Chapter
One continued:
EGO-PERSONALITIES
Ego-personalities are a defense mechanism adopted by
children whenever they are not free to express their
‘wants’ and ‘don’t wants.’
This lack of freedom could be a situation created by
family, friends, teachers, neighborhood groups, or a
traumatic experience with an adult. Dysfunctional behavior
is created by fear—fear of not being loved or liked,
fear of not getting what we need, fear of displeasing
an adult, fear of not knowing what to do. The ego-personalities
are meant to entertain others, to make people want us,
love us, be happy with us or believe that we are smart
and good, and give us what we want. There is no trust
between people who use ‘ego-personalities,’
because one minute you are talking to one ego-personality
and the next another ‘ego-personality’ appears.
One ego-personality is happy with you and the other
is unhappy with you. There is no continuity. You cannot
be sure that the same mother you left in the morning
will be there after school. Dysfunctional people are
irrational and do not know how to express themselves
in words, they live in a make-believe world and make
excuses, rather than look at the facts and search for
the truth. All this make believe to keep other people
happy, while one’s true personality, one’s
soul, the ‘who I really am’ suffers silently
in pain and sadness.
When do you know when someone is using ego-personalities?
If you wonder who is ruled by ego-personalities, look
into the eyes. Are they glassy, staring, unresponsive;
is the verbal response you hear an automatic response?
Automatic responses are the result of being on automatic
pilot and that is when the soul is out and the ego-personalities
are in. The glassy eyed look is when you could say,
"No one is home!" and "No one is listening
to me!"
Here are some examples of ego-personalities—roles
we play and masks we hide behind:
o the joker
o the workaholic
o the drunk or drugged personality
o the angry personality
o the jealous personality
o the personality that tries to impress
(the embellisher)
o the dictator personality that treats animals and children
and those closest to them cruelly: like slaves or inanimate
objects
o the sexual personality (people only like me when I
am sexy)
o the bad girl, the bad boy personality, (I get attention
by being bad)
o the "I am right and everyone else is wrong"
personality
o the depressed personality
o the tyrannical personality
o the "I am a martyr" personality
o the sadistic or masochistic personality
o the vegetable personality
o the gossiper
o the criticizer
o the "I am better than -superior to you"
personality
o the "I agree with everyone" personality
(I have no opinion of my own) the "everyone is
so nice and no one is capable of doing wrong" personality
("I can’t believe the truth even when I see
or hear it"—head in the sand)
o the "I only believe what I want to believe"
personality (the personality that does not listen to
what you say, and imagines life as if in a dream, refusing
to face reality)
Do you know any people who wear these masks and how
do you react to these ‘ego-personalities?’
Keep in mind that none of these ‘ego-personalities’
are ‘the real you.’
None of the ‘ego-personalities’ are the ‘Real
You.’ "Then, who am I?" you say. You
will find out by first removing the masks—the ‘ego-personalities’—that
you have been hiding behind.
Created in childhood, the ‘ego personalities’
are the way to the goal, which is to feel loved, feel
welcome, feel warm, feel worth while—feel alive.
Playing a role by using ‘ego-personalities’
never allows our ‘soul-personality’ to speak
or act. Sadness, depression, and anxiety are the feelings
we have in our soul because our souls are crying. So
who are these impostors of our souls?
The joker is someone who is always making fun of people.
We laugh and enjoy the joker until one day we are the
brunt of the joke. We can tell the truth about our feelings
by hiding them in a joke, "I didn’t really
mean it—it’s just a joke!"
The workaholic is a person who avoids having to interact
with people about personal feelings, hiding his or her
feelings by avoiding them, "I can’t talk right
now, I have work to do!" (Avoiding truth—avoiding
a personal life for fear of being hurt.)
The drunk personality is numb to the reality of everyday
life, a convenient escape. Being drunk, we decide not
to live our life but to escape from it! "I didn’t
really mean it, you know I was drunk!" (Avoiding
life, hiding out and living in a ‘make believe’
world)
The drugged personality is avoiding living, forgetting
about everyday life and giving up on life—no hope!
