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Collection Highlights

Go F ck I Mean Find Yourself The Wisdom You Need to Get

Off Your Ass and Create Your Best Self Glenn Lutz

Get Your Life Together ish A No Pressure Guide for Real

Life Self Growth Julia Dellitt

Letting go of good dispel the myth of goodness to find

your genuine self First Edition Mathews

Enneagram The Secret Way to Find Your Personality Type and

Strengthen Relationships to Achieve Spiritual Growth and
Self Discovery Bonus A Test on How to Find Your
Personality Type Owen Grahart
Productivity Get Things Done and Find Your Personal Path
to Success Gill Hasson

Kid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build

Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem Eileen Kennedy-
Moore

Kant and the philosophy of mind : perception, reason, and

the self 1st Edition Gomes

Neurotechnologies of the Self: Mind, Brain and

Subjectivity 1st Edition Jonna Brenninkmeijer (Auth.)

The Living Politics of Self-Help Movements in East Asia

1st Edition Tom Cliff
“Drawing on psychological research and clinical experience, Kate
Gustin offers a profound understanding of our truest identity under-
neath the mind’s story, helping us connect with the peaceful, inter-
connected consciousness at our core. The No-Self Help Book is a
refreshing and timely antidote to the rampant loneliness of our
times.”

—Marci Shimoff, #1 New York Times bestselling

author of Happy for No Reason

“Kate Gustin’s The No-Self Help Book is a new approach to emo-

tional healing that provides simple, clear-minded lessons on getting
away from the negative, bullying voice of the constructed self. As
you learn to ignore the false narrative, you’ll see yourself through
new eyes as you discover that you’re not who the voice inside you
says you are, or who you pretend to be. Instead, you discover the
authentic being within each of us who is capable of relaxed joy and
awareness.”

—Anne Lamott, author of Almost Everything

“If you were to try to define yourself, how would you do that and
what would your SELF look like? Treat yourself to the concept of
NO SELF and discover how you are not just your mind’s stories.”

—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Love

“Kate Gustin’s quirky and compelling book subtracts the self out of
self-help! She communicates a powerful and ageless spiritual truth
in a way that is accessible, humorous, and compassionate. Highly
recommended!”

—Mariana Caplan, PhD, MFT,

author of Yoga and Psyche and Eyes Wide Open

“Kate Gustin has written a book that is at once insightful, refresh-

ing, playful, and truly wise. The No-Self Help Book goes to the very
root of our unhappiness and insecurity: as long as we think we’re
separate from the rest of life, we aren’t enough and will remain stuck
in the prison of our minds. When we learn to see ourselves from the
illuminating perspective presented in these pages, we can under-
stand that from the beginning we were always enough just as we are.
Then we can play at being who we truly are instead of taking our-
selves so seriously. How liberating!”

—James Baraz, cofounder of Spirit Rock Meditation

Center in Woodacre, CA; coauthor of Awakening Joy
THE
NO-SELF
HELP
BOOK
40 Reasons to
Get Over Your Self &
Find Peace of Mind
KATE GUSTIN, PhD

NON-DUALITY PRESS
An Imprint of New Harbinger Publications
 Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information
in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the
publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other
professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of
a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright © 2018 by Kate Gustin

Non-Duality Press
An imprint of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com

Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Elizabeth Hollis Hansen;

Edited by Jean Blomquist

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

     
                          
 To the Great Mystery,
with gratitude
from a “spiritual being having a human experience.”
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)
A human being is part of the whole, called
by us “Universe,” a part limited in time
and space. He experiences himself, his
thoughts and feelings as something
separate from the rest—a kind of optical
delusion of his consciousness. The striving
to free oneself from this delusion…to try
to overcome it is the way to reach the
attainable measure of peace of mind.

