Many of the problems we face stem from our psychological outlook, and how we identify with our Self.

The concept of “Self” is an extremely complicated one, so I won’t seek to unravel it in this post. But I’d like to begin with a simple definition before I address a problem most of us face in how we identify with our Self.

Defining the Self

The Self is the collection of everything that defines you as an individual. Your awareness, thought processes, beliefs, feelings, experiences, roles, interests, behaviors, relations, etc. They all contribute to define what your Self is to the degree you associate or you dissociate your Self from each and every possible facet in your life.

You can see your Self being defined by your cultural roots or your religious affiliation. You can see yourself as a painter, or a reader, or a father, or a compassionate individual. It’s always a combination of characteristics, rather than a single label that defines who we are. While you may see yourself as an artist, this does not mean that it is the only aspect of your Self.

You may undergo many changes in life, but there is always a sense of continuity in your being. Even if you’ve experienced drastic changes in your beliefs (as I have), you can still relate to your former Self, and see it as a state within your life and the evolution of your Self.

To lead a meaningful, joyous and constructive life, you need to have a healthy relationship with your Self and to nurture it with love and care. I won’t go into what a Healthy Self looks like now, because I’d like to first shed some light on several characteristics of the Self that can compromise our well-being.

This is the first of several blog posts on this topic, and I’d like to begin by looking at the problem of the Relative Self.

The Misery of Relativity

I think it’s safe to say that the Relative Self is a pandemic that transcends religion, culture, nationality and ethnicity. The damage it has caused is truly alarming.

I will hazard a guess and say that you have already experienced the destructive nature of the Relative Self, and may continue to do so. I know I have my struggles with it on a daily basis.

Rather than see myself for who I am, I see myself in relation to what others are like.

Rather than value what I can accomplish, I consider what I can accomplish in relation to what others have accomplished.

And when I compare myself to others who are better than me in any given field, I walk away feeling bad about myself for not being better than others. I walk away with low self-esteem and shattered confidence. Not because I completely lack skills, but because my skills don’t match or surpass the skills of others.

Relativity rears its ugly head in every aspect of life where distinctions and comparisons can be made. Whether it’s physical beauty, or inner conviction, or level of productivity, or style of writing, or number of blog subscribers, or size of bank account, or stamina, or dexterity, or IQ level. Whatever it is. If we can qualify or quantify it, then we can define how one relates to the other. How we relate to others.

A Relative Self (or a Self in a state of relativity) is unaware of its own absolute being. It can only make sense of itself in relation to others.

This is why jealousy exists. Instead of enjoying what we have, we condemn ourselves for what we lack in relation to what others possess.

This is why we can rejoice when we see others fail or suffer: we are relatively better off than they are, so we feel good about ourselves.

Relativity is a killer. It’s a Self-destruct button that not only blows us – and our sense of value – into smithereens, but destroys everything and everyone around us. The fear of success grows in the presence of Relative Selves. The fear grows because it senses a threat from those threatened by accomplishment.

The Absolute Self

Close your eyes (after reading the rest of this post!), and spend a moment with yourself, without thinking about others and how you relate to them.

What are the things you value in life? What spiritual principles do you want to live by?

What activities do you enjoy doing? What skills do you feel define who you are and what value you can create?

What can you do to improve your life, in relation to the life you are leading now (and not in relation to the lives others are leading)?

What can you do to increase your income? To improve your productivity? To refine your style?

Let the questions that matter to you surface in your consciousness, but filter out questions that relate you and your skills to other people.

Don’t let images of other people come to mind. Try and focus only on yourself, and how things relate to you and your life alone.

Get a sense of who YOU are as an individual. With absolute being. Not defined by others.

Get comfortable with your Absolute Self. You may not be properly acquainted.

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Last Saturday I had a minor procedure (the details of which I wouldn’t like to get into, cos they ain’t pretty!).

Looking back at the whole experience, one thing stood out as being highly amusing.

When I was told I needed to have the procedure three days before it, a very strange thing happened.

I started to act ill!

My intention wasn’t to deceive anybody. I just played the part of being ill, because I was convinced there was something wrong with me, even though I didn’t feel ill.

I started to walk slowly, speak slowly, my energy level went down and I began slouching. And, yes, I partly felt sorry for myself.

