The Myth of Who You Are

How your body decides who you get to be, moment to moment.

Aug 13, 2025

Preface: Not All Traits Are Created Equal

We use the word trait to describe everything from eye colour to empathy, from musical talent to anxiety. But this shared label hides a crucial truth: not all traits function the same way. Some—like eye colour—are governed by a small set of genes and develop in a stable, ubiquitous environment. They unfold early and remain fixed. Others—like empathy, focus, or creativity—are polygenic, environmentally sensitive, and dynamically accessed rather than consistently expressed. Their expression depends on real-time biological and relational scaffolding: safety, rhythm, nutrition, and co-regulation. To call both “traits” is linguistically correct—but functionally misleading. This article invites you to rethink traits not as possessions you carry, but as capacities you access. Using models like TGTS, we’ll explore how psychology emerges not from what you have, but from what your system is able to reach—moment to moment, gate by gate.

The Trait Illusion

“She’s just not empathetic.”
“I’ve always had a short attention span.”
“That’s just how his brain is wired.”

We say these things all the time. They feel natural, even scientific.

But what if we’ve been looking at the human mind with the wrong lens?

What if these “traits” aren’t built-in furniture, but lights that only come on when the wiring is connected and the power is flowing?

We’ve been taught to think of traits as things we have.

Like objects.

Like possessions.
You either have confidence or you don’t. You’re either anxious or you’re not.
This is what I call the Trait Illusion—the belief that psychological traits are stable possessions embedded deep inside us, determined mostly by genes, and immune to context.

But here’s the problem: science doesn’t support that belief anymore.

And neither does your own experience.

Ask yourself:

Have you ever felt socially confident in one setting but awkward in another?

Have you ever struggled with attention in a noisy room, then suddenly focused like a laser when something mattered?

Have you ever “lost yourself” during stress, and only realized it later?

That’s not a failure of your identity—it’s a clue.

It reveals that traits like focus, empathy, calm, and creativity aren’t static objects you carry around.

They’re states your brain can access—sometimes, under the right conditions.

They’re more like apps than hardware.

And your brain is the operating system.
Whether or not the app opens depends on your scaffolding—the internal and external supports that determine what your system can run at any moment in time.

The Silent Piano: Rethinking Genes, Minds, and Human Potential

Imagine the genome as a grand piano.

88 keys stretching from deep ancestral bass notes to shimmering high harmonics.

Every human has one.

But here's the twist: you can't hear anything unless someone plays it.

Genes are the keys — potentialities, not performances.

And what we call a "trait"

Whether it’s eye colour or empathy

is not a thing you possess.

It’s a song played when conditions allow.

Sometimes, a child plays “Happy Birthday.”

Sometimes, Beethoven's Ninth.

Sometimes... silence.

This reframes a centuries-old debate.

We often speak of traits as “hardwired,” as if they exist in isolation from the environment. But consider a piano in a soundproof room; it won't produce music without the right conditions. Similarly, a gene without environmental 'permission' remains silent. What we call 'expression' isn't merely genetic possession—it’s environmental invitation.

Access Is Everything

Your temperament, attention, and even your capacity to reflect are fleeting—like whispers of awareness that come and go. The TGTS model (Thought Generator–Thought Selector) suggests that reflective thought isn’t an ever-present voice but a rare gift bestowed by biology itself, contingent upon whether your body whispers "yes" to the act of thinking.

Think of PreForm, the model's gated workspace, as a musical conductor. When your autonomic state is calm—like a relaxed audience—reflection becomes possible, and the pianist can perform effortlessly. However, under stress, trauma, or inflammation, the curtain drops. You don’t lose the piano; you simply cannot access it.

What Genes Don’t Explain

Take eye colour. It's often celebrated as a “purely genetic” trait, yet this perception is an illusion of determinism. The reason it appears to be genetic is that the biological processes involved—retinal development, melanin synthesis, early protein folding—are so fundamental and consistently present in the human environment that they invariably manifest. However, this environmental consistency remains invisible to us, cloaked beneath the guise of genetics.

Contrast this with qualities like empathy, attention, or creativity—layers of the human experience that are polygenic and complex, requiring delicate environmental harmony. Under stress, they fade away; silenced by inflammation. Only when the nervous system is truly prepared do they blossom into existence.

Possession vs. Access

So, let's flip the script.

