Seeing Identity for What It Is

Welcome to The Art of Accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease. I'm Brett Kistler, here today with my co-host Joe Hudson. How's it going, Joe?

Hmm, I am a little tired. Yeah, as you might imagine.

I am—

I feel incredibly refreshed on one level, but my, um, We just did Burning Man, my first Burning Man after 21 years, and I am definitely, um, I'm definitely, uh, feeling the wear and tear on my, on my body, but I'm mostly recovered.

It's still a little tired. Yeah, same. I had first Burning Man since the pandemic, um, and, you know, a great pandemic return Burning Man, including getting COVID right in the middle of it, dropping into 102-degree fever with 118-degree desert, breathing dust. It's like, what is, what is COVID and what is just being out here in the dust and the heat? Hard to tell. But yeah, I slept for about 48 hours when I got back and I'm a human again.

Now I think it's Burning Man actually that made me think about this topic for for today. What I watched is, especially the older Burning Man more than this, but it's a chance for people to try on different identities, like be not who they normally think of themselves as at home. And I think that's part of what— that and also following up on the grief episode and how we spoke about identity. I was like, oh, we really haven't gone into the idea of identity so much.

So yeah, we've had a lot of people reach out and say, wow, I love the grief episode. And I was I was amazed at how much of it was really about identity and, you know, to people connecting to that on various levels. And it seems like a really good thing to go into now, um, especially, you know, after both of us having, having whatever kind of identity experiences Burning Man brings about.

Yeah, yeah, it's funny because that's actually what I said when I was with people. I'm like, I just very much— for those of you who know me as a teacher, please Can you not treat me like that for, yeah, for the next 5 days while we're at Burning Man?

Yes. How well did that go?

I think I violated it more than anybody else, but there's probably only like about, you know, 10 violations or something like that, which is pretty good. There's a— it was, it was nice. A lot of people just— yeah, it was a different level of intimacy, so it was quite sweet.

Well, so let's, let's get into what is this thread of identity that has followed through so many of our episodes. Yeah, let's, let's just define it. Let's pull it out into the open.

Yeah, that's a hard one to define. Um, so I would say it's like the ideas and emotional states, even maybe the gut reactions, um, that we identify as who we are. It's, it's the way in which we recognize ourselves. I would say, like, that on the most coarse level, that's what it is. And, and I, and I think about it like, um, you know, some people, for instance, let's just say there's one person who plays the violin and they really— it's a huge identity piece for them, right? It's, it's— and the deeper, the more personally you take it, the more of an identity it is. So there's some people who like, oh, they pick up a violin once, they play it and they're like, they don't identify as a violin player. Somebody's like, you shouldn't play violin. They're like, okay. Like it's less of a personal thing. Whereas somebody else is like, loves violin and it's their thing, it's their passion. They've been doing it for a while and someone's like, you shouldn't play the violin. It's gonna be far more personal. It's gonna be a part of their identity. So it's really how we recognize ourselves. That's the way I would, I would think about, but not just intellectually, but also like the emotional states that we run or the gut reactions and nervous system responses that we have.

Yeah, yeah. The way I experience it is that there's this, the structure— identity is kind of like a structure, like some kind of inner or exoskeleton of what we think we are. And there are ways that that sometimes is helpful for our growth, you know, like trying on an identity, trying on the public speaker, trying on the violin player, trying on the CEO.

Yeah.

And it can also become something limiting that if we believe we are something or we must be something, or we believe that we are not something in relation to ourselves or the world, then like one of the things that I found about this, this path is that it's a process of continuously stepping out of identities into the unknown and leaving identities behind like snakeskin.

Yeah, yeah, I— right, I— my experience is that you can't leave your identity completely. Like, without any identity, there's like— I don't know if you're psychologically capable of speaking, right? So, so there's— and there is this kind of refinement of— not kind of, there's a refinement of every time you see through an identity that's limiting you, there's a chance to discover the way that this new identity also limits you, right? So there's, there's like every epiphany of identity then becomes the next rut of the identity as well. So, so yeah, it is a process and, and it doesn't ever go away, but there's a way in which it becomes more transparent. There's a way in which it— yeah, yeah.