"I was on drugs. You can’t believe what I
say when I’m on drugs, you have to forgive me,
I’m not responsible for what I do!" (Avoiding
truth, hiding out and living a ‘make believe’
life)
The jealous personality lusts after other people’s
lives, snoops into other people’s activities or
things, and finally blames others for one’s own
life! This is living another person’s life vicariously;
instead of making a life of one’s own. "She’s
got everything and I’ve got nothing! He doesn’t
deserve what he has but I do—I should have his
life, his wife, job, clothes, car, children, happiness,
money. I hardly have anything and people are trying
to take what little I have away from me. I am a better
person than she is and I deserve to have more than she
does!" (Jealous people want all your attention
and they are not willing to share that attention with
anyone else—even their own children.)
The embellisher, who exaggerates the truth in order
to impress people, has never had the opportunity to
be himself or herself—and does not know who that
is. The desire to be someone special leads to a life
of lies. When we do embellish, we actually believe our
own stories, and our reality then—is unreality.
The dictator personality treats men, women or children
or those whom they believe to be beneath them with disgust
or disdain—like slaves or inanimate objects. This
is a person with low self esteem who feels good only
by pointing out the weaknesses of others.
The sexual personality is an act, in order to be hugged,
loved, touched, and made to feel liked. The dysfunctional
person does not know many ways to feel loved. Sex and
being funny are two ways to feel loved.
The bad girl/the bad boy personality (rebellious): Attention
is what these two want. Attention of any kind, even
if it is a reprimand; it makes them feel that they are
loved. Someone is paying attention to their activities
and that means someone out there cares. This behavior
pattern or ego personality continues until another way
to get attention is found.
The agreeable personality (the chameleon): This one
does everything perfectly or tries to, just to keep
people happy and to cause less stress in the family.
The "I’m right and everyone else is wrong"
personality, is someone who wants to feel that they
are worth something. The ego is so fragile that there
is no room for mistakes or faults—no room to be
wrong.
The depressed personality: this ‘ego-personality’
is a sadness because the soul personality has not been
allowed to speak or act—this sadness is really
coming from inside—from the true ‘you’
your soul.
The angry personality (temper tantrum): This personality
has learned to demand everything in an angry voice because
he or she has found that that is what works. "I
get my way if I sound angry."
The tyrannical personality runs everyone’s life,
telling them how to do, and what to do, what he or she
wants. No one around this personality can be an individual
with a mind of his own.
The "I’m a martyr" personality is someone
who does everything for everyone instead of asking others
to do a share of the work. Those of us who are waited
on by the martyr enjoy the attention never realizing
that we should get up and help. Those of us who are
not martyrs will not do it all. We demand help from
others—we delegate authority.
The sadistic or masochistic personalities are personalities
who feel people are deserving of punishment instead
of praise, encouragement, gentle attention, love and
kindness.
The vegetable "I don’t talk" personality
is someone who is afraid of receiving criticism for
his or her thoughts and ideas. These people talk freely,
about you and to you—in their heads. You can see
their thoughts on their faces and in their moods and
in their attitudes. They never stop talking and that
is why they do not hear you when you speak to them.
You are interrupting them!
The gossiper or criticizer personality is someone who
does not have a life of his or her own, and must snoop
into other people’s business in order to have people
to talk about. There are four different conversations
people can have: there are those who talk about people,
those who talk about things, those who talk about places
and those who talk about ideas. The gossiper is stuck
mentally and needs to go on a diet of speaking only
about ideas, things or places. The problem with the
criticizer is that the stories he or she relates are
only one sided. The truth could be known if the gossiper
relayed the ‘why’ someone said or did this;
or even took the trouble to ask if the information was,
at all, true.
The "I am better than—superior to you"
personality is a person who has very low self esteem.
This personality sees all people, especially the great
ones, as flawed. Being flawed reduces each person to
the same level or lower. Since each person, great and
small, is equally flawed there is no need to strive
to greater heights. To see through this person’s
eyes is to see only the negative—the flaws in everyone.
The "I agree with everyone" personality (I
have no opinion of my own) is someone who refuses to
have confrontation or disagreement on anything with
anyone. This person has given up without a fight. "Whatever
you want to do is fine with me. I do not care."
Anything to have peace. This person will never find
his or her soul this way because the soul has ideas.
