Me! Me! Me! Which Inner Self is Running Your Life?
by Astra Niedra
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Astra Niedra
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Me! Me! Me! Which Inner Self is Running Your Life?
by Astra Niedra
Would you like to understand yourself better, including why you make the decisions you do and have the feelings you have? Are you conflicted about some aspects of your life? Would you like to have greater choice in how you behave and feel, and be able to make better decisions? You'll find the answers in the article below, which introduces the latest developments in psychology and consciousness studies which reveal that there is far more to the human psyche and personal identity than you might have presumed.
Imagine this scene:
You are out shopping one day and you notice an amazing dress (or other outfit) in a window display. You are really drawn to the dress so you step inside the store and the sales assistant suggests you try it on. The dress fits perfectly and the sales assistant says it looks amazing on you, and you start to feel that you just have to have it. The price of the dress is almost one month's rent but you know you can put it on your credit card — so, making thousands of justifications about doing that, you do. When you arrive home you are still excited about the dress and you go to sleep feeling somehow revitalized.
The next morning you feel slightly uneasy. It's Monday, so you get ready for work and as you take your work clothes from the wardrobe you see the dress. You take it out and hold it up against you, examining yourself in the mirror. The feeling you have is "Oh dear, what have I done?" Now the dress looks ridiculous. It is definitely not suitable for work and you would never wear it out. It's just not you — you don't even have shoes that go with it. Then you remember the price. Ouch!
Most of us have had this type of experience and we either beat ourselves up about it or just try to forget it, occasionally taking the dress out of the wardrobe but always putting it back in favour of something else. We put it down to being 'one of those bad decisions' or an impulse buy we had not thought through.
But the latest psychological research shows that the reason for inner conflict and situations like the above shopping example is that our sense of identity is not quite as simple as we have assumed. When you say 'I' or 'me' you are in fact referring to a different part of your personality at different times. Each of us has a number of sub-personalities or selves that together make up our whole personality. Different selves assume our identity throughout the day, each one taking care of particular aspects of our lives.
For example, when you are at work your organised and efficient self might be dominant; when you are having a coffee or drink with friends a more carefree self emerges; when you are on holidays your lazy self has its turn; and when you are with your partner you probably access your sensual and sexual selves. Some of us operate from only one or two selves all the time — if you are like that then you might find, for example, that you are always organised and efficient and planning for the future, even on holidays, and can never relax and be spontaneous and let go.
We all have 'favourites', which are those parts of ourselves we use most of the time and by which other people recognise us. These are called primary selves, whereas the parts of our personality we hide or which have been suppressed are our disowned selves.
All the selves within us have their own feelings, thoughts, opinions and needs - and they do not always agree. This is why you might feel conflicted about your job, for instance. The part of you who likes order and predictability probably loves it that you work nine-to-five and do the same thing every day, for the same organisation and with the same people. This feels safe and comfortable for that part of you. In contrast, the part of you who craves adventure, excitement and change feels frustrated in that same job. The experience you get from this is that most of the time you might be content in your job (if your order-loving self is your primary and dominant self) but at other times you feel you hate it and you fantasize about a more adventurous lifestyle — it depends on which self's thoughts and feelings are dominant in you at the time.
This way of thinking about the personality was developed by two psychologists from the United States, Drs Hal and Sidra Stone. Their theory is called the Psychology of Selves and is also known as Voice Dialogue, which is the technique they developed to dialogue with inner selves. Voice Dialogue is a simple process where one person interviews the selves in another person with the aim of simply discovering and validating who they are, without trying to change them in any way. When you decide to speak with, for example, your adventurous self, you move to a different position in the room and then the adventurous self is able to communicate its thoughts and feelings without other parts of your psyche getting in the way. The person interviewing the self stays in the same place for the duration of the dialogue and asks the adventurous self about how it feels, what it likes to do, whether it gets expression in the person's life, and so on.
When the conversation is over, the person who has just been expressing their adventurous self moves back to their original place. In this place you would feel different from when you first sat down to do the process. You have a sense of having more 'breathing space', greater awareness and clarity, an expanded sense of consciousness. This is because you have listened to and experienced a part of your personality while separating it out from the mass of parts which are usually crowded together. You have created a space distinct from the self you previously identified with unconsciously.
The Stones' call this space the aware ego. An aware ego emerges when a person is able to unhook from the parts of themselves that they previously identified with AS themselves. It is having an awareness of your selves as distinct from you but still a vital part of who you are. An aware ego IS NOT about being in a state of awareness or with being 'the witness' as is the aim with meditation, nor is it about letting go of the ego (which is really your primary self); but it is about embracing the totality of who you are. By unhooking from a dominant self who has specific rules and ideas about how you ought to be in the world and who has been running your life, you are now able to listen to and accept opposites and open up a whole new set of possibilities for yourself.
For a practical example of how this might work for you, think back to the example of shopping for clothes. Can you see how the different parts of you might like different clothes? Often when you do something that is either exciting or relaxing (or even frightening), such as shopping, you let go a little of the part of your personality who is usually in charge — your primary self. This leaves an opening for other parts of you to emerge, in this case a part who likes extravagant and flamboyant clothes.