You don’t possess traits.

You access them.

The difference is more than semantics — it’s a philosophical revolution:

A trait you possess is yours, fixed and measurable.

A trait you access is contextual, conditional, and emergent.

And that means

interventions, environments, relationships,

and even policies

can amplify or mute who we become.

Genes as Gatekeepers, Not Authors

For decades, we were told our genes were like a script

a master blueprint that determined who we’d become.
That story was tidy.

Powerful.

And wrong.

Because blueprints don’t build houses,

builders do.
And genes don’t “write” traits.

They permit them

under specific biological conditions.

Here’s a better metaphor:

Your genes aren’t the author of your story. They’re the software license agreement.

They don’t command your brain moment by moment.
They define the terms under which certain programs can run.

Go back to your phone:
You’ve got a fantastic app

But it only runs on the latest iOS.
If your system hasn’t been updated, or your battery is dead, that app does nothing.

That’s what genes do.
They make something possible, not guaranteed.

Whether that possibility becomes reality depends entirely on:

The environment

Your immune state

Your early relationships

Even what you had for breakfast

Think of it as a digital key:
The gene might say, “Yes, this program is installable.”
But unless the conditions are right, that key is never used.

And yet, the illusion persists.

We see identical twins with the same trait

say, early musical talent

And we say, “It must be the genes.”
But maybe they just had:

The same womb

The same sounds

The same safe rhythms

The same gates opened at the same time

What we mistake for genetic fate

is often biological scaffold synchrony.

So next time someone says, “It’s in your DNA,” ask:

Has the app even been given permission to launch?

Is the nervous system ready?

Is the scaffold in place?

Genes don’t cause traits.
They unlock potential.
The environment hits “run.”

TGTS: The Real-Time Gate to Thought

If genes are the license key and the environment is the installer…
Then who presses “open app”?

Enter the TGTS model — your brain’s internal permission system for cognition.

TG = Thought Generator

Your subconscious — autonomic, immunological, emotional — is always on. It generates thought fragments all the time: ideas, feelings, fears, memories. You don’t control this part.

TS = Thought Selector

This is your conscious spotlight. It selects which of those thought fragments to engage with, refine, act on, or discard.

But here’s the clincher:

You only get access to TS when your body is in the right biological state.

This gated workspace is called PreForm — a neuroimmune interface that checks for safety, rhythm, and energy before opening the gates to reflection.

If PreForm is closed:

You lose focus

You lose empathy

You react instead of responding

You can’t access the “higher” mind, even if you want to

This is why trauma, chronic stress, inflammation, or exhaustion don’t change who you are.
They simply lock the app drawer.

Thought, Reframed

In this new model, even thinking is not a trait you possess.
It’s an ability you access, and that access depends on:

Rhythm

Safety

Immunity

Scaffold

So when a child can’t focus… or when an adult seems “dysregulated”...
We shouldn’t ask, “What’s wrong with them?”
We should ask, “Has the system given them permission to think?”

Why Eye Colour Feels Genetic—and Empathy Doesn’t

(The Illusion of Determinism Is a Function of Stability)

In the last section, we explored how genes don’t write traits; they permit them.

And even thinking—the act of reflection—requires real-time biological gates to open.

So now we ask:

Why do some traits feel “genetic,” like eye colour...
…while others, like empathy or creativity, feel unstable or earned?

Let’s explore this by comparing two unlikely characters: your iris and your heart.

Why Eye Colour Feels “Genetic”

Here’s a strange question:
Why are we so confident saying “she has blue eyes because of her genes,”
but hesitant to say “he’s empathetic because of his genes”?

It’s not because eye colour is more genetic.
It’s because eye colour is less interrupted.

Ubiquitous Scaffolding

In nearly every human womb:

The embryo gets oxygen and nutrients

Development follows a precise sequence

Hormones trigger melanin deposition

The iris forms on time, predictably

So the scaffold for eye colour is almost always present and stable.
The gene runs its program without resistance.

And voilà: eye colour appears.
Seamless. Predictable. Genetic-seeming.

But it’s not that genes did all the work.
It’s that the environment didn’t get in the way.

Why Empathy Feels “Emergent”

Now flip to a cognitive trait: empathy.

