Wild Mind. Bill Plotkin
Читать онлайн книгу.
Soldier might chime in to say that, if you accept, you’ll end up humiliating yourself because you don’t have what it takes to succeed … or even be taken seriously; and an Escapist might suggest that the life of a hermit, ski bum, or drunk would be a much more enjoyable choice, anyway.
In the second half of the book, we’ll see that each subpersonality represents a wounded or immature version of the facet of the Self associated with the same cardinal direction.
It seems we never eliminate or finally grow out of our subpersonalities; we can only learn to embrace them from the perspective of the Self and in this way gradually heal our wounds and integrate our subpersonalities into the functioning of our 3-D Ego. Although our subs never disappear, we can mature to the point that we seldom get hijacked by them and instead live most often from our 3-D Ego consciousness as Self, Soul, and Spirit.
On pages 22–23, you can see the horizontal dimension of the Nature-Based Map of the Psyche, which is to say the four facets of the Self and the four categories of subpersonalities. The vertical dimension of the Map — consisting of Spirit and Soul — is not shown here, and you can think of the Ego as being at the center. In order to make it easier to take in, I’ve divided this horizontal dimension of the map into two parts, which I refer to as map 1 and map 2. Map 1 shows the intrapersonal features of the facets and the subs, indicating how we experience within our psyches our Self and our subs, with the facets of the Self arrayed around the outer circle and the categories of subs around the inner circle. So far in this book, it’s this intrapersonal dimension I’ve introduced you to. Map 2 shows the interpersonal features of the facets and the subs — the ways others tend to see us when we’re embodying these aspects of ourselves. In chapters 2 through 9, we’ll explore in some detail both the intrapersonal and interpersonal features of the Self and the subs.
THREE CORE MESSAGES OF THIS BOOK
Now that I’ve introduced you to the central concepts of the Nature-Based Map of the Psyche, I can state, in one sentence, a core message of this book: The key to healing and to growing whole is not suppressing symptoms, eliminating wounds, or eradicating subpersonalities but, rather, cultivating our wholeness — the horizontal wholeness of the Self as well as the vertical wholeness afforded by our relationships with Soul and Spirit.
The second core message of the book is that there’s a vital and synergistic relationship between cultivating personal wholeness and building life-enhancing cultures. Cultivating human wholeness can never be a matter of tending solely or even primarily to the individual human self, as if that self were an isolated entity somehow existing independently of the world of which we are a part. Ultimately, we cannot become fully human without healthy, mature cultures. And such cultures are not possible without healthy, mature humans — and without a healthy Earth community to be part of. Conversely, creating healthy cultures requires more than structural changes in politics, education, economies, religions, food production, energy generation, and environmental protection. It’s also essential to tend to human development.
The third core message is this: There are three imperatives of any healthy, mature culture. First is to protect and nurture the vitality and diversity of its environment.14 Second is to provide adequate numbers of true adults and elders to nurture, educate, and initiate the next generations and to create or revitalize cultural practices for the well-being and fulfillment of its people — economically, socially, aesthetically, and spiritually. And third is to protect and foster the wholeness of the culture’s individual members (which is to say the Self of each person and his or her relationships with Soul and Spirit).
HOW THE HUMAN PSYCHE WORKS
The Self and the subpersonalities may be thought of as a set of perceptual filters or frameworks the Ego can look through — an assortment of perspectives on one’s self, life, and the world — or as different ways the Ego can tell the story of its life using a variety of narratives. They may also be thought of as different hats the Ego can wear or psychosocial roles it can play. Mature, psychologically healthy people can consciously choose, most of the time, which version or versions of themselves they operate as. But someone with limited psychological development — or a more mature person in temporary, stressful circumstances that trigger the survival strategies of one or more subpersonalities — might have no capacity to choose. The availability of the Self’s perspectives and hats depends on conscious cultivation of our horizontal wholeness and its four facets.
A large percentage of people in the Western world seem to be at the mercy of how their subpersonalities react to their circumstances. Social settings, relationships, and traumatic events trigger or evoke particular subs, which then dominate consciousness, choice, and behavior. Many Westerners have no awareness of the Self and no ability to access it, no realization that they have other options; their consciousness is entirely identified with their subpersonalities. You could say that, at any given moment, they are one of their subpersonalities… until their circumstances abduct them into another sub. And any one of us, no matter how mature, can on occasion get locked into the rut of a subpersonality that confines us to the role of Victim, for example, or that of Conformist, Addict, Tyrant, Critic, or counterfeit guru.
When identified with a subpersonality, we simply react to our perceived circumstances. But as we cultivate our ability to observe and act from the Self, we become proactive. When our Ego is identified with the Self, we have multiple behavioral options. With the Self’s many resources, we’re far less likely to get stuck in a rut or hijacked by a subpersonality.
Soul and Spirit
Like the Self and the subpersonalities, Soul and Spirit, too, are filters or frameworks, but they are transpersonal ones, and most people access them far less often than the Self and subs. We might imagine the Soul as the psychospiritual ground into which the 3-D Ego can learn to sink roots. Spirit can be likened to the heavens above, or the air, the wind (the breath of the world),15 the atmosphere, the entire cosmos, cosmic consciousness, or the great Mystery — the ultimate context within which the 3-D Ego is embedded.
When anchored in our 3-D Egos, we understand ourselves as agents or handmaidens for Soul. The Soul, after all, is the dimension of our human psyche that knows what’s really worth doing with our “one wild and precious life,” as poet Mary Oliver puts it.16 Soul holds the knowledge of what we individually were born to do and to be. The Ego, on the other hand, knows how to get things done, to make things happen, but it doesn’t know from its own experience what to offer its life to. The genius and beauty of the mature 3-D Ego is that it possesses the ability and creativity to make real the Soul’s passions. Indeed, the 3-D Ego is the only means by which the Soul’s desires can be consciously manifested in our world. This is why so many mystical traditions speak of a love affair between Ego and Soul, the Lover and the Beloved: Each possesses something the other entirely lacks and longs for. Ego possesses the heart, hands, senses, imagination, and intelligence to manifest, but doesn’t know what’s worth manifesting; it yearns to know the deeply authentic purpose of the Soul. Soul possesses the song that’s worth singing, the dance that wants to be danced, but it has no way to manifest this in the world; the Soul yearns to be made real by the Ego. Ego is long on know-how and short on know-why; the opposite is true of the Soul.
As 3-D Egos, we also understand ourselves as agents or emissaries of Spirit. We experience ourselves as integral participants in the unfolding story of the Universe, as filaments in the vast, singular consciousness that moves through everything. We discover ourselves to be essential extras in a