As you grow up you might taken on identities that you hold on to and engage in behavior so you can keep holding on to that past identity even when the opposite is presenting itself.
One thing I noticed is that also looking into my own experience was that we can hold on to identities from the past.
Growing up I was an outcast so that stood with me until people would like me and when people started liking me I would feel a little bit of anger come up and I noticed it’s because I was holding on to the identity of being an outcast. When someone likes me then I can’t be an outcast anymore, so that’s something I noticed.
Everyone can have their own identities that they carry, their core identities, one way of finding that out what you might have as a core Identity or holding on to is to just ask yourself who you think you are.
Who you think you are, not who you would like to be. Then that can bring up an identity you holding on to or can have several show up.
It can be different things but then um yeah you might be holding on to that when you could actually let go of that. If you have carry an old identity then just notice what things show up that would be evidence for the opposite of your identity or the identity you’re holding on to.
Carrying that identity around is almost almost like having blindfolds on. You see evidence for the opposite but it’s almost like an immediate shutdown, like this can’t be true, or a dismissal of the evidence that could contradict the identity you carry. And you might even feel anger over carrying that identity even though evidence is presenting itself that you are not that identity.
You may even engage in behavior that makes it so that you can stay in that identity. To remain an outcast I have to push people away, so I had an automatic response that seemed to have worked, to get angry, not directly at people but in general over being an outcast and that was enough to lead to repel people and reaffirm what the identity of an outcast.