The "everyone is so nice and no one is capable
of doing wrong" personality "I can’t
believe the truth even when I see or hear it:"
head in the sand, is someone who lives in a make-believe
world where there are only positive thoughts, words,
and actions. This person sees only the good, which is
the direct opposite from the personality that is superior,
who thinks and sees only the negative. Both are extremes
and neither faces the reality that in life there is
good and bad.
The "I only believe what I want to believe"
personality does not listen to what you say and imagines
life as if in a dream, refusing to face reality. This
personality sees only his or her side of the story and
refuses to see truth which is both sides of the story.
Much like the gossiper and criticizer this personality
refuses to see the truth.
Remember: None of the ‘ego-personalities’
are the ‘Real You.’
Created in childhood, the ‘ego-personalities’
are the way to the goal, which is to:
feel loved
feel welcome
feel warm
feel worth while
feel alive
feel smart
feel accepted
The problem is that your soul is imprisoned, and cries
to be free. ‘Ego-personalities’ are a death
to your soul if you do not let your soul speak and act.
"If I am not me, then who am I?"
And in all this the real you is hidden within—unable
to speak or move—imprisoned by the ‘ego-personalities’
who have run your life since the beginning. The real
you is your soul/sole personality who has been hidden
away, staying quiet for fear of reprisal. Your soul
can be a baby, a toddler or an adolescent in your 20,
30, 40, 50 or 80 year old body. The maturity of the
soul is measured according to the amount of time the
soul was allowed to speak and to act, develop a personality
of its own, based upon its likes and dislikes—its
ideas. As a dysfunctional person our true age is the
age at which our soul’s development was arrested
by dysfunctional adults. For example, you might have
been raised by dysfunctional parents from babyhood and
your soul never got an opportunity to develop a personality—or
grow up. Your soul may be in babyhood and cannot yet
talk, express its wants in words. (You are probably
silent most of the time.) Or your soul development could
be as old as you were when your life changed from living
in a functional family to moving into a dysfunctional
family, neighborhood or school. Or the change could
have taken place after having had a traumatic experience.
You could be two years old, five years old, twelve years
old, according to your soul’s experience level
and yet have the body of a 35, 55 or 85 year old.
Dysfunctional people have ‘multiple ego-personalities;’
they are led by their desires and don’t even know
what their soul—their inner being -the person inside
the body—the true self, is wanting or feeling.
The person who is raised by dysfunctional people—becomes
a robot, and the soul within the body is upstaged, overshadowed—actually
obliterated—by ‘ego-personalities,’ none
of them being the real ‘soul-personality.’
‘Ego-personalities’ are all of the characters
that one uses when one needs to interact because one’s
soul has not been trained to express itself. The soul—the
creative being within the tiny baby is so sensitive
and timid that the large bodies and loud voices of dysfunctional
ego acting parents scare it into hiding. Soon the baby
talks and walks imitating parents, siblings, friends
and the Media. It grows "Big" and becomes
exactly what the mother or the father or society have
exemplified.
The ‘soul-personality’ has no teacher in a
home where the parents and siblings interact as ‘ego-personalities.’
The person’s soul—the person inside the body—is
untrained. The ‘soul/sole-personality’ remains
untrained allowing ‘ego-personalities’ to
speak for it and to act for it. A dysfunctional/multiple
ego-personality person is really an untrained inexperienced
soul and the functional person is really a trained soul—a
‘soul-personality.’
Multiple ego-personality people want, but they have
not learned to verbalize what they want. They are afraid
that they won’t get what they want so they try
to trick the other person into giving them what they
want by lies, anger, crying or the silent treatment.
Multiple ego-personality people are unconscious and
controlled by their habits. They talk about what they
have read, seen or heard. They are on automatic pilot.
They react to the present by assuming it is the same
as what they have experienced in the past. They react
rather than act. This is emotional dysfunctionality.
