Identity Lags Reality

Here’s an excerpt from this month’s Hamilton Neurofeedback Newsletter (which you can sign up for here):

I heard a useful idea in a podcast clip that I wanted to share: our sense of identity lags our reality, typically by 1-2 years. 

In other words: our identity — how we feel about ourselves, the quirks of our personalities, and the automatic reactions built into the wiring of our brains — has a slow rate of turnover compared with changes in our life circumstances. It lags behind our reality.

Here are some examples:

1) Being promoted to a management role and doubting whether you're qualified for the job. You still identify as the newbie at the office, but the reality is the big boss believed you were competent enough to take on something new. Enough hard-earned moments of success in the new role and your identity catches up: "Hey, I'm actually pretty good at this!"

2) Going on a diet, hitting the gym, and dressing better, but still doubting you're attractive. You identify with your ugly duckling past self, but the reality is you've become a swan. Enough looks from people who are — suddenly and surprisingly — interested in you, and your identity catches up: "Wow, I'm hot!"

3) Having built financial security but still feeling financially anxious and insecure. You still identify as someone who struggles to get by, but the reality is you've developed the habits to keep you safe and sound in the long-term. Enough months of not struggling to make rent and your identity catches up: "Oh my god, I don't have to worry!"

Part of why it takes a long time to think of oneself as a good manager, an attractive person, or financially stable is because it takes a lot of 'reps' to change these deeply held, identity-level beliefs — a lot of consistent, repeated, corrective instances of feedback from your environment. In a client's words: "you don't notice when you're growing," it takes having your proverbial Grandma saying "you've grown so much!" before we stop and look in the mirror deeply enough to notice who we've been becoming.

This idea is especially relevant to psychological self-development practices like neurofeedback and psychotherapy because they involve deliberate attempts to change one's identity: how you feel about yourself, the quirks of your personality, and the automatic reactions built into the wiring of your brain.

This idea also explains a pattern I've seen in myself and my clients: changes continue to emerge in people's lives years after they've completed neurofeedback training. I am coming to model changes from neurofeedback in the following ways:

1) Neurofeedback causes near-immediate positive changes to one's brain functioning (e.g. decreased anxiety, better sleep, better focus).

2) These changes allow people to make healthier choices in their lives (e.g. exercising consistently, socializing more comfortably, investing in a rewarding hobby), which go on to create additional positive changes in brain functioning.

3) The slow internalization of these new realities into one's identity in the years after they've completed training — the emergence of a new set of "I-am-the-kind-of-person-that" statements in one's mind, which again go on to create additional positive changes in brain functioning and decision making.

It's this third type that is so interesting partly because personality changes are subtle, rarely spoken about, and a slow, emergent process. You may spend six months or two years reacting to life with less anxiety, but still not recognize yourself as a calm person. You're still expecting an anxious reaction to emerge in you because it takes time and 'reps' to stop expecting this. How would a person who only knows themselves as anxious even recognize that they are now an un-anxious person, rather than an anxious person not currently feeling anxiety?

Perhaps this is why the early stages of self-development often feel so tenuous and tentative. There is an unsureness, a shakiness to experimenting with and eventually relying on a new identity, especially if it might mean being blindsided by your old reactions coming up when you were hoping they wouldn't.

But, after enough 'reps' — enough repeated examples of no longer reacting the old way — your identity begins to change. Each neurofeedback session sows seeds that lay dormant, waiting for the external world to activate them. Eventually, they grow into a foundation as solid and secure a tree's roots in the ground: a sense of identity.

Eventually, you find yourself saying "Wow, this is me now?!"

Identity lags reality.