So if you usually buy clothes you can wear to work — which for many people who work in a corporate environment means fairly low-key and conservative items that are easy to mix and match, when this other part of you emerges and sees something it likes and want to have, you feel that you absolutely love this item. However, such feelings are those of the extravagant self or some other opposite in you. The next day when you are getting dressed for work, your primary self would be the one getting dressed. That part of you sees what you have bought and says 'I can't wear this!'
When you become aware of your different selves and can experience their perspectives, you can sit in the middle of a pair of opposite selves and make your own decision, taking into account the wishes of the selves involved. So when you are shopping you would feel the excitement of your extravagant self when it sees something it wants to buy, but at the same time you would feel your more conservative self tell you that you need something to wear to work. It then becomes YOUR responsibility to make the decision — what you decide will take into consideration the views of both conflicting selves. There is no right or wrong decision. You might decide to buy one outfit for each part or buy only the extravagant clothes while being aware that you are disappointing the more conservative part of yourself, or vice versa.
Buying clothing consciously instead of blindly going along with the wishes of one self stops any self-criticism later from the part of you who missed out on what it wanted. You now have a real choice rather than having just one part of you making your decisions at any given time. You have access to the opinions and feelings of opposites and you get to decide.
The other major benefit of understanding that there are a number of different parts to your personality is in regard to relationships — including personal and professional. The different selves in each of us relate with other people in their own particular way. This is why sometimes you can feel confused about your relationships. One day you admire a quality in your partner or friend and the next day it annoys you. Or a particular self may be dominant during the early stages of a relationship but as time passes and you are settled in your relationship, other parts of you also start to emerge — this can cause havoc in your relationship if you do not understand what is going on. By learning about how the selves in you think and feel and how they interact with other people, you can begin to understand your relationship patterns and your relationships will improve dramatically.
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For an introduction to how your selves affect your relationships see my mini-ebook The Greatest Relationship Secret.
Here is the secret of all secrets, the reason the law of attraction works for so few, or works in ways you least expect! The Greatest Relationship Secret explains the fundamental reality about human beings, a reality few people are aware of but which affects everything about your life, including your relationships with others and with yourself, and it determines what kinds of experiences you will attract into your life.
Available at retailers listed on www.voicedialogue.com
Then get the 10 steps to create a truly fulfilling relationship in my critically-acclaimed, best-selling book, which has helped numerous couples to experience long-lasting magic in their relationships, The Perfect Relationship.
In The Perfect Relationship you'll discover how to establish and strengthen the backbone of your relationship — your connection with your partner; you'll find out how to truly listen when you communicate with your partner so that you can draw out each other's truth and allow for deeper communication to take place; you'll learn about the positive and negative bonding patterns we all get into in relationships and you'll learn how to navigate them; and you'll discover a little-known reason that the spark so often diminishes (or sometimes goes out completely) in long-term relationships and you'll find out how to bring it back to life.
The Perfect Relationship also reveals how relationship itself is one of the most powerful teachers for your own personal growth, and how when you approach your relationships in this way, you will gain the most amazing results, both in yourself and in your relationships.
"I recommend this book wholeheartedly" MICHAEL ROWLAND, self development seminar presenter, author, film maker.
"... A wonderfully simple, clear and practical book on relationship that will be of great help to anyone who reads it," DR HAL STONE AND DR SIDRA STONE, Psychologists, authors and teachers who have highly influenced the work of many contemporary consciousness teachers, including SHAKTI GAWAIN.
"Terrific" FAMILY CIRCLE Magazine
"Simple and insightful ... empowering advice" DONNA DUGGAN, WELLBEING Magazine (now Managing Editor MINDFOOD).
"I know your work will make a huge difference to the lives of many people." Mrs A Salis
Available at retailers listed on www.voicedialogue.com
To learn more about each individual self and to discover which selves you identify with and which selves you disown, see my book Which Self Are You?
You might be aware of your Inner Critic and Inner Child, but have you met your other inner selves?
In Which Self Are You? you'll meet the Pleaser, Perfectionist, Responsible Parent, Achiever, Seeker, Procrastinator, Adventurer, Princess, Creative, Rebel, and many more selves that inhabit the human psyche.
This overview of selves will enhance your awareness of which selves are dominant in you, which selves you disown, and how they all affect your life experience.
Available at retailers listed on www.voicedialogue.com
Connect with Astra online:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/astraniedra
Facebook: http://facebook.com/AstraNiedra
About Astra Niedra
Astra Niedra is an internationally respected facilitator and teacher of Voice Dialogue, a simple yet profound system for gaining greater self-awareness and understanding, and which is used in relationship counselling, psychotherapy, life coaching, communication training, conflict resolution, organisational transformation, sports coaching, performing and visual arts education, and in consciousness work. Voice Dialogue and the Psychology of Selves and the Aware Ego have influenced many systems of thought and healing.
Astra trained in Voice Dialogue with its creators, Dr Hal Stone and Dr Sidra Stone, both of whom recommend her work highly. She writes extensively on relationships and consciousness growth, and her dream is that one day human beings will understand themselves and each other enough so that we can all live harmoniously together.