As children they were not trained how to express their
opinions about what they liked—or did not like—what
they wanted to do—or what they did not want to
do. More importantly, they were not given a chance to
explain why they did or did not do something, or why
they did or did not want to do something. They grow
up thinking that they have no choice. They repeat the
same mistakes. Their lives are a repetition of the same
thing over and over. They are bored and they are surrounded
by multiple ego-personality people (verbally or physically
or both); therefore, they try to escape from the world
by drinking, taking drugs, using sex or responding to
stimuli with verbal or physical abuse. They are led
by their desires, such as: "I AM HUNGRY THEREFORE
I EAT—ANYTHING! I AM THIRSTY THEREFORE I DRINK—ANYTHING!
I AM SEXUALLY AROUSED THEREFORE I WILL HAVE SEX WITH
ANYONE!"
The soul-personality remains untrained allowing ego-personalities
to speak for it and to act for it. Functional means
having one ‘soul-personality.’ Dysfunctional
means having ‘ego-personalities’ with an act
to fit every occasion.
There are those people who do not develop their ‘soul-personality’
nor do they take on ‘ego-personalities’ to
talk for them. These people are the hermits. They do
not talk or interact. Their soul is there but it has
not been trained—it is still in babyhood—unable
to communicate. If one has been abused by being raised
without intimate conversation—soul to soul—and
without affection—love and adoration of their soul;
then, this soul will not mature verbally, mentally,
emotionally or socially. This soul will not have the
‘ego-personalities’ to talk for it and will
not have the experience of expressing any ideas, likes
or dislikes. The soul’s development will be frozen
in time, until a decision is made by that soul to grow
up. At this point, the soul begins to teach itself how
to live and how to interact with people. This soul lives
alone to protect itself from people; being self-stimulated—usually
creative—the soul is satisfied to be—alone.
Whether the soul is hiding behind the ‘ego-personalities’
or whether it is hiding silently within the heart, it
is still immature—and it needs to grow up and express
itself.THE ‘SOUL-PERSONALITY’
Functional people use their ‘soul-personality’
and they express themselves verbally. They make it clear
what their needs and wants are and what their expectations
are. You might say that ‘soul-personality’
people are above-board, honest, straight forward and
conscious of their feelings and able to express them.
They have been educated to think—to discuss issues,
alternative ideas, and to formulate opinions. The ‘soul-personality’
is not manipulative or possessive, nor would it enslave
or control another soul, as do the personalities of
the ego which function with the goal of manipulation
in mind. The ‘soul-personality’ loves and
wants to be loved, inspires and wants to be inspired,
gives and wants to be given to, listens and wants to
be listened to, speaks and wants to be spoken to. What
else is there in life but to be loved and to love, to
be inspired and to inspire—to give encouragement
to someone else that he or she might express the talents
of his or her soul individuality? Let us take charge
of our own education and train ourselves to speak from
our hearts, from our souls, and quit the acting and
the hiding. When your soul makes the decisions in your
day, of what to do, where to go, and what to say, ‘you’
the ‘soul’ are happy. Who is making the decisions
for your soul?
Now that you know what your ‘soul-personality’
is not, let us begin to uncover your soul. Discover
your true self. Listen to your own soul speak. Let your
soul decide what to do with your life.
Let the Stepping Stone exercises bring you back to The
Fork In the Road.
Stepping Stone One: Questions for you to think about
that you may get the answers from your own soul
Were you raised so that your soul could flourish and
mature into adulthood or is your soul hiding behind
‘ego-personalities?’
1. Are you an ego conglomerate or are you an individual
soul?
2. Are you an actor—an ego—with all of your
lines memorized or are you a soul full of inspiration
never knowing where your heart will lead you next or
what you will say next?
3. Do you know who you are—the soul within your
heart—and do you love who you are?
4. Are you at the mercy of what other people want you
to do, or are you honest about what you need to do;
that which is right for your soul?
5. Are you living your life or is someone else living
it for you?
Too many people’s souls are hiding behind the ‘ego-personalities.’
We have all met someone whose precious soul comes out
in rare and special moments and we fall in love with
that soul only to find that it rarely ever comes out
to talk to us or hold us again. We hang on to that love
in spite of the abuse that the ‘ego-personalities’
give us; until, one day, we leave that one who is hiding
behind the conglomerate of ‘ego-personalities;’
to find someone whose soul is there, to talk to us and
hold us and love us, all the time. And that is what
this book is all about—finding the one who is a
‘soul-personality’ and being a ‘soul-personality’
ourselves.
