Got a killer identity? Let it die.
Who am I? It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times. I’ve met many people who think they know the answer to that question, but when we really think about it, I bet we’ve got a pretty vague idea of it. Even so, deep down, we all have some deep-rooted set of beliefs about who we are, whether we’re aware of it or not. That’s what we often call “identity.” And the thing about identity is that it can either build you up or tear you to pieces, all depending on how tightly we cling to it.
Have you ever met someone who you knew from what they’d been through that they should be bitter, twisted, jaded, and broken, and yet when you looked in their eyes, you could see that somehow despite all the odds, they were actually a sweeter, kinder person than you? I met a woman like that once. She’d worked in the sex trade for years and had been in more abusive relationships than I could even keep track of. Believe it or not, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of her brutal, painful life story. And yet, when her sad smile touched her eyes, they still shone with a life I couldn’t fathom.
Photo by Zach Lucero on Unsplash
It wasn’t all bad for her, though. There was a time when she had it good. There was this guy she’d met, and for her, the impossible had happened like the perfect Cinderella story. Here she was, all battered and broken, and he came in and loved her and believed in her and supported her. She was happy. Happier than she had ever been in her life. But it didn’t last. There was something inside her that made her believe she didn’t deserve it. Something about the hell she’d been through her whole life had stuck in her soul. It had become part of her identity.
This piece of her was the message that she’d always heard that she didn’t deserve to be happy. She didn’t deserve to have someone treat her well. That she didn’t deserve to be loved. And feeling — believing — that she was unworthy of being loved gnawed away at her. It became this unseen shadow side to the relationship. A dark third wheel, constantly whispering toxic words into her ear, making her uncomfortable to actually be treated well.
In the end, the identity that she believed for herself became a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way. She couldn’t reconcile the difference between her identity and her reality and found herself doing things to drive her partner away.
Photo by Fares Hamouche on Unsplash
At first, it was just mistreating him. Not because she didn’t love him, but because she couldn’t live with him loving her. When that wasn’t enough, she started sleeping around. She didn’t even try to hide it — she actually wanted her partner to know. Not because those hookups could give her anything even remotely close to as amazing as what he did, but because it created a reality for her that matched the dark identity she had in her head.
When she first told me about all of this, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. In a place where there is nothing but darkness and pain, she had been given a chance for beauty and love that any of us would have been envious of. And yet, she had tossed it away. Knowingly. Deliberately. And regretfully, in the end — but still without being able to stop herself tearing her life apart in front of her own eyes.
“Why?” I asked her. Why bring so much pain down on her own head? Her answer came without hesitation: “Because I didn’t believe I deserved to be loved.” I often wonder how many times over the years she’s looked back on that experience and has just kicked herself for it, over and over. If I were in her shoes, I know I’d be struggling with that. And yet it happened, and it would probably happen again if she were in the same place again.
But what would have happened if she didn’t have that identity, the one that said she wasn’t worthy of love? Maybe she just believed she might be worthy of it. Or maybe if she believed she really was worthy of it? It would have changed everything. By the time I met her, she wouldn’t have been on the streets, alone, and with the sadness of her loss in her eyes. Maybe she would’ve had a family. A job. A happy life. If only she could have believed something different. If only.
The thing that blows my mind the most, though, is that it’s not like she didn’t have any reason to believe something different — at least, not once she had a loving, supportive partner who was giving her every reason to believe she could be loved. But her identity was too strong — too rigid — for her to be able to believe something new about herself. She wasn’t able to see that the thing she was holding onto to keep herself together was actually the very thing tearing herself apart and couldn’t hold it loosely enough to be able to open up to a new view.
That’s really the key — hold your identity loosely. Yes, identity can be a good thing. It’s essential to how we grow and mature in the early phases of our life. It allows us to have a sense of belonging and an understanding of ourselves. But when that identity becomes stuck and can’t adapt to the changes we go through, or the changes we need to go through, it turns toxic. That rigidity keeps us from letting go of what hurts us — or taking in what helps us.
We often find ourselves not moving forward in life. We want things but can’t seem to get them, or there are ways we want to grow but can’t seem to move toward. In those times, take a deeper look at your beliefs. A deeper look at your identity. Because if you don’t truly believe you can move forward, you won’t. And if you can’t hold those beliefs loosely enough to start building some healthier ones, you never will.