Meeting Our Masks & Disarming our Hearts
Bonny is a psychosynthesis coach and facilitator of workshops, retreats and courses. In her work with individuals and groups, she focuses on connection to and expression of soul essence, drawing on a range of wisdom and techniques to help people answer the questions, ‘Who am I? Why am I here? & Where am I going?’ in a way that is dynamic and creative. In this article, she touches on the concept of subpersonalities - the wounded parts of our persona that can often direct our behaviour - and how to spot if you’re being driven by one…
The basic premise of spiritual psychology is that there is a spark of spirit or pure consciousness inside each of us. This spark is connected to an infinite field of that same thing, and this field upholds all of existence and animates all life… It is what underlies and gives rise to creation, and each one of us can access it. However, in order to do this, we need to meet ourselves in the places that we are resistant to the flow of life. In the places that we are walled off and defended. In the places that it hurts.
You emerged from and are an expression of the same lifeforce energy that animates all of existence.
Each of us is inevitably wounded in life, and in our will to survive, we develop strategies to avoid being hurt again. Over time, these strategies designed to protect our hearts from suffering become defences that cut us off from feeling. We yearn for connection but our tender, authentic desire becomes buried beneath layers of armour.
In psychosynthesis, we use the language of subpersonalities to describe the ingenious weavings of defence mechanisms the personality creates in order to survive the pain of wounding. We can identify our subpersonalities through observing our behaviour patterns - noticing where we get triggered, or stuck - and then identifying the mindset or emotional resonance there and enquiring into its origins…
Subpersonalities are ingenious weaving of survival strategies and defence mechanisms.
Subpersonalities emerge from wounds, and wounds are unmet love needs. In early life, when our need for love is not met in the way we want it to be, we make it our fault - we assume there is something wrong with us; that we are somehow unworthy. And from this unworthiness, we develop strategies to prove our worthiness, or compensate for our unworthiness.
This is how our subpersonalities form. Classic ones are some version of the perfectionist, the people pleaser, the critic, the martyr etc… They are the parts of us that compel us to do things even when we don’t really want to, in order to live up to some imagined idea of who we think we ‘should’ be. Their intentions are good, but their perspectives are very limited and their strategies are doomed to fail, so we want to make sure they are not running our lives!
In order to do that, we need to establish a seat of awareness from which we are able to observe our behaviour but not be caught up in it. We do this through a process called ‘disidentification’. A great question to help disidentify is, ‘Who in me is angry? Who in me believes I need to work overtime every night? Who in me is afraid to speak up’ etc… Another key question is, ‘Is this behaviour chosen or driven?’ Driven behaviour feels compulsive and non-negotiable, ‘I should/ must/ need to do this thing’; whereas in chosen behaviour there is room for manoeuvre - ‘I’d like to, it would be nice to, I feel inspired to do this thing.’
Ask yourself, ‘Who in me is triggered, angry or upset?
Driven behaviour is likely motivated by a desire to prove or compensate and is likely coming from a part that is trying to get its desire for approval or validation met. ‘If I do this thing, then they’ll like me/ respect me, and then I’ll be safe/ wanted/ ok’… It has expectation embedded into it, and has a quality of straining, which can also be felt as tension in the body… Some part of us is not on board with the agenda and we can feel the resistance inside, however subtly. In contrast, chosen behaviour has an uncomplicated directness. When we are freely choosing we are led by a deep knowing. There is no straining towards or against, we simply are flowing with our authentic desire.
At some level, driven behaviour feels forced, whereas chosen behaviour feels free.
For most of us, our authentic desires have been dampened, dismissed, rejected and censored from a young age. We have become accustomed to being what we think our family/ friends/ society wants us to be, rather than investigating what it means to be ourselves. This can be a painful realisation when it comes - that in trying to please or prove ourselves to others, we have lost touch with something vital in ourselves.
In psychosynthesis coaching or therapy, we are always working to connect the person back to the part of themselves that is beyond agenda. This is the source of their authentic desire and tapping into it will release the energy needed to transform their life. In order to get there, and to get real, we may first need to bring awareness to the mindsets, behaviour patterns and wounds that are directing their behaviour.
In meeting our masks, we begin the work of disarming our hearts…
If you’re interested in engaging in an embodied enquiry into your deepest essence and the wounding that blocks its expression, join Bonny on her upcoming retreat in the heart of Dartmoor. Sacred Embers combines expertise in trauma informed techniques with psycho-spiritual knowledge and creative & shamanic practice to deliver a profound journey of self discovery.
You can find out more about Bonny’s practise as a psychosynthesis coach here.
