What is Self-Actualization | Defining ‘Self’

The other night I was delivering a workshop and one of the members asked me what Self-Actualization was.

My instinctual answer was that “self-actualization is a dance between being and becoming”.

In this article I will begin to break apart that statement, starting by breaking down the word ‘self’.

The word ‘self’ seems simple enough but the truth is that it is is a bit more complicated than it seems. On first glance it seems like a simple noun, but it is a very special kind of noun. It is a ‘thing’ that is non-physical – quite different from nouns like ‘car’, ‘table’ and ‘tree’.

In NLP we would refer to that kind of noun as a nominalization. Nominalization are actually processes disguising themselves as nouns and a great nominalization test is whether or not you can put the ‘thing’ in your closet or in the back of a truck. If not, you’re probably dealing with a non-physical thing, a process.

So let’s get back to ‘self’. Sure, you can put your ‘body’ into the back of a truck but your ‘self’ is always changing – you are a process. Has your ‘self’ not changed quite a bit since you were a child? And it will continue to change as you learn, grow, and develop.

‘Self’ is also an interesting concept because our ‘self’ can be layered. In Neuro-Semantics we refer to this process as multiordinality. Have you ever said something along the lines of “I love when I do that”?

So which ‘you’ are you? The you who ‘did that’ or the you who ‘loves it’?

The fact is that ‘self’, as a concept, can be layered. “I am fascinated that I love that I do that, and I am surprised that I am aware of this process.”

My point here is that there are layers of self and that ‘self’ is a process.

You are not a ‘human is’.

You are a ‘human being’, and in addition to that you are a ‘human becoming’.

And in the overlapping of of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ is where self-actualization opportunities lay waiting.

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