Owls and Orchids

image from fineartamerica.com

“I’m talking to myself in two different personas now. I’m reaching for a full-throttle meltdown and why not? Why stop halfway? Why not just go for it, jump on and ride the wave?”
― C.K. Kelly Martin, My Beating Teenage Heart

Communication – The way we talk to each other; the way we talk to ourselves, is a complex sharing of thoughts, words and feelings. It is influenced by not only how we are feeling, what we are doing or who we are talking to but more importantly who we are when we are talking.

No matter how straightforward we may appear to be to the outside world or to each other, we are a complex mix of personalities.  By this I do not mean simply personality traits but complete personas. You might almost say, with a degree of confidence, that at any given time you could be talking to a different person. Have you ever noticed or had that feeling when talking to someone? There are times when you feel that you simply don’t know who you are talking to because they seem so different from the one you are used to talking with.

Had and Sidra Stone, founders of “The Voice Dialogue”, (more about that in a later blog), identified hundreds of sub personalities within each person. Each of these sub personalities affords us the ability to handle or perform in certain situations. Just think of the stories you hear about the super human feat performed by people in dangerous situations, later they have no recollection of what they did or how the did it. In fact they often say that they could never imagine doing something like that since it is so far outside their normal ‘persona’. The person who runs into a busy street to save a child who has wandered into traffic, no thought for their own safety, this is an example of a sub personality suddenly ‘stepping in’ to do something which would be unimagined by this person under their normal circumstances.

image from http://www.intherocket.com

Take a look at your life. Can you identify how many roles you have performed so far? We are each imbued with certain predetermined roles given our family dynamics.

As a child you are a son or daughter, brother or sister. These roles are carried with you throughout life and at times may be more dominant than at others. In the fullness of time there may be a change to husband or wife, or partner, and further to father or mother. Even with these changes you are still son, daughter, brother or sister.  If all falls into place there may be Grandfather or Grandmother.  These are the traditional and acknowledged roles.

In the matriarchal society we saw the changes for a female moved from maiden to mother and then crone. These changes were also closely tied to the wheel of life and the seasonal cycle of the year.

image from carolyn-thelongroad.blogspot.com

Yet no matter the time of year, the time of life or the relationship, the face we see in the mirror can reflect any facet of out personality, or sub personality.The person we forget about is YOU, the face who most closely represents the ‘true you”. Have you taken the time to find out who you really are?

Each of us need the time to become in tune with who we are, our inner dreams and desires, what makes our heart and soul come to life.  At times what stirs our hearts and minds will be different from those desires we once had.  Something else is compelling us to move in another direction. Have we changed or is another part of our persona begun to direct the story of our life?

Some of the sub personalities identified by Hal and Sidra are; The Inner Critic, The Protector, The Mother, Inner Child, The Enforcer, just to name a few.  Think of the film, “The Three Faces of Eve”, based on a true story where a woman was found to have clearly distinct and separate personalities dominant given certain circumstances. Eventually the doctors found many more than three personalities and we are no different – we simply control the extreme elements or sub personalities.

When we meet someone they remember us as who we are at that time and that is how they greet us when they meet us next time, regardless of where we are in life.

image from http://www.paulkiritsis.net

Voice Dialogue has been developed by Drs Hal and Sidra Stone since 1972. They have been active teachers of the method since that time. You can read more about these two extraordinary people at their Delos website.

Hal and Sidra Stone, Voice Dialogue Training, Melbourne 2002

“One’s own self is well hidden from one’s own self; of all mines of treasure, one’s own is the last to be dug up.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I look forward to talking to you, or you, or you at another time.

May all of you be happy.   Susan x