Individuals define themselves by their collectives. The glue that holds collectives together is not language, skin color, belief, or common experience. It is FEAR.
You need to make a list of collectives you belong to. For example:
Mother, Student, Male, Female, Christian, American, Wife, Son, Divorced, Married, Father, Daughter, ETC.
Beside each collective write a number from one to ten. Ten indicates that you identify very much with that collective. Notice which collective you identify with the most.
For the difficult part of the exercise.
THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR COIN
Who do you seperate yourself from? Take some time to think about this. This might be a new way of looking at yourself and others, so be gentle and compassionate with yourself.
MY COLLECTIVES
Daughter-10, Sister-6, Friend-8, Counsellor-7, Lover-10, Girlfriend-10, Divorced-10, White-1.
I have found that I dont have many collectives but the ones I have are fairly strong. Those that arent strong dont seem to be all that important. My biggest fear is fear of rejection and therefore I surround myself with people that are unlikely to reject me. I invest myself where I have little to lose. Instead of having many friends I have a few very good friends. In having a few friends as opposed to many there is less risk of getting hurt. I guess you could say I have seperated myself from Friends, and I have seperated myself from family a little bit. I have invested myself where I think I will be profitable, that is my relationship with my boyfriend. I am still working on this exercise so as I go along I will keep you posted.