I'm working on Step 4, conducting a preliminary exploration of my current sense of self and self-esteem. It's not going well. I feel so icky whenever I think about identifying closely with anything.

For example, I read a lot, but if I write down "I like to read", I feel like gagging. The concept becomes intolerably limited if I put it like that. What about all the days I don't feel like reading? And how about the fact that I don't like reading every book? My demand avoidance doesn't help, either. If I look down at "I like to read", my brain instantly responds, "No, I don't!" And I don't like to be perceived, even by myself.

I'm starting to explore more moment-to-moment ways of feeling my sense of self. For example, today I had to wait at the pharmacy until my prescription was filled, and I decided to contemplate my sense of self in that moment. The first thing I thought was, "I am mentally weak", because the lights were bright, the pharmacy had loud music, and I was worried about having to interact with the pharmacist. I also felt a smaller voice saying, "No, I am mentally strong for coming out here and getting my prescription filled despite the challenges". And in my heart, I didn't feel that either interpretation was accurate, or that I was even looking at the situation from the right angle.

I realized that in that moment, I didn't have to commit to either possibility. I could simply hold those ideas in my orbit until I found better ones, or maybe even forever. I thought to myself with certainty, "I prefer to keep ideas about my personal traits in orbit". It wasn't the sense-of-self observation I expected, but it felt right.

Going forward, I think most of my Step 4 exploration will not involve pen and paper. I trust that my moment-to-moment observations will keep leading me to the insights I need, but didn't necessarily expect.

Share questions:

• How do I feel when writing down things about my sense of self?
• Are there other ways I prefer to explore my self identity? What might they be?
• Does demand avoidance play a role in my choices for exploring sense of self?
• Have I tried to explore my sense of self in the past? What happened? What, if anything, is different about this time?
• Any resources, strategies, or tools that helped me?
• Anything else to add?