How do ego-personalities control your life?
We have all experienced getting sick or getting into
an accident so that we did not have to do what we did
not want to do. We have all experienced feeling angry
or depressed or sad or lifeless, whenever we have agreed
to go somewhere we did not want to go. Who are we trying
to please? We are not pleasing ourselves—our souls.
We are all trying to please each other and we are all
angry with one another. One day the top will blow sky
high and we will each decide not to take it any more.
Why not take conscious control and make that day—today!
Who is that person inside who has finally had enough
of the role playing, the games, the pleasing everyone
else but—me! Who is me? Who am I? This is what
this book is all about—finding out who is ‘me’
and answering the question: "Who Am I?" Health
care facilities and personnel are over-worked and under-educated
to cope with the problems of the soul who finally says,
"If you won’t listen to me—if you won’t
take care of me and give me what I need, and if you
won’t do what I want, then: crash, smash, bang,
boom; an accident, cancer, pneumonia, even the common
cold, or a suicide attempt, will stop you ‘ego-personalities’
from running away with my life." "I want my
life back," cries the soul inside—cries me—cries
my true self, the one whom I want to be; so that I can
say, "I know who I am." Let us all get healthy.
Be true to yourself—be your ‘soul/sole-personality.’
See the movie, Overboard. This is a movie about a woman
whose soul was silent while ‘ego-personalities’
acted, thought, and talked for her soul. One day, all
that changed, as she got a chance to forget all that
she had learned. She got amnesia and was given a second
chance to be her ‘soul/sole-personality.’
Having discussed the problems of dysfunctionality—the
inexperienced or untrained soul—let us discuss
the solutions. The following exercises will give you
the tools to begin your journey from ‘multiple
ego’ centered living to living free—as your
soul. Train your own soul—raise yourself to be
someone whom you can be proud to be. The exercises are
intended to give you ideas of how to begin being a fully
capable, confident and happy soul, expressing itself
24 hours a day. The movies suggested throughout this
book are examples, in film, of what I mean to say in
words. View them for their examples of how to be, and
how not to be.WHAT WILL THE STEPPING STONE EXERCISES
DO FOR ME?
Reading the exercises will help you, the soul, speak
and act. The exercises will help you to disassociate
yourself from the robot within—the ‘ego-personalities’—the
subconscious mind—the automatic-pilot life—which
makes you act according to what other people want instead
of what you want. They will stop you from acting defensively:
fear-based reactions such as putting on an act to cover
up your fear. The exercises are your directions to unraveling
your past and getting you into the present as ‘you’
the ‘soul.’Stepping Stone Two: Take time to
be you—practice being yourself
In order to regain control over one’s life, one
can remove any unwanted ‘ego- personality’
by going into nature and spending time by one’s
self in the silence. ‘Ego-personalities’ can
come and go just like any habit. Go places alone and
interact with strangers, who won’t expect you to
be anyone, but who they see right now. Who do you feel
inside of you who wants to be seen and heard? Your soul.
Where will you go to be alone in nature? Where will
you go to be alone in a crowd? Where will you go to
be with strangers who will only see—you—the
soul? Can you be yourself—your ‘soul-personality’—with
children? Remember the soul is kind, the soul is sensitive,
the soul is truthful, the soul is like a child who resides
inside of you. You are a child talking to children.
Be kind to each other’s souls.
See the movie, Enchanted April, a British film which
depicts the transformation of a number of guests who
are visiting an Italian castle in the mountains; taking
them from a role-playing ‘ego-personality,’
life to being themselves—the ‘soul-personality.’Stepping
Stone Three: I am my own parent raising myself, teaching
myself, my soul, how to grow up to be somebody
If you did not have parents who taught you how to grow
up, then start raising yourself, even if you are 19
or 59. Start by watching for examples of how to act
and how not to act, by looking at movies and at people
in real life. Watch people. Copy the actions that you
think are the best and begin to be a real person—an
individual soul. Realize it, when you begin to fall
into an ‘ego-personality’ and change yourself.
You are your own teacher and student. Do a good job
of raising yourself so that you can be proud of yourself.
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