The City Of Self

The City of Self

How many faces do you show the world? How many roles do you play? Is there a difference between the self you share with your loved ones and the one you impress your boss or underlings with?
The last section of Saving Your Soul focuses on the nature and dimensions of Selfhood.

The Self is a city of form and structure, of activity and relationships, of hidden byways and open streets. Like any city , it has its ugly, decaying and obsolete elements. It also has its great monuments, it's centres of learning and commerce, its parks and green places and, of course, its inhabitants. This city is infinite in its complexity and the more neighbourhoods one visits, the more there are to explore. Certain neighbourhoods are open to the casual onlooker, others are visible to intimate associates and others are only accessible to the most determined of self explorers. While there is no real limit to the City of Self and its neighbourhoods, I shall focus on four of them.

Self as City

In order to grasp the concept of Self as city, we need to consider the nature and needs of any municipality. A city doesn't simply happen or grow on its own. It has its purposes, its conduits of communication and enterprise. People make Cities and although they have their rules and laws, their sheer complexity renders complete control or regulation impossible. This is why trying to regulate your life or control every aspect of your being is an exercise in futility. Like any human being, a city presents a number of faces and conceals many others. It promotes itself as progressive, exciting, a dynamo of commercial enterprise, and a safe haven for tourists and a centre for the arts and education.

This self-congratulatory attitude often denies or simply ignores the decaying buildings at the city core, the irritating pan handlers, the drug addicts and their suppliers, the vacant eyed schizophrenics and the bag ladies wheeling their shopping carts through trash laden streets.

Each of us has a preferred image, a face we want to show the world and ourselves. Perhaps its an image of physical beauty and strength, of intelligence and talent, or of kindness and dignity. However, lurking in the shadows of the self, is our capacity for pettiness, stupidity, and memories of past errors and present weaknesses. Like the city fathers, most of us would like to pretend that we exercise authority and control over our respective communities and selves. Like the policeman walking a beat, we are also aware of forces which do not conform to our rules and areas where chaos holds sway.

Our city, our Self , has four distinct neighbourhoods; the most obvious of which is the community of form. This is that part of you which can be observed by casual onlookers. For simplicities sake, label it the Public Self. Slightly hidden by the structures and appearance of the public self, is an area which devotes its energies to the accumulation and perfection of roles, skills and knowledge. This is where we discover the Performing Self. The next section is a private and generally exclusive neighbourhood. It is only open to an elite selection of friends and associates. Here we find the Intimate Self. The final section of the city is completely hidden from view and is composed of three distinct enclaves. This is the Hidden Self and its gated communities: the potential self, the rejected self and personal consciousness.

Power Plants

Once you have a clear picture of your internal city and its communities, focus on their source of power. What gives each of these psychic environments an influence in your life? What gives you the strength and will to develop them? Although there are a large number of motivating factors in our lives, I believe the roots of our energy boil down to two. The first is instinctive and often unconscious; label it Fear. The second power source is potentially stronger, label it Love.

Each of these selves and their energies play a role in our personal development. Some play a very large role, while others might barely exist. Their significance depends on what you chose to follow and what you are conditioned into believing is important. However, no matter how weak or insignificant these Selves appear to be we all possess them, along with our capacity to love and to fear.

The Neighbourhood of Form

The neighbourhood of form, the Public Self , is basically material or physical. It includes your body, your race, gender, the clothes you wear and how you appear to others. This is what a stranger or a video camera might see about you. This is what the advertiser of beauty products and vitamins, the clothing manufacturers, fitness programmers and body building salons focus on. Other than plastic surgery, keeping yourself clean, well dressed and in good physical condition a person has very little imput into her public self . Of course one might decide to adopt peculiar dress styles, hair colours, tattoos and personal ornaments in order to individualise her public self . However, there are physical limits to the degree of autonomy and expression one can achieve in this area. In spite of these limiting factors, human beings tend to focus a great deal of attention on their appearance and society generally encourages us to judge ourselves by an arbitrary standard of attractiveness and style.