—Albert Einstein
Contents

Foreword    ix

Introduction    1

Part 1: Selfhoods
1. The Imposter Self    11
2. The Self Slices and Dices    13
3. The Self Freezes    15
4. The Dictator Self    17
5. The Self Seeks Esteem    19
6. The Self Wants    21
7. The Self Needs    23
8. The Self Whines    25
9. The Self Is Picky    27
10. The Self Smirks    29
11. The Self Strikes Out    31
12. The Self Steals Credit    33
13. The Self Is Selfish    35
14. The Self Gets Rejected    36
15. The Self Checks Out    38
The No-Self Help Book

16. The Self Stays Stuck    40

17. The Self Second-Guesses    42
18. The Self Suffers Scarcity    44
19. The Self Erodes    46
20. The Self Dies    48

Part 2: No-Self Speaks

21. No-Self: The Biggest Bang    53
22. No-Self: Fuel Efficient    55
23. No-Self: The Better Lover    57
24. No-Self, No Shoulding    59
25. No-Self, No Calories    61
26. No-Self, No Judgment    63
27. No-Self, No Time to Lose    65
28. No-Self, No Tests    66
29. No-Self: Selfless Parenting    68
30. No-Self Tastes Better.    70
31. No-Self, No Lost or Found    72
32. No-Self, No Lack    74
33. No-Self, No Target    76
34. No-Self, No Aging    78

vi
 Contents

Part 3: To Self or Not to Self?

35. The Effectiveness Test    83
36. Acting As If    88
37. Smart Selfing    93
38. Off the I-land    102
39. The No-Self Revolution    105
40. The Homing Beacon    109

MeSearch    113

Acknowledgments    173

References    175

vii
Foreword

Let’s start off with a question to help you slap yourself across your face,
in the most spiritual way imaginable, of course. Who would you rather
live your life as?

1. Who you think you are?

2. Who you want to be?

3. Who you actually are?

Tuck your answer under your mala beads for just a second; we’ll
look it in the eyes in just a moment.
Hell isn’t a fun place (just in case you thought otherwise). There’s
a lot of opinions about what hell is, ranging from being in an eternally
overheated sauna, to being surrounded by noise when you just want to
meditate or meditating when you’re just craving noise, to being
depressed or feeling empty inside. Yet, I dare say, what’s more hella-
cious than all those terrible places that we visit from time to time is
that trump card of hell we deal ourselves from the deck of life: “trying
to be someone you’re not.”
Nobody knows the purpose of life…until this paragraph. (Just
pretend I know this; it’ll make this paragraph seem more impactful.)
Maybe the purpose of life is for you to live your life. In other words, for
you to deal yourself the heaven-on-earth card of graceful permission
for you to be you. Similarly, maybe the purpose of a tree’s life is for it to
be the unique tree that it is. Not for it to think that it’s a different
kind of tree. Not for it to try to be a dolphin. And not for it to think
it should be a dolphin tree or any other variation of the self-created
The No-Self Help Book

hell that it might bring upon itself by trying to be something it’s not.
The sooner the tree can cut through the psychological scar tissue of
thinking that it is something it’s not, the sooner it can step into the
peaceful flow of living its life by allowing itself to be what it already is:
a tree.
You are a tree. That’s who you really are, a tree. Just kidding,
you’re probably not a tree. Yet it would’ve been really convenient if
you were a tree, because I think the tree analogy would’ve ended with
a lot of literary authority—by me telling you that you’re a tree. But
this book that you’re holding was probably made from a tree. Now you
probably feel fully integrated with the tree metaphor, so you can
realize you are not the tree literally—yet metaphorically, you defi-
nitely are the tree.
What was your answer to the slap-in-the-face question? Many of
us are convinced that we are who we think we are. Like there’s some
kind of magical correlation between our sense of certainty around
who we think we are and the truth of who we are. How much think-
ing, interpretation, stories, and reinforcement do you put into trying
to be who you think you are? AND (written in all-caps so you know
it’s the beginning of a challenging proposition) what if who you think
you are, your sense of self, isn’t even close to who you really are? What
if the sequoia believed with 100-percent certainty that it was an apple
tree?
Or what about the option of putting your life force into living as
who you want to be? This option is a glorious one, especially for us self-
helpers who have taken steps of personal empowerment and probably
have at least three vision boards in our trophy case. The excitement
around deciding who you want to be and going after it with all of your
intentionality, affirmations, and beliefs is sexy as hell. Yet no matter

