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Reconciling Personas or "Sub-Personalities"
Author: Robert Elias Najemy
We occasionally experience internally conflicting needs, desires or beliefs. In such inner conflicts, when our "sub-personalities" or "personas" have conflicting needs, we are not sure what to do or which decision to make. Some examples of those conflicts are listed below. As you read through them, consider whether or not you have any similar conflicts.
SOME SAMPLE CONFLICTS
Let us look at some examples of the inner conflicts that may disturb our peace.
1. One part of ourselves may feel we need to spend more time on our professional life while another part may believe we should spend more time with our family.
2. A part of ourselves may want to open up to a conscious love relationship, while another part fears being abandoned, hurt, suppressed, manipulated, or being unable to be ourselves in that relationship.
3. One part of ourselves may want to give those around us (children, spouses, friends) total freedom to pursue their happiness in their own ways, while another part fears losing control.
4. The part of ourselves that wants to please others may come into direct conflict with our desire to satisfy our own needs.
5. Part of ourselves may want others to support us, while the other feels restricted by their support or advice. 6. One part of ourselves may want spiritual growth, while another may feel the need for material security.
7. One part of ourselves may want to help loved ones or friends, but the other may feel that perhaps we are doing them harm by continuously bailing them out and not letting them solve their own problems.
8. One part of ourselves may feel a need to protect the planet by living a simple life with very little consumption of energy and products, while another part may want to enjoy all the comforts of an energy consuming, pollution producing lifestyle.
9. One part of ourselves may want to take a new job or leave a job that we have, while another part wants the opposite for different reasons.
10. One part of ourselves may believe in cooperating with others, while another finds that difficult.
11. One part of ourselves may have a desire for various objects or situations as a source of pleasure, while another part may feel, this is a sin, or that we are not spiritual if we partake of such pleasures. It may feel this type of pleasure seeking is a waste of time and energy considering our spiritual goals.
12. One part of ourselves may feel the need to have an exclusive relationship in which our happiness and security depend upon another person (usually a mate). Another part may find this an obstacle toward its need for independence, self-sufficiency, and freedom.
13. Our need for personal love may conflict with our need to develop universal love.
14. Our need to forgive may conflict with our need to hold on to negative feelings toward someone.
15. Our need to employ various disciplines may conflict with our need to feel free to do whatever we please whenever we choose.
16. Our need to follow our inner voice may conflict with our need to be like others and be accepted by them.
17. Our need to express our feelings as they are may conflict with our need not to hurt anyone.
18. Our need to express our real feelings and thoughts might clash with our need to have the othersą acceptance.
19. Our need to follow a spiritual guide might conflict with our need to rebel against all types of advice or control.
20. Our need to control persons and situations in order to feel secure may conflict with our need to let things flow and allow others to act freely.
21. Our need never to show weakness may conflict with our need to share our weaknesses with others or seek their help.
22. Our desire not to ask anything from others may conflict with our need to have their help and support.
23. Our need for a stable routine for our balance and growth may conflict with our need for variety and change.
24. Our need to play our familiar emotional relationship games may conflict with our desire to get free ourselves from them.
25. One part of us wants to face and overcome our fears and blockages while another prefers to avoid and ignore them.
There are certainly conflicts, which we havenąt mentioned, but most will fall into these categories.
How these Personas are Created
Our various emotional survival mechanisms can lead to the development of diverse personas or sub-personalities within our personality structure (we are not talking here about clinical illness such as multiple personality syndrome).
In response to early childhood experiences we develop various inner emotional responses in an effort to maintain our feelings of security, self-worth, power and freedom. These then grow in their own separate ways, manifesting as parts of our personality that have their own personal beliefs, logic and identity and power. We might call these roles "personas," or "sub-personalities." Throughout this discussion we will refer to them as personas.
Each persona has it own core belief that creates and sustains its existence in our larger identity. This core belief will coincide with our need for security, pleasure, affirmation or freedom, or in a few special cases, other less common needs, such as the need to be useful, or to acquire self-knowledge or enlightenment. In some cases, the basic needs may be distorted and work in conflict with survival or growth, as for example, with the need to harm ourselves or others.
In most cases, however, these personas are created by our needs to establish our safety and self-worth, usually through other persons or possessions. (For a more detailed explanation of this process see The Psychology of Happiness.)
WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT INNER CONFLICTS
1. We first need to get to know these various parts of ourselves by keeping a daily diary in which we refer to them by names that represent their particular qualities needs or emotions.
2. We can keep a separate page for each persona in which we list its particular needs, desires, fears, emotions, reactions and beliefs.
3. We then need to discover for each persona the core belief that creates, sustains and drives it.
4. We must accept each persona as a natural development in our evolution process. Regardless of whether there is use for its continued existence, at some point, it served some purpose in our search for security, self-worth, freedom and equilibrium.
We can perceive each persona as one of our children, whom we accept and love regardless of its immaturity. Our purpose is to now educate that persona and help it to manifest its higher potential.
5. We can then allow each persona to express itself in its own unique way through dance, writing, drawing, work, etc.
6. We then move on to let them communicate between themselves.
a. By writing a dialogue like a one act play in which they communicate back and forth expressing: complaints, needs, feelings, beliefs, as well as questions which they have for each other. In this conversation questions are asked and then answered by the other party, or perhaps arguments or accusations made on the one part to be rebutted by the other. Attempts are made by each part to get what it needs from the other. The ultimate purpose is to create an atmosphere of communication, understanding and cooperation between these two personas with conflicting needs.
b. The same process can then be done verbally as described below.
(For a more detailed explanation of this dialoguing process refer to the Psychology of Happiness)
If you are interested in learning how to resolve your inner conflicts, you can receive a free email course with 7 messages concerning how we can do so. Send in an email to the following address to get one message each week on Resolving Inner Conflicts for 7 weeks. innerconflicts@getresponse.com
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Robert Elias Najemy is the author of over 600 articles, 400 lecture cassettes on Human Harmony and 20 books, which have sold over 100,000 copies. He is the Founder and director of the Center for Harmonious Living in Greece with 3700 members. His book The Psychology of Happiness is available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971011605/holisticharmo-20 and http://www.HolisticHarmony.com/psychofhappiness.html. You can download FREE articles and e-books from http://www.HolisticHarmony.com where you can also receive guidance on life issues.
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