Letting Go Of Self

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Many people in recovery from alcoholism or other major addictions have experienced a profound letting go of self, particularly their addictive self, and the associated self will. Usually they can tell you how their addictive self used to be experienced as real, and blinded them to their truer self. This shows clearly how the central self is (I or me) is experienced as real, at the time it is dominating a person.

To develop a deeper but practical understanding of this, it is helpful to start by getting a clearer idea of what is meant by 'self'.

Self and image – Knowing and experiencing

When you look around and see other people, that is just what you see, other people, persons. And of course you know that when other people look around and they see you, they are seeing just another person to

That is what we know. But what we know about something is not the same as how we experience it. In the way we experience being seen by others, our minds put it to us that they are not so much seeing a person but are seeing "me".

That sense of "me" is tied to what we experience ourselves to be rather than what we know about ourselves.

It is tied to a kind of "self image" that is in the background of our awareness virtually all the time. This image is a 'felt' image, not a visual one.

We usually don't notice this kind of 'self' image because it is so much part of the automatic feel or sense of what we are to ourselves, It gives us our sense of identity. Once you learn to notice it, it seems very familiar.

Try this out now: You can get the feel of self by pausing for a moment and just running this through your mind: "of course I know I'm a person, but I'm not just a person, I'm me" ... or ... "of course I know I'm a person, but I don't experience myself as a person, I experience myself as me".

If you try this, let yourself get the inward feel of 'me', rather than the more outward think of 'me'. It helps to close your eyes while you are feeling this out.

Pop-up 1: 'Self is image, experienced as real'

What kind of image is 'self' image?

This kind of 'self' image is not a visual image. It is most important to realise this.

These 'self' images are images we feel, not images we see. These images probably developed out of the feel of our bodies as we were growing up and as adults.. So they can be thought of as felt images. Images we feel the shape and form of, inside us somewhere, rather than images we see in our minds.

An example can make it clearer. When someone is feeling anxious, there is often, behind the feeling, a sense of being "little" or "small" or "less than" in some way. The person or situation they are worried about starts to loom larger and larger and inside the person, "I", feels smaller and smaller.

Pop-up 2: 'Jan was in her late thirties when she recognised and connected with 'little me'.

Most people have had Jan's experience to some degree. But in some people, there is a permanent sense of being little; often people with this have not realised it, just because it is so much part of their feel and sense of themselves. But it is a 'self' image, a "little me" image that has always been part of their unrecognised sense of identity.

We experience 'self' images as being inside us somewhere; that is 'in me'. That's why we have expressions like 'inner self', or 'what's going on in me?'

If you think you may have some of this in you, ask yourself: "is it somewhere in me, as if I am little, or less than others."

If you were to look to see whether you had a "little me" image, you wouldn't look for something visual. You would look for the feel or the form or the sense of being little in you somewhere. So it would be more like sensing or feeling it rather than seeing it.

You may find instead, or as well, a sense of you that is strong and will just push through a situation. This is another image and it can balance out the effect of the image of being little.

Or you may find a sense of you that is going to be clever and get over this situation. This 'self' image may give you a sense of being a little bit superior, a bit above others.

Another 'self' image, easily recognised by people with addictions, is 'sneaky' me.

An inner world of self and image

When we're talking about 'self' image, we are not talking about an image of a self: we are talking about an image of a person; the image is in that same person. It is image of a person in that same person. However it is not experienced or recognized by the person as an image, it is experienced as real, as being 'me', or, 'what I am'.

But, as you may have found out, there is not just one 'self' image in a person. There is a whole inner world of self and feeling that most people are not really aware of but which has enormous influence over them.

Pop-up 3: 'More than one 'self' image in a person'

Some of these 'self' images are very deep. They give us our most private inward sense of identity. Other 'self' images are at a more ordinary level and are just part of the day-to-day feel of who and what we are. They are so much part of our background experience of our selves that they are not noticed.

These 'self' images being in the mind and the psyche, can have a lot of distortion and unreality built into them. In fact, what is carried by the 'self ' images in the person is often very different to what is actually true about the person. However, distorted or not, they are not recognized as being images; they are experienced as 'just me'.

About self

Self is inside and is image

So "self' applies to what we experience as ourselves from the inside, through 'self' images that our brains create for us. It is what to you, is you, inside you,

When you see or hear the phrase "in the person" or "in you" or "inside" "inner self'; it is important to pause and let yourself think; "what is "in"?"; "where is in?"; where is "in me". Otherwise it is easy to just read the words without grasping what they connect with in you.

"In" means in your sense of what is you. Not in your body, not just in your mind, but in your feel of what is you.

Self is image but experienced as real:

Even though it is image, and 'inside' a person , 'self' is experienced as being real.

This is very important; you don't experience 'self' image as images, you experience them as being you. You don't even know a 'self' image is there, because to you, it is automatically just you.

And, strangely enough, when you do learn to recognize a 'self' as image, and that it is very distorted, perhaps very negative, even though you know it is image in you, you will still experience it as real.

For many people it is important to believe that self (I or me) does exist. Well, if so, it does: but where? It exists in the person, not in the world. It exists as experienced in the person, but not actually, not in the world. It is the person that exists. Self (I or me) is a kind of construction created through brain activity. It is very much part of the person, and very important, but it is not what the person is.

It is only as your self help process starts to work, that a troublesome self image will start to lose its apparent reality. If it's an intense or deeply entrenched 'self' image you may need a therapist to help you work through it. But in time, you will start to recognize it for what it is: an image in a person. As this happens that troublesome self starts to lose its power and influence in you; then, how you experience yourself changes in ways that you couldn't imagine before it happened.

At the same time this is happening, you need to be building up the positive and powerful understanding that what you actually are, is a person, and one of everyone. Your inner experience of self will move from being trapped in 'me as me' toward the freer flow of 'me is a person'.

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