THE COURAGE TO BE YOURSELF

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Whenever I did not do what I want, I killed myself.

Every time I said "Yes" to someone

while I wanted to say no, I was killing myself.

V. Gusev

The whole life of an individual is nothing more than the process of self-birth;

we are probably born completely by the time of death, although the tragic fate of most people is to die before being born.

I'll start with my favorite Kafka's parable, The Gate of the Law.

There was a gatekeeper at the gate of the Law. A villager came to the gatekeeper and asked to be admitted to the Law. But the gatekeeper said that at the moment he could not let him in. And the visitor thought and asked again if he could enter there afterwards?

“Perhaps,” the gatekeeper replied, “but you cannot enter now.

However, the gates of the Law, as always, are open, and the gatekeeper stood aside, and the petitioner, bending over, tried to look into the bowels of the Law. Seeing this, the gatekeeper laughed and said:

- If you are so impatient, try to enter, do not listen to my prohibition. But know: my power is great. But I am only the most insignificant of the guards. There, from rest to rest, are the gatekeepers, one more powerful than the other. Already the third of them inspired me with unbearable fear.

The villager did not expect such obstacles: "After all, access to the Law should be open to everyone at any hour," he thought. But then he looked more closely at the gatekeeper, at his heavy fur coat, at his sharp, humped nose, at his long liquid black Mongolian beard, and decided that it would be better to wait until they were allowed to enter.

The doorkeeper handed him a bench and allowed him to sit at the side by the entrance. And he sat there day after day and year after year. He constantly tried to get him in, and he bothered the gatekeeper with these requests. Sometimes the doorkeeper interrogated him, inquired where he was from and much more, but he asked questions indifferently, like an important gentleman, and in the end he incessantly repeated that he could not miss him yet.

The villager took a lot of goods with him on the road, and he gave everything, even the most valuable, in order to bribe the gatekeeper. And he accepted everything, but at the same time said:

“I’m taking it so you don’t think you’ve missed something.”

Years passed, the attention of the petitioner was relentlessly riveted to the gatekeeper. He forgot that there were still other guards, and it seemed to him that only this one, the first, was blocking his access to the Law. In the first years, he loudly cursed this failure of his, and then old age came and he only grumbled to himself.

Finally he fell into childhood, and because he had studied the gatekeeper for so many years and knew every flea in his fur collar, he even begged these fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. The light in his eyes had already faded, and he did not understand whether everything around him had darkened, or whether his vision was deceiving him. But now, in the darkness, he saw an inextinguishable light streaming from the gates of the Law.

And now his life came to an end. Before his death, everything that he experienced over the years was reduced in his thoughts to one question - this question he had never asked the gatekeeper. He called him with a nod - the numb body no longer obeyed him, he could not get up. And the doorkeeper had to bend low - now, in comparison with him, the petitioner had become quite insignificant in stature.

- What else do you need to know? the gatekeeper asked. - You are an insatiable person!

“After all, all people strive for the Law,” he said, “how did it happen that for all these long years no one, except me, demanded to be admitted?

And the doorkeeper, seeing that the villager was already completely moving away, shouted with all his might so that he still had time to hear the answer:

- No one can enter here, this gate was intended for you alone! Now I will go and lock them up.

A beautiful and deep parable filled with existential longing and sadness. Longing for an unlived life. Her hero died in anticipation of life, he did not have the courage to meet himself.

Explicitly or implicitly, this theme “sounds” in the life of every person, becoming more acute during periods of existential crises. "Who am I?", "Why did I come into this world?", "Am I living this way?" - most often these questions arise before every person at least once in a lifetime.

The very posing of these questions requires a certain amount of courage, since it presupposes the need for an honest inventory of one's life and meeting with oneself. This is exactly what another well-known text is about.

The old Jew Abraham, dying, called his children to him and said to them:

- When I die and stand before the Lord, he will not ask me: "Abraham, why were you not Moses?" And he will not ask: "Abraham, why were you not Daniel?" He will ask me: "Abraham, why were you not Abraham ?!"

Meeting with oneself inevitably exacerbates anxiety, as it puts a person in front of a choice - between I and not-I, I and the Other, my life and someone's script.

And every time in a situation of choice, we are faced with two alternatives: Calm or Anxiety.

Choosing the familiar, familiar, well-established, we choose calmness and stability. We choose familiar paths, remain confident that tomorrow will be like today, relying on others. Choosing a new one - we choose anxiety, since we are left alone with ourselves. It's like riding a train, knowing that you have a guaranteed seat, a specific route, a guaranteed minimum of amenities (depending on the class of the carriage), and a destination. Leaving the train, new opportunities open up right away, but at the same time, anxiety and unpredictability will increase. And here you need courage to rely on yourself and on fate.

