Reviews of scientific literature have solidly demonstrated the existence of unconscious mental processes. Much of our mental life, including thoughts emotions and motives are unconscious.  Conscious and unconscious thought and feelings operate in parallel.  The mental process that deals consciously with reality is ‘The Ego’.

The ego does its best to translate the expectations of the unconscious into decisions and actions.  However, conflict between conscious and unconscious processes often leads to inexplicable behaviour and causing us to compromise our intentions.

It is worth considering the ego, not as a single entity but as a composite of different personalities.  In “True Purpose” author Tim Kelley refers to these characters as our inner protectors.  And for each of us they are many and different.

However there are some key archetypes we each carry to some degree:

 

Protector, controller or risk manager: – keeps you from putting your life in danger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Critic:  Fuels our negative self-talk with debilitating comments on our attractiveness, intellect and effect (you are ugly, stupid and useless).  A well developed Critic however, inspires us to higher standards, higher ambition and constant improvement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The image consultant:  Pays attention to how others react to you.  Censoring your speech, your turnout and hygiene.  Without this component we are likely to commit social faux pas.  Apparently Beethoven was slovenly, smelly and rude.  It does not affect his music today but made life hard for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sceptic:  requires evidence.  Convincing!  Once someone told me they were taking the word “Gullible out of the dictionary.  I managed to bite my tongue just in time before saying “Really???”  Without an effective sceptic we are susceptible to scams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wounded Child:  The one the inner team are trying to protect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the personalities came with the package. In “Outliers” Malcolm Gladwell refers to research that indicates there is an inherited, cultural component to our psyche.  Others have developed during our lifetime.

It is possible to engage with these personalities, at the fringe of our consciousness, who manage so much of our perceptions and energy.  Tim Kelley offers a self study exercise to negotiate with these components of our ego and to reassure them of our intentions.  The steps are:

  • Make contact:  a process to invite your personalities to step forward to engage with you in conversation.
  • Learn about this part of your personality, where they came from, what they need and what they want to achieve.
  • Ask them to describe their concerns and what they fear would happen should the concern come true.
  • Negotiate a way forward:  Don’t argue or push the personality.  You know how you hate being coerced.  Work out agreements on decisions and actions to prevent the worst from happening.  Negotiation may take a while as there are parts of you that may take convincing.
  • Wrap up:  Be gracious to the part you have dealt with.  Summarise your agreement and make a time to continue the discussion if necessary.

Are you in touch with your inner team? What is your experience?  Scroll down to the bottom of this page and type a comment in the block provided.

The graphics are the work of Danny Beck, an artist working in the video game industry who kindly allowed me to pick the characters from his online gallery.  He does the concept art, the previsulization of a game.  His inspiration is that he just likes to draw.  Visit Danny’s website to see more of his creatures and some of his beautiful figure drawings.