For example, at one time in China, a woman's attractiveness was measured by the size of her feet. Girl babies had their feet crushed and wrapped tightly, so their feet would remain small and they would be beautiful. Today's standards of attractiveness may not seem so cruel, nevertheless, the pressure of having a socially approved public self can cause us to hate our bodies and measure our self -worth in terms of our thinness, our musculature and our youth. We can either choose to enjoy or love our bodies or fall victim to the tyranny of style and social acceptability. Most of the daughters of Eve and sons of Adam fall somewhere between the two. Such acceptance depends on the degree of self-acceptance and self-esteem one has achieved. If our primary motivation is love we can enjoy our physical self , irrespective of wrinkles and hair loss. However, if fear is our driving force, it is nearly impossible to feel good about the way one appears.

To further explore this territory, simply answer the following questions:
How do you feel about your body and the self you present to the public?
Can you take your clothes off and stand in front of a full-length mirror without criticising it or finding flaws?
What do you like about your body?
What would you want to change about it?
How would you describe your public self to a blind person or a stranger on the phone?
What do you think people see when they look at you?
One way of getting some perspective on this issue is to ask a friend or associate to describe the way you look.
Do you think you would see identical or even similar images?

The Performer

Our second neighbourhood, the Performing Self , consists of what we want people to know or believe about us. It deals with skills, hobbies, achievements and our ability to perform. The majority of educational, social and occupational skills are contained within its domain. When a person decides to develop or demonstrate a talent; tries to impress others, or get a job, she is using the resources of the performing self. This is the self, which does things. It bakes, drives a car, writes a software program, designs a house or picks a pocket. It goes skydiving and learns to manipulate the stock market. The chief resource of this neighbourhood is knowledge and action. When we were children, such things came naturally. We taught ourselves to walk, to talk, to dress ourselves and to explore our environments. Children are facile learners and most of them are eager to demonstrate their knowledge and their abilities. However, at a certain stage in life, a child would find her skills, knowledge and ability to act being judged by some mysterious standard. Such verdicts, like the fashion industry's criteria for physical attractiveness, can be quite arbitrary and often seem as cruel as China's foot binding.

For example, I taught myself to read when I was about four or five years old. However, correctly spelling a word was often difficult. I discovered in elementary school, that the ability to comprehend a subject, come up with an original idea or express it in a creative fashion was secondary to ones ability to spell. Faced with numerous corrections and failing marks because of my poor spelling habits, I started feeling stupid and became anxious about my ability to learn or demonstrate a skill. I was motivated by fear and began a life long pattern of trying to win approval by coming up with the right answer all the time. Unfortunately, the performing self's key to success is curiosity, not correctness! It is curiosity, which engages ones interest and stimulates the mind. Once this prerequisite for learning is activated and its performance applauded the quest for excellence can begin.

When you invest your energy into subjects and activities you enjoy and expand your skills and knowledge in such areas, your intelligence and competence increases. This leads to a love of learning and banishes the mind numbing fear of being wrong. The more interest you take in the people and events around you, the more expansive your performing self becomes.

What are your skills, talents and abilities?
What have you put down on your resume?
What would you tell a prospective employer?
What do you do well?
What do you do poorly?
What skill would you like to develop?
What course of study are you willing to pursue?
Do you learn things simply to survive or do you actually enjoy expanding your knowledge and skills?
What sparks your curiosity and what turns your mind off?
Are you willing to go to a teacher, an employer or an associate and get some feedback on how they view your skills and abilities?
Those of us who can answer these questions are travelling a path with heart and will rarely allow our fear of failure or success to dictate our journey.

The Intimate Self

The third part of the city, the Intimate Self , is what we are willing to share with those we trust and care for. This neighbourhood is limited to those people we establish deep and lasting relationships withIt tends to shrink as we get older. However,children's intimate self is wide open and the younger one is the more open to emotional sharing and intimacy.

This is the area reserved for family, friendship, marriage, and those in the counselling or healing professions. Our ability to trust, feel comfortable, relaxed and open determine the size and strength of this circle. Its boundaries determine how close we can become to anyone.

