Personality flaws, and how we protect them.

A year ago, if I had thought I would be writing this I would have judged myself certifiably insane. 

The journey to self awareness continues. 

One of the greatest steps forward I made a couple of months ago was the realisation that I was able to see others blind spots whilst being completely oblivious to my own.  

As this came to awareness I started to wonder how I would override the deep rooted adaptations and begin to change how I respond to the world if I wasn't even aware that I was over-adapting.

We all over adapt when someone pushes at our blind spot, we all move into servival mode.  Ever heard someone angrily express their view that someone "really knows how to push my buttons"?

What they mean is, "this person points out something in my blind spot which I don't want to acknowledge about myself, and so I go into fight/flight mode and over react, even as I remain unconcious that I even have a blind spot".

 Next time someone says something to you and you become aware that your emotions are on the rise, or if you tend to bury your emotions, then maybe you can become aware that you're moving to sarcasm or some other form of one upmanship; then instead of seeking to kill them or flee them (fight/flight), see if you can allow yourself to observe the emotions, without overadapting to them. If you can observe then you may find its possible to allow yourself to see what it truly is in your blindspot that you were prepared to kill for to avoid acknowledging. It's probably something which you consider a foundational part of your personality, In which case you'd have picked it up very early in life and spend the rest of the time since reinforcing rather than correcting. Such is the power of the blindspot. 

I want to acknowledge the excellent counsellor who shows extreme patience with me as I went from one rambling game of self-denial to another in an unconcious attempt to avoid facing my truth.  I am sure I tested her resolve on many occasions. 

My first game involved an attempt to outsmart her by rapidly barrelling through a list of books on counselling. As I look back now it was ridiculous! Imagine, I genuinely thought the sensible thing to do was see if I could find a way to pretend that I was "getting better". 

That's the thing about this journey, sometimes its a real trip.  I look back now and laugh at how ridiculous I was being.  The adaptations we carry through life are so powerful because they begin from when we're born and at that moment our very survival is at stake.  If you're thinking that in the modern day our survival is more or less assured all things being equal, then you may be right, but that's a very recent benefit, our basic "operating system" continues to function as it has done, as it has evolved over millennia. 

So from the moment we're born, the world we inhabit, the things which happen to us, and how we feel about and interpret those events are being recorded and moulded into our personality.  Our wonderful parents and siblings provide the biggest influence on our basic personality. We assume they love us and have our best interests at heart, which of course they do, this is not about apportioning blame; instead the invitation is simply to acknowledge and accept that they too are the sum of their experiences and so they will have unconciously exercised their own biases and judgements as to what was best for us at at any given moment.  

It's not so surprising then that our subconcious can over adapt quite radically in an attempt to protect us and ensure we survive. The alternative, if we approach it in a judgemental frame, would be to question the very foundation of our personality and our family unit. So the first step is to let go of judgement. Which requires us to acknowledge that judgements are made defensively because we fear something. Which requires us to allow ourselves to truly see what it is we are afraid of. A good start point is "death" fear that we may die before we achieve true individuation, true peace, true love or whatever it is our true hearts desire wants but is afraid to ask for. 

I'm also of the view that this is where all our basic fears come from, the survival instinct is hard wired to avoid death and so from the first moments our vivid imaginations make death something to fear at all costs. 

It's no wonder then that we end up such a mess of neuroses!