools to create sustainable and lasting change. It will be tying your values and what's most important to you, to your rationale, and then creating something much better than motivation. It's value driven actions. And we'll be using our therapy and visualization, mindfulness, neuro aesthetics, neuro creativity to make the change stick. I'm so excited for this. The other project that we're working on is a women's retreat in Paris. I'm partnering once again with Girlboss Paris to bring women the ultimate luxurious experience in which to be receiving the gifts of creativity in a beautiful women's community, in the most beautiful city. And the long term game for me is really to study the art and science of creativity, and then to teach it to 1 million women so that they have the skills to thrive, as well as to create loving, fair and peaceful communities. 

The story of I am has been going on for generations. The idea that we can define ourselves is really powerful, and it allows us to overcome challenging circumstances. We can say, I'm a survivor. I'm a leader. It allows us the space to define ourselves, separate from our circumstances, separate from our families, and it gives us the courage to move in really powerful ways. The challenge of identifying ourselves as I am is when it takes this extreme case of fusion to a particular aspect of our identity. When I say fusion, I'm talking about believing the ideas in our mind to be facts and truth, right? But they're their thoughts. There is external truth, of course, about what we do, where we come from. But when we're thinking it's really just a biological process in our brain, when we start to believe what our brain is generating. As essential and true and fact. We start to get into trouble and it leads to suffering. We can see some significant challenges right now with people who have an I am story. That is, I am better. I am superior. I know what's best for you. And those ideas are these extreme versions of identifying who they are and projecting onto who someone else is. This has led to conflicts and wars since the beginning of time, imagining that we are separate from them over there. When the fact of the matter is there's a much bigger context than identifying us in them. It's pathologizing to talk about the other. In the case of othering someone, those people over there are not part of my people over here. That's othering. Someone who lives across this border is different from me, is othering. And there's certainly politics involved around country and where people live. But it's unnecessary to have a fusion with ideas that other someone. We experience an incredible amount of stress and toxic stress, in fact, when we are othered or excluded. And the psychology research is pretty strong, it's a traumatic stress to work or live in a hostile environment where our ideas, or even our mere presence, is considered to be less valuable because of some reason that a person is othering us. So I'm talking about, of course, gender. That's. Often my focus. I'm also talking about race and sexual orientation and ability. The country of origin. All of these things are ways that we could describe ourselves and feel good about. And there are ways that we can be described and disparaged by others. I want to really challenge you to reflect on your Im and they are statements. I think if you're here listening to the modern creative woman, you already have an idea that women deserve equal protection and rights and still waiting for the Equal Rights Amendment to pass. All my life it's been discussed and never passed in the United States that there is equal rights for women under the law. And we can talk about many examples around the world where women are without rights or losing rights. I believe that speaking up for rights has never meant that I'm against someone. It's that I'm for all and for equality. We're at a point in time when it's very clear and obvious that there are systems that uphold discrimination. And I've been learning about these since the 80s. People have been teaching about these since the beginning of time in the United States, in particular the civil rights movement. Women getting the vote. The ending of slavery. These have been significant moments of time when we understood that systems were very negatively impacting. Lots and lots of people. I feel like it's finally made it to popular consciousness that systems are not supportive of the individual, and systems are in place that deny access. I created the modern creative woman because of my wish to elevate women to equal status. To provide psychological strategies. To be personally empowered and impact yourself and your communities in positive, creative and uplifting ways. I want to give more examples of how you can do that. And it's understanding your Im statements and understanding the Im statements of others. It's a great place to start. Holding our identity as personal and important, but also holding it lightly because it's not who we are. What I do, the roles I play, is not the same thing as me, as a core human being. The me that has seen everything that that I've ever experienced, that has survived all of my awful days and all of my great days. That part of us that has done that has seen everything. Been with you your entire life. That's the core of us. And that I am, is really hard to define. It's so unique for each of us. Anything else that we put on top of it is external. I am a woman. I live in California. I'm a mom. I'm a wife. I'm a business owner. These are things that I do, roles that I play, and I hold them lightly in that they are very important to me. But I understand that I am not those things, their values, their roles. But it's not who I am. And then we want to listen very carefully to how others describe who they are. Sometimes people will describe themselves in contrast to others. I'm not them. Again, it's perfectly fine to identify who you are and see people as like that or not like that. It's when we begin to categorize that one person or one category of people is better than another. That's where real