So which brings up a question then. It's how do we recognize the difference between an identity that we're taking on and genuine self-recognition of seeing some aspect of ourselves that we haven't seen through a previous identity?

I don't understand the distinction. Can you— yeah, can you—

or just like— yeah, to— or just to compare like aspects of ourselves that are not identity and then aspects of ourselves that we have an identity formed around.

Yeah, I think it's how personally you take it is really, I think, the way that is the depth of the, how personal it is to you is the way in which to see how much of an identity it is. And the difficulty there is that some of the parts of identity you might not even see. You know, so what's an example of that? I'll give you two examples, like one in the intellectual space, I think, and one in the emotional space. So they're both kind of both. So there's this great study that they did with kids, and they told one group of kids, "You're really smart," and they told another group of kids that, "You're hardworking," and Then they gave them an impossible math test, and then they showed them that they failed the math test. And they said, okay, now you're going to take the test again. It's going to be slightly different, but it's the same basic test. The kids who were told that they were smart were far less likely to try the second time, because if they tried and failed, they would be proving that they weren't smart. So they were holding on to that identity. The kids who were told, um, you're hardworking were far more likely to try hard and improve on the second test. So now maybe those kids could say, I have an identity of being smart. Maybe those kids just think they're smart. Maybe those kids aren't even conscious of that subconscious identity that's occurring. And I think it's the same for humans. I'll give you a for instance of that on the emotional level. So I was in El Salvador and I got the news that— I was sitting in a hammock and I got the news that WhatsApp had just sold for whatever billions of dollars to Facebook.. And the venture capitalist who put his own money into it turned $400,000 into billions or some such thing. And I just got this kick in my stomach, just like it was like a gut punch. And I immediately said, oh, what is that feeling? What's the first time I felt it? I closed my eyes, I followed my body, not my mind, to the very first time I felt that experience. And it was around trying to get my dad's love.. And I recognized at that moment I had an identity of having emotional experience of chasing something that I wasn't allowed to have or couldn't ever get, and then feeling deprived and resentful. And that chain of emotional experiences had become a part of my identity, but it was subconscious. I had no idea that until that moment, I had no idea that that was part of the identity and that it had played out with money. It had played out with bosses. It had played out with my dad. It played out with women's love. That emotional roller coaster was part of my identity. It was who— how I knew myself to be, but it wasn't particularly conscious.

Yeah.

So it's hard to say you're taking it personally and at the same time saying you might not be conscious of it, but that, that is how it— that's how it works.

Yeah, it seems like there's a, there's a distinction between like the beliefs that we're aware that we have of ourselves. And then there's just the deeper conditioning. For example, the, the kids that are told you're hardworking.

Yeah.

And they're like, great, I'm hardworking. You're going to give me another test. I'm going to work hard at it. And that's the thing that I've been conditioned with reinforcement or punishment to, to be. And that's not necessarily the, the way that I would be entirely without conditioning or with different conditioning. And so that person might show up later on in life and can be the one who overworks themselves and doesn't take breaks to give themselves rest when they need it because—

Correct.

Well, I'm the one who's hardworking. I show up and I get the things done.

Correct.

And that's just what I am. That's how I always am.

And that's the idea is that every way that we define ourselves has its own limitations. So it's not like the person who sees through their identity of hardworking stops working forever and never works again. It's they have the flexibility to know that they are beyond hardworking or not hardworking, smart or not smart. So it's exactly that. And whether it's conditioning and therefore an unconscious sense of identity, it's really about how strongly placed it is in our sense of self, whether it's conscious or unconscious. And all of them have limits. Yeah.

Yeah. And a way to recognize that is how defensive we are of it, or even just what physical response arises.

Correct.

Correct.

That's right. Right. How much— what kind of constriction, what kind of defense, what kind of, you know, oh my gosh, what, what would I be without that, creates fear. There's lots of physical responses that tell people it's— and they're typically the parts of ourselves that we're like, how do I change that? Like, once we've recognized it and our mind is like, oh, this is a limiting, like, part of my identity, I don't want to be identified in this way anymore, that they— when we have them, when it's part of what we call our identity, then it's very challenging for people to— it's actually not that hard, but for most, you know, once you know the tricks and the hacks, but for most folks, these are the hardest things about ourselves to change.

