A Lack of Sense of Self
In the process of pursuing my inquiry about why so much was ‘wrong’ with my life, I often sensed a vague ‘something’ going on, which I referred to as ‘a lack of a Sense of Self.’ Now I understand more about what was going on, and this term has become somewhat obsolete, but talking a bit about it here might help you identify your own condition if you have this Lack.
What is a Lack of Sense of Self and how does it feel?
A Lack of Natural Sense of Self (Lack of Sense of Self) is what lies at the root of a Substitute Sense of Self. If you don’t have a Natural Sense of Self, you do have a Substitute Sense of Self. So in a way it is a concept that now has only a theoretical function in the theory, but personally I used it when I was tracing what had happened to me in my life to produce my problems and pains.
I became aware that I was not able to ‘sense’ the true meaning and depth of whatever seemed to be meant by a term used by others, ‘Self.’ At first I called that inability in me ‘a Lack of Sense of Self.’ Later in my inner explorations developing this Theory, I discovered the existence in myself of the psycho-emotional ‘structure’ that had developed early in my life in Nature’s unsuccessful but desperate attempt to fill that void, and I called that ‘the Substitute Sense of Self.’
A Lack of Sense of Self is therefore inferred/detected through the presence of a Substitute Sense of Self with all its compulsions and addictions. The presence of the signs and symptoms of a Substitute Sense of Self is the way to recognize a person’s ‘sense of self,’ not so much the actual ‘feel’ of a Lack of Sense of Self – though a good introspector might be able to dig deep enough to detect it in themselves.
To help identifying a lack of Sense of Self please pay attention to the presence in your life/body of any or several of the symptoms that you find in the chart below. It is my opinion that more often than not these diseases and/or dysfunctions may find to be originated in exactly the lack of a healthy Sense of Self. So you can use the symptoms on this chart, among others, to self-assess a potential lack of Sense of Self.
| Symptoms of Lack of Sense of Self | |
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Where does Lack of Sense of Self come from?
If the development of the awareness of being a separate and autonomous human being does not take place at the right phase of a child’s life, the development of a healthy and Natural Sense of Self is thwarted. That person doesn’t have a concrete or even a vague inner knowing that ‘my life is about me.’ The person’s life is about a continuous struggle to juggle all their self-imposed conditions and to avoid feelings of inadequateness.
What does Lack of Sense of Self do?
A person with a Lack of Sense of Self is highly sensitive to criticism, and extremely irritable. There is an overwhelming striving for perfection, and most of all there is a desperate and ever-present (but subconscious) search for ‘the Self.’ There is a deep restlessness which leads to extremes in all aspects of life (for example, not settling down, not able to stay with one partner or one field of study.) There is continuous job-changing, inability to be a good parent, and lack of focus and of consistency.
In short, the person doesn’t know where to go and what to do or why. (It might appear otherwise as they are ‘driven’ by compulsive behaviors and thus can appear strong and definite.) For us folks like that, there is no sensation of ‘home’ in our very own being, no anchor to make us settle down, no source to base our decisions on other than the criteria of the Sense of Self.
What we actually but subconsciously are doing is looking for our ‘Self’ everywhere. Sad to say, we have no idea what we are looking for. We sense in the depths of us that what we are looking for is crucial, and yet we are unable to make adequate decisions toward finding it, because we don’t know what we are actually after. It is a life-determining condition, which greatly influences a person’s direct environment (family, friends, co-workers) as well.
Footnote: Even more so, this condition profoundly affects society in general, because a person without a Natural Sense of Self becomes a dependent, compulsive, irrational being, who runs a great risk of being prone to irresponsible and often times destructive behavior. He or she is a danger not only to their immediate interpersonal environment, but on a worldwide scale.
Watching documentaries about the Hitler regime and World War II it dawned on me that it would be worthwhile to do a study on the psycho-emotional ‘ Sense-of-Self-related’ state of the SS men and women and its leaders, and specifically of the Fuhrer himself. I hope to elaborate more on this in due time. When I do, I’ll post a link here.
