Lesson Two

Lesson number two being about disowned parts of our personality, I was asked to engage in a dialogue with the afore mentioned parts. How do you know what you have disowned? You look for clues such as what really bugs you in other people. If we can't stand something in someone else, it's a pretty safe bet we won't want to own those same tendencies in ourself. I found this rather hard to do because I couldn't think of anything that really got my goad. I don't enjoy being around angry people or selfish people, etcetera, etcetera, but I can usually see their behavior for what it is--a way to cope with fear. I wondered if my disowned parts were so thoroughly disowned I couldn't even acknowledge being upset with others. With this question in mind I called in to speak to one of the coaches available to those taking the course. She wanted to help me have the experience of a dialogue with a disowned part so I just picked something--laziness.

I found it kind of awkward to be doing this with someone I didn't even know, but hey, I paid for the course so I wanted to get my money's worth. The point of the exercise is to recognize all aspects of our personality have a purpose. If we own these parts they are allowed to mature so they can serve us in functional ways. Disowned, they come out in not so wonderful ways, sabotaging and blocking us from experiencing the happiness we desire. After going through the exercise with a coach I did it with another  personality trait (anger) on my own. I don't think I have a lot of anger in my life, but I'm sure I don't want to see myself as an angry person so I thought it would be good to talk with anger. I can honestly say I feel differently towards anger and laziness now that I've had a good conversation with them. While writing this it occurred to me I ought to have a talk with "controlling" since controlling people do get on my nerves.