One of the primary goals of spiritual formation is to become your true self. This is why the primary purpose of prayer is not to get God to do what you want, but to become properly formed. If you spend all your time praying out of your agitated, grasping, foolish, fearful self, it does very little good. We have been distorted by sin, both our sin and the sins of the fallen world. We must lift up our soul to God. We lift up our soul to God that we might recover the proper image and that we might escape our false self and find our true self. Your true self is one that is calm, content, wise, and unafraid. Deep inside, this is who you really are.