pathology comes in. Each side suffers tremendously. There is a huge loss when we are othering people and finding them to be less than that. We pay a huge price and the person being othered, we pay a huge price as well. I love the quote. It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. That quote has been attributed to many authors Mark Twain, but also Ken Hubbard, Will Rogers who knows who said it? Artemis Ward. The idea that we have to have cultural, academic humility to create space for ourselves and for others. Having humility of knowledge allows us to be a great neighbor. It allows us to drive our car a little easier. There's so many ways that we benefit from thinking in this much more creative approach. If we begin to assume that our thoughts are true and we know what's true. We will blindly trust our wild brain to lead us into very dark paths. You couple that with watching the news and it leads to really dark places. When we have cultural humility, it means that we're curious about other people. We don't appropriate their culture. We don't steal their ideas. We don't engage in ways that take credit for their work. When we have academic humility, it means that what we have learned, we recognize as contextual. We learned it from a particular source in the wider scheme of things. Things change, new information gets added, and not every source will give us the same picture of what's happening. And when we have humility about culture or knowledge, for many people this feels scary and uncertain. They want to know for sure. They want to be able to say what things are with a high degree of certainty. It feels safer. They don't have to muddle through problems, question themselves, question situations. The brain is trying to be very efficient. It wants us to lump things together. It wants us to categorize. And it can feel uncertain for many people to have humility. The advantages of having academic, scholarly, and cultural humility means that we're open to receive new information. We're willing to grapple with conflicting information, and we're willing to integrate new information into our existing ideas. At the very least, having humility means that we're not othering someone. We're not treading on other people's ideas or claiming credit. Even if you struggle with adapting new information into your thinking. The the brain will struggle with that for sure. Having humility is sort of a wiser place to be. It recognizes that one person can't possibly know it all. One group of people can't possibly be correct on everything. It's simply not true. If you need more evidence for this, you can look around the world. There are many, many religions. There are many, many languages. There are many ways of being and living. How could it be that one way of living in my house, on my block, could be the right way. It's not true. Another area that I really want to encourage everyone to think about is your own cultural humility regarding race and culture. And when you think of where to begin, I think education is the best place to start. I don't think it's necessary to unpack all your biases until you have a structure, and that feels safe in which to do that. I love the book Mindful of Race. It's a book by Ruth King, and it fits really well with how I'm talking on the podcast and in the membership. She uses mindfulness, present moment awareness to understand the discomfort that arises for many people when they're talking about considering race, culture, or when they're interacting with someone of a different race and culture. Her book is a very gentle, compassionate way of being able to think about race and culture, and it's a very important area that we get comfortable with. All of the things that I'm talking about relate to creativity directly, for people to be able to picture evolution and social change. It took creativity for us to move from an agricultural society, to an industrial society, and now to a digital society. That was all invented out of people's heads, and it required people to see what was not there and see beyond what was in front of them, into new systems and ways of being. It required the creators of these systems to shift and and change their beliefs. The 1960s was a time of huge upheaval in the United States, and then there was more upheaval in the 90s and then again the last five years. More and more people are able to see what's missing and start to put that into place and build that out. And that was one core skill that I picked up throughout my doctoral studies. It wasn't directly taught to me. This is something I inferred by putting all the classes together at the end, and seeing what I could do differently, was that I felt much more confident in seeing what was not there, seeing what's missing, perhaps in a person's life, if I'm doing therapy, perhaps in the in the research literature, if I'm doing research, like being able to identify what's not there. And later, I came to understand this as a creative process, to be able to see what you want without an example and build something out of it. Examining our biases has to be done to clear way for our creativity when we make assumptions. When we believe that we know what's best and true and real, that's a spot of stuckness or fusion thought fusion. And when you experience those moments with others, our job is to just be curious. It's not our job to change people's beliefs. Our job is to stay clear and calm, to not let the stress infiltrate us, that we can continue to work for peace and kindness in creative ways. Regardless of what's happening around us, there is space and possibility for our work. Let's talk a little bit more about the IMM experience on Valentine's Day. I have a special podcast drop for you, a little bonus episode that is. I am affirmations, and that's for getting you unstuck from difficult thoughts, and I think you'll love it for sure. The kind of I am that I'm talking about now is about present moment awareness, and we can change in the present moment. We can respond in the way of our choosing. In the present moment. We can live with compassion