But when I realized I didn’t have to feel that way, my mood suddenly changed. I felt more energetic and felt that I can do a lot more than feel sorry for myself.

Tony Robbins writes a lot about our “emotional states” and how we can change them by simply changing our posture and the way we behave. Rather than slouch because we’re tired, we can feel tired because we slouch!

We have an enormous capacity to feel great, and huge energy reserves we don’t tap into because we’re too busy playing a part that doesn’t take these resources into consideration.

This explains why terminally ill patients can enjoy their last breaths, without feeling bad about their condition. They’re not playing the part of the patient.

We can play the part of the victim, the overworked professional, the patient, the social outcast, the bad parent and any of a long list of possible negative roles.

Or we can play a more positive role that helps us enjoy our days and make the most out of the resources we have available to us.

What role are you playing in your life, and how can you change that to enjoy what life has to offer you?

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The people around us and the circumstances we face can make us feel upset, angry, frustrated, depressed, annoyed and any other possible negative emotion humans can experience.

And when we experience these emotions we tend to latch on to them.

Why?

Because we believe we’re entitled to experience them.

We have every reason to experience them.

We have the right to experience them.

If you ever thought you had the right to be upset or angry or depressed, then you know what I’m talking about.

But rather than holding on to your right to be upset, ask yourself the following question:

“Do I deserve to be upset?”

If you don’t (and you don’t), then you shouldn’t insist on being upset.

Sure, someone you know might have done something to hurt you, but do you need to continue hurting yourself? Do you deserve to subject yourself to such hurt?

Rights are intended to lift us up rather than pull us down. When they end up pulling us down, we can choose to abandon them. We have the right to a miserable life and the right to be ignorant and the right to be poor. But it doesn’t mean that we need to exercise these rights.

The same principle applies to our emotions. While we may have the right to be upset, we shouldn’t exercise that right when it damages our lives. We don’t deserve to be upset and to linger in that feeling.

I sometimes find myself latching on to feelings of anger and frustration, but then realize that I can’t afford to waste my emotional energy on such feelings, and to compromise the opportunity to be happy. I realize that the negative feelings I’m experiencing are within my control and I can let go of them as soon as I let go of the idea that I have the right to experience them.

Don’t insist on upholding your right to be upset. You don’t deserve it.

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This post is written in solidarity with Leo Babauta, who received an email informing him that the phrase “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” was copyrighted. Since this phrase happens to be one of my mantras, I disagree with having someone owning the phrase and dictating how and where it should be used. While I believe it’s important to respect intellectual property, I don’t think you need to be an intellectual to come up with a phrase like this, let alone claim ownership of it!

Rational and Irrational Fears

Fear is one of the strongest and most fatal obstacles to success. It paralyzes us from ever taking action to achieve our goals.

But fear (like all other negative emotions) exists to advance our life on earth. We experience fear so that we do not take the actions that can put us in harm’s way. Fear of heights is a very reasonable emotion to experience. Without it we might jump off high places with a wide smile on our faces!

So fear itself isn’t a problem. It’s there for a reason.

It becomes a problem when we experience it in the wrong situations or for the wrong reasons. This kind of fear is irrational. Rather than fulfilling its role of protecting us, it causes us damage. This is the kind of fear that needs to be uprooted from our lives.

Overcoming Irrational Fears

Given the fact that irrational fears aren’t grounded in reality, they are based on impressions and assumptions we have formed about an experience we have yet to experience! Those most frightened of public speaking usually don’t have any experience speaking in public! But they assume it will be a terrifying ordeal and so they go through the emotions that support their impression.

Is there anything to really be afraid of when speaking in front of an audience?

Not really. To be more specific: whatever it is you’re afraid of, fear will make it worse.

If you’re afraid of making a fool out of yourself, then being frightened to death to get up on stage won’t make you less of a fool.

Fear that is not based on real threats is baseless, and the only way to expose it is by taking action to dispel it. That way, we would have experienced what we are frightened of, without the threats that we feared, simply because they never existed!

Fear in Everyday Life

You might think that fear pops up only when it comes to radical situations, such as bungee jumping or being confronted by a grizzly bear. But we experience fear on a very regular basis. In fact, fear is one of the most common causes of procrastination. We put off work because we’re afraid of the experience, or the outcomes.

