Submit a quarter-page typewritten summary of the assigned reading packet IDENTIT
ID: 3485704 • Letter: S
Question
Submit a quarter-page typewritten summary of the assigned reading packet
IDENTITY AND THE FORMATIVE PROCESSs 73 gone almost entirely into winning food, shelter, and safety, and our identities have been consistent with our needs. Nowadays, however, for a lot of us these basic needs are being met. And the moment our needs are met, we are presented with a surplus of energy We then ex perience a yearning to move into new situations, to make new connections, to allow new forms and images to emerge in our living IDENTITY AND THE FORMATIVE PROCESS The uniqueness of us human animals is that we are open-ended. Our lifetimes continually offer us fresh pos- sibilities for forming unprecedented relationships with others and with our surround. Our open-endedness is in trinsic to our human unfolding Our continual forming gives rise to feelings of joy Our bodily experiencing gives rise to a continuity of feeling that shapes itself as us. The shape of our own ex- perience is our own identity. When we diminish our odily experiencing, we subject ourselves to letting others tell us who we are ("You're a salesman"; "You're an engineer") and who to be ("Be a more pleasant per son"; "Be a loyal worker"). It is our somatic messages that help us weather the need for approval and the pain of rejection. As soon as we dismiss these messages, we begin to adopt ready-made images and roles. and also to feelings of unsureness, feelings of anxiety When we feel anxious, many of us try to contain our excitement by holding back, holding on to the status quo, contracting and constricting rather than choosing to expand. We formulate philosophies, dogmas, and other image-systems which, by stereotyping us, assure us a sense of perpetual identity. But when we try to systematize ourselves and this systematizing is not neces- sary for survival, we feel shame and guilt-the guilt of shrinking away from our potential for uniquely forming our selves For years we have been content to relate to our selves and to each other on the basis of roles that have been handed down to us. We have perpetuated precise categories for defining the nature of who we are-for pinpointing what it is to be a woman, what it is to be a man, what it is to be sexual, to be adult and mature Most of us attempt to create our identities by imitating We are situated between our process of ongoingness and our attempts to retreat from that process. We are situated between wanting to establish a set of givens and being willing to let the old dissolve while the new is formed. We are situated between self-maintaining and self-forming, between preserving a status quo and mov- ing toward the ambiguous, the uncertain and iving out these preconceived roles. When we challenge old patterns--stereotyped roles, Ever since anyone can remember, our energy hasExplanation / Answer
the shape of our won experience is our own identity. most of us attempt to create identity by imitating and living out these preconceived roles. the uniqness of humans that we are open ended.our open endedness is intrinsic to our human unfoldings. we are situvated between self maintaining and self forming and pbetween preserving status quo and moving towards uncertain.
evolution is the emotion of feelings. when we experience our bodies forming with pleasure we discover our own identity.
cultural roles shape the identity in three ways . first as children we expect them to identify self mastery and adopt social roles . second as young we ask them to take occupational roles. third as adult we ask them to take biological and sexual roles.
there are two purposes for identitiy : first it gives a shape by which we categorize and judge. second gives a sense of inner continuity and self recoginition upon which i can act. the roles assumed forms feelings.
roles are organized collective behavior. each self image reflects unique self forming. adult patterning styles sts the tone for enhancing or squashing of a chid self image. children identify their roles through thei rparental bodies. the living body which feels and dreams are the ways of forming a self image. apart from our roles our biological experiences hives us a personal vision of contunity and contectedness that forms our livimg image.