How Much of “That’s Just Who I Am” Is Actually Who You Are?

Welcome back to The Inspired Artist.

Each Friday, we explore identity, creativity, and the way who you are influences what you create. Then you'll receive a new mixed-media printable to spark your creativity.

How Much of “That’s Just Who I Am” Is Actually Who You Are?

There are certain things we believe we know about ourselves.

We know whether we're confident. We know whether we're good with money, comfortable being seen, creative, disciplined, outgoing, organized, capable of running a business, or someone who finishes what she starts. After enough years of describing ourselves in certain ways, those descriptions can begin to feel like facts.

This is part of your self-concept.

Your self-concept is the collection of beliefs you have about who you are. It develops through your experiences and the conclusions you've made from them, and it becomes one of the ways you understand yourself in relation to the world.

Imagine that somewhere along the way you began believing you weren't very confident. Once that idea became part of how you saw yourself, you started interpreting experiences through it. Walking into a room and feeling uncomfortable made sense because you weren't a confident person. Hesitating before sharing an idea made sense for the same reason. Each experience seemed to provide more evidence for something you had already decided was true.

Eventually, the original conclusion becomes difficult to see because the evidence appears to be everywhere.

This is where self-concept becomes especially interesting. We tend to think our descriptions of ourselves come from observing who we are. Yet the description itself can influence what we notice, how we interpret an experience, and what we expect from ourselves the next time something similar happens.

After years of repetition, a belief can become so familiar that we give it another name.

Personality.

We say, “That’s just who I am.”

And sometimes it is worth becoming curious about that sentence.

When did you first begin describing yourself that way? What experiences taught you that description? How many times have you repeated it since then? And how much of your current life have you interpreted through something you concluded about yourself years ago?

Identity work begins with seeing yourself clearly enough to recognize the difference between who you are and what you have learned to believe about who you are.

From Anaconda Art: Breathe, Darling Crossbody Bag

The artwork on this crossbody began with a message I think we all need at different points in our lives:

“Breathe, darling. It’s not your whole story. This is just a chapter.”

I created the original mixed-media collage with a soulful figure surrounded by botanicals and butterflies, and I loved the idea of turning that artwork into something you could actually take with you.

There are moments when one experience can become so consuming that it starts influencing the way we see everything else. A difficult chapter can even become part of the story we tell about who we are. This piece is a reminder that a chapter is part of your story without having to become the definition of you.

The crossbody is designed for everyday use, with the original artwork and words becoming something more than a design. They become a reminder you can reach for whenever you need to remember that your story is still being written.

You can find the Breathe, Darling Crossbody Bag at the link directly below.

Grab it Here