what does it mean to BE YOURSELF?

@RisingToShine,

'Be yourself' is more about being 'genuine' and 'true', than it is about 'everything you do IS yourself'.

People say this when they mean 'be true, be genuine, and don't let yourself be contradictory or deceptive about who you are'

It's very closely related in meaning to the saying 'know thyself' - the better you know yourself, the more genuine and true you can be.

Most people :
- don't realise how much their fears drive them.
- don't understand that different area's of their brain compete for the outcome (hence we can want two different, competing, outcomes at the same time)
- don't realise how automated so much of their life is
- don't comprehend self deception
- don't understand that their actions affect their beliefs (which is why being true to yourself is so necessary)
- don't comprehend what self esteem is about, nor how to truly build it
- don't understand why it is better to be vulnerable

As an example of one part of what I said :

Many people are afraid :
- to display selfishness, anger, lust, desire
- of looking foolish / of making mistakes / of being ingnorant
- of conflict
- of being rejected
- of failing

There is a list a mile long of most peoples fears - they just don't realise it. And each 'category' of fear has many different subsets of fears. Yet we can negotiate and train most of those fears away.

These of course are a list of the 'negatives'. Many people have great positives. The soothing away of the negatives in our lives gives us much more solid foundation on which to build our positives.

Building on our positives is something we should always be doing Smile

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@vikorr,

vikorr wrote:

'Be yourself' is more about being 'genuine' and 'true', than it is about 'everything you do IS yourself'.

People say this when they mean 'be true, be genuine, and don't let yourself be contradictory or deceptive about who you are'

It's very closely related in meaning to the saying 'know thyself' - the better you know yourself, the more genuine and true you can be.

How does one begin to contemplate 'who you are' or recognize when one is being 'genuine' or 'true' to themselves? How can you separate yourself from experiences and label one instance 'being true to yourself' and another not. How can you recognize this separation at all is what I am trying to figure out.

When I said, in essence everything you do or say is yourself, I meant all actions and words make up the individual while the individual is making the dichotomy between which parts are true and which parts aren't. Each part is still very much so, part of the entire person.

vikorr wrote:

There is a list a mile long of most peoples fears - they just don't realise it. And each 'category' of fear has many different subsets of fears. Yet we can negotiate and train most of those fears away.

These of course are a list of the 'negatives'. Many people have great positives. The soothing away of the negatives in our lives gives us much more solid foundation on which to build our positives.

So fear distorts the truth, i.e., When we can recognize fear as the leading factor in decision making is when we recognize the limitations of ourselves because all of who we are will easily sacrifice itself in the face of fear. Possible explanation?

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@vikorr,

Also is fear the only factor that allows us to recognize when we are not being true to ourselves?

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@vikorr,

Nice post vikorr!

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@RisingToShine,

Quote:

How does one begin to contemplate 'who you are' or recognize when one is being 'genuine' or 'true' to themselves? How can you separate yourself from experiences and label one instance 'being true to yourself' and another not. How can you recognize this separation at all is what I am trying to figure out.

This topic is very closely linked to self esteem. Many people don’t recognise what their feelings are about particular events. Learning to recognise your own feelings is part of contemplating who you are.

Many don’t see how their feelings are tied, not just to what other people do (the ‘events’ above), but to their own actions and reactions. They don’t recognise the part their beliefs play in their emotions. And they don’t comprehend the value of being true to their beliefs –of how their actions affect their beliefs. Learning to recognise how ‘who you are’ is an interrelated system of the many ‘parts’ of you is part of being true – what I’ve also heard being called ‘bringing yourself into alignment’, and ‘not being hypocritical’, and ‘being genuine’ etc.

Your mind affects your body, and your body affects your mind. You can throw ‘your spirit’ into that loop, and it would still be true.

Quote:

So fear distorts the truth, i.e., When we can recognize fear as the leading factor in decision making is when we recognize the limitations of ourselves because all of who we are will easily sacrifice itself in the face of fear. Possible explanation?

Technically – we distort the truth because, as we don’t like how our fear reflects on us, we then choose to lie to ourselves because we perceive this will make us feel better about ourselves. Ie. It’s not our

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@RisingToShine,

Maybe it would be good to try to determine what it means to not be “yourself”. When we are not “being ourselves”, we often feel slightly uncomfortable with the situation we find ourselves in, and so we tend to feign certain feelings or emotions, in order for us to appear more comfortable than we actually do. When we are not being ourselves, there is a “conflict” between our outward appearance, and how we inwardly feel. To not be ourselves, is to not outwardly express what we inwardly feel. However, to always express what we inwardly feel or think is not always the best policy, and can sometimes land us in trouble.

