--- title: Why You Should Cultivate a Fluid Sense of Self description: The key to navigating change in life is to have a diversified sense of self. canonical: https://time.com/6311809/change-sense-of-self-brad-stulberg/ author: Brad Stulberg article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-09-08T11:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:03.978Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why You Should Cultivate a Fluid Sense of Self og:description: The key to navigating change in life is to have a diversified sense of self. og:url: https://time.com/6311809/change-sense-of-self-brad-stulberg/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f05069ff52f681c/698a402acabb1d6e87e51bcf/fluid-movement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Abstract glass shape og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why You Should Cultivate a Fluid Sense of Self twitter:description: The key to navigating change in life is to have a diversified sense of self. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f05069ff52f681c/698a402acabb1d6e87e51bcf/fluid-movement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why You Should Cultivate a Fluid Sense of Self > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=aebf3b22-20a3-4945-9602-093ee8acdbaa&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Therapists Raise Red Flags About Using 'Therapy Speak' Online [Watch (HLS stream): Therapists Raise Red Flags About Using 'Therapy Speak' Online](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oxvh4VUE.m3u8) (4:07)  _Published 2023-08-24. The classic vision of therapy revolved around a person on a couch, supine, tapping into their deepest and darkest hopes and fears. A modern-day remix might look like this: a person still on a couch, but at home, scrolling through a constantly refreshing selection of mental-health content on social-media platforms like TikTok and Instagram._ by [Brad Stulberg](https://time.com/author/brad-stulberg/) ## Brad Stulberg Sep 8, 2023 11:00 AM UTC  Digital generated image of abstract twisted transparent multi colored glass ring on yellow background. Digital generated image of abstract twisted transparent multi colored glass ring on yellow background. Getty Images by [Brad Stulberg](https://time.com/author/brad-stulberg/) ## Brad Stulberg Sep 8, 2023 11:00 AM UTC If you want to learn something about change there is no better place to look than evolution. Nothing represents a continuous and unrelenting cycle of order, disorder, and _re_order on a grander scale. For long periods of time, Earth is relatively stable. Sweeping changes—warming, cooling, or an asteroid falling from space, for example—occur. These inflection points are followed by periods of disruption and chaos. Eventually, Earth, and everything on it, regains stability, but that stability is somewhere new. During this cycle, some species get selected out. Others survive and thrive. Species in the latter group tend to have high degrees of what evolutionary biologists call “complexity.” Complexity is comprised of two elements: differentiation and integration. Differentiation is the degree to which a species is composed of parts that are distinct in structure or function from one another. Integration is the degree to which those distinct parts communicate and enhance each other’s goals to create a cohesive whole. ### More From TIME Consider _Homo sapiens_ (you and me), by far the most abundant and widespread species of primate. we have large frames, four limbs, opposable thumbs, body temperature that is somewhat resistant to external conditions, good vision and hearing, digestive tracts that can accommodate a variety of nutrients, and the capacity for language and understanding. In other words, we are a highly differentiated species. But we also have enormous brains and advanced nervous systems that integrate all of these parts into a cohesive whole. The combination of these qualities—widespread differentiation and strong integration—makes us a decidedly complex species. Our complexity is how we got here today and why, hopefully, we’ll stick around for at least a bit longer. Though change at the individual level, the primary concern of my new book [_Master of Change_](https://www.amazon.com/Master-Change-Everything-Changing-Including/dp/006325316X/), is different than change on an evolutionary scale, there is still much we can learn from evolution’s foundational principles, lessons that apply to the horizons of our own lives. If we want to survive and thrive during ongoing cycles of change and disorder, then we, too, can benefit from developing our own versions of complexity. As a matter of fact, there is a psychological construct called _self-complexity._ Essentially, it says that the key to a strong and enduring identity—one that is equal parts rugged and flexible, that can navigate the inevitable changes we all face—is to diversify your sense of self. The more you define yourself by any one activity, the more fragile you become. If that activity doesn’t go well or something changes unexpectedly, you lose a sense of who you are. But with self-complexity, you have develop multiple components to your identity. We all can wear many hats: examples include writer, spouse, artist, parent, employee, neighbor, entrepreneur, baker, and creative, to name just a few. Take an inventory of your own identities. Are there any upon which you are over-reliant for meaning and self-worth? What would it look like to diversify your sense of self? Even if you desire to go “all in” on a certain endeavor, you've got to ensure that you don’t leave others completely behind. I’ve come to use the metaphor of a house for identity. If your house only has one room in it, and that rooms floods, you are going to be very disoriented. But if your house has multiple rooms, you can seek refuge in the others while you weather the storm. It's okay to put spend a lot of time in one room—so long as you have other rooms available when the one you are currently pouring yourself into changes. For example: there are times when I lean heavily into each of my main identities—father, husband, writer, coach, friend, athlete, and neighbor. I’ve learned that keeping all of these identities strong ensures that when things don’t go well in one area of my life I can rely on the others to pick me up, which helps me to stay grounded and navigate whatever challenge I am facing. What you want to do is challenge yourself to integrate the various elements of your identity into a cohesive whole. This allows you to emphasize and deemphasize certain parts of your identity at different periods of time. The result is a fluid sense of self. Unlike other types of matter, fluid contains both mass and volume but not shape. This allows it to flow over and around obstacles, changing form while retaining substance, neither getting stuck nor fracturing when unforeseen impediments manifest