What is the False Self?

You've probably heard the term false self before and in this video I'm going to try and explain really what we mean when we talk about that. Various people and various backgrounds and they talk about the false self. You hear it in spirituality, you might hear it in psychology and certainly psychotherapy. You'll hear it a lot in trauma work, this idea of the false self. So what is the false self? Well the false self it is about safety and well if there's a false self there must be an authentic self. So it's an alternative to this false or this authentic self. But the authentic self, well do we even have an authentic self? People might say you do have an authentic self. The authentic self is the personality that you're really born with. It's your fullest potential you might say. Just the way you have an eye color or a height or various different attributes or characteristics. You have an immutable unchangeable personality. It can't be changed. Some of us feel uncomfortable with that fact but that's really just the false self saying that. We'll get to that maybe. But the point is we do have an authentic self. Now the problem is usually in childhood the authentic self finds itself in an environment in which it is not accepted or it is seen as troublesome. For instance if it expresses a desire or makes itself visible it is met with maybe hostility or judgment or rejection. So what we do is we strategize that well I guess if I'm authentic I could get in trouble. So I better hide that authenticity leaving us with the construction. We have to now strategize to construct something that is going to be met with less hostility and maybe less rejection in the environment. So we adapt but we adapt into something that is not what we were originally intended to be. Is it a bad thing that this happens? No it's of course it's going to happen. That's inevitable really about being a child certainly and being in a hostile environment. That's going to happen. It's not if usually. It's pretty inevitable that that will happen. So we construct this false self which is going to be met with more acceptance and less hostility from those around us. The tribe you might say. Now it's not until later in life that you even because this goes this is so gradual that usually like as a result of like complex trauma over a long period of time being in a kind of a hostile environment for a long time. It happens very very slowly and the thing is you know this false self is becoming stronger and stronger and more embedded all the time and it's because it's so slow you're not even aware that the authentic self is kind of hiding now and retreating into the background more and more and this false self is growing ever stronger and you've actually kind of forgotten about the authentic self. The false self is now my identity. It's all I know really. So the false self it's amazing you know. We really do come to identify very very strongly with it. Now it's not until usually later in life where we realize something's off here. Things don't feel right to I'm not really living authentically. Maybe you've got problems in relationships. Maybe you've got problems with boundaries. Maybe you have problems expressing yourself clearly or authentically and you start to realize there's a problem here. I don't know if I'm living authentically and then it's about identifying and recognizing the extent to which I am living from a false self and it's always always always for protection. It helped me in the past. The problem is we still kind of are identified and attached to it because it helped us in the past even though it was false. But so in terms of healing this it's not about discarding the false self, attacking the false self, throwing it away. In fact it's the opposite of that. Nothing is really discarded. The false self kind of stays there but with an awareness that this is there is also this authenticity this authentic real self here too now that is going to start to come back. The false self in fact you might even say is we honor it for the function it served to get us out of a difficult situation we were in and once we start to honor it it becomes less defensive and that seems to be the best way to approach this. But guys I'll leave it there for today but that is my quick sort of definition of what the false self is. It's always about safety. Maybe I'll make more videos on this topic. Let me know below if you find it useful and as always thanks for being with me and I'll talk to you again next time. Bye for now.