What is the belief commonly accepted as self-identity? According to Professor Rick Hoyle of the University of Kentucky, “The human self is a self-organizing, interactive system of thoughts, feelings, and motives that characterizes an individual. It gives rise to an enduring experience of physical and psychological existence—a phenomenological sense of constancy and predictability. The self is reflexive and dynamic in nature: responsive yet stable.”
The self can have several identities, both public and private. Identity is not just what you know, but how you came to know it. Identities are realized over time. Think back to when you were a child seeing things in a very trouble-free, non-demanding manner. As you grow older and become shrewder, you identify yourself with very personal experiences, various people’s influences, associate different places and things in additional refined ways.

Your life goals develop and are influenced by your worldview of what you would preferably like to be or avoid being, as well as the influence of culture and faith on what is attainable. Conceptions of self and the world affect how you make progress towards your goals, is monitored, evaluated, redirected, and re-evaluated by your contemporaries and family. Consequently, as we progress on our life’s journey we may have families, become a political advocate, assume human rights advocacy; and, assure environmental safety for the coming
generations. So, we can state that various identities can be present contingent on the world or community you are engaging in at any moment. Your collection of identities can be contained in one physical being, yet as rich and varied as your experiences are.

If you think you need to strengthen or enhance your family of identities, ask yourself:

• Are you aware of your core values and how can they can help you demonstrate your uniqueness of self in the community, the world?
• What do you think your identify is among your peers, your neighborhood, your professional life, your marriage life, motivating, stable, ungrounded without support or assumed to be no-one without a partner?
• If your personal assessment of your identity is faltering in importance, how can you evaluate your strengths and your current achievements to propose a more updated identity for you? Can you make a list of these and truly boast of yourself, and rightly so?
• Do you recognize that you were born with innate gifts that will carry you to fulfillment regardless of the event, fundraising, political speech making whether you are a couple or not?
• If you want to be involved in more than one activity outside of partnership, what actions do you need to take to making yourself available & visible to outside organizations such as, national health organizations or community support groups?
• Even if you are recognized as part of a married couple, what other larger identities do you want to be recognized with such as, the Sierra Club, Boy Scouts of America, And National Cancer Support Group? What is ‘calling’ you that you feel compelled to answer or join?

What is Your Identity?