The good, the bad and the ugly; welcome to the world of sub-personalities

Do you know this person is probably your most powerful opponent; hinders you and stops you living a meaningful and fulfilling life? Even if you are trying to make positive changes, this person is probably standing in the way of your progress. No matter how many self-help books you read, courses you complete or skills you develop, this person can stand in the way of you fully achieving what you desire. Sure this person is not always like this and might sometimes even like and approve of what you do, but soon enough they return with judgments and criticisms. Whatever you do, it will never be good enough! 

 

Have you guessed who this person is? Yep, this person is you! Well to be more accurate it is not you but rather an aspect of you or what is sometimes referred to as a sub-personality (an aspect of self). Any functional person has sub-personalities. Dr Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) the famous Italian psychiatrist (the father of a modality called *Psychosynthesis) coined the term sub-personality and said that on average we have about 22 sub-personalities.

 

While all of these various sub-personalities are ultimately there to assist you, some will take their job far too seriously and become very tyrannical. Rather than help you they will actually hinder you, sabotage your efforts and stand in your way.

 

Two sub-personalities that often work together are your ‘inner judge’ and your ‘inner critic’. In essence, these sub-personalities are a very important part of your ‘team’. You need parts of yourself that will question, deliberate, evaluate and re-evaluate your thoughts, behavior, decisions and actions. Can you imagine the dire consequences if those qualities (sub-personalities) did not exist? But like any other sub-personalities, if you are not in charge of them or understand their intention, they will be in charge of you, run riot, dominate and terrorize you. Rather than these sub-personalities providing you with information that you can deliberate and act upon, these sub-personalities will hold you to ransom like a hostage. 

 

Especially your ‘judge’ and ‘critic’ and they are very easy to recognize as they often present as inner voices. They will say things like: you are dumb, lazy, stupid, not good enough, hopeless, a loser, you never do anything right, you could have done better, you should have done this, you shouldn’t have done that…and the list goes on. I am sure you can see what they are trying to do; they want you to do better, but the way they go about it is not particularly effective, helpful or productive.

 

Just as people mistakenly believe calling a child lazy will make them become industrious – wrong! It doesn’t and in fact it has the opposite effect. Negative reinforcement just does not work! Many people still think that the more they beat themselves up the better they will do. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

 

So how much do you hinder yourself through berating, criticizing and beating up on yourself? I am not saying don’t critique yourself or learn from the past, please do. It’s important to question yourself and make informed decisions about what you can do differently. There is a big difference between criticizing and critiquing; one tells you what is wrong the other is feedback. Never ever think you are not okay, never ever call yourself names, never ever beat yourself up or abuse yourself. It does not work! It will only make you feel bad about yourself. When you give air-time to destructive self-talk, you are just giving yourself a life sentence in a cage of limitation. Many people judge themselves and hand out a life sentence for something they might have done in the past. How can you ever expect to feel good, progress and evolve when you are trapped in a mental prison?

 

STOP thinking that you need to be perfect, you are already perfectly human. Remember that the human concept of perfection is the most imperfect concept. It is actually rather arrogant to think that you ‘should’ or ‘could’ be perfect, whatever that means. Let’s face it, no-one consciously chooses to stuff up. There are no multiple choice forms asking you how much you want to stuff up today. Most of us do our best; have some humility and accept your humanness.

 

Get out of your own way; open the cage to your mental prison and set yourself free.

 

Observe and reflect on what happened without agonizing, feeling guilty or hating yourself. Look at it constructively, with humility not through the lens of ‘delusions of grandeur’. Yes, you are perfectly human, you will not always get it right and hopefully you will learn and grow from your experiences. Take the lesson/s you have learned, apply them and move on. If by any change you have hurt or wronged someone through your actions, apologize, see what you can do to rectify, mend and remedy the situation then move on and let it go.

 

This is something most people find extremely difficult to do and it is one of our greatest challenges. So many see admitting their ‘wrong doing’ or even apologizing as a weakness. Actually the opposite is true. It takes a special person to be humble enough to recognize their humanness and with that comes the understanding that I am fallible, get it wrong at times, can be selfish and thoughtless etc, etc. The real problem is that when I think I need to be ‘perfect’ (whatever that means in human terms) and that I am not  suppose to get things wrong, make mistakes or have a shadow side, I also have totally unrealistic expectations of others. If I deny my own humanness I also deny others being human. So if I can’t forgive myself and make amends, it is highly unlikely that I can forgive others either. So rather than judging others focus on accepting your own humanness and then it will be easier to accept and forgive other people’s humanness. Ultimately most people do the best they can, even though their best, as well as our own might not always be good enough.      