To access empathy, a brain needs:

Safety (to move out of survival mode)

Co-regulation with caregivers

Mirror neurons and modelling

Emotion labelling through language

Time for reflection

Stress-free environments that allow pausing before reacting

That’s a very specific and fragile scaffold.
For millions of children (and adults), it’s inconsisten

or missing entirely.

So the “empathy app” doesn’t always boot.
Not because it isn’t coded in the brain.
But because the permissions were never activated.

TGTS would say:
“It’s not that they lack empathy.
It’s that the PreForm never opened. The gates were never green.”

So What’s Really “Hardwired”?

Some traits feel hardwired only because their scaffold is nearly always available.

Others feel soft, malleable, or fragile

because their expression depends on rare or unstable conditions.

So we must rethink what “genetic” even means.

The more stable and invisible the environment,
The more we misattribute outcomes to genes.

This is the illusion of genetic determinism:
It hides wherever the environment is so omnipresent, we forget it exists.

Neurodiversity: Beyond Labels, Toward Access

(A New Way to See Minds That Struggle, Shine, or Shift)

The neurodiversity movement has done something extraordinary.
It’s helped millions reframe conditions like ADHD, autism, and dyslexia—not as defects, but as natural variations in human cognition.

But there’s a subtle risk…

When we turn a gating pattern into a permanent identity,
we might accidentally build a stronger box than the one we were trying to escape.

Let’s take a fresh look.

Gated Minds, Not Broken Ones

Take ADHD.

It’s often described as a neurotype—a fixed brain style.
But in TGTS terms, it’s better understood as a gating state.

The brain can filter attention.

But that filter is exquisitely sensitive to noise, stress, dopamine, and novelty.

The app for focus is installed, but the environment keeps crashing the system.

Now look at autism spectrum conditions:

The brain may hyper-focus or resist switching between thoughts.

But this flexibility depends on:

Immune signals

Sensory input

Social safety

Cognitive inflammation

These aren’t personality traits.
They’re access profiles—states of gate openness.

You’re not simply “an ADHD person.”
You’re someone whose attention requires different conditions to stay open.

Labels as Maps—Not Traps

This doesn’t dismiss lived experience.
It respects it.

It says:
Yes, you experience the world this way
Yes, that pattern is valid
But it also says: That pattern may be more fluid than you think

Think of neurotypes like climates, not buildings.

A desert isn’t a failed rainforest.

A monsoon isn’t “too wet.”

But even a desert turns green when the rain falls.
And even the most stable mind storms under pressure.

Neurodiversity, through TGTS, isn’t a list of traits.
It’s a landscape of potential, shaped by rhythm, safety, and scaffolding.

And that’s liberating.

Because it means we’re not trapped in what we are.
We’re being invited to explore what we could access—
if the gates were opened,
if the app drawer unlocked,
if the scaffold let the signal through.

Why Early Intervention Works (And Why It’s Not What You Think)

When most people hear "early intervention," they picture fixing a child.
Teaching them to sit still. To behave. To be more “normal.”

But that’s a tragic misunderstanding.

In the TGTS model, early intervention isn’t about correction.
It’s about conditions.

It doesn’t say “change the child.”
It says:
Change the gate.

The Real Intervention Is the Battery

Let’s bring back our favourite metaphor:
Your mind is a smartphone.

Now imagine a child with an extraordinary operating system—
full of potential apps:

Creativity

Empathy

Focus

Regulation

But the phone is stuck on low power mode.
The screen is dim. Half the apps won’t open.

Do you tell the child to try harder?

Or do you charge the battery?

That’s what The Willowsway does.

What Is The Willowsway?

The Willowsway is not a therapy.
It’s a regulatory architecture—
part philosophy, part neurobiological strategy.

Its core principle?

You can’t access reflection until your system feels safe enough to pause.

It uses:

Predictable rhythms

Polyvagal-informed practices

Nature-based co-regulation

Attuned adult presence

Scaffold layering: sleep, nutrition, sensory balance

It’s not about obedience.
It’s about opening the cognitive gate.

Autonomic Flexibility: The Real Goal

We hear a lot about “resilience.”
But real resilience isn’t toughness.

It’s autonomic flexibility—
the ability to shift fluidly between alertness and calm, engagement and rest.

In TGTS terms:

Flexibility is a gate

Trauma, inflammation, chaos? Slam it shut.

Rhythm, safety, connection? Open it wide.

