RIP Ideal Self

I've taken a few days off writing and instead engaged in an all out brawl with my Ideal Self. The Humanistic Psychologist, Carl Rogers, asserts that humans have two parts to their personalities. There is the real self, the person you are. Then there is the ideal self, the person you want to be. The ideal self is simply our idealized and quite distorted version of ourselves which we've created based on our life experiences, societal pressures, upbringing, and the things we admire in others. Typically, dissatisfaction has a lot to do with the distance between the real self and the ideal self. Many people who experience depression are living in the gap between the ideal self and the real self.

Okay, I'll get more personal. I'll tell you about the brawl and who won and parts of the sordid deal. But only parts. If this was 2011 when the trend was to post ALL of the intimate details of your life, then I'd tell the whole story. But, 2012 is the year of guarded vulnerability, which is really a good kind of vulnerability, I think. Do you see how guarded I am now? I've written three sentences and I still haven't given any details of the brawl.

Well, I've struggled with my ideal self for a long time. How long? I'm not sure. Who keeps track of these things? Throughout my life I've formed this picture of myself, and it is so far from who I actually am that it caused quite a ruckus the other day. My ideal self is highly educated, successful, has dark hair, weighs 163 pounds, runs half marathons, has a wonderful marriage, never gets mad at his kids, and can stand on his own. He doesn't ask for help because he's a stud. My real self has not finished college, has experienced great success but isn't experiencing it now, has ever increasing gray hair, weighs more than 163 pounds (guarded vulnerability clause), tries to run but his feet and knees hurt, struggles through marriage most of the time, sometimes gets upset at the kids and needs help. He has weaknesses and wounds.

The ideal self does one thing really well. It points fingers at the real self's flaws. Things got heated the other day and that part of me was shouting loudly. Thankfully I met with a friend who helped me through. I was so discontent and down on myself that I was losing hope. The ideal self is very effective at creating these sorts of feelings.

We sat at a coffee shop in Lake Oswego, Dennis and I, and he coached me through some things. But mainly he helped me put the ideal self in a head lock and tell the punk to pack his crap and leave. Dennis knows what he's talking about, too. He's one of those guys who has been to hell and back and has made peace with himself. My real self needed someone that day who had walked the road and could show me the way. I needed someone to meet me in my weakness and help me see what I couldn't see myself.

I think I will always have to keep the ideal self in check. I know it. I woke up early this morning, at 4:30, and remembered that I was in charge of what my ideal self looks like. It's part of my personality and it is created with some intention. I started to create a new picture of my ideal self this morning. Strangely, he looks a lot like the real me. This is the meaning of inner peace.