Allow me to lay out a conceptual framework for self-identification. I've been thinking much about it.

There are four general states which we can choose to identify with.

1. Cognitive - We identify with our thoughts, intellectualism, humor, wit, or skill at a cognitively-focused activity, such as chess, academics, problem-solving, etc

2. Emotional - We identify with our emotional patterns. When anxiety arises, we latch on to it, allowing the emotion to birth subsequent thoughts of anxiety. But we are riding the waves of emotional change, so as anxiety falls, our thoughts change to rationalize the emotional perspective. We attach to our highs, getting wrapped up in excitement or joy. We attach to our lows, with self-pity, victimization, and self-destructive tendencies. We identify with these states when we cannot let go of them, walk away of them.

3. Physical - We identify with the state of our bodies - on a basis of daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly change. Like all of these categories, this can manifest in a multitude of forms. Obsession with image, physical fitness, or illness. We identify with the form we take as a physical entity in a physical world.

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These three are the primary modes of identification in western cultures. Throughout a given day, an individual will likely cycle through each of these categories, and they will not necessarily occur independent of one another. They are inherently related. Some of us tend towards one form of identification over another. Many of us develop any one of an array of disorders or ailments through our excessive obsession with only one or two of these aspects of identity.

Over-identification with cognition can result in fear and mood disorders, a variety of uniquely experienced anxiety and depressive disorders.

Over-identification with emotion can equally result in anxiety disorders, especially trauma-related anxiety disorders. Here is also the basis of a handful of personality disorders. Although depressive disorders are more likely to begin with cognitive-identification, they'll be necessarily exacerbated by emotional identification - this introduces the cyclic nature of mental illness.

Over-identification with the physical may result in disorders of greed or self-obsession, such as narcissism, kleptomania, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, hypochondria, and chronic muscle pains.

These three forms of self-identification are secondary. There is a fourth choice, one which is primary, a pluripotent stem cell which allows for the emergence of creation through cognitive, emotional, and physical patterns. It is from this fourth place that true creativity is bred, and it is in identification with this state that all successful people, to varying extents, operate.

4. The fourth mode of identification is that of awareness.

When undergoing an emotionally difficult experience, or a series of negative, unstoppable thoughts, one must ask oneself: who is the "I" which experiences these thoughts? Who experiences these emotions? Because, certainly, you have noticed that there is always something more present. You are not only your emotions, and you are not only your thoughts.

So who are you?

Awareness, a state of observation that possesses limitless potential, as its avenues of probabilistic possibility remain unexplored and infinite. This is the inner self that births all creation, all spiritual strength, and all perseverance through suffering.

Those who identify with their inner awareness, their mindful embodiment off self, are those who, later, may learn to orchestrate the symphony of their mind. Those people who choose non-judgmental awareness as their basis of perception are those who shape their own lives, and who hold the power to shape the lives of others.

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The people who identify primarily with awareness are those of great success. They are physicists, as Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein; they are poets, as Emerson and Thoreau; they are ancients, as Confucius, Lao Tzu, Socrates, and the spiritual leaders of Christ, Muhammad, and Buddha; they are warriors, as Alexander the Great, and kings as Caesar, and many of the ancient east. They are artists, as Da Vinci and Picasso, and musicians, as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Chopin. They are limitless and inexhaustible in list, for many humans have found this way of being without great fame.

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I mean not to glorify this state, mind you. I wish only to highlight, as clearly as I can, a method, a strategy of being human that has proven more successful than those which we most commonly use.

We may choose, in any moment, to identify in one of four ways. Those are identification with thoughts, with emotions, with body, or with awareness.

Consider this fourth option, and consider, with an open heart, that it may be a state of being that you have yet to fully appreciate. It is from this state that we find our greatest potential as individuals within the mosaic of humanity. It is from this place of being human that we can, once again, regain our humanity.

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Thank you so much for reading, all replies, critiques, and questions are welcome. (:

-dimethylt