The price of peace is psychological death … The choice of calmness and stability leads to a refusal to develop and, as a result, to alienation from one's I, the acceptance of a false identity. And then you inevitably find yourself in front of the closed gates of your life, like the hero of Kafka's parable.

Being yourself means being alive, taking risks, making choices, meeting yourself, your desires, needs, feelings, and inevitably facing the anxiety of uncertainty. To be yourself means to abandon false identities, to remove from oneself as from an onion, layer by layer of not-self.

And here we inevitably face a choice between ourselves and others. Choosing yourself often involves rejecting the other.

And here I would not go to extremes. The price of altruism is forgetting yourself. The price of selfishness is loneliness. The price of striving to be always good for everyone is betrayal of oneself, psychological death, and often physical death in the form of diseases. It is far from always that in this choice between himself and others, a person chooses himself.

What is this price for the sake of which a person renounces himself?

This price - love. Greatest social need – to be loved … Adults who consciously and who intuitively know about this and use it when raising children. “Be the way I want, and I will love you” - this is a simple, but effective formula for giving up your Self.

In the future, the need for love from the Other is transformed into the need for recognition, respect, belonging and many other social needs. "Give up yourself and you will be ours, we recognize that you are you!"

In one of my favorite films, The Same Munchausen by Mark Zakharov and Grigory Gorin, the choice for the hero between himself and others is a choice between life and death. Death is not physical, but psychological. The entire environment of the baron does not want to recognize his uniqueness, tries to make him like them.

"Join us, Baron!" - their voices persistently sound, become one of us.

"Join us, Baron!" it means - give up your beliefs, from what you believe in, lie, give up yourself, betray yourself! Here is the price of social comfort!

Once Baron Munchausen had already abandoned himself, said goodbye to his past crazy life and became an ordinary gardener by the name of Miller.

- Where does this surname come from? Thomas was surprised.

- The most ordinary. In Germany, having the surname Miller is like not having any.

So symbolically, the author of the text conveyed the idea of abandoning himself, losing himself and his identity.

What criteria can be used to judge psychological death?

Psychological death markers:

Depression

Apathy

Boredom

The markers of mental life, in turn, are:

Creativity

Humor

Doubts

Joy

What leads to the abandonment of one's self and ultimately to psychological death?

Here we are confronted with a whole range of social messages, evaluative in essence and suggesting a rejection of their own identity: "Do not stick out!", "Be like everyone else!", "Be what I want!" "- here are just a few of them.

When faced with this kind of messages, one encounters strong feelings that lead to alienation from the self and acceptance of a false identity. The unresolved problem of psychological birth in due time (I-myself crisis) is superimposed on the next crisis - adolescence, mid-life …

What are these feelings that stop the process of mental life and lead to the abandonment of your Self?

Fear

Shame

Guilt

At the same time, fear, shame, and guilt can act as motivators for the restoration of mental life, if they are of an existential nature. For example, fear for an unlived life.

I would like to dwell on existential guilt in more detail. Existential guilt is guilt before oneself for opportunities unused in the past. Regret about lost time … Pain from unspoken words, from unexpressed feelings, arising when it is too late … Unborn children … Unselected work … Unused chance … Pain when it is already impossible to play back. Existential guilt is a sense of betrayal of oneself. And we can hide from this pain too - loading ourselves with unnecessary things, serious projects, strong feelings …

On the other hand, there are feelings that reanimate your own I and push you to search for your true identity.

Feelings that restore the process of mental life:

Astonishment

Anger

Disgust

And more curiosity. Curiosity allows you to overcome fear. Our whole life is between fear and curiosity. Curiosity wins - life, development wins; fear wins - psychological death wins.

Each person has a limit, a line, crossing which he ceases to be himself. Most often this is associated with values, they are the core of identity.

The value of something is easier to recognize when you lose it. The loss of something valuable to a person is subjectively experienced by him as regret. The hierarchy of values is most clearly developed in existential situations, the leading of which is a person's encounter with death.

Interesting are the observations of a woman who has worked in a hospice for many years. Her responsibility was to alleviate the condition of dying patients with whom she spent the last days and hours. From her observations, she compiled a list of the main regrets of people who came to the very edge of life, regrets of people who had only a few days to live, and maybe even minutes. Here they are:

1. I regret that I did not have the courage to live the life that is right for me, and not the life that others expected of me

2. I'm sorry that I worked so hard

3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings

4. I wish I was in touch with my friends

5. I wish I had / allowed myself to be happier

In a situation of existential crises in life, a person inevitably encounters questions of his identity, and the appeal to values, their revision allows "to separate the wheat from the chaff", to rebuild their hierarchy for themselves, which will form the backbone of true identity. In this context, crises can be viewed as a chance to be born.

In the situation of psychotherapy, the therapist often creates the conditions for such a meeting of a person with himself, which leads to the acquisition of true identity and psychological birth.

This is the goal of psychotherapy for me

For nonresidents, it is possible to consult and supervise via Skype.

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