erikson’s idea that {1.1c} a strong sense of identity requires a sense of continuity suggests that maintaining your sense of identity is an ongoing process. we collect experiences, perspectives, and feedback over time – all of which add to the available pool of elements that can be added to and removed from your {1.1} self-definition.

continuity here refers to the logical progression of your sense-of-self; it’s the feeling that who you are is connected to who you were and who you hope to become.

in order to understand that progression and find that connection, you have to integrate – that is, successfully assimilate into your worldview – your embodied experience, your shifting self-definitions, and general elements of identity. this is how you reorient yourself to yourself.

1. by embodied experience i’m referring to what you physically know to be true. these are things that have happened, or are materially true about you…
2. by self-definitions, i’m referring to your sense-of-self and the way it’s changed over time…
3. elements of identity refers to the pieces of you that can be tried on, taken on and off – ideas, values, goals, preferences, desires… what kinds of elements are available to you as result of your past / available now / would you like to have available in the future?

see also {1.3c2} shadow work // {1.3c1} shadow integration