When we have feelings of self-inadequacy, we may distort ourselves in some way, in order to be perceived in a certain way by others, a way that we are pleased with.

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@existential potential,

existential potential wrote:

Maybe it would be good to try to determine what it means to not be “yourself”. When we are not “being ourselves”, we often feel slightly uncomfortable with the situation we find ourselves in, and so we tend to feign certain feelings or emotions, in order for us to appear more comfortable than we actually do. When we are not being ourselves, there is a “conflict” between our outward appearance, and how we inwardly feel. To not be ourselves, is to not outwardly express what we inwardly feel.

So when our thoughts do not align with our words is where the whole concept of self and not self springs from.
This question came from actually me trying to explain to a friend I did not feel like myself in a certain situation and she told me you cannot separate your personality and actions and act like they are not apart of you, you are always yourself. But it seems clear now you are not always yourself.

I recently came across this quote which can relate:
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. -Albert Einstein

existential potential wrote:

However, to always express what we inwardly feel or think is not always the best policy, and can sometimes land us in trouble.

Although, some very successful people have raw and honest personalities, they are not afraid of always expressing their inward feelings. In doing such has always placed them exactly where they need be. Expressing your inward feelings definitely takes guts. But I do agree, sometimes it is better not to say what you're thinking, especially when one is upset or angry for it may be irrational.

Also I'm not sure if this is wide stretched but let me know what you think of this..
Since humans do have a larger frontal lobe in the brain compared to animals, in which personalities are formed, could that actually be a weakness? For if our instincts of what we want or desire can easily be overcame by emotions and external influences, it is harder for us to be satisfied in our environment because it is easier to misguide our true selves. Our instincts are weak due to our larger frontal lobe.

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@RisingToShine,

It simply means to act in the same way what you feel instead of just manipulating things and showing off others as if you want to pleasing them.

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To follow no standards.

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I don't know. How can I not be myself? It's another matter to know what "myself" means.
The question is something like the advice to be in the "here" and "now". Where else and when else can I be? If it means to be aware of where and when you are, that's another matter.

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I don't know. How can I not be myself? It's another matter to know what "myself" means.
The question is something like the advice to be in the "here" and "now". Where else and when else can I be? If it means to be aware of where and when you are, that's another matter.

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@MKov,

What about your own standards?

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@JLNobody,

You can't 'not' be yourself - as everything of you is part of yourself, but that's not what people mean when they say 'just be yourself'

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"To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life." (Robert Louis Stevenson)

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@RisingToShine,

this is either circular, or semantics.

when someone says be yourself, they mean: relax, just go with it, dont try to be someone your not.

you have a character, and your character is yourself. don't be fake. if you dont laugh ever, and you meet someone you fancy, then you dont stop giggling, then your not yourself

Quote: What tells you this? When in essence, everything a person does and says IS themselves.

this is semantics, it is you; as in yourself saying it, the I, the subject. Not what is characteristic of yourself, your traits.

hope this helped. probly didnt

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@hemingway,

I don't see how--in the literal sense at least--one can be anything other than himself. The problem is to know that self, what is its nature.

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@JLNobody,

I tend to agree that in some sense, a person can only ever “be himself”, because in a sense its not possible to be other than yourself. However, when someone does say “just be yourself” what they seem to be meaning is essentially, “be honest” or don’t pretend to have feelings or thoughts or opinions that you really don’t have.

And in any case, when we talk about “being ourselves” it often seems that to “be yourself” is relative to the people around you. For instance, when you’ve had one group of friends that you’ve known for many years, you act around them in certain ways, and they become familiar with you, and for this reason they believe that they “know” you. Then when you meet a new group of people who become new friends, you act and behave around them in slightly or radically different ways. Sometimes old friends will see you in a new light around new friends, and you will seemingly appear “unfamiliar” to them-are we being ourselves in this instance? Yes, its just that “who we are” is always a little bit different from the perspective of different people, and interacting with others causes us to behave in slightly different ways.

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@existential potential,

Very good sociology. I agree that selves, in the sense of roles and other social identities, are situational or contextual (more so in some societies, like Japan, than in our setting). But, as I said, I was referring to "oneself" in the more literal ontological sense of "me". Of course my concept of self is more complex than that--the sense of "me" is illusory but a functional illusion.

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@JLNobody,

Yes, but isn't the "ontological-self" the same as the "situational-self", and what happens is a kind of category error, in which we mistake our situational-self as being a transcendent, ontological-self? But in "reality" there is no "real self" who "you are".

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what does it mean to BE YOURSELF?

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