x
 Foreword

how sexy, it’s still hell because it isn’t you. The sequoia who wants to
be a millionaire circus clown is still torturing itself with the betrayal
of not allowing itself to discover and be who it really is.
What about the least ego-gratifying option, living as who you
actually are? Maybe it’s the most obvious choice to direct our mind
and body resources in order to have a beautiful life, and that’s what
makes it the hardest to find. You were hiding in plain sight all along,
but your awareness was blind to your obviousness because it was
looking outward, into the thought fields and imagination, to your
seductive mind’s story of who it thinks you are or who it thinks you
should be. Slicing through the stories and ideas about who you are, as
well as your allegiance to them, means you transcend the hell of indif-
ference of just settling for who you think you are. And you transcend
the purgatory of arrogance that accompanies thinking you should be
who you want to be or who others think you should be. It means you
arrive at a place of humbleness in which you don’t try to define who
you are; you curiously discover who you are. And it’s a place of courage
where you don’t just try to mentally comprehend who you are; you live
who you are.
I can’t be certain of anything because I am certain that I’m not
certain of anything, yet I can say that in my experience, we are all our
own unique version of the sequoia. When we realize that we have
been beyond our own imagination of ourselves all along, we can let go
of confining ourselves to the claustrophobic container that keeps us
playing life small and take bold steps into the mystery of who we really
are. While you will definitely encounter fears, insecurities, and chal-
lenges as you become the willing adventurer exploring the mystery of
you, you’ll very likely find the geyser of meaning and fulfillment that
makes your life a much more enriched experience.

xi
The No-Self Help Book

And into the journey of the mystery you go, wonderfully guided
by Kate Gustin. My crystal ball tells me that you’ll find a lot of fruit as
Kate challenges you to level up your awareness to see the many
nuances of the psychological hiding places you may be constructing
to conceal yourself in while thinking you’re the hiding place. As your
awareness brings new daylight to an old reality, hell transitions to
heaven as Kate then guides you to lean deeper into the mystery of you.
Please make space for grief, anger, fear, insecurity, and relief as you
dive in. True transformation is a courageous effort, not an easy one.
Yet it’s always meaningful. Sometimes we all need to slap ourselves in
the egoic face to find our heart and soul. The No-Self Help Book is
engineered to offer a phenomenal slap. Enjoy!

—JP Sears
Life coach and author of
How to Be Ultra Spiritual:
12½ Steps to Spiritual Superiority

xii
Introduction

No-self?? What does that even mean? Aren’t we simply born as a self?
Good question. Yes, we each assume that we are a self—an indi-
vidual body complete with its very own individual mind, a two-in-one
package. Being a self appears to be a given, a universal truth in the
same camp as the sky is blue and gravity keeps us on the ground.
Have you ever wondered, though, what you would find were you
to unwrap this all-too-obvious package of self? What would lie at the
center, beneath the ribbons and bows, the cardboard box?
If you’re like most people, you might argue that something solid
and real exists inside. Not only that, you might say that this interior
self constitutes the most important aspect of who you are. And an
entire industry agrees with you. “Self-help” has been built around
understanding this self and catering to its needs. Visit any bookstore
and you will find a prominent self-help section dedicated to the self’s
cultivation and healing: texts on guiding the self out of hardship;
transforming the self in and out of relationship; coaching the self to
be more resilient, less angry, more assertive, less dependent, more
loving, less addicted, more successful, less introverted, more produc-
tive, less distracted, more balanced, less reactive, more creative, less
anxious, more happy…well, you get the idea.
Should we gather from the hundreds of troubleshooting manuals
in print that the mysterious contents of our self-box are defective?
Personally, I do not believe so. And professionally, after working
for years as a psychologist at a medical center’s department of psychia-
try, I have not found any evidence to suggest that people are
The No-Self Help Book

