The personal self is an experience you are having and not what you are.
In fact there is no personal self. It is just a bundle of thoughts and feelings.
Like your night dreams.
Except in the waking state (waking dream), there is a tendency to identify.
In the night dream the tendency to identify is less prominent.
In the night dream you may dream you are a bird but you wake up and you are no longer a bird.
It is this tendency to identify that is sticky and stubborn.
It is thought that argues on behalf of its own story.
Thought is story.
What we are is not defined by thought or feelings.
We are the infinite creative spaciousness of being that is undefined by its creation.
Photo by Richard Purple