Self as context
I’m a good mother.
I have been since way before I actually became a mother to a child, at least so did most of my friends and family say. And I agreed with them. Since my childhood, I seemed to have all the qualities to make a good mother. I have been a “natural".
Finally I became a mother for real. I had a baby, and I was very excited! This is something I have waited for. I have it in me and now I just have to wait for it to express itself. I had this idea that somehow everything would magically come to me… that I would just always “know" what to do and when. After all, I’m a natural! (I have to say, there are those moments too… and they’re beautiful!)
But no, often times I did not know what to do! My son would be crying and I would be “searching” for something inside me that “just knows” what it is about. Every time I did not know what to do, it would hurt the part of me that believed “I’m a good mother". Am I not then? All these years I thought I was a natural… apparently I’m not a natural! Sometimes my husband would be right about something that I wasn’t! That would hurt so much more. (No offense meant, mister!)
I tried to ask myself- Why? Why does it hurt me when I don’t know something about my baby? Why does it hurt when my husband is right about my baby, and I’m not? And I would hear in my mind “because you thought you’re a natural at being a mother, but apparently you are not.”
That was difficult to deal with. I had believed it for too long to be able to just accept quickly that I was wrong about myself all my life. I would get defensive- “that’s not true!” And would often blame something or someone and redirect my emotion. But every next time, I would feel hurt again. I left that conflict unattended for some time until I came across something that pushed me to change how I think about this.
Get Shruthi Rajalakshmi’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I was taking an online course on Psychological flexibility, and one of the concepts covered there was “Self as context”. It explained how “Self as content” is an inflexible approach and “self as context” is a flexible approach that serves us better. Let me explain…
We have notions about ourselves as being a certain type of person. “I’m an introvert,” “I’m a carefree person,”, “I’m an open minded person,” “I’m a bad driver,” “I’m a good cook,” “I’m a bad mother”… “I’m a good mother”. Often times we associate our identity, with content such as the above. We are so set in our minds that that’s “who we are”, that when life offers opportunities to challenge those ideas, we feel threatened. And naturally so. The idea of doubting the very essence of who we are, or who we have thought ourselves to be all our lives, is quite frankly scary. And naturally we resist it, and try to prove it wrong… so we can continue to believe what we believe about who we are. Loosely speaking, this is what “Self as content” looks like.
“Self as context” on the other hand, is an approach that moves away from having a fixed idea about ourselves, and moves towards recognizing that we can be many things. And this can vary by context. I can feel like an introvert sometimes and like an extrovert sometimes. I can sometimes be good at something, and bad at the same thing at other times. I am perhaps mostly an carefree person, but I may find myself being tight or anxious sometimes. I may have been one way when I was 10 years old, changed by the time I was 20 years old, may have evolved to something different by 30, and who knows what would have changed when I’m 40?
This is not to say we have no certainty about what we are or who we will be. There’s our core “person” that’s still the same throughout. The ten year old me is still me. The 70 year old me will also be me. However, all the various characteristics of the person (me) can vary, across time or even within the same time period. Beauty is, it can be very much in our hands how we shape it. However, for us to be even be able to “shape” it, we must recognize that part of our “self” is dynamic. That recognition allows us to shape who we are, while being flexible about it all the way.
Even though “I’m a good mother” is a positively inclined content about myself, it did not serve me because- I was either treating myself harshly for making mistakes, or trying to blame someone else / or something else (life / situation / fate etc) for my own feelings… AND, I didn’t do the one thing that would serve me best- Learn! If being a “good mother” is really that important to me, I might as well use every opportunity to learn to be better… and better. Assuming that I have to be good at it all the time literally does not allow me to be as good as I can be. I found that it is counter-productive.
I decided then, “I am a good mother” is not anymore “who I am”, but “what I value.” This not only helps me be more accepting of mistakes and errors in judgement, it also helps me grow and move in the direction of what I value.
I have not perfected this way of thinking, however, this is my pursuit.
Note: Self as context is one of the six processes described in “Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT)” . You can find more information about this model in this link.
