Trusting Self

BFNow Self-Study Module 3 - Exploration 5

[This is part of BFNow Self-Study Module 3: Child Development and Adult Character. For more about the overall Self-Study program, please look at About BFNow Self-Study and BFNow Self-Study Orientation.]

If you haven’t done so already, let me encourage you to pause, relax and release, perhaps with a big stretch or three deep breaths.

The ultimate goal of this lesson is to help you deepen your ability to discern your own inner direction and know how to follow it. Our pathway to that goal involves

• getting an overview of the Trusting Self developmental task and the defensive patterns that emerge when that task gets distorted or blocked

• getting a start on healing any underlying wounds.

We will build on this material in Modules 4 and 5.

Trusting Self

Timeframe
3.5 to 5 years

Developmental Task
To live from your inner authenticity. To know your own needs, desires and inner wisdom, and act on that basis. Requires caregivers who respect and support the child’s uniqueness and help the child discern their inner wisdom.

When it’s completed well, the child learns to distinguish which desires/opinions come from their authentic core and to base decisions on that core. Life grows more safe and worth living. But if the task gets blocked or distorted, the child bases their decisions on external standards.

Adverse Circumstances and Initial Triggers
Parents interact with their children around this issue in essentially three ways:

• They let their children figure out their inner feelings on their own

• They actively help and encourage their children to recognize their inner feelings

• They discourage or ignore their children’s inner feelings and train them to act based on rules

I’ve described the first two categorically but they are really end points on the same slider and lead to a similar result: The child gets familiar with their own feelings and inner authenticity, and the developmental task is accomplished.

The third way is truly different and leads to a different result. Unlike previous ways in which developmental tasks get blocked through traumatic events, this blockage is gradual and pervasive. Generally, it takes rule-bound parents to produce rule-bound children, constantly moving the child’s attention away from their inner state to some external rule set. These rules could be religious or they could be rules of fashion or conventional wisdom about how to have a successful life. The child grows up always making choices based on the rules and not knowing any other way of being.

It’s also possible for a child, perhaps in a chaotic environment, whose parents aren’t rule-bound, to choose to adopt a rule-bound approach to life for the sake of some personal order, but this is less common and in this case the child is making their own authentic choice so it’s not quite the same.

There is another slider here. Almost all parents provide some rules to their children and require their children, at times, to follow the rules rather than their feelings. The deeper issue really isn’t about rules but about gaining the awareness that there is such a thing as inner authenticity and it has value for guiding one’s individual life.

Finally, it’s important to acknowledge that not every feeling qualifies as a good basis for action. If a child feels angry at a sibling and feels like hitting that sibling, a wise parent will help the child acknowledge the feelings but then pause and likely refer to some rules before acting. So again, the issue isn’t rules vs. no rules; rather it is between inner awareness vs. no (or suppressed) inner awareness.

Defensive Patterns

Getting really good at following a set of rules provided by an external authority makes a lot of survival sense in an Empire Era culture. Parents who have a set of rules they feel have served them well, whether these are religious or otherwise, see it as an act of love to pass these on to their children. Not only can this keep one safe in an Empire Era culture, it likely also provides good career prospects since the Empire needs people who willingly follow and enforce the rules.

To make this work, there needs to be one set of rules that applies to everyone. Individualized choices based on personal feelings are seen as some combination of dangerous and stupid. Yet humans can’t just turn off all personal feelings with the flip of a switch so the feelings must be actively suppressed. This defense pattern becomes a defense against feelings.

This is accomplished both by internal suppression and by becoming a really good actor who knows the script, totally identifies with the part and can perform convincingly, appropriate to the external situation but independent of the authentic person inside the actor.

I’ll call this a Performing defense pattern.

Indicators
How can you tell if one of your sub-personalities has a Performing defense pattern? Here are some clues. They don’t need to all match or be as stark as I’m describing them. In an Performing sub-personality:

• you are likely to feel: right, ambitious, competitive, confident, committed

• you think it’s helpful to point out another’s mistakes, deficiencies and imperfections

• you experience the world mostly through words and clearly defined categories

• you are likely to fear: feeling your own feelings, looking foolish or stupid, being betrayed, showing feelings, losing control, chaos and disorder, imperfection

• under stress you are likely to: focus on surface, appearance, detail; try to find what is wrong and fix it; blame yourself and/or others for not matching up to an ideal

• you are likely to believe: I must be perfect, I must be appropriate, knowledge comes from authorities, love must be earned

• other people see you as a perfectionist; you may even agree

• you hold back, your inner critic attacks you with self-blame, and you create what sense of safety you can by following the rules and correcting your errors

• you experience time as mechanical and predictable

Positive Aspects
Not all is grim. The defensive pattern itself requires or encourages certain skills and abilities and these can continue to make a positive contribution even after healing the original wounds.