fundamentally broken or damaged at the core. In fact, I have not

found any evidence proving that a tangible self exists at the core at
all.
No self? But what’s the alternative?
I hear you. And I, too, can appreciate the apparent absurdity of
it. But this is where it gets interesting. We are learning from psychol-
ogy and neuroscience, and from carefully looking at our own experi-
ence through fresh eyes, that we are not who we think we are.
Humanity has been brainwashed by the inner voice of the mind,
the one that accompanies us 24/7 and comments on our every waking
moment. The one that narrates our thoughts and feelings and then
offers a critique about them, telling us what we should be thinking or
feeling. The one who labels us as “not enough” or “better than” and
dishes out silent judgment toward others.
This inner voice—which we believe to be that of our self—has
trained us to relate to it as if it were a solid nugget residing somewhere
in our brain. And yet, that voice in the head is a story of who we are,
not really who we are.
The self is like the announcer of a ball game—announcing each
play as it occurs, providing background information about the ath-
letes, speculating about the season’s prospects, creating the overall
story of the game. But the story of the game is obviously not the game
itself. The game happens independently of whether the announcer is
present or not. The self-commentator has mistaken itself as the ball
game, which is to say that, collectively, we have mistaken the voice in
our heads as our true being.
Such mistaken identity comes at a cost. The self-voice, though
quite capable of being affirming, inspiring, and constructive, often
generates a distressing torrent of worry and second-guessing, shaming

2
 Introduction

and blaming, regret and guilt. No one’s self is immune to the unre-
lenting barrage. Here’s a sampling of my self’s outpouring: Should I be
outing myself publicly as not having a self? What will book reviewers think?
What will my parents think?
While such shoulda, woulda, coulda mind-chatter may seem
innocuous, self-talk, over time, tends to turn into unhealthy narra-
tives. It becomes the source of emotional pain and impairment. For
instance, a retired paramedic entered my office with a self-story that
he must rescue others in order to be of value. Physically incapable of
performing anymore as a first responder, he struggled with depression,
unable to update his heroic self-narrative to acknowledge his matur-
ing stage of life and his other valuable roles and contributions. This
left him feeling stuck and helpless, paralyzed by his mind’s judgment
of himself as useless.
Here’s another example of the potency of the mind’s narrative. A
middle-aged woman who was sexually assaulted decades ago met with
me to address eating and weight issues. She unconsciously continued
to hold the belief that she needed to be obese in order to be unattract-
ive and, thus, invisible to society and safe from future assault. Her
weight complicated her diabetes and other significant health prob-
lems, but her self-story told her that losing pounds would only make
her vulnerable to being victimized again by others. For this reason,
she continued her unregulated, harmful eating habits.
We can see that the mind-made self can spin a complex and
often problematic narrative out of the circumstances of our lives.
Decades of psychotherapy and self-help practices have shown that we
do have the ability to talk back to the mind and reconfigure this nar-
rative more constructively. We can mend the story of the wounded
self, the addicted self, the fearful self. But no matter how much

