Stay with the unsettled stretch between selves

When the identity you authored stops holding, expect an in-between period and get support rather than rushing to rebuild.

Pourquoi ça marche

If the self-authored system is what a person has been, then seeing it as partial removes the ground it provided before anything replaces it. In one qualitative study of people describing this move, participants reported losing old identifications and an experience of emptiness before a new way of living settled. Knowing that this stretch is part of how the move is described can keep a person from either clinging to the old self or grabbing the first new certainty on offer.

Comment faire

1. Name what has stopped holding: a principle, a role, a story about who you are.
2. Resist building a replacement identity this month. Write down the urge when it comes.
3. Keep the basics steady — sleep, routine, people you trust — while the meaning is unsettled.
4. Find at least one person you can talk to about it regularly, and if the emptiness becomes heavy or lasts, talk to a professional as well.

Données probantes

Balas Rant (2021) analysed 36 self-selected written accounts from people describing their own move from the self-authoring to the self-transforming order, and proposed seven phases that include disassociation from core relationships and identities and an experience of void before a new subject-object relationship. The author notes the study is understudied territory, used only written essays, and was coded by the author alone. (anecdotal)

The sample self-identified as "self-transformative" and was gathered from an online question about spiritual awakening; no one was assessed with Kegan’s interview, so the accounts may describe other kinds of change. Low mood and emptiness also have many other causes and deserve support on their own terms.

Sources

• Balas Rant, M. (2021). The study of movement from self-authoring to self-transformative order of consciousness. Integral Leadership Review, 21(1).

Erreur fréquente

Reading the unsettled stretch as proof of being at a later stage. Losing your footing is not evidence of development; the study describing it did not measure stage.