Today You Are You, That Is Truer Than True

There is no one alive who is Youer than You!" ~Dr. Seuss. Inner Teen Gift #5

Jun 23, 2025

1920s Jazz courtesy of fineartamerica.com

Inner Teen Gift #5: One of the greatest gifts of your teenage years is how a Coherent Sense of Self offers you great stability against which to test out your life circumstances as an adult.

Listen to this audio version of Today You Are You, That Is Truer Than True or read below.

1×

0:00

-9:45

If you are a first-time reader, this series makes the most sense when you start here!

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Here's a quote from the post where Inner Teen Gift #5 was first mentioned…
 Adult Self, Time to Bend the Knee: Part 1

The Quote

Inner Teen Gift #5 -- Your Coherent Sense Of Self
One of the greatest gifts of your teenage years is how this coherent sense of self offers you great stability against which to test out your life circumstances as an adult.
It gives you a stable structure that is amenable to change and transformation so you can reliably add and subtract different aspects of your identity as your life evolves.
Without your teen years, your sense of self would be buffeted by the winds of fate, where an ever-changing sense of self opens the door to whimsical values, choppy belief systems, and no framework for your dreams and aspirations.

And The Point Is...?

This is the One Question that haunts me: no matter how hard I try to experience something, anything, as someone else, I cannot. It's like trying to see my back...impossible.

But why?

Even when the winds of fate buffet me, when emotional ice storms take over, when I'm in-the-trenches low or flying high, at some crossroads, or zoned out in front of the television, there's a core sense of ME experiencing it all.

Why do I feel as if this ME is unquestionable? Undeniable? Inviolate? And ultimately only knowable to myself?

The answer lies in one of the most profound gifts your teenage years bequeathed you: a Coherent Sense of Self.

As a child, when asked to describe yourself, you responded with concrete information: your name, your family, where you lived, maybe your pet. Simple reportage of external facts.

But as a teenager? Everything shifted. Remember?

Suddenly you were answering with an awareness of personal characteristics and preferences: I'm into music, I hate fake people, I love hanging with my friends, I'm shy in crowds but totally myself 1:1, I do things my way.

A teenager’s ability to self-report from this inner awareness often gets translated by adults as self-absorption, as evidence that teens are too self-centered.

In truth, this observation isn’t wrong. But it’s missing a crucial element: when we are at the beginning of any learning curve, the best way to learn is to lean in!

How can you figure out who you are if don’t pay attention to who you are becoming? Self-absorption is built into developing an identity so the job gets done!

The Teen Brain Rewired Everything

Because your brain underwent a metamorphosis between 12 and 18, you developed the wiring that allowed you to experiment with different roles, beliefs, and values until these coalesced into something miraculous: a coherent sense of who you are.

As developmental psychologist Erik Erikson noted, this is when we first grapple seriously with the question "Who am I?" and begin to forge what he called "identity achievement"—a stable, internalized sense of self made to weather the inevitable storms of an adult life.

And, while you are experiencing this rapid rewiring, everything feels topsy-turvy, upside down—the absolute opposite of stable!

But here's what makes Inner Teen Gift #5 extraordinary: your coherent sense of self is not rigid. It's stable and adaptable. It gives you a reliable internal compass that remains flexible enough to grow, evolve, and adapt to the demands of life.

When you think about it, our sense of self is a remarkable, sophisticated, and complex inner scaffolding.

Over decades of life changes—career shifts, relationship transitions, geographical moves, personal crises—something essential about you remains recognizably, undeniably you. You can add new interests, discard old beliefs, transform your lifestyle, yet that core sense of you-ness persists.

Today You Are You, That Is Truer Than True. There is no one alive who is Youer than You!" ~Dr. Seuss

Without Inner Teen Gift #5, you'd be a ship without anchor, blown apart by the winds of circumstance. Your values would shift like the tides beneath every new influence. Your relationships would be free-forming from whim to whim. Your CreativeSelf would reach out to connect to your core and come away with a handful of fog.

Instead, your Inner Teen gave you the beating heart of who you are, even as everything else around you forms and reforms while you bring yourself into life day by day.

Take The Challenge

Name 3 things about you that has remained essentially you throughout your adult life, regardless of external changes?

1. ________________________________________

2. ________________________________________

3. ________________________________________

Name 3 core values that feel fundamentally part of who you are—qualities that have persisted despite life's vicissitudes.

1. ________________________________________

2. ________________________________________

3. ________________________________________

Mining the Deep-End Challenge

With your non-dominant hand, write a brief note to your Inner Teen thanking them for this gift of your coherent sense of self.

Ask them: [Inner Teen Name], what would you like me to remember about who I really am?

And if this sparks a dialogue between you and your Inner Teen, go for it!

What’s Next?

That coherent sense of self your Inner Teen gifted you?

It was built on an even more fundamental capacity that sparked when you were a teenager—one that still shapes—today!—how you navigate relationships, creative projects, and personal growth.

I mean, woW! Sometimes I’m blow away by the internal abundance our teen years have packed into our adult lives.

Next time, let’s explore your Inner Teen Gift #6: Self-Awareness—the master task and developmental cornerstone for how, why, and what you create as an adult.

This massive, internal architecture originates with creating an identity as a teen that orients the specific direction for how you create as an adult.

Remember, imagination, spontaneity, and flying without rules is the gift of childhood. Your specific adult creativity is the ultimate gift of your teen years.