The Subconscious Mind and It’s Fractured Self-Image
The ‘self-image’ is a term popularised by Dr. Maxwell Maltz refers to the mental image we construct of ourselves. In this article we explore how it might be composed of more than just one personality/identity.
I recently called a friend with whom I hadn’t spoken in some time. As soon as he answered the phone, I found myself changing the way I spoke. The way I pronounced words, the excitement in my voice, and the overall energy was different to my normal conversation style with my girlfriend.
It’s obvious that you wouldn’t talk to your friends the same way you talk to your girlfriend, wife, father, or mother. You naturally change the way you present yourself to create rapport with the other person.
I pondered this idea for a moment.
I thought about the concept of the self-image and how we might actually have several versions of ourselves. These versions of us remain dormant until called upon by a particular situation.
We like to think we are one type of person with one specific personality or self-image. If I were to secretly record you with different people, and in different situations, you will see you are playing a perpetual game of masquerades.
When you walk into the office and talk to your boss, you put on a specific ‘employee’ mask.
When you talk to your friends at work, you put on the ‘colleague’ mask.
If you run your business and talk to clients, you put on the ‘business’ mask.
When you go home to your partner, you grab the ‘home’ mask.
If you have kids, you need to put on the ‘parent’ mask.
You are not one specific person but an amalgamation of self-images.
This is made obvious by the uneasiness which is felt when people from your separate realities clash. When your boss sees you with your friend outside of work, you put on a hybrid mask or succumb to the more dominant person’s energy.
You might assume the ‘employee’ mask while your friend watches your brown-nosing behaviour with astonishment.
How Other People’s Self-Image influence Ours
I have always been a joker.
When I was in school I would get in trouble for making the class laugh – I couldn’t keep a good joke inside, I had to let it out.
I didn’t take life too seriously; making people laugh was a seemingly innate trait.
When I made new friends I noticed something peculiar. Many of them transformed from being very serious and uptight to becoming light-hearted and funny.
This happened on several occasions. It was not a coincidence.
I suspect being around my energy allowed them to express the funnier aspects of their personality, or perhaps create a new self-image.
When parents notice their kids playing with delinquents they begin to worry.
The parents intuitively know that given enough exposure to the criminal, their kids will be doing drugs or taking a shit on the front lawn.
Jim Rohn was close to the mark when he said,
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
In reality, you create several versions of yourself based on the people with whom you spend the most time.
From an evolutionary perspective these versions are created for your survival.
Your mind attempts to maximise the likelihood of your survival by emulating the behaviour of those around you, hence the need for ‘mirror neurons’.
My friend had to become funnier because his mind subconsciously reasoned,
“You gotta be funny or you might die!”
When a new employee joins a new job, he needs to adapt to the culture quick or risk being booted out.
When a baby sees the giants around it walking on two feet whilst it’s crawling in the slums, it feels compelled to learn to walk.
In baby talk, it tells itself,
“Hey lil man, you gotta learn to walk or you might die!”
It doesn’t need a textbook or much help from parents to do this, it moves from instinct.
This subconscious fixation on survival might seem extreme, but it’s aligned with evolutionary mismatch theory.
Despite our environment being drastically different and infinitely safer, our evolutionary responses remain the same as they have for over 200,000 years.
Even if we survive the next 200,000 years with its technological advances, our minds will still find something to freak out about.
Dissociative Identity Disorder and the Self-Image
People with dissociative identity disorder (DID), which is sometimes called multiple personality disorder, have two or more distinct self-images.
These different identities are called alters.
Each alter has a distinct name, behaviour, and way of viewing the world.
Each alter is essentially a different identity.
At any given time only one alter can take control of the body.
An alter typically takes over when the person with DID feels threatened.
Whilst the alter is in control, the person might be co-conscious (able to see what is going on) or unconscious (unable to see or recollect what happened).
Psychiatrists believe DID is the result of extreme trauma during early childhood.
People with DID are usually the victims of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse in infancy.
Their minds create these alternate identities to help them cope with the trauma.
It’s like learning to drive a car but having a more experienced driver as the passenger who can take over when you need to perform a difficult manoeuvre.
In some cases it’s like having 15 other drivers in the car with you, each eager to take the wheel.
If you want to learn more about DID, check out this woman’s interview HERE.
The Fractured Self and your circle
I believe we are all fractured.
The person with DID just has a more extreme and overt case of something that happens to all of us.
We create identities to protect ourselves.
In some cases, these identities can keep us stuck by forcing us to resonate at a low level.
Since your mind is a product of evolution, it has become fond of following the path of least resistance.
Like most things in the universe it aims to conserve energy whilst fulfilling its function.
Its main goal is to keep you alive.
To do this it only needs to mirror the people in your immediate circle.
Hence, if your friends and family are fat, you will likely be fat.
If your friends and family are religious, you will be religious.
If your friends and family valued a high-level degree, you would already have the degree plastered on the wall by now.
Surpassing the level of your peers requires surplus energy, energy your mind will not easily supply.
If you want to become rich but surround yourself with poverty and laziness, you are fighting an uphill battle.
If you want to be healthy but associate with drug addicts, your efforts will be in vain.
To tip the odds in your favour, you need to surround yourself with people at the level you want to be.
Doing this will expose you as the black sheep of the group.
You will be the odd one out and this is an uncomfortable place to be.
The best way to learn Spanish isn’t from an iPhone app.
The best way is to become stranded in Spain with an internet connection and no guide.
Learning probability and statistics in high school is boring, while learning the same skills to grow your business is more exciting.
You need skin in the game in order to execute your goals properly.
Consciously Engineer a new Self-image
Now you know the secret.
To gain a new self-image or identity you need to surround yourself with people above you.
An age-old self-improvement axiom which will forever remain true.
This can be done by signing up to programs or going to events slightly out of your league.
Joining a gym filled with roided up bodybuilders getting ready for the next Mr. Olympia competition will get you in better shape than your local commercial gym filled with the elderly.
Attending business seminars with millionaires before you have made your first million will force you to think at a higher level.
Let evolution help you achieve the success you want; all it demands from you is a little discomfort.
DO THIS AND YOU WILL BE ONE STEP CLOSER TO LIVING AND DYING WELL.