"My kids are almost grown," he says. "I managed to spend time with them, although it's not part of the culture I work in. But I never felt like it was enough. I'd like to have a couple of years where I'm home more before they take off on their own. We've almost paid off our mortgage, and we have a reasonable retirement fund. The economy seems to finally be getting a little better, but I'm not making the kind of money I used to make. If I'm ever going to make the leap, it's now." His wife and children support him wholeheartedly in his plan. Sam is excited about making the change, and further, he's afraid that if he doesn't do it, he'll always have a sense of having betrayed himself. But as soon as he sent in the application forms, he had a huge anxiety attack.

Sam could not figure out what had gotten into him. "I keep worrying about odd things," he says. "I mean, not weird, but sort of out of the blue. My parents are still pretty young and healthy, but I'm suddenly afraid that something might happen to one of them. And I'm freaked out all the time by the idea that something could happen to the kids or my wife."

A therapist who helped him see that his anxiety was about actually about separation—separation from work and colleagues he knew and cared about; separation from his parents as they aged; and upcoming separation from his children, who would be going away in the next few years.

But he was also dealing with a more subtle form of separation, one that did not jump out at him quite as quickly. It turned out that Sam was afraid of separating from a part of himself—the part that had always been a good boy, a successful student, and for most of his adult life, a successful lawyer. "When I tell someone that I'm a lawyer, they may have negative ideas about it, like that I'm a shyster or worse, but they will also probably see me as smart and maybe powerful. You know the old dictum, 'Those who can, do, and those who can't, teach'? Even though I don't think I really care what other people think about me, I realized that I'm afraid people will see me as a failure."

In psychoanalytic theory there are differing ideas about the importance of what other people think about us. On the one hand there was Freud's idea that worrying about what other people think helps us "civilize" our own uncivilized impulses. On the other, the British analyst D.W. Winnicott believed that many of us develop a "false self" to please people who do not seem to like who we really are, our "true self." Other analysts have talked about a "private self."

New York psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell suggested that we actually have many selves which are brought out at different times, in different situations and with different people. Some are more private or hidden than others, but that doesn't make them any more real than those that are visible to the world. For Mitchell, psychological health involves managing and maintaining the relationships between our different selves and the different people and situations that evoke them.

Sam's sudden worries came not only from the obvious—that is, his concern that he and his family would actually be more unhappy because of a less financially viable lifestyle—but from a more subtle set of concerns about the selves that would emerge as he made this shift. Not only might other people see him as less successful, less powerful, and maybe even less manly, but he unconsciously feared that he might feel the same way about himself. (I wrote a bit about this in my book Daydreaming: Unlock the Creative Power of Your Mind)

What is important for anyone in Sam's situation is to recognize that these are different parts of ourselves—different selves, as Mitchell would say. All of these identities are only part of us, and that they are often a response to something that is going on in our lives, not a signal that this is who we "really are." Moving from a house to an apartment, from a home you own to a rental, from one neighborhood to another; shifting from a busy mom to an empty-nester; morphing from a marriage to life as a single person all bring clear shifts in how we live our lives on a daily basis.

But there are also shifts in self-esteem, self-image and how we imagine other people see us. A comfortable, content self may be replaced by a worried, anxious self. A busy, productive and competent self may morph into a sad and incompetent self. And the difficult part is that we don't always have control over what self wakes us up in the morning or appears after lunch or in the late afternoon. (I wrote about this last fall  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-couch/201104/our-many-selves ).

So what's a self to do? First, to recognize that these different selves don't define us. And then, to begin to do what's necessary to manage the unhappy or unpleasant self so that it can be integrated into the larger picture of who we are. For some of us, that simply means getting out and getting some exercise. This doesn't mean hours at the gym or a five mile run. Sometimes gentle exercise is actually better than vigorous, especially at times when our anxious selves are on the loose. A short walk around the block or a gentle yoga class can release endorphins and relax muscles enough to get us into a better frame of mind—a different self.

As Sam began to talk about his worries, he became aware of other parts of himself that he had not paid a lot of attention. There was, he realized, a part of himself that really enjoyed the work he did—not the long hours, but the process of brain-storming, sometimes alone and sometimes with colleagues to find the best solution to a given problem. He liked the intellectual and personal challenges of his job. And he enjoyed the camaraderie with the men and women with whom he worked.

Talking—with friends, family, colleagues, and sometimes with a trained professional—is one of the ways we make contact with all of the different parts of ourselves. Reading, listening to music, exercising, and writing also help. Even standing in a shower or relaxing in a tub can put us in touch with selves we have been avoiding or missing (think of all of the important thoughts that come to you while you're showering!).

In Sam's case, the therapist helped him realize that his anxiety was a part of himself that he had not listened to before—one that said that his daydream of becoming an English teacher was just that—a childhood dream that had been one of his adult selves but was not one he wanted to turn into a realistic plan for his adult life. He began listening to other internal voices and realized that he actually wanted to stay in law, but with less pressure. He began to look around his own firm and also to speak with colleagues at other law firms, and eventually discovered a position that would be perfect for him. Although it meant a pay cut, it was a manageable one; and, since it involved mentoring younger lawyers and teaching a course at a nearby college, it meshed beautifully with his dream of teaching. And it gave him more time at home.

*names and identifying information changed to protect everyone's privacy

Stephen Mitchell: Hope and Dread in Psychoanalysis, Basic Books, Inc. 1995

D.W. Winnicott: Playing and Reality, Routledge, 2005

Image source: http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~tlejune/cuin7337/teacherresources.htm