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- free your
true Self and reduce false-self wounds |
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Perspective on Your False Self
Who's
Really Running Your Life?
By Peter K.
Gerlach, MSW
Member NSRC Experts Council |
 The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/gwc/false_self.htm
Clicking links below will open a full window or an informational popup, so
please turn off your brow-ser's
popup blocker or allow popups from this nonprofit Web site. If the windows distract you, read the article before following any links.
One evening an old
Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside
people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside
us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret,
greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, worry, resentment, inferior-ity,
lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is
joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,
empathy, humor, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.
The grandson thought for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
This is one of a
series
of articles on Lesson 1 in
this Web site - (a) free your
to guide you in calm and conflictual times, and (b)
significant false-self
This article describes a common psychological condition or "wound" -
being controlled by a "false self." This may cause up to five additional
The article assumes you're
familiar with...
What is a "False Self"?
"False
self" means two or more personality subselves that activate from some life event, and
take over leadership from the part of our
wise brain/body called (here) our
(capital "S"). When that
happens, your thoughts, perceptions, and feelings are what those excited
subselves feel, not
what your Self perceives or feels.
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When you're controlled
by a false self, your natur-ally-talented Self is disabled - i.e. s/he is blocked from
making instinctively wise, whol;istically-healthy deci-sions. The
short-sighted, comfort-seeking subselves who have taken over
(the false self) usually make less wise and healthy decisions, like
rookies trying to run a professional team.
A typical false self will cause the composite fee-lings, beliefs, perceptions,
and thoughts of one or more
plus any
subselves that are dev-oted
to each of them ("My
my
my
and my
are all trying to
control me now - Help!") |
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Before personal wound-recovery progress,
most Inner Kids and Guardians don't know the Self is available
to lead; or they do know, but don't trust the Self's judgment and competence.
That's often be-cause against all logic, they're living in the
(traumatic) past.
When we're young, our true Self hasn't learned much about the world, so
other subselves have no reason to trust its wisdom and judgment. They must
rely on each other and the subselves who control our caregivers. So one
aspect of "maturing" is having our diligent subselves realize that the
resident true Self has gained much knowledge and wisdom, and now is
an effective leader in all situations.
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Doing effective
can
accelerate this acceptance and trust over time,
and har-monize all subselves to (usually) follow the Self's wise lead. As
this happens, people increasingly de-scribe
feeling a mix of
in calm and stressful situations |
My experience is that most American adults would not
describe their lives with words like these. Reflect on the past
several weeks or months of your life. What adjectives would best describe them? How
about stressed, rushed, distracted,
hassled, unfocused, anxious,
guilty, confused,
superficial, frustrated, angery, numb,
depressed, apathetic, empty, and/or insecure?.
The more of these that fit, the more likely that your
thoughts, perceptions, and actions have often been controlled by a well-meaning
false self.
To help prepare and motivate you and important others to do Lesson 1
(inner-wound assessment and reduction), here's some perspective on "living from a false self."
I write this after 15 years of doing
with scores of men and women trying to improve their lives and
relationships by har-monizing their talented
I also write from personal experience as a recovering
(GWC).
Prior to breaking life-long denials in 1986, my life
was mostly controlled by my false self - and I was completely un-aware of
that and what it
That has changed dramatically since I began personal wound-re-duction.
The Master Wound:
Being Controlled by a "False-self"
Women and men
who survive a low-nurturance childhood and are ruled by a protective false self often know no
other way of life. To most of us
GWCs, false-self dominance is
normal. To
imagine life feeling like these
seems like
science fiction, unattainable in real life. (Do you agree?)
Living from a false self probably does not
mean you have a "multiple personality." A common ner-vous reaction
when "your inner family of subselves" is proposed is to associate it with the dramatic stories
of "Sibyl," "The Three Faces of Eve," or "When Rabbit
Howls."
Social
psychologists estimate that about 5% of our population
are extremely dis-integrated people with what psychiatrists now call "Dissociative
Identity Disorder" (DID). Such people have very distinct symptoms.
The great majority of us have moderately-split
personalities and fall far
short of having DID.
Can kids be controlled by a pseudo self? Absolutely.
If a young child's main caregivers, role mo-dels, mentors, and companions are
not consistently directed by their true
Selves then the child is pro-bably
governed by other protective subselves much or all the time.
This is likely
because the child's Self (capital "S") has not had much life experience to
strengthen her or his wisdom. From this perspective, "growing up" really
means "gradually shifting your subselves' trust from
adults' ruling subselves to your own true Self."
To begin to assess whether you
are
often controlled by a tireless,
protective false self, explore and study this
- then return here.
To fully assess yourself for
false-self wounds, follow the suggestions here.
The more GWC traits that someone has, the
more likely their Self (capital "S") is often disabled, and personal
wound-reduction is
merited.
These GWC symptoms are so
widespread in America that they're accepted as normal. True-Self
symptoms are uncommon. Note that if a false self controls you now,
s/he will probably distort your self-evaluation of these clues. Do you feel like your Self is
your personality (other subselves) now?
If you feel your true Self
reviewed these
symptoms and you have "too
many" of them, then learn
more about wound-recovery options.
If you feel a
child or other adult has too many of
these symptoms, follow the links. For a full explor-ation of psychological
wounding and recovery, read the Lesson-1 guidebook "Who's
Really Running Your Life?" (2nd ed.; Xlibris.com, 2000) and
related titles.
Self-study
aims to help troubled adults assess for significant
false-self dominance and
wounds in themselves and
other important adults and kids. Where
there are significant signs of these wounds, Lesson 1 provides an
experience-based framework for helping each other evolve and work an effective personal recovery
plan - "parts work," or
That aims to harmonize your team of subselves under the expert leadership
of your true Self and
Higher Power over time.
Options: invest some time reflecting and/or
journaling about your
reactions to what you just read. Learn the set of
and try imagining them
describing most days of your life. Core question:
are you or someone you care
about often dominated by a false self?
If so, what does that
If
you're skeptical about personality subselves, read my
letter to you, and then try this safe, inter-esting
exercise. Note that about 80% of
site visitors who answer this poll say they believe in subselves "without
question."
For more perspective, read this research summary on "bad
habits." For options on
empowering your true Self, see this.
Recap
This article provides perspective on one of six epidemic psychological
"wounds" that seem to come from growing up in a low-nurturance environment. The
wound is "false self dominance," which can cause
excessive shame and guilts, fears, reality distortions, and trust imbalances. People with all
of these may have a sixth wound - difficulty
feeling and bonding to some or all other people.
The article provides links to common symptoms of false self dominance and
what that can mean, and refers you to articles on
wound reduction ("recovery").
If you haven't read the
articles at the start of this one, I urge you to do
so now.
Pause, breathe, and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get
what you needed? If not, what
you need? Who's
these questions - your
or
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Updated
September 01, 2010
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