You Resist Your Inner Multitudes Because You Fear Not Having a Simplified Identity

For anyone who has been taught to be as easily understood as possible, accepting your inner multitudes can be seen as a betrayal of this conditioned people-pleasing. You might notice yourself rejecting all of what calls to you because it doesn’t fit into a simplified category of who you are or who you think you should be. You see yourself as one-dimensional, not because you actually are, but because it was always safer for you to be. To accept and indulge in your multitudes as a person would have threatened the identities of those who conditioned you to simplify yourself into oblivion.

It seems safer to be simple because it means you don’t have to risk being misunderstood. You fear having to explain yourself and it being revealed that you’re not as easy, convenient, or fun as others might desire you to be. At some point throughout your life, you were shown that your inner depth and breadth were too much to handle, particularly for those who struggle to handle their own. So, as a people pleaser, having a one-dimensional identity made it easier for you to contain the multitudes of others—those who couldn’t manage their own—while rejecting yours in favour of a self-concept that kept you small, safe, and certain.