3
The No-Self Help Book

reauthoring we do, the self will continue to spin out its sticky stories.
And we will continue to buy into them.
Until we don’t.
Until we disentangle ourselves from the self’s web altogether.
How?
By not taking the self’s stories at face value, as literal truth. By
disidentifying with the voice in our heads rather than endlessly ana-
lyzing or doctoring it. By no longer assuming the mind to be who and
what we are.
Well…maybe, but who am I then, if not the self in my head?
Another good question.
For thousands of years, the human race has grappled with the
ultimate inquiry: Who am I? Prominent religious leaders, spiritual
teachers, philosophers, scientists, and academics of all stripes have
tried to describe the essential human ingredients that not only dif-
ferentiate our species from others, but that also distinguish each indi-
vidual person as unique. From the Buddha to Lao-tzu, from Hume to
Hegel, from Jung to Einstein, the self has been the subject of consider-
able discourse.
Yet, despite centuries of theorizing, investigating, and debating,
no clear consensus has emerged as to the essential nature of the self.
Some regard the self as a tangible, material form: a bunch of muscles
and bones and organs encapsulated by skin, known as the physical
body-mind. Others see it as a dynamic, unfolding process, not a con-
crete thing but an ongoing life narrative. Still others, especially those
within Eastern wisdom traditions, view the self as complete illusion,
an empty eye of a hurricane of circulating thoughts, emotions, and
sensations.

4
 Introduction

Western tradition privileges a view of self as linked to an autono-

mous ego and rational thought, à la Aristotle and Descartes. Yet
those now investigating the “anthropology” of the self have begun to
view the self more as a system constituted by its environment.
Advances in neuroscience have contributed to this understanding of
the experiential and contextual self.
Such a wide range of opinion about the self is not surprising
when we remember that a psychologist will view it through a different
lens than will a minister than will a professor of philosophy. But,
regardless of who’s looking at the elusive self, there’s no question that
it can be a troublemaker. The self, as it’s conventionally experienced
on a day-by-day basis, can be nosey and opinionated, oversensitive
and prickly. It frequently butts into business where it doesn’t belong,
personalizing events and feeling persecuted. This book explains why
and how we may be better served without the self.
That being said, The No-Self Help Book is not intended as pop
puritanical doctrine, endorsing a denial of basic emotional, physical,
and social needs. In fact, I’ve met with too many clients who’ve suf-
fered from self-effacement and an underdeveloped sense of their per-
sonal rights. They tend to negate their own priorities and unknowingly
defer to others, often at their own expense. In extreme cases, such
self-abdication can make these individuals more vulnerable to being
used or abused by others.
So, to be clear, The No-Self Help Book is not about neglect of the
individual. A certain baseline of personhood needs to be in place to
take care of one’s body, relationships, and daily functioning. Such
primary ego development is a prerequisite for mind-body well-being
and healthy individuality. The No-Self Help Book respects the endeavor
of ego development, essential as it is for skillfully navigating the

5
The No-Self Help Book

challenging quandaries, disappointments, and losses of our lives. But

there are plenty of other resources for that.
This book delves a bit deeper, beyond the realm of basic ego
functioning to see exactly what is the driving force underneath. It
investigates the inclusive consciousness at the root of our mistaken
notions of a separate, ego-based self. And, rather than being “above it
all” or a spiritual bypass of daily concerns, The No-Self Help Book is
about learning how we can participate in the compelling and often
tumultuous events of our lives without taking the mind’s commentary
about these proceedings too seriously. In other words, we don’t have
to throw the baby (our personal subjectivity) out with the bathwater
(unnecessary identification with self-stories).

Outline of Sections
Each brief chapter identifies a reason why the troublemaker self is
optional, why we don’t need it. Part 1, “Selfhoods,” establishes the
constructed nature of this phantom entity and lists the ways in which
it can hinder us.
Part 2, “No-Self Speaks,” introduces an antidote to the problem-
atic self: no-self. The term “no-self” is Buddhist in origin, derived
from the Pali word anatta and the Sanskrit word anattman, both
meaning “not self.” According to Buddhist doctrine, we correctly per-
ceive the existence of our body, sensations, emotions, thoughts,
habits, and awareness, but then we mistakenly conclude that they are
our true nature.
Like the term “self,” no-self has been described in many ways:
emptiness, primordial consciousness, unity realization, nonlocalized
field of awareness, oneness, or simply as the absence of a