Early intervention isn’t about making traits appear.
It’s about creating the conditions that let the traits emerge.

This Is Not a Fix. It’s a Garden.

The Willowsway doesn’t “treat” children.
It invites their system to power up.

It’s the charging cable for cognition.

The sunlight for the scaffold.

The pause button that lets reflection sneak in.

What early intervention offers isn’t compliance.
It’s access.

Recovery Is a Scaffold, Not a Switch

Why Healing Addiction Proves That Traits Are Accessed, Not Possessed

When someone recovers from alcoholism, we often say they’ve “beaten it.”
Or they’ve “overcome the disease.”

But here’s a better question:
If they had the trait… where did it go?

Did they uninstall it?

Throw away their genes?

No.
Because the trait was never possessed in the first place.

It was accessed—through a broken gate.

Let’s go deeper.

Alcoholism: A Gating Failure, Not a Personal Flaw

Addiction doesn’t mean you were born “weak.”
It means your system lost its flexibility.

TGTS frames this perfectly:

The brain always has access to the dopamine loop.

But under chronic stress, trauma, or disconnection, that loop gets hijacked.

The result? Shortcuts to regulation—like alcohol—get overused because the proper scaffold (rest, safety, rhythm) is missing.

You weren’t doomed.
You were dysregulated.

Recovery Works Because It Rebuilds the Gate

Whether it’s AA, therapy, or community, real recovery doesn’t remove the “addict gene.”
It restores the scaffold.

Intervention rebuilds access to:

Safety and co-regulation

Executive function (reflection, impulse inhibition)

Rhythm and routine

Relational accountability

Meaning, narrative, and purpose

It doesn’t delete the program.
It changes the conditions under which it runs.

Traits That Can Disappear Were Never “Owned”

This is the mind-bending part.

If addiction goes away with scaffolding…

What else can?

Anxiety? Rage? Attention deficits?

And if so, what does that mean about “who we are”?

TGTS says: traits are not static.
They’re state-conditional.

Recovery proves it.

The Shift in Perspective

Instead of asking:

“Why do some people become alcoholics?”

Ask:

“What scaffolds make some people vulnerable to needing alcohol for regulation?”

And instead of saying:

“This person is an alcoholic.”

Say:

“This person accessed a state under distress. And they can access another.”

That’s not softness.
That’s scaffolding.

And it changes everything.

The Illusion of Possession

Why “Who We Are” Might Be Who We Can Access

By now, we’ve reframed the role of genes, environment, and identity.

We’ve challenged genetic determinism.
We’ve softened the edges of diagnosis.
We’ve revealed that traits like empathy, focus, or addiction aren’t fixed possessions…
… but conditional states, gated by scaffolds.

Let’s now ask the question hiding beneath it all:

If traits are accessed, not possessed…

Then who are we, really?

You Are the Instrument. The World Is the Music Room.

Let’s return to the metaphor of the piano.

Your genes built the piano.
The environment tunes it.
Your upbringing decides if it’s locked in a closet or given to a curious child.
Stress can warp the strings.
Safety can open the lid.

And what emerges—Beethoven or silence—isn’t just about what’s inside you.
It’s about the conditions you were played in.

You are not your melody.
You are the potential for melody.

We Build Minds by Building Worlds

When society demands traits—focus, empathy, creativity—but fails to build the scaffold, it’s like demanding light from a broken lamp.

We call children “unmotivated” when they’re dysregulated.
We call adults “deficient” when they were never scaffolded.
We call mental health a crisis but treat it like an individual flaw.

TGTS says: cognition is relational architecture.

And architecture is built.

From Labels to Ladders

Once we stop asking who has what,
And start asking who can access what—under which conditions…

We stop shaming.

We start scaffolding.

We become architects of cognition—not critics of character.

This doesn’t erase individuality.

It honours it.
Because only by understanding the gates can we help others open them.

And only by seeing traits as accessible

—not owned—

Can we imagine futures we’ve never seen before.

Traits are not bricks.
They’re doors.

And sometimes, all someone needs is a scaffold to reach the handle.

Final Note

This isn't just theory. It's a call.
To educators. Parents. Therapists. Designers. Citizens.
You are not managing traits.

You are stewarding access.

Welcome to the new paradigm.

Rethinking Neurodiversity

Discussion about this post