I have not found the idea of an “anchor-self” in the literature. Maybe it is there under a different name. Yet, the idea is simple and may help with understanding the dramatic reaction that we have to certain changes in our lives.

I was talking with one of my clients and we were discussing the end of a relationship. The ending of this relationship was particularly difficult. As I noted in an earlier article, we have selves that are related to all of our personal domains. We have the physical me, the mental me, the emotional me, the spiritual me, and the relational me. Each domain has multiple “selves.” For example, we have as many relational-selves as there are people we know. Given the array of selves that we maintain, including our relational selves, it seem obvious that some will be more important than others.

For men especially (this can be for women too), we may see our selves as a provider. It should come as no surprise that when we lose a job one of our important “selves” has taken a serious setback. Much in the same way, when an important relationship ends or has been changed dramatically, our sense of “self” can be put in disarray. If we lose a spouse, significant other, parent, or child the impact can be dramatic.

When we lose something, or when what we “know” has dramatically changed, we need to reorganize our overall sense of Self (with a capital S). Our ideas on who we are and how the world works will change. A client related that his world was “turned upside down” when he was not protected by his parent from abuse by a step-parent. People who experience a traumatic event may develop PTSD. They need to go through a process of rearranging their view of the world, their self in the world, their very existence. At a more moderate level, we need to do some rearranging anytime our sense of self has changed. When a critical area has changed, we may need to do some major rearranging of how we see our Self and the world we live in.

The thought then, is that some “selves” are more important than others, to us. When these selves are dramatically changed the impact is much larger to our overall self-organization. When people lose an important relationship they may feel “torn.” My sense was that my client’s relationship formed a central piece of her overall sense of Self, her self-organization. That is, that particular self provided an anchor point for structuring her many other selves.

So an anchor-self is simply one of several that play a particularly important role in our lives. Following the sailing version of the metaphor, when we lose an anchor we feel that we are “adrift.” Using the building version of the metaphor, when we lose an anchor things seem to “come apart.” When one of our anchor-selves is threatened or lost we can feel torn, lost, less than, disintegrated, pulled apart, dysphoric, adrift and so on. The impact of losing an anchor-self is much greater than the impact of losing one of the myriad smaller-selves.

If a smaller-self is threatened we may have a minor reaction. I am a Chicago Bears fan. If they don’t make the playoffs my Bears-fan-self can say, oh well, there is always next season. Now, if I was a Chicago Bear player or owner I might have a different reaction. When I lost an important person in my life it took much longer to regain the sense of who I am. It felt like a piece was missing and I needed to rearrange my Self, but without the missing piece. I needed to reorganize the view I had of myself. When we lose an anchor-self it is a big deal and will take a lot of mental and emotional effort for us to regain our sense of Self.

Knowing that an “anchor-self” is threatened or lost may help us to understand our current state of mind. We may better see how much effort, both mental and emotional, it will take to regain our sense of connection to the world and to our Self. We can know why we are feeling so fragmented. After that, we can begin to “put the pieces back together.”

On a more positive note, knowing what we see as our anchor-selves may help us direct our attention to maintaining and growing these important parts of our life. Knowing may also gives us a heads up if we are putting too much stock into one dimension of our true Self. Growth is always an option.