6
 Introduction

self-referential construct (“I”) in mental activity. But here’s all you

need to know about no-self: as we disidentify with our false self, we
can begin to live as what we actually are. Part 2 describes the many
attractive features of what we actually are when the veil of self has
been removed. All of the chapters in this section are written directly
from no-self’s voice (as indicated by a change in font).
The third and final section of The No-Self Help Book, “To Self or
Not to Self?” helps you decide whether selfing—the process of buying
into your self-story—has been useful for you. Has it increased your
happiness and life satisfaction? Is it worth continuing to invest in the
self you have built?
At the end of the book, you will find the “MeSearch” addendum
that provides a selection of research findings related to each chapter’s
theme, offering a glimpse into the knowledge base about the self as it’s
been investigated in such fields as cognitive science, neuroscience,
and psychology. Scientific studies lend an empirical perspective to the
conversation. However, the studies chosen here represent a small
sampling of the vast research available on each topic, and the findings
are not cited with the intention of confirming the self’s illusory nature
or confirming no-self’s existence, for that matter. Research can still
help illuminate consciousness, if not charged with proving it. And the
realms of science and spirituality can coexist within their own valid,
if at times separate, domains upon the larger globe of truth.

A Much Greater Union

In a nutshell, the mission of The No-Self Help Book is essentially to
enable people to have informed consent about their identity.

7
The No-Self Help Book

Long ago without knowing it, we entered into a marriage with

the self. Never did we consciously agree to the union, let alone to a
“’til-death-do-us-part” commitment to it! This book allows us to take
stock of the default marriage that has wedded our sense of being to
the mind’s storytelling. It enables us to stand back and ask: “Has it
been a collaborative partnership? Would we choose the same spouse
today?”
If the answer is no, then the good news is that you don’t have to.
The No-Self Help Book allows for a conscious uncoupling from this
bond to the self. While we can’t turn off our thought process (nor
would we really want to), we can end our disempowered relationship
with it.
Without spousal obligation to the self, we can come to know our-
selves as no-self, or as other-than-mind. We can then wed with a spa-
ciousness of spirit, abiding, as it were, in a much greater union.

8
Part 1

Selfhoods

The truth is we have all been taken over! An identity theft has occurred
within our very own heads. The culprit?
The self. The voice of our thoughts.
The clever mind has generated a thinking process so compelling
and seemingly continuous that it has taken on a life and label of its
own: “self.” The seat of our thoughts has insidiously granted itself
such convincing personhood that it seems outrageous to even ques-
tion the self’s validity in the first place.
But, if we look closely, we can see that, other than the condi-
tioned thought forms out of which it is constructed, the self lacks
substance. And yet, we have bestowed this etherlike entity—a collec-
tion of thoughts in our heads—the privilege of claiming to be who we
are!
In buying into the mind’s narrative, its language-based story
about our experience, we have come to identify with a mere fraction
of the limitless expanse of our spirit, intelligence, and potential.
The chapters in part 1 call the self on its shady business. We’ll
examine the many falsehoods propagated by the mind, the greatest of
which is the existence of a separate self. Most of us automatically,
unknowingly, subscribe to these falsehoods, which we’ll call selfhoods.
We unconsciously live within the narrow and often unhappy confines
they afford us.
The No-Self Help Book

But please don’t take my word for it. As you read through part 1,
see if the self has duped you, too. Check out whether it has co-opted
your most basic assumptions about who you truly are.

