Identity restoration

This above all: to thine own self be true
SHAKESPEARE (in hamlet)

Masks to hide behind. Armour to protect ourselves. Weaponizing ourselves.

When we grow up with unmet core needs, especially love, we feel unseen and that we don’t belong. So, as children we look for ways to fit in. Being insecure and feeling inadequate, we try putting on masks. With them we can show others a façade that pretends to have it together. Or armour that looks tough and impenetrable, so you can’t hurt me again.

Feeling unloved, and less than, we reject ourselves. So we hide the identity we were born with for this other false persona that we discovered might work. That would help us fit in with a group, or to be accepted by a significant other like a teacher, a coach, or a boyfriend or girlfriend. We learn to play-act the role of this new identity—the outward physical appearance and clothing choices, our words and actions, and even mental attitude and beliefs. Our brain wiring will happily comply with “what works” — neurons that fire together, wire together. Nurture here (our experiences), with what we now know about epigenetics, trumps nature (our genes).

In Braving the Wilderness, Brené Brown tells her story of hiding after growing up in a dysfunctional family and failing to make the cut for the cheerleading squad.

“I was the girl hiding weed in her beanbag chair and running with the wild kids, looking for my people any way I could. I never tried out for a single thing again. Instead, I got really good at fitting in by doing whatever it took to feel like I was wanted and a part of something … I became an expert fitter-in, a chameleon.”
Brené Brown

In her many books, Brené goes on to explain the cost of “armouring up,” as she calls it. This failure to live out of one’s true self. It’s exhausting. She writes, “I was running on fumes.”

Not only exhausting, but play-acting the role often involves dangerous habits such as drugs, risky sexual behaviour, or self-mutilation. Dangerous driving. Extreme sports. Crime.

And long-term stress from hiding is known to have significant detrimental effects on physical and mental health.

In Cured: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing, Dr. Jeffrey Rediger writes, “There is a powerful link between our very identities and our immune systems. Perhaps what ultimately determines the health of the “soil” of your body is how well you know who you really are at the most authentic level—beneath appearances, ‘shoulds’, perceived expectations, and all the masks and roles that you assume for yourself and the world.”

So while using “coping mechanisms,” as psychologists call them, may help us do life in the short-term, eventually our masks will suffocate us, while the armour gets too heavy to carry.

Taking the armour off

Recognizing your false self

Chances are that you will be the last person to recognize your own mask or armour! It is often a crisis that becomes the walk-up call!

But as a self-aware individual, here are some signs to check for. You can be well into adulthood, and even far along in a career or as a leader, when these things begin to surface. You can be pretty sure that your armour hurts the significant others in your life, whether your romantic partner, your kids, fellow workers, or your direct reports as a boss.

Here are some identities you might recognize:

Victim – my painful circumstances are others’ or God’s fault
Illness – I am my disease or illness
Profession – I am a physician rather then a son, husband or father, or child of God
Numbing – substances or activities that I turn to for comfort and escape, including work
People pleaser – I will do anything for you to get your approval and feel loved
Perfectionist – trying to win my own and other’s approval by demanding perfection
Oversharing – inappropriate dumping all your emotional baggage and stress on others
Social media “façade” – your filtered, picture-perfect image for the world to see
Body image distortion – mismatch in your true body mass index (BMI) and you own perception of it
Bad boy (or girl) – always playing the devil’s advocate and acting out for attention
The clown – always using humour to ease your discomfort in social settings

In Dare to Lead, Brene Brown lists some of the armour that may show up in leaders who haven’t found their authentic, wholehearted self:

Do not judge

If your loved one, or anyone that you are in relationship with, appears to have identity confusion, do not judge or heap condemnation on them. Their root emotion, according to Brené Brown, is almost always shame. Where guilt says I have done wrong, shame says I am wrong. Defective at my core.

Overpowering shame tips your emotional balance that we have been illustrating to the extreme left state of distress. This in turn frequently results in fear and anxiety, and the sadness of depression.

To counter shame, people need to experience love, acceptance and belonging. As they experience that in community, they can begin to “come out” as their true self.

We are wounded in community, and we must heal in community.

Restoring your authentic (true) self

“Do you matter? Does your life matter? When it comes to belief and its role in healing, the most important question may be: What do we believe about ourselves?”
Dr. Jeffrey Rediger, Cured

The journey of identity restoration for many people includes the healing of the traumas and unmet needs that led to the masks and the armour in the first place. In his study of patients with miraculous remissions, Dr. Rediger wrote, “Perhaps those who experience remarkable recoveries are the individuals who’ve figured out how to go back to those ideas about who they are—ideals that were forged so long ago, seemingly in steel—and melt them back down.” And forging the new values and beliefs fitting to their original design.

This journey is a spiritual one, connecting to our understanding of what we believe God’s purpose was in our unique design.

In his book, Identity Restoration, author Ray Leight writes that from his understanding,

“The truth of who we are is already true. We are not in the process of becoming who we are created to be. We already are who God created us to be. We are in the process of believing who God created us to be.”
Ray Leight, Identity Restoration

In Braving the Wilderness, Brené Brown goes on to talk about her restoration journey: “My journey from expert-level fitting in to true belonging started in my early twenties and took a couple of decades.” She talks of trading one set of coping methods for another—from partying to perfectionism. And therapy. And 12 step programs. To eventual freedom and peace.

But when you read her books, and now listen to her podcasts, you will hear her say over and over again — it’s worth it. Don’t be discouraged by what may seem like a long road ahead. Read Cate’s story for inspiration and perseverance now available in her book, Everything Is Going To Be Okay.

Don’t wait for a health crisis like the ones Dr. Rediger studied. Or for your marriage to collapse. Or for your career to falter.

For many, hitting the proverbial wall, and subsequent breakthrough and identity healing, a new life is literally birthed with a whole new sense of purpose and calling. For some it is an encore career (the best for last). Others, it’s discovering art or music that was hidden. Many causes and movements for justice and serving the oppressed are birthed here.