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Session 1 - Section B: Primary Selves and Disowned Selves
In Hal and Sidra Stone's book titled 'Partnering - A New Kind Of Relationship' (Natraj Publishing, 2000) it explains that humans are not made up of one single Self, but of many different Selves, all interacting together, with each individual Self generally taking turns to 'be at the fore' dependant upon the situation at the time. An example of this is the male company CEO, who at work is efficient, organised, non-emotional to the point of appearing almost cold, makes snappy decisions, is brash, and domineering, yet if you ask his wife to describe his personality, she describes him as a soft teddy-bear, very affectionate, loving and compassionate, very easy-going and quite messy and blase. At work he is a completely different person to who he is at home.
Following are a few examples of some of the common different selves that people may have in their personality mix, that at different times may take centre stage:
- The Critic (the judge)
- The Image Consultant (worries about what others think of you)
- The Skeptic (the doubter, cynic)
- The Protector (controller, risk manager)
- The Spendthrift (looks after the purse strings)
- The Achiever (pushes to succeed)
- The Wounded Inner Child
- The Rebel (bucks against the rules)
This is only a few of them. Each person has around 200 different personalities at play.
Primary Selves
These are personalities that we have developed to protect us, as a way of coping in this world, to enable ourselves to be accepted or acceptable to those around us. They are developed to guard our vulnerability and to earn us love from others.
Disowned Selves
These are discarded emotions and instincts, the parts of our personalities that we have 'dropped', or pushed into the background so as to avoid criticism from others. These are the parts of our personalities that we try to 'get rid of'. Here are a few examples of how this works:
A young school-boy finds he loves school, and looks forward to class every day. He does his homework every day with zeal, and studies for, and scores highly in exams. Some of his friends start to notice and begin to ridicule him, calling him names like 'Nerd' and 'Teacher's Pet'. The boy, like many teenagers, is really concerned about fitting in, so he starts to play with his friends more and study and do homework less. He even joins them in wingeing about the teachers. His grades gradually decline, and his gift of intelligence slowly sinks into his unconscious, as he chooses to live from the belief that he is not good at school-work.
A young girl called Cynthia displays her gift of intuition when she senses what it was that her parents were planning in secret. This makes her parents feel very inadequate and threatened, and sensing this, she decides not to do say anything again. In time, Cynthia's talent sinks back into her unconscious, as she continues to keep things to herself instead of speaking up, in an attempt to be acceptable in her parent's eyes. Cynthia eventually grew up to believe that she was not intuitive.
There was a lady called Thelma who witnessed a murder as a child. As an adult, she had no recollection of the memories, and had she been asked if something had happened, she would even have answered 'No'. Not because she would have been lying, but because she truly didn't remember. This was because when the event occurred all those years ago, her ego had decided that she was just not strong enough to deal with all the intense feelings such as pain, shame, loathing, terror, grief and anger. So as an act of self-protection, her ego had filtered all the details about the event, and all of the raw feelings associated with it, and had buried them deep within her unconscious mind. By doing so, it had allowed her identity to continue intact (although somewhat bruised and damaged!) They did surface years later, as an adult. But by this time, she was strong enough to work through those feelings, with the help of a therapist.
A 57 year old man called David started suffering from intense anger, which he just couldn't understand because for all of his life he had been a very easy-going, calm, passive person. David sought the help of a life-coach, and came to an awareness that in his childhood, his father had been a constant angry presence, so David's young ego had decided that anger was a bad thing so had moved his own anger into the unconscious. And there it had laid buried for the next 50 odd years.
As you can see with these above examples, these people's true personality was pushed into the background, and they went on to develop 'Primary Selves' in their place, to allow themselves to become accepted and acceptable in the eyes of those around them. However, you can clearly see the devastating affect that these 'disowned' selves could/did have on their lives later down the track, either by the negative affect that they had, or the sheer potential that they were missing out on in their lives.
By the way...
Whatever parts we try to get rid of, life will bring to us in the form of people who are exactly like our disowned selves!
These people will be a challenge. You will either be strongly attracted or stongly repelled by them, but you will not be able to get away from them! They may be a parent, a spouse, a teacher, a boss, a co-worker, a sibling etc. If you leave school and get a job, it will stop being your teacher and become someone at work. Leave home to escape a bossy parent, and they will be replaced by a flatmat or spouse. Cut off your impossible sibling, and someone else will just take their place. Disowned selves are like a heat-seeking missile - the universe has a way of them finding you! There are always going to be people around you who 'push your buttons'. At least until you get it out of your unconscious, create a conscious awareness of it, and allow your primary opposite self (your 'Disowned Self - sometimes referred to as your 'Shadow Self') to balance your personality out.
The main reason for the clash is that you and the person 'rubbing you up the wrong way' are at opposite extremes of a personality trait. One is a ten out of ten, the other is a one out of ten. This is termed 'Polarisation'. (The trick to creating balance, and 'letting go' of the need to attract these people into our lives, is take on a bit of the opposite extreme of the personality trait and to become a five out of ten. Imagine what sort of world we could live in if every time someone was rubbed the wrong way by someone, everyone stopped to think 'I wonder what disowned part of me is so deeply hidden that I can not stand to see it in others?' and set about balancing out that personality trait in themselves to disperse their polarisation, instead of blaming the other party? Hmmm.)
Following is a list of common areas of Polarisation:
- Cautious/impulsive
- Rational/feeling
- Outgoing/withdrawn
- Responsible/irresponsible
- Pusher/relaxed
- Organised/disorganised
- Assertive/passive
- Able to set boundaries/not able to set boundaries
- Spender/Saver
- Rule follower/Rebel
- Worrying about what people think/not caring
Can you recognise a few of these in yourself or others?
We are now going to do an activity to identify some of your Disowned Selves and Primary Selves. You will need a notepad and pen for this activity.
Write down your thoughts as they appear. Do not sensor them. There are no right or wrong answers. Go with the first thought that comes to mind.
Identifying your Disowned Selves
These are reflected in the qualities that you either judge or over-value in others.
Think of some people in your life that rub you up the wrong way. What is it about these people that you judge? List everything you can think of for each of those people (the most irritating and reprehensible things about them).
You have just identified some disowned selves within your self.
Identifying your Primary Selves
Now look at the opposite quality in yourself for each. In what area do you feel superior? What kind of person are you? What qualities are you proud of having?
You have just identified some Primary Selves you have developed.
Now think of some people that you over-value/feel 'less-than' around/that you may 'yearn' for? What is it about these people that you find so wonderful? Write down as many things as you can think of for each person.
You have just identified some more disowned selves within your self.
Now look at the opposite quality in yourself for each. What kind of person are you? What qualities are you ashamed of?
You have just identified some more Primary Selves.
You can do this exercise as many times as you wish, as you come across other people over time that you judge or over-value.
Later in this course you will be given a facility whereby you can communicate with your unconscious and access all this 'stuff' that is disowned, really listen to your inner voice, and get back in touch with the 'real' 'true' you. However, first, we will have a look at the two different layers of the Unconscious mind...