How does a Natural Sense of Self feel?
For the sake of your education here, and for the completeness of the Theory and this website, it seems necessary to describe what a Natural Sense of Self actually ‘feels’ like. This presents a challenge to me because I never got a Natural Sense of Self. I imagine that a Naturally-developed Sense of Self feels more ‘natural’ (unquestioned, unquestionable, foundational, basic, intrinsic) than a Restored Sense of Self – which is what I personally have.
The process of restoring the Sense of Self, as referred to in this Theory, takes place in the present. We can’t go back into the past to undo what harm was done or to do what was omitted to be done. (See Mirroring.) I can therefore only imagine, speculate, extrapolate.
I imagine that a Natural Sense of Self is a much more steady sensation of Self, something unshakable and always there without having to be referred to by words, nor named by verbally describing bodily sensations that come with it or that in large measure ‘are‘ it.
That’s how it seems to me, who is coming from a Restored Sense of Self. We can therapeutically revise our Sense of Self and get to something that is healthier than a Substitute Sense of Self, but a Restored Sense of Self is something brand new, not a recapture or reconstruction. It has to build its own strength through years before it can even remotely be regarded as somewhat ‘natural’, and the ‘feel’ will never be totally identical to ‘natural.’
There is one characteristic that is important for a person with a Natural Sense of Self and which can be achieved to a certain extent by instilling a Restored Sense of Self: the person is able to be at rest. There is no need for a continual and frantic (even though subconscious) search for the Self or for how to fill in the void that is there in the absensce of the structure of a Natural Sense of Self by compulsively fulfilling the Ego-References (self-imposed conditions). For people with a Lack of Sense of Self such is the foundational and omnipresent reality of their lives. With a Natural Sense of Self, internal peace and confidence are the rulers of your being even when the world around is in turmoil and chaos. The Natural Sense of Self is rooted in one’s ‘being’ – as such, as alive, as existing per se – and cannot therefore be affected by more surface matters.
Footnote: There are exceptions to this ‘being-oriented’ sense of peace and confidence, however. In certain kinds of overwhelming turmoil and chaos, people’s inner knowing of who they are, even their Natural – let alone Restored – Sense of Self, may disappear. Examples include experiences of the inmates of the concentration camps during WWII or during any war for that matter. Upon liberation those people were supposed to live a normal life again but they had lost all sense of who they were and all trust in the process of life due to horrific experiences.
