Expanding Your Self-Concept
Most of us are living within a narrowly defined self-concept that does not reflect all of our subjective experience. It is unfortunate, but we frequently deny or dismiss parts of psyche because we believe they are unacceptable. While the purpose of this denial is to keep the recognition of our perceived weaknesses out of awareness, this method of coping severely restricts how we think of ourselves, which in turn, limits how we experience the world. We can however, make a commitment to reintegrate these discarded parts through inner work.
To start, we need to make a conscious decision to begin to observe all of our thoughts, feelings, and actions with compassion. This practice enables us to accept the parts of psyche that we have previously denied. Moment-by-moment, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, as we become more self-accepting, our self-concept expands because we have begun to think of ourselves in novel ways. We find that there is more to us than we had hitherto believed and more aspects of ourselves to experience and express. As a result, our subjective world expands and we often feel a surge of excitement as we become eager to experience these seemingly new parts. Boredom also tends to dissipate because we discover that we have much to learn about these parts and much to experience through them.
Committing to inner work as a means to expand our self-concept is particularly important at midlife, as this is a time when many transitions occur that can leave us feeling like our world is diminishing. This is not to say that we should deny the losses that occur at midlife, but recognize that these losses can be counterbalanced with new experiences. Through such inner work we may discover within: a teacher, healer, artist, or hero, or other aspects of ourselves that have never been expressed.
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