Feeling Yourself?
When was the last time you felt totally yourself?
I don’t know about you but this question made me choke a lil’ bit the other day.
It’s one of the prompts inside The Cabinet of Curiosities (a content creation tool I’m reworking for the studio), and honestly it had me sat thinking…
Have I ever really felt like myself?
Do I feel like myself when I’m painting? Maybe I should paint more? What about when I’m parenting? What does feeling like yourself EVEN MEAN?!
Anyway, rather than sodding off on an existential crisis, I held back.
Because, scientists, we are no longer taking a piece of data and creating a conclusion from it, right?
The next move, once we find some data - in this case DO I KNOW WHO I AM?! - is to investigate.
So I started questioning a little more.
What does it mean to feel like yourself? Is it feeling joyful, comfortable, content, excited? Is it a whole myriad of things?
Can I feel like myself in completely different scenarios?
After doing some deep investigative work (googling it), it appears as though we view ‘feeling like yourself’ as feeling like you’re at a steady baseline.
I suppose a good way to think about it, is to consider what it looks like to NOT feel like yourself.
So on the mornings I get a white hot rage that feels like it will slice me in two every time my dog tries to sniff for longer than 16 seconds… Maybe I’m not myself, and maybe there is something else going on I need to pay attention to.
Days like today, when I take those extra seconds of stillness to close my eyes and enjoy the sun, I get to be a bit more myself, because something else is available to me.
I think that distinction matters, right?
Because when we consider things like burnout, depression, anxiety and chronic stress, “I don’t feel like myself” can describe all sorts of experiences. Maybe the things that usually bring you joy don’t. Tiny grievances suddenly have a wayyyy bigger impact on your mood. You stop looking forward to things. Maybe you don’t feel much of anything at all.
So “when did you last feel completely yourself?” becomes a far more difficult question to answer, especially if you’re someone who has experienced trauma, stress or hardship for what feels like FOREVER.
Chatting to my incredible mum, you know her as @the_restoration_coachtm, we started talking about the window of tolerance. That space where your nervous system has enough capacity to deal with what life is throwing at it without tipping into overwhelm or shutting everything down.
And that got me wondering whether I’d been asking the wrong question.
Maybe feeling like myself isn’t about finding some perfectly regulated, joyful, sun-on-my-face version of Lauren and declaring
THERE SHE IS. THAT’S THE REAL ONE.
Because white-hot-rage-at-the-dog Lauren is me too (even if I don’t like to admit it).
Maybe the more interesting question is
How much access do I have to myself right now?
There are plenty of versions of me that all count as ‘myself’.
The version I am when I’m painting, when I’m parenting, when I’m flipping furious or giving my absolute best ‘is it french/is it transylvanian’ accent while pretending to be a crab. No really, this was my Sunday morning.
All of them, exhausted me, scientific me, calm me, stressy, agressy, depressy me, are ‘me’. What changes is which versions of those I have access to in different conditions.
I find it almost impossible to access playful or painting me when I’m massively overworked, exhausted or stressed.
Those parts of me need my curiosity, my kindness, my self compassion and my connection - which are all in low supply when I get yeeted out of my own window of tolerance.
I can still access scientist me, the logical, methodical me, but to be honest, they don’t come with a kind face and an interest in investigating. They come with a firm hand and a ‘this is how this needs to be done’ attitude that solidifies my place in stress.
Anyway, without wandering off my path too much, because remember we are here to investigate the question ‘what does it mean to feel like myself?’
But now the question isn’t ‘when do I most feel like myself?’
It’s how do I access ALL parts of me?
The conditions matter more than we realise
Let’s take a scenario, one I live in rather often.
I sit down to work, and my easel and paints stare at me longingly from the side of my desk.
I can choose to spend an hour painting, I’ve built my business to allow that, to absorb it, and my content to mean I kill two birds with one stone when I record myself.
But that little nugget pops into my head…
“I’m not feeling creative right now”
Well, in this experiment, we change the statement to accurately reflect the data, because what’s really true here is
I CAN’T ACCESS MY CREATIVITY RIGHT NOW
And that feels a whole lot easier to explore.
Because this is no longer something that can lead down the path from ‘I don’t feel creative’ to ‘so I’m not creative and should quit’
Now it looks more like, 'I can’t access my creativity, so how do I get that access back?'
When do I feel most creative?
Am I rested?
Have I given myself space to percolate? To refill my creative well? Have I attached a self sabotaging thought to the act of painting (something like, if I paint something I need to sell it immediately)?
These are questions I can answer and explore and almost certainly will lead me back to a place where I can begin to access my creativity once more.
And I can do a lovely little 180º here too, and ask myself what happens to FURTHER my disconnect from my creativity.
This is a bit easier. It is definitely harder to be creative when I’m knackered, or when I’m hungry, when I’m carrying too many things and can’t get a moment's peace.
As humans I think we are instinctively wired to think we need to change something about ourselves, even in the quest to be more ourselves.
My hypothesis is that is would be far more useful to investigate the conditions surrounding us and within us, when we access the different versions...
And LEARN FROM THEM.
Your Investigation
So your investigation today, should you choose to explore with me this concept of feeling yourself, is as follows:
NOTICE
Spend time noticing those moments where you feel like you. Where you have access to more of yourself, your steadiness, your joy, your curiosity, whatever it is that makes you, you (including the white hot rage pal).
Investigate what got you there
Who are you with?
What are you doing?
Have you slept well? Have you eaten, drank water, spent time outside?
Avoid using these data points as nonnegotiables
We are always investigating. So yes, drinking coffee outside yesterday morning may have helped you feel more like yourself. But that doesn’t have to become DRINK COFFEE OUTSIDE EVERYDAY IN ORDER TO BE WHO I TRULY AM
We are collecting information, it will evolve, it will change, we can follow it and practice, try and tweak, and learn to see it unfolding as we go along.
So, when was the last time you felt totally yourself?
I have decided I simply don’t like this question.
Myself is a huge concoction of possibilities, thoughts, feelings, emotions and capabilities.
I think I prefer the question
When do I have access to more of myself?
There is no single version of me who gets to claim the title True Lauren™.
But when I start to lose access to certain parts of me, that’s a moment to notice, to investigate, and to start caring for myself, warts and all, so I can get my full range back.
Wouldn’t that be a lovely place to start my next bog…
What brings back access to our whole selves when we start to lose it?
Maybe I’ll see you there tomorrow...
Chat soon scientists
Lauren