Our future development depends on the scope and quality of the intimate self's experience. As infants, we were born within its boundaries. Our families and caregivers capacity to love us, their feelings and insight into themselves, their children and their lives generally determines how well we will function. For example, a child doesn't learn to talk unless the people who care for her talk to and around her. If your parents treated you as if you were stupid or worthless, you will be handicapped when it comes to developing confidence and self-respect. This means that your performing self is unlikely to function well and that you will have even more trouble when it comes to creating positive and healthy relationships.

If you are motivated by fear, you may seek to please and placate people in order to be liked. You could also run away from intimacy or even lash out against anyone who is close enough to hurt or disappoint you. Playing safe might mean to severely limit the size and quality of your intimate relationships. It might also encourage you to confuse control and manipulation with love and attraction. The nature and quality of your parents relationship has a profound effect on the evolution of your intimate self. Development of this self is predicated on the ability to establish boundaries and take emotional risks. Boundaries are essential to the establishment of personal limits, they teach us to respect the autonomy of our peers, associates and ourselves. However, intimacy requires a willingness to take emotional risks. It takes courage to let someone into your life, strength to share your feelings with them, to admit that sometimes you are frightened and lonely, or that you need affection and support. It takes a generous heart to forgive those who rejected or disappointed you and to forgive yourself for letting them.

If you are motivated by love, you will enjoy exploring the lives and feelings of your intimates and sharing your own. The ability to be open, to care and to accept the flaws and errors of the human heart are bequeathed by the power of Love. This is the neighbourhood where children and adults learn to be sensitive regarding the feelings of others, without assuming responsibility for them. This is where we learn to assert ourselves, express our needs, feelings and desires and respond to the needs of others.

The explorer of the community of intimacy needs to unlock the gate of expectation. What does she expect from her friends, associates and loved ones? What is she willing to give? Does she expect people to instinctively respond to her feelings and needs? Does she project her own fears and expectations on others? In investigating these and other issues, it is helpful to examine past relationships.

Was it difficult for your parents to express their feelings?
Is it difficult for you?
Are you afraid to express anger, anxiety or grief?
How do you share these sentiments?
Can you pick up on the feelings of others?
How do you respond to them?
Do you work at being a friend or do you depend on circumstances and shared experience to determine the course of your friendships?
Is there a consistent pattern to your romantic or marital relationships?
What do you think your friends and associates imagine about you?
Can you bring yourself to ask them?
One way of examining the Intimate Self is to write out a description of your emotional nature and the kind of associations you tend to make. What are your likes and dislikes? What qualities are characteristic of your friends? What do you like about people? What do you dislike? Do you think of yourself as nervous, loving, optimistic, confident, shy or serious? Once finished, ask a friend or someone who knows you to share their impressions of your temperament. You might be surprised at their assessment.

What Lies Hidden

The final enclave of our city, the Hidden Self , marks a circumference, the extent of which only the Creator knows. No matter how close a person becomes, no matter how much she cares for you, she will never know the whole of your being and only about a third of it is readily accessible to the inquiring mind. The first subsection of the hidden self is the potential self. This ideal, imaginary, or unrealised community contains all of your possibilities, your hidden talents, dreams and every gift the Creator gave you. The capacities of this self are developed through imagination, faith and consciousness. When you dream of or wish for something, when you believe you can accomplish it and assume responsibility for doing so, the power of the potential self is activated. However, before a persons dream can be actualised, she needs to become conscious of it.

This can be accomplished through the dynamic energy of Personal Consciousness. The second subsection of the hidden self makes us aware of our feelings, thoughts, desires, physical condition and intellectual processes. This aspect of the self directs our attention to ourselves, others, and the world around us. No matter how expressive a person is, no one will ever feel our bodies, think our thoughts or experience life the way we do. The more aware a person is of her feelings, thoughts and perceptions the more powerful her personal consciousness becomes. The power of consciousness encourages us to direct attention and bequeaths the gift of volition. Through its operation we learn to activate our intellectual and emotional capacities and decide things for ourselves. However, if one is afraid of, upset by, or ignorant about her inner life, her memories, ability to learn and to dream, she shuts down her awareness. She puts blinders on her inner vision and perceives the world, people and herself in a distorted and often negative fashion. Most people who abuse drugs and alcohol are engaged in shutting down their personal consciousness. This usually takes place when fear is the chief motivation, for love opens the doors of perception.

The final participant in the Hidden Self generally produces major problems and difficulties in our lives. This is the Rejected Self and it contains everything a person doesn't want to know, believe, or understand about herself. Whenever, one denies a feeling, an action or a talent, it is imprisoned within the rejected self. This aspect of being can grow so strong that it will block, distort or even destroy the healthy functioning of the Self ! It can keep a person from accepting or developing spiritual and creative potentials. It can darken the soul and interfere with our physical well being. It builds walls between us and those we love, trapping the individual in an isolated world characterised by fear, self-doubt, and apathy.

The rejected self can be shrunk or eliminated, if one is courageous and honest enough to examine it and shares her research with another person. Simply looking at the rejected self can help, but self-examination is rarely sufficient, because this aspect of the psyche has a talent for disguising its true nature. The rejected self distorts awareness and makes people uncomfortable when they look too closely at its machinations. Its primary tools are denial, avoidance and distortion. It has a profound fear of being unmasked and subjected to the light of a detached perspective. Nevertheless, by sharing ourselves with an honest, compassionate and understanding person, we can clarify our perspectives and reduce its effects.

There are a number of means one can utilise to identify the influences and distortions of the rejected self . For example the more discomfort you feel regarding a problem, an issue or an activity, the stronger its relationship to the rejected self. Discomfort, anxiety and hypersensitivity are tools of this self. Since most of us tend to avoid pain and unpleasant emotions, our rejected self uses such feelings to obscure or even block our understanding of painful issues. For example, most of my life I have been anxious about friendships and unwilling to let go of any relationship, no mater how dissatisfying it becomes. I am very uncomfortable with the idea of rejection, particularly rejecting someone else. Buried within my hidden self is the notion that I am not a good candidate for friendship and if I let go of someone, I will end up alone.

Another way to identify the activities of this Self is through our perceptions of others, particularly those we don't know well. What you see in others reflects some aspect of yourself. If you admire someone, respect their skills, accomplishments and talent, some where within your being is the potential and desire to emulate them. For example: all of my life I have loved art and admired anyone who could paint, draw or create images of beauty. Unfortunately, before I turned 50, I firmly believed I had no artistic talent at all. I still doubt the merit of my artistic productions, but I still keep painting and even enjoy its results of my efforts.

Bigotry and Prejudice

One of the darkest aspects of The Rejected Self is its relationship to bigotry and prejudice. Individually and collectively, human beings tend to project their most despised qualities and impulses onto others. This generally happens when we have little or no familiarity with the people we are directing our hostility toward. Such antipathy can also occur, when one has been hurt or disappointed by some member of the group. For example: the practice of warfare encourages the belief that it is all right to kill, hurt, torture or destroy the enemy. This belief is fed by an assumption that the rule we apply to others, are not binding on us. It is also fed by taking all of our fears, repressed frustrations, anger and hatreds and projecting them onto the enemy. When this takes place, we reject our capacity for compassion and fail to see the other as a human being. The enemy becomes the monster, the sub-human, the evil doer and one feels justified in despising or eliminating them. Even when the inferior being, the not quite human, is perceived as necessary or useful in some way, control and manipulation is preferred over the Golden Rule. Keeping the person in line or in their place is considered essential for our safety and well being.

In the Southern states of the USA during the era of slavery, slave owners often claimed that the dark skin of their slaves kept them from feeling pain. They believed wiping would deter the natural laziness of their slaves and rarely felt they were doing their property any damage. It is funny that many of us still view the descendants of slaves as naturally lazy and needing some harsh incentive in order to get them to work. I wonder are we projecting the laziness we reject in ourselves on them?

Some people call the rejected self, the despised self or the Shadow. No matter what its name, its chief ingredients are: shame, negation, hurt, anger, denial, self -hatred, a fear of love and a sense of inferiority. For example, at one time women were put in the same category as children, criminals, and the mentally defective. A lot of women accepted this classification and felt they were incompetent or unable to handle responsibility. Today, most women reject the idea of social inferiority, but often act as if men were more qualified than they were. This may be why few of us run for public office or why so many women focus on what their partners want instead of voicing their own needs and desires. Be this as it may, whether one is male or female, a child or a resident in a nursing home, the moment we deny our abilities, degrade our accomplishments; negate our feelings, or neglect our needs, we are building up the power of our Rejected Self!

Love and Fear

Throughout this dissertation on the Self , I have described our chief motivations as Fear and Love. I believe our ability to be sane, spiritual and have a life derive from our use of these energies. Without fear and love, we would be vegetables, lacking desire, enthusiasm, interests or even the instinct for self -preservation.In this context, fear is an early warning protective system. Its job is to prevent us from being hurt or damaged. It provides us with all our defences, helping us avoid dangerous situations and people. It also protects our egos, our self-image and self -esteem. The only problem with Fear is in its instinctive attempt to keep us safe and secure, it rejects change and limits growth. Fear encourages us to accept the familiar as the normal and the safe. It defends the Status Quo. In other words, if you were familiar with abusive, violent relationships, Fear would act to either keep you in that relationship or create a similar relationship, even if you were badly damaged as a result. This seems a little crazy; however, fear operates on an irrational, instinctive level and tends to shut down conscious thought altogether.

If Fear's task is to restrict our risk taking, then Loves job is just the opposite. It provides us with the energy and the desire to care for others and ourselves. It opens us up to new possibilities and change. It gives us the confidence to trust, to be honest and to appreciate others and ourselves. It is the source of our generous feelings and noble aspirations. It's fundamental task is to release the God given potential of our Potential Self , to develop it and diffuse it through every aspect of our being. The energy of Love can only function to the degree a person allows it to. This means that as long as we reject the possibility of personal change or spiritual growth, we block the flow of Loves energy.

I originally introduced my theory on the Circles of the Self and their motivating forces to a class of tenth grade students, who were interested in becoming peer counsellors. Included with the material was a set of questionnaires encouraging each student to examine their perceptions and motivations. I don't think it is quite appropriate to visit these questionnaires on any reader who had the tenacity to make his or her way through this epistle. In fact, I believe that anyone with the patience and fortitude necessary to read this book should receive a bouquet of roses or a lollipop! In lieu of these gifts I will end with yet another tale of creation and choice.

In the beginning the Creator constructed a lovely planet. She painted its sky blue, and green and pale grey.The waters reflected the panorama of the sky. Grass, bushes, trees and all variety of vegetation draped the hills and valleys . She populated this world with birds and antelope, fishes and great whales.

Feeling very pleased with her work; she summoned all the souls to view Her creation. The little souls applauded and congratulated her on her work, but they grew silent when She said she wanted then to put on a covering of flesh and spend some time on the planet.

"I want you to be fruitful and populate the Earth!"
A few adventurous souls decided to put on a flesh coat and immigrated to the New World. However, a large number hesitated until the Creator pulled back a Celestial Curtain and revealed an awful place. It was full of fire and stank of brimstone. Terrified, about half of the remaining soul hastened to put on their bodies and fled to the pale blue planet on the edge of the milky way galaxy.

Then She drew back another curtain and revealed the wonders of Heaven. It was full of beauty and love and conveyed to each little soul an impression of their hearts desire. The majority of the remaining souls were all ready to ascend to this paradise, when the Creator told them that their real task was to carry the benefits of the transcendental realm down to earth. And so the Earth was finally populated, except for a minute remnant of the original souls.

The Creator turned Her face towards these few souls and said, "Oh you foolish spirits! Why are you still here? What do you want?
The bravest of these spirits said," Oh Divine One! Oh Creator! We only want to be with you!"
" Have you rejected my Earth? My Creation? The physical world?"
"Oh no! We love the beauty and majesty of all your creations!"
"Aren't you afraid of the flames of Hell? Don't you long for the joys of Heaven?"
"We fear nothing except the loss of your companionship and long for nothing besides your nearness."
"O your foolish souls, it is difficult, very difficult to stay with Me."

I believe these few souls accepted the Creator's challenge and liberated from the desire of Heaven and the fear of Hell were illuminated by their love of the Divine. However, since I am a mortal descendant of those souls who were curious about the physical world, or were afraid of the suffering of Hell, while longing for the delights of Heaven, I know very little about illumination or the difficulties of Divine love.

Saving Your Soul