7 Keys to Personal Identity: Thriving in an Era of Narcissism and Chaos

By Dr. Anita Gadhia-Smith and Ronald Earl Smith MD PhD

7 Keys to Personal Identity: Thriving In An Era Of Narcissism and Chaos

“7 Keys to Personal Identity: Thriving In An Era of Narcissism and Chaos” is a roadmap to finding your true personal identity. This book takes you through seven fundamental steps of personal development: choosing resilience over victimhood, deciding to think for yourself, practicing daily self-care, learning to trust your intuition, developing a growth mindset, finding your calling, and developing a spiritual life. By developing your own true identity, you will take the journey from fitting in to true belonging.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781663241030

Dr. Anita Gadhia-Smith

Dr. Anita Gadhia-Smith is a psychotherapist in Washington, D.C., specializing in addictions, recovery, and relationship issues. She has served as a consultant to the United States Congress in parity legislation for substance abuse treatment. She has also spoken nationally and internationally on radio, television, and other media on addiction treatment.

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Copyright © 2022 Dr. Anita Gadhia-Smith.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-4102-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-4103-0 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 06/03/2022

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1   Choose Resilience Over Victimhood

Chapter 2   Decide to Think for Yourself

Chapter 3   Practice Daily Self Care

Chapter 4   Learn to Trust Your Intuition

Chapter 5   Develop A Growth Mindset

Chapter 6   Find Your Calling

Chapter 7   Develop A Spiritual Life

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO

MR. ANTHONY ZAGOTTA

FOREWORD

One of Kierkegaard’s many profound thoughts, of the many which carry me, was his original idea .... What am I doing here? Why wasn’t I consulted? The What am I doing here section cannot be discovered until the I is defined.

Karl Jung wrote that there is in each of us an ancient archetype, a seed, unique to each of us and a special gift to the world. It is a talent or special instrument to use, to help, and when it is identified and discovered and used properly, feels timeless. It is a diffuse and delighted passion, that one is in the zone, in Peter Matheson’s words, At Play in the Fields of the Lord.

How do you find the I in Kierkegaard’s beautiful question?

Dr. Gadhia-Smith, in her usual clear profound prose, delivers a tremendously interesting and effective way back home to the I.... to the original self. She tells a wonderful story, about each of us, and how, although we often take the many wrong directions on that lonely way back home (which are often the most interesting and informative —the wrong turns) ... when we make that stunning Aha Moment!.... This is who I am and why I am here and what I must do....well, moments in life like this come usually once, and these singular moments make all the confusion, strife, work, and effort worth everything. Only then can we get on with the work!

Identity—the original self, is everything on the road, and Dr. Gadhia-Smith takes us there with her interesting prose, joy, and clarity!

Ronald Earl Smith, MD, PhD

Captain, Medical Corps, United States Navy (RET)

CHAPTER 1

CHOOSE RESILIENCE

OVER VICTIMHOOD

Growing up, maturing, and learning to live life with a sense of hope and purpose are some of the fundamental challenges of a life well-lived. It can be a very perplexing, complicated, and difficult process. Some of us grow up in healthy, functional families, where good values and relationship skills are modeled, and some of us do not. If you are lucky enough to have grown up in a healthy family environment, you are very fortunate and have much to be grateful for. You are ahead of most people. You have basic skills and building blocks from which to learn, grow, and thrive. The majority of us, however, are raised in imperfect families that are both profoundly wonderful and deeply flawed.

There is no such thing as a perfect family. Even the best of families have their own shortcomings and dysfunction. However, if you grew up in a family where there was a lot of unconditional love and acceptance, you likely had a healthy foundation for the formation of your own identity. Even with the inevitable turns, traumas and difficulties of life, a solid foundation can eventually carry you through to health and wholeness. If you had the freedom to think for yourself, express yourself, and to learn and grow with loving guidance, your true self was given a chance to grow and flourish.

In unhealthy and dysfunctional families, there is a stifling of the spirit and a suffocation of the soul. A sense of rigidity, shame, and fear prevail in such a family atmosphere, and there is little room for freedom of expression or individual thought. You are taught what to think, and must either subscribe to the dominant viewpoint of the family or become an outcast or a scapegoat. The scapegoat in the family system is the person who gets dumped on, the problem person, and often the one who self-destructively acts out the family dysfunction.

This can become heightened during adolescence, which is a difficult and turbulent time for most people for psychological and physiological reasons. As hormones are shifting, the young adolescent is just making a bare beginning at finding out who he is and can experience a great deal of intense conflict within the self and the family.

We all do the best we can in our families and with our parents. Many people believe their own family to have been a very normal and healthy family, as they have is no other point of reference. It is the only family they really knew. Thus, the abnormal can actually feel normal if we have grown up in an unhealthy environment.

If all we know is what we had, there is often no sense of clarity. Growing up, most of us live in a fairly small and limited world with a finite number of people. As we get older, our world grows and expands, and we are exposed to different people and personalities. When we first come out into the world, there is often a great sense of adventure in exploring the wide range of people and experiences available to us. During