Yeah. That points to an interesting phenomenon where in self-work, a lot of people will recognize that they have an identity and they want to live past that identity, and sometimes they will change their lives, they'll change their names, they'll move into a different social group to take on a different identity. But without exploring the subconscious components of that identity, they just end up recreating that new identity with a different name, a different group of friends, a different spirituality, a different—

Different boyfriend, a different husband, a different— Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think the other thing is that you asked a question, which is like, how do I identify what is part of our identity and what is not— the other way is the opposite, which is like, if you're in view around a topic about yourself, there's less of a chance that you're in identity. Meaning, um, if you are— if it's easy for you to be vulnerable around it, if you're impartial about it, if you have empathy for others around it, if you are in wonder about it, it's far less likely to be, you know, a strong part of your identity.

This reminds me of the projections episode that we had where one of the kinds of projections that we have is the projections we have on ourselves. And then being in view with that, being like, oh, do I, do I consciously or subconsciously identify as the person who gets rejected? Or yes, as the person who puts in more work than everybody else and doesn't get appreciated for it?

Yeah, that's right.

And then with that, you can be in the wonder of, well, what is it that I'm actually feeling underneath this?

Yeah, yes, absolutely. And, and, and so in— at once, like, the practice of you is, is not just like a communication tool, it's also— and in the long term, it's a— it tenderizes our identity. It allows our identity to be more transparent.

I like that term, tenderizes.

Tenderizes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Generally there's sort of a, an attitude of like deconstruction of identity in sort of the personal development and self-exploration and like meditation and esoteric spaces.

Yeah.

And I, I feel like that can almost become sort of an opposition. For example, like kill your ego, or right, people who walk around with the identity of being the egoless one.

Yeah, yeah.

And so what makes it something—

they're a bit of a pain in the ass, aren't they? Having been one myself, I was about to say, yeah, we are. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I guess the question is like, where— it seems like there's a constant tension here that can occur, and there can be a process that kind of goes back and forth between being in an identity that we are not aware of and then identifying that identity or identifying something next to it as a surrogate for it and then wanting to break it down, seeing it as a bad thing. And what makes that— what, what would you say it makes that something that we have tension with rather than just being a natural process with?

Well, I mean, the core response is identity, meaning once we identify, um, like, there's no— I'll put it to you this way— there is no good or bad around identity, right? So And you can be limited by your identity in some ways, and, and, and your identity can offer you a lot of possibilities in other ways. And so the trick is more about flexibility, is to see yourself beyond the identity, um, see through it. The identity becomes more transparent, if you will. And so some people go around saying, okay, the right identity is to be the happy one, or the um, altruistic one, or the one who cares. But even those identities create some limitations, right? So caretakers are often identified as the person who cares or altruistic.

Yeah.

And so, um, so every identity has some component of it that limits us. And sometimes that's great, like identify as a, as a person who loves your husband or your wife and/or father. And there's like a lot of beauty and awesomeness in that. And it's— and so it's not an idea of I'm going to have no identity because there's no possibility of that. Um, it's far more about finding the flexibility in the identity. That's what it— that's what it's like.

Yeah. So if I take on the identity of that I'm a vulnerable person, I'm loving, I'm in view, to the extent that that becomes an identity then I also start filtering my reality to see that it is true and to see less of the evidence to the contrary, to not notice where I'm not being fully loving, to not notice where I'm dropped out of view and if I'm in, you know, holding and defense.

Or you could have the identity of like, I'm not vulnerable enough.

Right.

And then you don't see the evidence that you're vulnerable or that you're moving towards vulnerability. I mean, this is something that you got to see in Burning Man a lot. You can see people, how long have you, how, how far, how many years have you been coming, you know? And some people have a lot of identity in that. They're like, 15 years, it's like a really big thing. They want people to know, like, hey, like, you should be impressed, I've been coming for a long time. And yeah, um, and some people are like, 15 years, and it's like not part of their identity at all. Um, so it's, it's just a, like a It's, um, it does.

It—

if you can't see through your identity, you're blinded to something. There's some part of your— there's some part of yourself that you can't see.