only in the present moment. So an I am experience of being in the present moment would make I am a complete sentence, I am period. I am here now. I'm here now, doing what I love, aware of my thoughts and feelings and moving towards my values. And what's most important that kind of I am statement gives you the fuel you need to take action that is aligned with the woman you want to be. It gives you the time to create your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions. And remember, we have a lot of terrible first thoughts. We have to give ourselves time to get to a second or third thought. Those first initial thoughts that pop into our head during uncomfortable conversations, during interactions with people where we kind of feel like we're triggering ourselves. Those thoughts are usually socially conditioned. They come from childhood or society. They're really usually pretty crummy. They're negative. They're gonna make our emotions go worse when we give ourselves a chance to have a few other thoughts before we act. It really is the space and time we need to move towards our values. So pausing I am here now gives you what you need to deal with uncomfortable conversations. Maybe you're talking with friends and family about difficult things in the news. Pausing. Allowing yourself to have a little more patience with yourself about the urgency to say or do something can give you the peace of mind that I think we all want right now. I am here now. I'm aware of my thoughts and feelings doing what I love. As I move towards my values and what's most important. So try that affirmation on. Let me know what you think. And I really want to encourage you to move towards openness, psychological flexibility, humility around our knowledge and awareness of things. And doing that kind of work is a critical step in opening our creativity. This is the kind of behind the scenes work that supports our art. It supports our family, our relationships, our communities. I read an incredible study that said, having a community that you love, that you're involved in can add seven years to your life. So this the statistics show that on average, people have seven more years when they are involved in community to doing this kind of self searching, insight work and building your creative capacity makes us better members of our community and allows us to connect more with community. The benefits of giving to our communities is huge. Donating money of course, where you feel called to donate, but spending time with people, connecting with a neighbor, connecting with friends, bridging and bonding to others. Joining a social group is huge. All of these are aided tremendously by cultural and social humility, scholarly humility, and making contact with the present moment to do that work. I am so proud to be a part of this modern, creative woman community, and doing my own introspection allows me to show up here in a powerful way. I'm a part of several social groups. I journal, I make art. I'm part of an anti-racism group. The ways that I nourish my creativity, my social experience, and my humility directly impacts everyone that I come in contact with. And I want you to know that whatever you're doing right now, taking steps towards knowing yourself more, taking the time to read a book about someone whose experience is different than you, or a book written by an author who's different than you. Engaging in challenging conversations with people that you agree with, or you don't agree with. Whatever you're doing right now to take care of yourself. Art, dance, music moves you closer and closer to the woman that you want to be. And it's a value. It's not something. Oh, I'm there now. Check. I'm done trying to be the woman I want to be. We're always moving in that direction. It's like a direction like west. You can go. Round and round the world. Going west. You never reach west. You just keep going. This kind of personal, ongoing development alone or in a group like the modern creative woman or another kind of social group, is really important for building communities and supporting other women. I appreciate you so much being here. It's really been an honor for me to share what I've learned through my clinical work, through school, and through practicing all of these things on myself that has allowed this space for the art and science of creativity to thrive. I'm so glad you're here. Now that you know all about cultural humility and creating space for yourself to go slow and taking a step away from those I am statements so that we don't other ourselves or our community members. What will you create? This work is powerful and this work changes lives. If you are interested in going a little bit deeper, I really want to encourage you to join a group. I think the modern creative woman is an amazing space inside the membership. We meet three times a month to make art, to do a little writing. We always have a meditative moment and some affirmations to encourage yourself for the week. Being in community is essential now more than ever. I'd love to see you inside the membership. And if you're not ready yet, keep listening to the podcast and figure out a space where you can be with people in community. There's some links in the show notes for how to get involved in the membership. There's also a link for some really cool free downloads. There's a gratitude journal, a creativity prescription, and there's two free webinars that you can get a taste of what it's like inside the membership. Your self-care matters to the world. When you take care of yourself, it lets other people take care of themselves and the people that you are responsible for. You can do a better job being present for them. Your significant other, kids, parents, whoever it is that you're caring for. When you take the time to nourish yourself, you're able to give them the care that you think is most important. Please take excellent care of yourself this week and I'll see you in the next episode. Please take really excellent care of yourself this week, and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.