But usually, when we bring ourselves to do the work, we realize that it’s not bad after all and that we have underestimated our ability to get it done. The fears were irrational.

There are many opportunities around us to move our lives forward, but we overlook them because we’re too afraid of the unknown or whether we are capable of achieving our goals or not. But rather than live in a bubble of fear, it’s important that we liberate ourselves from irrational fears and interact with reality, to discover how meaningless our fears are.

Don’t deny that you are frightened. Don’t blame yourself for being afraid. Don’t mix your fear with guilt.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

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A lot of personal growth advice seems to be based on the assumption that positive emotions (happiness, joy, excitement, etc.) are good and should always be experienced, no matter what circumstances you are living in; and negative emotions (sadness, anxiety, depression, etc.) are evil, harmful and should never be experienced, no matter what your circumstances are.

I happen to disagree. Strongly disagree.

This attitude towards emotions expresses a deep misunderstanding of the role emotions are meant to play in our lives and fails to appreciate the importance of negative emotions in our personal growth.

The Role of Emotions

I’ve seen several personal growth “experts” giving their readers tips on how to be happy, and they boast that you can be happy without a reason to be happy! They try to get people to shrug off negative emotions by shifting their focus towards positive aspects in their lives. They think that they are doing their readers a favor by helping them experience positive emotions and ridding them of negative emotions.

But the question we need to ask is: Why do human beings have the capacity to experience negative emotions?

To help understand the purpose behind negative emotions, we can consider the role of pain in our lives.

Many people consider pain a bad thing, in and of itself. However, pain is a good thing for human beings. It helps keep us alive and our body parts intact and properly functioning. People who lack pain sensors can cause damage to their bodies, without even realizing it!

Pain is a message that tells you that there’s something wrong in your body… and you need to do something!

The pain you experience isn’t the problem. It tells you that you have a problem. Without this message, your problem will go unnoticed, and if it’s neglected, it can cause considerable damage to your body.

Emotions play a similar role. Positive emotions tell you that you’re doing something good and you should continue to do more of it, and negative emotions tell you you’re doing something bad (or avoiding something good) and you need to take action to correct it. Therefore, both positive and negative emotions are important! They convey different messages but with the same intention: To get you to take action for your own well-being.

When you try to silence negative emotions, you’re not doing yourself a favor. You are, in fact, harming yourself. You are shooting the messenger because you don’t like what it’s telling you. You don’t want to take the actions that will support your life. You think that by ignoring the message the problem will go away. If you stick your head in the ground, then you’ll be safe.

But that’s never the right approach to take in life. You need to listen to what the message is, and look for where the problem lies in order to address it properly.

It’s Not Always Healthy to Be Happy

If you are consistently acting and thinking in ways that support your life, then it’s natural to consistently feel happy. However, you shouldn’t try to feel happy by evading the issues you need to deal with. Such happiness is not healthy. It’s an unnatural way to condition your emotions, which will not support you in your life. In the same way that pain-killers can work to numb the pain, happiness that overlooks problems without allowing you to properly deal with them numbs your consciousness, which will allow your problems to grow.

Negative Emotions Help You Grow

Since negative emotions tell you there’s something wrong you need to correct, you should never adjust to negative emotions and feel comfortable experiencing them. Negative emotions tell you that there’s something you need to do for the message to go away. Otherwise, you’re harming yourself and your body will punish you for not properly taking care of it (it doesn’t really want to punish you, but that’s how it feels when it’s trying to tell you something that you don’t want to hear).

While physical pain is more accurate in pin-pointing where the problem lies, negative emotions can sometimes be difficult to decipher. They can tell you that you need to think differently or you need to act differently to move your life forward.

The questions you need to ask yourself, when experiencing negative emotions, are: Why am I experiencing these emotions (i.e. what is the problem my emotions are trying to tell me about)? And what can I do to solve the problem?

You need to shift your focus from the emotions themselves, to the problem you need to tackle. Negative emotions aren’t the problem. They simply point to the problem.

By using negative emotions as sensors for what you need to do, they help you to take the right actions and to move your life forward. That’s one of the best opportunities to grow in life, which you will deprive yourself of if you try to ignore negative emotions in any shape or form.

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