Many years ago I remember my second graduation which
was about to usher me into my secondary school education. I can still hear the
Guest Speaker‘s words echoing in my ear “I AM SOMEBODY” which he had us
repeating several times as though we didn’t know we were indeed individuals. Looking back now I can totally see the depth
of his rhetoric/speech as the point he was driving home was that we are all very
unique beings.
Despite our own individual uniqueness we have aspects
our personality which are common to all. Let’s explore each of them together;
1. Physical
Self
2. Sexual
Self
3. Emotional
Self
4. Socio-Cultural
Self
5. Moral
Self
6. Spiritual
Self
The Physical
Self covers all parts of the body such as face, chest, arms, legs and
others. The body experiences many significant changes throughout life more so
during PUBERTY. During this period it is critical that individuals’ become
sensitized to managing this growth and development.
The Sexual Self
is the state of being identified by a particular gender. It is very important
that individuals begin to recognize their state of sexual being because this
will begin to shape the way they behave and also how they are treated by
others.
The Emotional
Self accounts for humanities predisposal to a wide array of feelings which
may either be positive or negative.
|
Positive Emotions |
Negative Emotions |
|
Happiness |
Sadness |
|
Love |
Hatred |
|
Forgiveness |
Ruthlessness |
|
Joy |
Sorrow |
|
Sympathy/Compassion |
Unsympathetic/Apathy |
|
Empathy |
Indifference |
Our emotional wellbeing
is critical in order for us to become well-rounded citizens of society. The successful
management of our emotions in a productive way is called emotional
intelligence. We begin to form our emotional intelligence by developing good HABITS. I’ll never forget my
Guidance Teacher telling me that habits develop in the following;
1.
It- you do the thing once.
2.
Bit- once becomes twice or even thrice.
3.
A bit- frequently done on and off.
4.
Habit- all day every day, anywhere it
doesn’t matter.
As a way of developing
our self-worth it is most critical that begin to embrace the right approaches
to self-awareness because the habits we begin to develop will begin to shape
who we are and will become overtime. Habits whether good or bad are totally
easy to take hold of our character but very hard to break.
The Socio-Cultural Self – We are all social beings who live in a
society that has a wide variety of ways of living (culture). Culture plays a
significant role in the way we socialize with each other e.g a friend of mine
once told me that while away working in a Muslim he learnt it was not encouraged
for a woman to engage a man in conversion that’s not her husband or close
relative.
As we begin to unfold the
layers of the world we are beginning to experience it becomes dire that we
access those aspects of our culture which will help us to build strong
foundations making us assets to society and not liabilities.
Moral Self and Spiritual
Self will be discussed in part two (2) of “Who Am I”
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