The Real Self: behind the facade

It was not the first time when one of my students asked a question being unable to comprehend the complexities of human behaviour. I can remember well the state of confusion on his face. Well, of course such questions are not a piece of cake to answer. It needs an elaborative understanding. Whenever I tried to reply, I always entered into a dip pit of my own self and lost. Until I struggled to come out from the muddle of my own inner self.




This whirl pool of curiosity led me to figure out something which I wanted to share with you all. I will borrow few concepts of psychologists Carl Jung and Carl Roger’s to explain this intricacy in my own perception.




Here it goes…. Everyone I know including my own self (I won’t ignore the fact), has two identities; the one with which people develop acquaintance ( they know), and the other with which people are unaware ( I and you know or may be not). What people know is our persona ( term used by Carl Jung), and behind every persona there is a part of our self which is the real self ( term used by Carl Roger).




What i inferred that we all have a choice of two identities. Persona is much more like a mask which seems quite real whereas our real self is what we know but ignores consciously or unconsciously by using a defense mechanism of denial .Let me make it more simpler to differentiate; “the you” known by others and “the you” known by yourself. Interestingly, this persona is built by our fantasized ideals or sometime illusions. We try to incorporate the qualities of our ideals hoping to replicate as it gives super satisfaction to our complexes by following ideal characters. It can be a movie star, a drama celebrity , a fictional hero or a real life ideal. This dilemma of copy-paste led us to ignore what we genuinely are. What we have groomed in us for all those years of life became subservient. I must say living in a persona is just like a ‘desi soul’ living in ‘vades’, misfitting in the environment. It feels like we are lost and alone, in a disposition of mistrust, curiosity and intrigue. Calling others opportunist, hypocrite, dual yet admitting the fact unconsciously that we are swinging in the same swing. We have duality in ourselves– but fearful enough to recognize.

Far away from genuineness, we have fabricated ourselves mainly to follow people’s expectations , societal norms and fast moving trends/ styles of life. Also because we have to disguise our inferiorities.

This incongruence between our persona and our real self is the basic reason for our behavioural complexities. Herein lies the fact that our personalities have gone weird; in a sense that our personalities are not stable, not genuine . we do not say what we want to say , we do not do what we want to do , we say/ do what our persona demands us to say/do. This is the dilemma of human behaviour.

I will refer this dilemma as a “behavioural chaos”. It doesn’t has anything to do with fallibility of human nature, this is what we’ ve incorporated in ourselves intentionally. We’v fixed our masks never letting our inner self to come forward and glare in our eyes.

If you find my inferences worth reading then do consider my few suggestions but with optimism. The foremost thing is ; don’t be scared of your fears. They are not there to scare you, they are keeping some secrets of your life line. Just embrace them. I know it will not be comfortable but do it anyway. The second thing is know yourself : i mean the every aspect of yourself how much painful it may be. Thirdly, bring the guts and admit it; whatever you find in your inner self, though it can be your darkest part. It is a famous saying by Erik Erickson “ the more you know yourself , the more patience you have for what you see in others”. Even for better relationships, knowing your own self is an Important building block. So, it’s never too late to know yourself, to recognize, where is your soul from and what truly it wants. Just muster some courage and peep ones in your inner self , you will find a long track to follow. Uncover the layers of curtain slowly and the intricacies of your inner self will help you to unravel the complex human behaviour . Note: while looking back , holding positivity is mandatory ..:)