Battle Between Big I and little i - counselling.

What is big I and little I in counselling?

In counselling there is a concept called big I and little i. I am not sure how popular this concept is. Yet it is popular enough, as someone explained to me this in a counselling session. It is a very simple and powerful method. As I am interested in anything related to meaning of life and understanding myself, I thought. Hmmm. this should go on my blog.

First ask the question. What is your answer when someone asked you "Who you are?". And this question doesn't have single answer. Infact anything can be chosen from following. Imagine this question is asked from President of the United States. Following are hypothetical answers. (I really would not want FBI to take me down over a philosophical joke :))

The president: https://unsplash.com/@jxb511

I am the 47th president of the United States of America. The most powerful state of the World. I am also 45th president. I am the commander in chief, of the most powerful army in the world. I am a white man. I am a straight/gay man. I am the owner of a billion-dollar business. I have --- children. I might be the first president of United Combined States of America (USA + Canada + Greenland) etc. etc.

As you can see, for the president, the big "I" is really big. It is just not the name. Everything he has done ever since his birth plus, memories, plus every possession, relationship. The big I is really big. Similarly, you also have a big I. If you think about this, it is not even expressible. As you could write pages and pages of stories about yourself. Infact, you might make a biography one day to approximate big I. However, we only write good stuff about ourselves in biography. It is also just an edited version of the real big I. I think you get my point. But what is the little i then?

The little I?

Little i : https://unsplash.com/@pkripperprivate

The little i is the little problem you are trying to solve now. How crazy is that. This little paragraph I am trying to write is my little i now. What is your little i? Only you would know. You started to read this article for some reason, right? Maybe you were searching after your Counseller introduced you to the concept and you wanted to know what it is. Maybe you are little claustrophobic, maybe you are an introvert. Whatever negative, anxious little i is not an accurate representation of yourself. Infact, I cannot tell who you are, even after examining myself thoroughly. All the corners of big I, do not point to anything. Yet we are worried about little i's throughout the day.

The big I little i is not a new concept. We kind of already know this, in management it is called a SWOT analysis. But the problem is minds tend to behave differently than just blackboards. We tend to negatively biased for anything which comes to our minds. Generally, this is true for everyone, except who are more aware of their Big I's inherently. But having framed the concept and keeping it in back of your mind would help you to win a battle just another day.

Maybe it is time you would write down all the strengths of your Big I, so you can just look back when a little i starts to trouble you again.