 

The present 

Recognize the voices of your ‘judge’ and ‘critic’ and know that they are just voices and that ultimately you are in control. You can allow them to terrorize and traumatize you, you can ignore them or you can listen to what they’ve got to say, hear their intention and say ‘thank you for sharing’. The choice is yours. 

 

Unless you have a god complex (you should know everything and will never get anything wrong), remember that you have the ability to learn, grow and evolve. You can always learn from your experiences, not because you are inadequate but because you have a desire to increase your level of insight and awareness. Ignorant people rarely enquire, evolve or apply their learning. 

 

When you observe something about yourself that you don’t like or behavior that you want to change just say ‘good noticing’ and commit to change it.

 

Never judge or be critical of yourself; this does not mean being closed to feedback or scrutiny, which is actually critiquing. Judgment and criticism will only put you in a box with a label on it; stupid, bad, incompetent etc. This will not get you anywhere and nothing will change. From now on replace judgment with being curious, interested, intrigued and fascinated. For instance, “Gee I wonder why I keep engaging in that behavior when I know it is not serving me” or “I wonder what my need is and what I can do to change this”. This technique is far more effective than “You stupid idiot you always....” This way you can progress and evolve rather than feel bad and regress. 

  

Befriend yourself. When someone is keen to learn would you treat them with respect, encourage them and be kind, or would you beat them up and call them stupid? Treat yourself as a person who is keen to learn. Be committed and disciplined. 

 

Remember unaware people ‘judge’ and insightful people ‘enquire’. When you want to get to know yourself ‘warts and all’, a most powerful way that you can apply new information and learning is to engage in ‘compassionate enquiry’. Treat yourself with love and respect; be grateful that you have the capacity and ability to learn, grow and make positive changes in your life.

   

I often hear people say, ‘I am not there yet’. What they really mean is ‘I am still not okay…I am still not good enough…I am still not perfect’.  Just because you haven’t yet achieved what you set out to achieve, does not mean you are not okay. The greatest dissatisfaction in life comes from discontentment and disapproval of yourself and always striving to better yourself because you believe you are not okay. While in essence it is great to grow and develop, it is most unhelpful to do so because you feel there is something wrong with you, that somehow you are faulty and need to be fixed. You are not faulty!

 

Be humble and accept your humanness. You are a human who lives in the present, experiencing your experiences and responding to these experiences to the best of your ability. Realize that you have sub-personalities that can be overzealous and despite having the best intentions, hinder and stop you from living your life in the moment. There is nothing stupid, bad or whatever else you might call yourself about observing and reflecting upon your thoughts, feelings actions and behavior, and then making adjustments. This means you are emotionally intelligent. By all means reflect, discern and be open to feedback; your own and that of others. But make sure you use this information to grow and develop - do not use this information to beat yourself up. Having a terrorist inside your head, keeping you in a cage and calling you names is quite destructive and most unhelpful.

 

Be your own favourite student. A teacher likes his or her favourite student and does not put the student down. The teacher gives him or her special attention and respect, is encouraging and is inspiring and has an unshaken belief in the student’s ability and success. Why not become your own favourite student. 

 

Be realistic; accept that you can’t possibly know all there is to know or that you will be good at everything.  No matter how many times others might say that you can do anything you want and that all you have to do is put your mind to it, this is pure and utter nonsense. It is misleading and it creates unrealistic expectations that ultimately lead to discontent; giving your ‘critic’ another reason to beat you up. I will never become a world class ballet dancer at the age of 60 no matter how much I put my mind to it or how hard I practice. Does this mean I am a failure? Focus on the things you do well and master your unique and individual talents and skills.

 

Don’t identify with your limitations (or your successes for that matter). Whatever you do, never make yourself synonymous with your behavior or actions… failures or achievements. These are things you do, not things you are. When you understand and realize that you are not your behavior and actions, you are more open to feedback. You can’t change who you are but you can change what you do (your behavior).  

 

Get out of your own way, stop beating up on yourself and set yourself free.

 

*The ‘Self’ has many aspects. The idea is be aware of  this ‘Self’ and the complexity of sub-personalities and to understand what each sub-personality needs, wants and has to offer the whole ‘system’ so that the system, the 'Self’ can unfold and evolve to its potential. There are many wonderful books and workbooks on Psychosynthesis and I highly recommend the following: