For the sake of
self-exploration and self-understanding we can look at ourselves in
terms of three layers. For simplicity I will refer to them as the
surface layer, the middle layer and the bottom layer.
This layer represents
the personalities we typically use to interact with the world. We may be
inclined to play out different personalities (roles) in different
environments. Typically the personalities are developed in order to feel
accepted by, or to deal with, the people and environments we are exposed
to.
In some cases we may
play out a personality that is rebellious to the persons or environment.
This tactic is usually employed, either in order to be accepted by other
people (real or fantasized) that would be against the present persons or
environment, or in order to pretend that we do not care if we are
accepted or not. If the rebellion is an attempt to pretend we do not
care about whether we are accepted or not, it can usually be traced back
to an old rejection that caused hurt that has not been healed. The
rebellion becomes an attempt to boost esteem and pretend that the hurt
does not have an effect.
These surface layer
personalities get built early in our lives in response to basic survival
needs. In order to be accepted by our caregivers, we abandon how we
would naturally behave in favor of behaving in a way that is acceptable.
For example if we are naturally exuberant as a child but are punished
for acting that way, in order to lessen our pain it is likely that we
will disown our exuberance. When operating from this surface layer,
every time that we get the feedback that what we are doing is a mistake
(whether the feedback is accurate or not), we will develop a strategy to
be accepted again or go into rebellion.
So basically these
surface layer personalities are about acceptance and survival, even
though an outsider may see them as being self-destructive in the sense
that they are disconnecting us from our true self.
If we are living out
these personalities on automatic rather than by conscious choice, they
will be void of authenticity.
This layer is sometimes
referred to as our shadow. It represents all the things we feel ashamed
of ourselves for and so want to keep covered up. Most of this layer
stays in our subconscious mind because if we allow it to come to
conscious awareness the shame gets “in our face”. But being
unconscious of this part of us does not erase its effects on us. This
area houses our feelings of being unlovable.
To compensate for the
feelings of being unlovable we will shore up our surface layer
personalities to cover up this layer and try to win love and acceptance.
We are likely to want to
stay away from this middle layer because part of us will typically think
that this is who we really are and is disgusted with it, feels unlovable
because of it, and so wants to hide it from others and ourselves. This
is why doing shadow work is difficult. A large part of the population
will avoid bringing this level into conscious awareness.
It is because of the great
shame we feel about ourselves in this layer that we drive ourselves to
operate out of the surface personalities and try to convince others and
ourselves that the surface personalities are who we really are.
The top two layers may
cover the bottom layer so well that we will not even know it exists.
This
is our essence - our true lovable self. This is where our giftedness
stems from. Most babies have access to this level of authenticity for a
while. Often only part of our essence is fully acknowledged and
encouraged during our development. From lack of understanding and
acceptance by those around us, other parts of our essence are typically
made out to be wrong. This sets us up to disown who we really are and
replace it with the surface layer personalities. These personalities are
not rooted in the core self. In the confusion that develops from being
disconnected from our essence we will make a lot of mistakes. These
mistakes help form the middle layer of shadow that we have shame around.
As mentioned before, in order to compensate we develop the surface layer
persona in hopes of being acceptable.
The
process of healing and reconnecting with our true self means penetrating
into and through the shadow layer with love in order to re-unite with
the bottom layer of essence.
It
is risky to expose our shadow because we feel unlovable there. But if
the exposure is met with discerning love rather than judgment, it
dissolves our resistance to shadow, the very resistance that has been
fueling our efforts to maintain the surface layer of acceptability.
All
attempts at affirmation work that avoid addressing our shadow layer just
become reinforcement for another surface layer personality that is
trying to pretend to be lovable in order to cover up the middle layer
that still see us as being unlovable. We can stand in front of a mirror
saying, “I love you. You are complete and whole.” for a thousand
years and it wont change the problem unless we are addressing our shadow
layer in parallel to the affirmation work.
Maintaining
the surface personalities robs us of the opportunity to ever know that
we are truly lovable. The underlying belief is: “Yes I am loved as
long as I keep up this personality but what if they saw who I really am
underneath this image I present.” As long as we do not do our healing
work the bottom layer stays out of our realm of experience so we are
left with thinking that who we really are is our shadow. So having the
shadow layer exposed will bring up fear.
Another
down side is that as long as the fear is dictating our actions we are
set up to be manipulated by others. We will have a tendency to sell out
our true self even more in order to try to please others. For example: a
friend asks us to spend the day with them. We check inside and notice
that it does not feel true to say yes. Then the fear arises that says if
I say no to what my friend wants they wont like me anymore. Instead of
following what is true, we decide to do what we think our friend wants.
Or
on the flipside we may tend to push others away and isolate in an
attempt to stop ourselves from selling out even more. Both are lonely
positions because they are both disconnected from essence.
The
more we disconnect from entering the middle and bottom layers, the more
we abandon ourselves. The act of disconnection is sending the message
that we are unlovable. This sets us up to be even more desperate to get
love from an outside source, even if doing so means abandoning ourselves
even more. This dynamic is what is behind all abandonment issues. We
only fear being abandoned because we are hoping to use outside sources
of love to make up for our own lack of love for ourselves.
To
break this cycle we need to address our own middle shadow layer with
mercy, love and forgiveness. One way of being loving to ourselves is to
find an environment that is loving and accepting to do our shadow work
in. The last thing we need is to expose our shadow when we know that we
are going to be put down and shamed for it.
Creating
a loving environment might be as simple as having a quiet space with
ourselves, a journal, and our connection to the love of spirit. Or
perhaps we will call in the support of a facilitator and a whole group
of like-minded people at a workshop.
As
we admit and examine our shadow by ourselves or with others we will find
two elements to it. Some of what is in the shadow will be mistakes that
we made that were harmful to ourselves and/or others. Things we can
forgive ourselves for and choose to do our best to not do again.
We
will find other things there that are not mistakes at all. They are
parts of ourselves that we put into the shadow because of buying into
other people’s judgment of them being wrong. Using the earlier example
of exuberance. If we had this style of self expression and our parents
judged it as wrong we may have decided to agree with them out of
self-preservation. Yet now
as we review exuberance we may decide that it is a perfectly acceptable
part of ourselves that we want to re-integrate into our lives. This type
of examination and reintegration leads us directly into the bottom layer
that represents our essence. Good for us, we have taken another step in
being true to ourselves!
Another
way of seeing essence is that it is an expression of our soul’s
purpose. When we express our essence through our personality, we are
building a personality that is soul inspired and is rooted down to the
bottom layer of who we are. This personality is authentic and has a much
different energy than the surface personalities we built for survival
and acceptance. This personality is grounded in a love and respect of
self. Some of the actions that come from this authenticity may be
identical to the actions of our survival personality. For instance we
may share a smile with someone. If that smile is simply a pure
expression of our soul directed personality it will have a clean energy
and be offered as a gift with no strings attached. If that smile comes
from a surface personality that is looking for acceptance it will have
strings attached. It will be fishing for the other person to give
something in return that will symbolize acceptance. Then even if the
other person does give something back, the ‘smiler’ is now caught in
the cycle of feeling he or she has to smile in order to earn
acceptance. In that case at times of not feeling like smiling the
temptation is there for self-betrayal – as in – if I force myself to
smile maybe I will win acceptance from outside myself. But of course any
earned acceptance from outside is sabotage because in order to earn it
the smiler has to betray his or her self-acceptance. To put it simply,
he or she did not accept and honor that he or she did not actually feel
like smiling at that time. If left unattended this self-betrayal will
add to the middle layer of shadow, because self-betrayal is another
mistake that needs to be addressed consciously with loving discernment
in order to be dissolved.
A
willingness to experiment with being true to our essential core self
starts the journey of freeing ourselves.
Know
that we all have our own unique flavor of beingness. Some people will be
attracted towards who we are and some people will not be. Because
someone does not approve of us, does not mean we lack value. Just
because someone loves strawberry ice cream but dislikes chocolate ice
cream, does not mean that chocolate ice cream has any less value. It
would be silly for chocolate ice cream to attempt to build a strawberry
personality in an attempted to win over strawberry lovers. Even if
chocolate was able to fool them, chocolate would never feel truly loved
because of knowing that the strawberry personality that was being loved
was not a true representation of who chocolate really was.