Yeah, that brings up an interesting piece about how we can attach our identity to an identity we create of some external concept, like Burning Man. Like, we can— those who have been going to Burning Man for a long time often have an identity of what they believe Burning Man is and represents, and then they themselves feel associated with it or defensive in ways that they might not see. And the same is true for a company. As a, as a CEO, as a, as a founder, as an early employee, we develop these identities of what we are in relation to this organization, what the organization is in relation to the world. And then without Without inspecting and seeing through those identities, then we might not see how we're limiting our range of motion and emotion in our roles.

Limiting our business.

Yeah.

Like, here's something I can say. If I have a CEO who's, let's say, a hoarder, I'm just making this up here, kinda. Let's say I have one who has a tendency to save everything. I guarantee you that there's going to be a whole bunch of projects that should be killed in their company that they haven't killed. If I have a CEO with the identity of, if I'm vulnerable, I'm not vulnerable because people will hurt me. Then I guarantee you that there is a lack of team camaraderie in their particular executive team because they don't feel the intimacy and depth with the CEO. So our identity absolutely influences the businesses that we're running or the teams that we're running or who we're leading in that way.

I think this, this points also to the avoided emotions that prop up the identity, because the first one of the hoarder. Like, there's— I identify with that a lot. There's been a lot of times where I'm like, I don't want to lay anybody off. I want to keep the team together. I don't want to cancel anyone's projects or any ways that they might grow. Who am I to say that this isn't going to work? And really, in those periods of my life, the things that I've been avoiding by holding that identity together have been just to feel the FOMO, to feel the disappointment, to feel the loss, to feel the sunk cost. To just allow that feeling of, to go back to that last episode, grief.

Yeah.

To feel the grief of whatever it is that I thought was worth holding onto, recognizing that it's time to let it go.

Yeah.

The more willing I am to feel that feeling, the less I need to identify as the one who's able to hold it all together and be able to hold all these pieces and not lose one.

Yeah, that's right. And so this is where you get to people where they're just like, oh, I see that I'm not that, but I'm still acting like that, right? I see that I am, you know, a good person, but I'm still acting like a bad person, right? Like, they—

by whatever their projection of good or bad is.

Yeah, exactly. So, and typically that's because rationally they get it, but the emotional experience is still identified. You know, I'm still identified with, um, rejecting grief, or I'm still identified with, um, the feeling that the fear that I have to feel if I don't caretake people, or if I don't take care of people, or whatever. And that— and, and the resistance to that emotion has been part of people's identity typically since they were 5, 4, 3, 8, 10 years old. Like, the idea of letting people down and trying not to so that they don't feel disappointed in you didn't first happen in your company, right? And so that is like this core part of the identity. And if you can fully allow those feelings to be felt and going through those experiences, then you can identify emotionally as something else. And so that the patterns can change pretty rapidly. And that's what makes it so— people think it's so hard to change identity stuff.

Right.

It's not hard, it's just A big part of it is allowing the emotional experience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard to change your identity from your head, within your head.

Yes.

And only in your head. Yes.

Nearly impossible. Not entirely. I've seen it done, but it's not consistent and it takes a long time.

Yeah. What are some other things that would make it hard to change? What are some of the other kind of—

Yeah, great question.

Roadblocks that might come up here?

One is that you've been justifying and validating it for years. So you've kind of got an entrenched neurosystem. You know, it's like, let's say part of the identity is overweight. And, and part of that is the thought process that it's hard to lose weight. And, you know, for 16 years you've been quitting diets with the justification that it's been hard to lose weight. Um, as a, for instance, um, That's not to say it's not hard to lose. Like, I'm not saying that everybody can lose weight immediately, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm saying that, that if you validate and you look for evidence over like 20-year period of time, it's very hard to undo that neural pathway. Or it seems to be hard. It's also, there's also a question of like fear of self, without it, like it's a form of death. I mean, there's a reason that, you know, the metaphor of Jesus on the cross, it's like, oh, if you're gonna give up a part of your identity, it can feel very much like death. Like, oh, and it's not just death because you don't know how you're gonna act or how to shop or how to interact with people, but it's also a death in the fact that everybody that you're interacting with, you're now different. So will they keep on interacting with you? So if you've always had the identification of the person that everybody needs to help, and you're like, I don't like that identity anymore, I'm gonna move to the identity of the person who's like totally fucking capable. And all of a sudden all your friends are like, wait, I was just in it so I could help somebody and feel better than you, right? And they're all gone. And whether that's true or not, you're going to fear it. You're going to fear the fact that if I'm different, maybe I won't be loved. Maybe I won't be supported, and maybe I won't know who the fuck I am. And that feels like a death because you don't know. And when I say death, it's like, it's literally meaning I don't know what it's going to look like after this event horizon. Every time a big piece of your identity leaves, it's like a, it's like a singularity in the fact that you don't know what's going to happen after that event horizon.

