Chapter 2
By Dr. Steve Frisch, Psy.D.

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Nasrudin was now an old man looking back on his life. He sat with his friends in the tea shop telling his story.

“When I was young I was fiery--I wanted to awaken everyone. I prayed to Allah to give me the strength to change the world.”

In mid-life I awoke one day and realized my life was half over and I had no one to change. So I prayed to Allah to give me the strength to change those close around me who so much needed it.

Alas, now I am old and my prayer is simpler, ‘Allah, I ask, please give me the strength to at least change myself.’
-Unknown

Much like Nasrudin, you’re about to embark upon a journey of self-discovery and transformation, a journey focused inward rather than outward, a journey to the center of your soul. The sole purpose of this journey is to bump into somebody you lost a long time ago--yourself.

But be prepared. There won’t be a black-tie dinner thrown to celebrate the reunion. Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres won’t be served to mark the occasion. Bring a hard hat along. Steel-toed shoes are a must. Don’t underestimate the value of a good flak jacket. A first aid kit, filled to the brim with courage, patience, tolerance, and faith will be indispensable.

For when you do bump into yourself, your meeting will take place in the center of a war zone--a place deep inside of you where  the battle you wage between you and your Self takes place each and every sleeping and waking moment of your life. It’s at the center of this war zone that you’ll meet your supporting cast members--those parts of yourself that you have dist and dumped on your entire life. You may think of your supporting cast members as  character defects, or perhaps, just pure evil. I think of  them simply as the wounded, underdeveloped, unwanted, and/or disowned parts of who you are.

Why the need to bump into your character defects? What’s the necessity of being [re]introduced to each and every one of your supporting cast members that appear in your day-to-day life, oftentimes unknown to you? What value is there in opening up old wounds, wounds you’ve spent a lifetime distancing yourself from? Why the turnabout? Why all of a sudden must you declare to the heavens your need to be [re]connected to parts of yourself you deemed dispensable so long ago? Why undergo the inevitable struggle, the expenditure of so much emotional energy? Why not just let sleeping dogs lie rather than [re]awaken the slumbering dormant parts of who you are?

Simply put, bumping into your character defects, those unwanted, discarded parts of who you are, the good, the bad, and the ugly, is a necessary first step towards:

Ending the war you wage with your Self.
Healing the splits that exist within your Self.
Spiritually transforming your relationship with your Self.
Connecting, [re]claiming, and reconciling with your Self.
Revealing all of you to your Self and the people in your life.
Opening yourself up to love and be loved.
[Re]establishing your relationship with your Higher Power.

Now on the surface, my approach to transforming your relationship with your character defects may seem counterintuitive to you. After all, there are many other more commonsensical approaches to dealing with your character defects. One type of spiritual practice that comes to mind, perhaps one you’ve even tried yourself, is to purge yourself of your character defects. After all, if it’s best to cleanse your mind, body, and soul of those dirty, disgusting, unwanted parts of who you are, wouldn’t it make sense to simply evict the rabble-rousers, oust the infidels, terminate with extreme prejudice any vestige of weakness, neediness, unkindness, or evil that may exist inside of you? Unfortunately, the outcome to this approach is much like throwing a boomerang. No matter how hard you try to throw away your character defects, they always seem to come right back, oftentimes stronger and more virulent than ever before.

If that approach doesn’t hold much appeal for you, you can always try this practice--make the purpose of your spiritual journey perfecting your mind, body, and soul. This practice relies upon your indomitable self-will to create Ego-inspired perfection rather than Essence-inspired progression woven out of the strands of faith, surrender, and a relationship with your Higher Power. Sadly, seeking to perfect oneself is as Ego-inspired as is your spiritual disease--through the sheer force of your own self-will, you can perfect what you do, think, and feel, thereby, transforming into perfection all of who you are that you find unsuitable and wanting. The trouble with Ego-inspired perfection is that it has about as much permanence as a coat of water-downed white wash splashed on a knotted, splintered, warped picket fence on a hot, rainy summer’s day in Missouri. No matter how much you try to white wash who you are and what you are not with the brush strokes of self-will and perfection, until you bump into your character defects and deal with them openly and honestly, your character defects, much to your chagrin and consternation, will continue to dominate your life, oftentimes adversely.