Performing types learn to be masters of form, structure and order. They can be talented drummers and dancers, architects and designers, writers and editors. They’re clear communicators and know how things fit together. They’re natural leaders in situations that require structure and order. They understand the value of rules and can keep track of details. They are often thorough and precise, persistent and determined, and good at bringing things to completion. They are committed to excellence for it own sake. They are responsible, keep agreements and are generally on time for appointments. They have all the strengths usually associated with the left brain. They are often quite successful in conventional terms. Kessler identifies Mitt Romney and the archetypal librarian as examples of the Performing character style.

Energy Flow

Used with permission from Steven Kessler

The energy flow in the Performing pattern is constrained, constantly being monitored and self-censored to suppress any inappropriate feelings.

The classic Performing body type tends to be fit and active, slender and harmonious yet with a general tension and tightness. The eyes are bright and lively. They are doing their best to embody perfection as they understand it.

When the Performing pattern isn’t predominant but just in a particular sub-personality, the body won’t be the Performing type, but the sense of tightness and lively eyes may well show when the Performing sub-personality is active.

Alternate Names
The classic name for this character style is Rigid. Johnson calls it the Disciplined Child.

Relationship to Attachment and Pursuit/Withdrawal
While the correspondence is not exact, the Performing character style connects best to the anxious-avoidant attachment style. Here is what we have for all five types:

In couples, or in any close ongoing dyad, the two partners will often develop a pattern where, under stress, one tends to pursue while the other tends to withdraw. A sub-personality with a Performing character style would tend toward withdrawal, at least emotionally, when stressed. Here is what we have for all five types:

Healing Strategies

As with all of the defense patterns, the key is to build up corrective experiences that give you the skills you missed in childhood and allow you to replace the beliefs that now hold the pattern in place.

With the Performing pattern, the goal is to uncover your sense of self and feel safe to express your own identity.

Just as with a Chinese Finger Puzzle, you often need to move in the opposite direction from your habitual impulse. This is especially true for Performing sub-personalities, who may not see any need for exploring inward.

Here are some examples for the Performing pattern:

1. Provide your Performing sub-personality with unconditional love. Appreciate all of their strengths. Frame the turn inward as an addition that takes nothing away; rather it allows an even higher level of accomplishment.

2. Use breathing practices and movement to experience the body in a nonverbal way.

3. Use territories and maps as an understandable metaphor that there does not need to be only one right way.

4. Map out your own sub-personalities and emphasize their diverse strengths. Encourage other sub-personalities to befriend your Performing sub-personality.

5. Step slowly and safely into greater experience of feelings, especially feelings that are fun or pleasurable.

6. Witness your Inner Critic as another sub-personality. Stand back and feel your larger wholeness.

Experiential

I’m going to recommend two parts to today’s experiential, similar to what we’ve done so far. If anything in this experiential triggers you or feels overwhelming, just stop and get support from people you know.

1. The first part is about awareness. Starting now and throughout your day, tune into whether you have any sub-personalities with a Performing character style. Make notes in your journal about what you find. While it may be easier to see some of these character styles in other people, best to understand them in yourself first.Make a rough estimate of the proportion of time you spend in this character style. Now that we are at the end of the module, make a pie chart with six slices, one for the proportion of time you spend in each character style plus one for the proportion of time you spend not in a defense pattern but in your optimal zone.

2. The second part is about healing. In the evening, get into your Optimal Zone adult sub-personality (a few deep breaths can help) and from there connect to one of your Performing pattern sub-personalities. If you don’t feel you have one, still read over the rest of this experiential and imagine, briefly, how you might do it if you did have one.Take some first steps toward developing a partnership in which the Optimal Zone adult can help the younger sub-personality complete the original Trusting Self developmental task. This help, over time, will likely involve:
   •  reassuring the younger sub-personality that you love them unconditionally; there is nothing they need to do to get your love
   •  asking the younger sub-personality what they need and listening empathetically
   •  validating that they did the best they could with the resources and skills available at the time
   •  helping the younger sub-personality shift beliefs toward a positive appreciation of their inner knowing.
   •  building skills and having corrective experiences that bring them comfortably and pleasurably into their own direct experience of their inner authenticity.

   For now, just spend some time, in the spirit of the Inner Smile, connecting with the constricted child at the core of your Performing style sub-personality. Let it know, as you would with a child, that you are there with respect and support. Listen to what they have to tell you. For now, just be gently with them.

You can take this further if you have the inspiration for what to do – or you can just let this experiential be a seed well-planted for future healing. If you want to really go into this, I recommend at least getting either Schuitemaker’s or  Kessler’s book as a guide.

Thanks,
Robert

[Link back to the Module 3: Child Development and Adult Character Overview page.]