Yeah.

Now you do it enough times, you start to get a pretty good you know, you can gauge it pretty well. You can say, okay, and it becomes a little less scary. But most people don't spend their life figuring out how to overcome the parts of their identity that limit them or how to make their identity more transparent.

Yeah, something that's been helpful for me in this process has been recognizing that whenever I come like kind of face-to-face with an identity that needs, that's like ready to die, there's the recognition that this was never actually me. Right. That the— what was actually happening is that the relationships that I had were based on people seeing me in the way that I was presenting myself.

Yes.

And the way that I was relating to myself and the way that I was organizing my life was being arranged around an image of myself that never was real. And then when, when that gets let go, there's, there's a feeling of death because there's— I don't know what I am now.

Yeah.

But there's also the recognition that this was always some kind of death. There was always a, like, deeper part of me that was being suppressed and being— yeah, held in place that now gets to live.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's why there's a— like, my experience is that anytime a big piece of my identity is seen through, um, there's grief. There's like a grieving process. And I've seen that with so many clients when, like, a big chunk of what they— how they identify falls away, there's a grief experience that goes along with it. Yeah, beautiful scene. Yeah, yeah.

So there's this— it seems like in general life is a process of identity just recalibrating, reabsorbing new information, reorganizing and dying and allowing more to come through. But it can be more or less jerky or more or less smooth and continuous of a process.

Yeah, there's— I mean, like, if you look at the long arc of the process, I would say there's things like, um, you start to recognize that every part of your identity that's limited is a part of yourself that shows that there's something you can't love. So whether it's, you know, something that you think is negative, like, I don't work hard enough, then you can't love that aspect. Or if it's something that you think is positive, like I'm a hard worker, then you can't love the lazy part of yourself, right? So it's like— and so one of the things that you recognize is one way to think about your identity from an emotional space, from a heart space, is that your identity is, is exactly the parts of yourself that you can't love. That your limited identity is exactly the parts of yourself that you can't love. And so as you learn to love these parts, it's not that the identity— it's not like we walk around with no identity, because that it's psychologically impossible, right? There's, there's somebody who's speaking, so to, so to say. There's a thought that's had and somebody who's recognizing that thought, or something that's recognizing that thought. But what does happen is, like, as you learn from an emotional point of view, as you learn to love it, um, and love all the aspects of yourself, the identity becomes far more fluid. It becomes far more transparent. It starts to identify with oneness or nothingness or, um, love or peace or inherent goodness. Like, the identification becomes softer, it becomes more universal, it, um, it becomes more gentle, it becomes less rigid, it becomes more fluid. And I think that's like— so if you're looking at the long arc of it, that's a really important thing to see. And at some point you will identify all those identities also become their own roadblocks, right? Like, right, the identity of oneness has its own limitations. And so at some point you're like, oh, I'm oneness and I'm everything and I'm nothing. And to be able to see both aspects of that and then more fluidity, more transparency. And it's to say I'm a great CEO, to be able to see that I'm a horrible CEO, to be able to see that. Um, is like to be able to see all the aspects of yourself, all the aspects of the diamond, so to speak. It allows for far more light to shine through. It allows for the beauty to be there, and it allows for a far more, um, both sustainable and flexible, resilient kind of, uh, sense of self.