10
 Selfhoods

1. The Imposter Self

Like the mythical Wizard of Oz, the self projects presence and power.
But when we pull the curtain to the side and look closely within our-
selves to locate the person behind the projection, we find…no thing!
Go ahead, look in the mirror. When you look directly into your
eyes, at the awareness looking back at you, what thing do you see? No
doubt, you will see a face and a body to which you can assign all sorts
of attributes such as eye color, age, height, ethnicity, gender. But what
about the consciousness, the awake intelligence itself that peers out
knowingly through your eyes? Does that have color, age, height, eth-
nicity, gender?
According to modern neuroscience, the self is less a thing than it
is a process. In the process of selfing, the mind links together separate
moments of subjectivity to give us the impression that we are a coher-
ent, enduring entity.
When we think about ourselves, we activate a self-representation
in the brain, a feeling of “me.” But just because we have a feeling of
“me” in the mind does not mean that a real self exists separate from
the realm of thought. For example, we can hold a compelling image of
a superhero in our minds without it pertaining to anything real
outside our imagination. Thinking about Superman does not make
him exist. When we’re not explicitly thinking about ourselves, our
sense of self vanishes and our mind-body continues to function just as
well without it. The self, like Superman, is a mental creation, a story.
Despite our ego’s posturing, no solid self actually lies within us.
Investigate for yourself: When you wake up in the morning, does the
self (the narrative voice in your head) have to tell you to get up, or do

11
The No-Self Help Book

you just open your eyes? When you feel sad, scared, or excited while
watching a movie, are those feelings orchestrated by the self, or do
they arise spontaneously? When you hug someone you care about,
does the self command you to do it? Does the self manufacture each
flash of insight you’re graced with? Was it responsible for the raw
sensory experience of your most recent meal, for the awe you felt
when you last saw a beautiful sunrise?
And yet the self ends up taking credit for all of it. Every occur-
rence, every accomplishment, the self claims as its handiwork. It’s no
wonder that most people who come into my office tell me that they
feel like a fraud, an imposter.
The “imposter syndrome” was identified forty years ago by psy-
chologists investigating why many people often feel like they’re pre-
tending, and why they have trouble taking their successes seriously.
Though psychologists originally believed the syndrome was caused by
a deficit of achievement-related self-worth, the epidemic prevalence of
self-doubt experienced by those with the syndrome seems to suggest a
deeper root. When you consider that the self does commit fraud as it
masquerades as something more than myth and metaphor, it’s not
surprising that insecurity due to feeling like an imposter would
proliferate.
The fact is it’s the self that is the imposter! The voice of our
thoughts performs a dazzling act of wizardry by convincing us that it
authors our lives. This is the shocking reality beyond the curtain: our
subjectivity operates without a subject at the controls behind it.
When it comes to the self, there’s no there there!

12
 Selfhoods

2. The Self Slices and Dices

Selfing involves a never-ending process of differentiation: what-is-me
vs. what-is-not-me. Division helps the self maintain the illusion of
being a separate and real thing.
The self first divides the whole of creation’s pie into “self” and
“other.” It does this so automatically and instantaneously that such
division appears absolute, a basic truth of experience.
The self then sections out broad categories in the “other” half:
living vs. inert, animal vs. vegetable vs. mineral, skyscape vs. land-
scape, and so on. Each of these categories is fractionalized further
into an explosion of infinitesimally specialized pieces: paring vs.
butter knife, the neighbor’s golden retriever vs. your poodle Bingo,
10,560 different species of fern. The self declares with 100 percent
psychological and epistemological certainty, that it (the “I”) is not any
of these pieces.
Instead, the self turns to its own half of the pie. The “self” half
also undergoes the mind’s chopping blade: ideas vs. feelings vs. sensa-
tions, id vs. ego vs. superego, soul vs. spirit, to name a few arbitrary
partitions. Emotions may be extracted into meticulous and measure-
able slices (doubt vs. fear vs. regret vs. shame vs. anger vs. exaspera-
tion), as may thoughts (expectations vs. plans, memories vs.
ruminations) and aspects of personality (optimism, neuroticism,
extroversion).
This delicious multiplicity and nuance of creation is not the
issue. If the self were to celebrate it (or, better yet, identify as all of it),
there would be no problem. But the self identifies, instead, with a

13
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