Reinventing rather than being who you are is another approach to recovery, enlightenment, salvation, the stairway to heaven, or whatever the hoped for outcome of your spiritual practice is. You know what it sounds like in your head, “The old me would have never... on the other hand, the new me is so much better at...” But let’s face it, we’re not performing cosmetic surgery here. Your spiritual practice should not be undertaken with the idea that what you require is an emotional and spiritual facelift. Character defects are like the proverbial sow’s ear that can’t be turned into a silk purse. No, the point is not to purge, perfect, nor reinvent your character defects, but, merely to accept that your character defects were given birth from the same sacred elements of your Higher Power as those qualities of yourself that you consider to be holy and pure.

Still another approach to spiritual practice is talking the talk rather than walking the walk. This style of spiritual practice is for the golden tongue warrior who spends most of their time reading and talking about their spiritual practice rather than living their spiritual practice. In this spiritual practice, knowledge serves as one’s Higher Power. There’s a higher premium placed on understanding what the path is and how to do the journey rather than to experience the struggle of the journey itself. In this spiritual practice, explanations serve as a substitute for action. Excuses trump the actual taking of risk. Justifications, well, as long as you can demonstrate your mastery of the subject of emotional and spiritual transformation, then any avoidance of actively participating in transforming experiences is perfectly acceptable.

No, these approaches offer you more of the same at the end of the day. The same old war rages on within--self-loathing, alienation from the people in your life, and estrangement from your spiritual power. Don’t get me wrong. Each of these approaches’end is noble. It’s the means to that end that is suspect to me. So, let me suggest a different approach to ending the war with your Self by spiritually transforming the relationship you’ve developed with your character defects. This approach asks of you only to:

[Re]claim rather than purge your character defects from the core of who you are so that you may experience being whole again.

Embrace rather than discard your character defects so that you may end a lifetime of secrets and hiding.

Heal rather than anesthetize your character defects so that you may liberate the energy you currently use to numb yourself.

Adopt rather than orphan your character defects so that you may be [re]connected to each authentic part of who you are.

Reveal rather than hide your character defects so that you may experience the healing acceptance of another’s loving gaze.

View your character defects as a creation of your Higher Power rather than proof of the existence of evil.

Accept emotionally and spiritually your character defects rather than merely intellectually grasp that they exist.

Honor your character defects as a creation of your Higher Power rather than sanitize and perfect them because you judge them to be ungodly.

Allow your character defects to evolve into their highest good rather than have them serve a life sentence in purgatory for crimes committed, real and imagined.

Develop your character defects into a part of your higher consciousness rather than keep them exiled in suspended animation from the core of who you are.

Ending the war that you wage with your Self, healing the splits on the inside, spiritually transforming the relationship you have with your character defects, all of it requires you to make a simple choice: transform the relationship you’ve created with the disowned parts of who you are or perpetuate the war by continuing to judge, belittle, criticize, discard, disown what you can’t accept about who you are.

Simply put, you can continue to coat your underdeveloped parts with shame and self-loathing. You can keep holding the heads of your unwanted, underdeveloped selves under water in the choppy seas of your hurt, anger, and resentment. You can fan the flames of self-alienation and estrangement from your Self by continuing your internal harassment--“you’ve never been good enough,” “you’ve never been lovable enough,” “you’ve never deserved more than what you have now.” Or you can transform how you relate to the parts of your Self that you are aware of as well as those parts of your Self that you’ve turned your back on. How can you facilitate such a shift? Bring back into the core of who you are the emotions, thoughts, experiences, and behaviors of your supporting cast members.

Now it’s not enough that you merely accept what I am suggesting to you. You need to participate in a process that will enable you to find your own truths and empower you to transform the written word into concrete specific actions. What is to follow is a discussion about such a process that will enable you to lovingly and without judgment spiritually transform the relationship you have with your character defects. But before I discuss that process of transformation with you, let me first discuss some skills you’ll need to develop in order to facilitate such a spiritual transformation.

G.B.U.

Steve

Dr. Steve Frisch, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Chicago, Illinois and Northfield, Illinois. You can contact Dr. Frisch, Psy.D. at drfrisch@aliveandwellnews.com  or at (847) 604-3290. Recover from chemical dependency and its toxic impact on family members. Raise your children to choose to be alcohol and other drugs free. Learn how to in Dr. Frisch’s, Psy.D. Recovery book series.