How your personality came about (2)

In the first part you have learned about the principle of the origin of your personality. In this part, you may take a closer look at the more practical aspects, based on the idea that deep within you you "know" that the world of your personality is not your "home", and that there is a huge amounts of related thoughts and ideas that create a vicious circle through which you experience limitation.

How is such a thought system created? Well, it all starts with thoughts. These compare a situation or an idea with values, standards, experiences and wishes. This will result into a feeling. These feelings are likely to induce a (re)action. The whole world as you perceive it, is a thought system. A great deal of which other people have pre-cooked for you: this is nice, that is not allowed, this should, he is wrong, this is what I want, etc.

Your basic feeling is one of guilt. Guilt over the fact that you (your personality) has created something that he cannot really get to work for you, and you cannot fulfill the basic wish to experience this limitation thing as nice or acceptable. Of course, sometimes there are "nice" moments or experiences, and these are welcomed as proof that it is not all that bad here. But a thing that is true is always true, not only every now and then.

Feeling guilty is not a pleasant feeling. And your personality will direct a lot of effort into diminishing that feeling, and getting rid of it. One of its successful ways is: show the world that you are innocent. Maybe other people are wrong, but you are not. The world maintains a lot of standards and values with which to support this idea and judge yourself "right" or "wrong". Let me give you an example:

One of the standards in the Western world is that you have to be "thin" in order to be "good". If you use eating food or sweets as a way to numb your unpleasant feelings, then chances are that you will become fatter: the guilt feeling made visible in your body (you do not meet the standard, this now can not be overlooked), and your personality has had his way for a little while. Your personality now says: oh, I see, the problem is your body, there is something wrong there. We will fix that. Here is a diet, just follow it and there you are: a good girl/boy again. Maybe you now understand the dieting effect: you may be able to control yourself for a little while to stop this excessive eating, but when this is the way that you have chosen to numb the intensity of your feelings, then you will repeat this pattern over and over again. Even if you are an expert in controlling yourself and prevent yourself from nibbling, you will still have those feelings, only now you do not express them anymore. And trust me, that will become a bomb, sooner or later this energy that gets stuck within you will find his way out, one way or the other.

And there are plenty of other ways. You might for instance project your feelings of unpleasantness on your body, and express them through bodily issues. Your personality now has the possibility, just like in the example above, to make you believe that the problem is within your body that has a dysfunction that he cannot be blamed for, but is very willing to help you find a solution and make everything all right. Often you can see that when the one physical complaint has been solved, the next one is already waiting for treatment. This too is a matter of choice, a way of displacing feelings that works for you.

Busybusybusy is another actual one. This too is an excellent way to prevent you from really looking at your feelings. Now you have to make sure that your schedule remains filled, otherwise you do have to face them. By the way, this also works the other way round, when you do not have much activities planned, this is a great source for your personality to make you believe that that is the reason why you have these unpleasant feelings. Need I say more? When you do not make sure that you numb or displace these feelings of guilt, your personality will make sure that you will experience them in an intense but displaced way, obviously his message was not clear enough! But this too is a way of projecting, you feel guilty for not being busy, and forget to take a closer look at this principle.

There are a lot of other different ways to escape feeling your feelings, but these are very popular ones.

When the feelings are not that intense, you can turn them against yourself without being too obvious, like biting your nails, feeling down, toss with your hair, scratch etc. But what does someone do who has more intense feelings? He will perceive himself as very bad, and will present himself as such, so that now anything he does can only be more positive than that. This applies too for people who find themselves in big-problem situations like excessive weight, alcohol- or drugs abuse, life threatening diseases. Aggressive or dependent behaviour. Assuming that others are always better and right, and you always wrong.

The disadvantage in all this is, that other people will experience your behaviour as a loupe on their inability to make life work, and that does not make you very popular, because they had it neatly covered till then. That is why we actually hate people who demonstrate their problems so obviously, because they make us aware of our own hidden feelings. And thus we say that they have to be strong, have to change. For our own peace of mind.

Another possibility is to try to prove that you are right, or at least that you are better than someone else, so that whatever he or she says or does, does not have to be taken too personally. Knowledge is a popular one, knowing facts. Trying to be in control. Judgment on a basis of color, language, living arrangements, occupation or race efficiently puts you in a pleasant position against a huge amount of human beings. Fighting is also popular method, and this too is accompanied by a great set of tricks.

You can also choose the opposite, and get intensely depressed, in such a way that the difference is now that huge hat it cannot be expected from you to overcome it. This can also serve as a way to draw attention to you.

Making someone else feel miserable is popular too, this puts you back in the controlling and/or better-person position, it makes you feel stronger. Now you will no doubt know a lot of examples for this yourself. It is not too difficult to talk someone into feeling guilty or at least suck the fun out of it.

Walking away is another option in the way of trying to get rid of the unpleasant feelings. There are more and less socially accepted ways to do so. Job-hopping is one of them. Literally or mentally withdrawing yourself from a situation is another one. Reading or watching tv, spend time on your hobby, distract attention, all forms of the same choice.

There are of course also a lot of socially accepted forms of getting rid of the tensions that result from these interpretations. Sporting, support groups, distraction, a good talk, etc. may serve for that, but their basis remains the same. The tension may disappear, but its origin is still intact.

Once you get the hang of this concept, you may find yourself practicing it in everyday situations. When someone tells you that you have a bad hair day, then normally your world is not as peaceful as you might want it to be, and some form of guilt has entered your awareness. The intensity of your reaction depends whether your personality has made your looks to one of his favourite toys to get your self-esteem from. You also may have made a distinction between various persons, and react more intense on a remark from your best friend than on that of the doorman. Of maybe you have taught yourself to "ignore without opening the message".

Oh, and by the way, about that layer of politeness? Just admit for yourself that you at least do not like it when someone else

- does seem to get his life pleasant, successful and organized
- does something that makes you feel guilty
- has more of some of the success marks like house, money, car, friend etc.
- tries to establish his point of view on your expense
- is angry with you or is not polite
- is rude
- does not want to cooperate
- makes a decision that you do not agree with
etc.

... even though you may have developed a "reasonable way" to get rid of those feelings as soon as possible.