Yeah. And there's another thing that's been interesting in the work that we've done together of Recognizing, you know, so I might identify, recognize myself identifying as a CEO, as a good CEO, the bad CEO, and then I can go up a level. Am I the one identifying as the one that recognizes that I care about what kind of CEO I am and feel tension around that?

Yes.

And like, what am I beyond that? Like, what makes it important?

Or I am the— or am I the awareness that notices all these thoughts? Or am I the right, etc. It can go on, right? And so the question is, what's useful? The question is, what serves? The question is, what allows you to be your most authentic self? And, and flexibility is a huge part of that. Flexibility both in context and in, and in, and in the specifics.

Yeah, beautifully said. And I want to bring this also just again back down to the emotions, into the body too, because 'Cause something that's just really common in a moment of having, of seeing through an identity or in coaching with pointing, when somebody has their identity kind of challenged or like surfaced.

Yeah.

There's so often, I think maybe always, some kind of an emotional or physical process that occurs. And there's a revelation of something emotional or physical that has been holding it in place.

Yes.

Whether that is avoided grief in the, in the example that I described earlier about wanting to keep everything together and not feel like any opportunity was ever left on the table. But also then there's like muscular tension underneath these things. Like, what is it? To what level am I holding my identity or my character structure in the tension in my body by being the one who's ready for anything? The one who's always watching, scanning for threats, or the one who's ready to be there and love anybody who's in distress? Or—

yeah, I don't know if that's an answerable question, like how, how much of it is being held. It's been held in place and on like on 3 levels. One level is the intellectual structure of it that you may or may not recognize or see through. The one is the emotional structure of it that you may or may not see-through. And, um, and then there's the nervous system part of it, which you may or may not see through, like the reactive, the jump, the oh shit, the I have to, you know. It's like that, that quick startle that comes with a lot of these identities, that the immediate defensiveness. And but if you're looking to see through your identity, it needs to be seen through on all three levels. And sometimes that happens just naturally because you see it intellectually and then the emotions just move. And sometimes you can just move the emotions and you can see through it intellectually. And so it can all happen kind of in one big movement, but all three movements have to happen for you to actually be, actually be able to get full flexibility in that, in that level of your identity.

Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of to close that out, just bringing, bringing that back into some of my process of initially identifying as the Fearless One Yeah. And then identifying as the calm one and then recognizing that there was actually— that was compensating for anxiety.

Yeah.

And then recognizing, identifying as the anxious one and then recognizing that every time I actually feel my anxiety, it's not me, it's just conditioning. And yeah, it orients my attention towards something that may be important or may map onto something that was important in my past and is no longer relevant, right? And then identifying as, as the unknown, what is underneath all of that. So as my anxiety comes up, or as my— as a feeling, or as a grief arises and moves through me, am I identifying as that thing, like, here's another piece of evidence that I am this way, or am I identifying as the one that's feeling this feeling right now and discovering what's underneath it?

Beyond it, right? Or you're identifying as that which is beyond it. Or yeah, the interesting thing is on some level you talked about all the levels there. There's an intellectual piece of like, oh, I am not scared because I am doing this stuff, I have evidence. And that was like the intellectual aspect. And then there's the nervous system aspect of like, oh, I'm gonna feel into this. I'm— every time I'm scared, if I'm feeling into it, then something different is happening. That's like the nervous— that's addressing the nervous system aspect of it, and then the emotional aspect of going, oh wait, my body is actually scared all the time no matter what I'm trying to tell myself intellectually. So in a weird way, not only were you giving us a metaphor for the long-term journey, but you're also giving us a metaphor for the three aspects of, of changing your identity around fear. Yeah. Yeah, cool.

And is there anything else you'd like to say on this?

No, that felt really good. That felt like a great ending. Yeah, yeah. I would— I, I guess there is one more thing I would like to say, which is the thing that you said about ego. Like, having a fight with your identity only is more identity. It only makes it stick harder. Um, the object isn't to— isn't to get away from identity. It's to love it, and it's to see it for what it is. It's not to beat it or kick it into submission. Like, it's the same with the ego.

More like a Chinese finger trap, less like boxing.

Yes, exactly. Well, well played, sir. Well played.

Awesome. Well, thank you. I really enjoyed this.

Yeah, man, so did I. Thank you very much. Okay, bye.

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