on its path. Cultivating a _fluid sense of self_ allows you to do the same. By developing and nurturing multiple parts of your identity, you can more easily navigate change. A large body of [research](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/210603691.pdf) shows that when there is too great a fusion between one’s identity and their pursuit, then anxiety, depression, and burnout frequently result. This is especially true for athlete’s during periods of change and transition, when one’s dominant—and all to often, sole— sense of identity feels at risk. Yet while it may be heightened for athletes, it’s a pattern that holds true in all lines of work and all walks of life: if you want to be excellent and experience something fully, then you’ve got to go all in, but only to a point. If your identity becomes too enmeshed in any one concept or endeavor—be it your age, how you look in the mirror, a relationship, or your career—then you are likely to face significant distress when things change, which, for better or worse, they always do. None of the above is permission to be laissez-faire or go through the motions. Caring deeply about the people, activities, and projects you love is key to a rich and meaningful existence. The problem is not caring deeply; it is when your identity becomes too rigidly attached to any single object or endeavor. _Adapted excerpt from_ [_Master of Change_](http://Adapted excerpt from Master of Change by Brad Stulberg and reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2023. Buy link: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/master-of-change-brad-stulberg?variant=41003842404386) _by Brad Stulberg and reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2023._ ## Transcript For mental health issues you might be avoiding right now. One, you don't have the life you had before the pandemic. You never will again. When the pandemic was happening and everyone was experiencing lots of like mental health issues, it put a spotlight on mental health creators that were posting online. You can't love someone else until you love yourself as bullsht. Because one end implies that people with low self-esteem or mental health issues are incapable of loving others. Just so. With that, I have a disclaimer on my, you know, TikTok and Instagram that this is not therapy or my mental health pics are not specifically tailored to you. Sure, I'm a licensed therapist, but I'm not your lessons therapist. All the online spaces where I share content. Yes. Even those livestreams where you shoot me questions are not therapy sessions, so I want somebody to like taking my content and then think about it and analyze it. Therapy speak is a new way of saying psychobabble. They're usually more like vulnerable words that talk about like the primary emotions that you're experiencing. But there's other ways that people are using that language, hurt people or manipulate people or control people or sort of like shut down conversations. There's a difference between selfishness and grandiosity and narcissism. It's very rare that you would be diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder. They tend to believe everything is everyone else's fault, and it comes out of early childhood. There is a stage of development where your ego is separate from other people's ego, and you're able to see that both of those are important. Something is wrong and that development and it leads someone having a really hard time seeing other people's needs as important as their own. Gaslighting is a pretty popular term these days, and what it means is somebody is trying to manipulate you into believing in a reality that's not true. But sometimes people are like, What? You're disagreeing with me. You're not validating my experience, you're gaslighting me, which is not actually what they're doing. So if you say that somebody is a gaslighter, that can be like a pretty incendiary accusation. You and I think that everybody should clearly express what their boundaries are in relationships. It's sort of like a blueprint that you'll offer somebody. So a healthy boundary that somebody might create is I'm not going to continue talking to you if you start to yell at me a different way to use boundaries. That's not exactly correct is to try to control somebody's behavior and manipulate somebody's behavior. You're allowed to say, I don't want to go to dinner, right? That's a boundary. But to be like, you know, well, I'll go if you go to this kind of place, but I'm not going to go if you go to this kind of place and you can't tell me, I can't because I'm allowed to set boundaries. Right. You're now like over stating it. Five small but very brave green flags in a relationship. One you sense their connection with you throughout the day. We keep talking for decades and decades and decades in the field of how we can improve mental health. And the reality is, is that the way you improve anything is with education. Therapists and Instagram and YouTube could do a better job at verifying their licenses and degrees and trainings that therapists have. And if therapists and mental health professionals didn't have to talk about things in coded ways like eating disorders or social justice or anxiety or depression or suicidality, then I think that there could be like some really good education happening online. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6311809/change-sense-of-self-brad-stulberg/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6311809/change-sense-of-self-brad-stulberg/"},"headline":"Why You Should Cultivate a Fluid Sense of Self","datePublished":"2023-09-08T11:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:45:03.978Z","description":"The key to navigating change in life is to have a diversified sense of self.","url":"https://time.com/6311809/change-sense-of-self-brad-stulberg/","keywords":["Psychology","Living","freelance"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f05069ff52f681c/698a402acabb1d6e87e51bcf/fluid-movement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brad Stulberg","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/brad-stulberg/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6f05069ff52f681c/698a402acabb1d6e87e51bcf/fluid-movement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Abstract glass shape","caption":"an abstract glass shape on a yellow background","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/psychology/","name":"Psychology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6311809/change-sense-of-self-brad-stulberg/","name":"Why You Should Cultivate a Fluid Sense of Self"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Therapists Raise Red Flags About Using 'Therapy Speak' Online","description":"The classic vision of therapy revolved around a person on a couch, supine, tapping into their deepest and darkest hopes and fears. 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