- In your heart you long for a relationship that is authentic, deep and rich. A relationship where there is the direct experience of true intimacy, where both partners are present and undefended. A union where trust and compassion allows for the inevitable problems to be understood and resolved. Where there is a delightful exchange of energy, conversation, appreciation and love. (Yes, and good sex too!)
- Historically you encounter familiar types of problems and issues which diminish or end a relationship. They create a feeling of 'stuckness' with little possibility of resolution.
- There are times when, for some unknown reason, you find yourself defending or withdrawing from your partner as if your life depends on it. At these times your partner seems to transform into someone who does not see or understand you - or even represents a threat to your well being.
WHY DO RELATIONSHIPS GO AWRY?
- In relationship there are only two states of being that will largely determine the quality of the interaction. A person is able to be present in the moment, embodied, and open to interact in a contactful way with the other. We call this being our ‘authentic self’ or real self. On the other hand a person can present themselves as a ‘false self’, a manufactured personality or ego. This ego structure is an identity built from the experiences of the past and held in memory. Its qualities, characteristics, preferences and fears are built on historic interactions - one’s personal history. Tolle calls it the ‘mind made self.’ This ego-self may be acted out in the relationship with little or no consciousness on the part of a person.
- Now here is the really diabolical part about these two states of being. Unless I have done a lot of deep personal inquiry and psychological work to unearth the ego identity – it remains warehoused in my unconscious. This means that while I could be experiencing myself in a real way - at any time - something could arises in the relationship which triggers the ego self into operation. (While some behavioral triggers are obvious, they could be as simple as a: word, glance, gesture, comment, tone of voice, etc.) As this ego identity begins to dominate my consciousness I become less real and out of touch with the reality of my partner and the situation. Acting (reacting) from this false self creates many painful misunderstandings and injuries.
- OK, there is another really diabolical aspect of this syndrome. When the ego identity gets control I really believe it’s me! And my need for survival justifies protecting myself from you, withdrawing from you, closing my heart, and even attacking you. Who you are, who I perceive you to by in my condition of false identity or temporary insanity is a very interesting creation. You are no longer who you really are. In my mind you have become - through the mechanism of my own mental projection - someone else. And this someone else is bigger, stronger, older, unloving, uncaring, more competent, mean, punitive, scary, etc. You also have no interest or capacity to see who I am or really understand me. You don’t hear what I am trying to tell you, and you don’t care about me. This someone else is also constructed from my historic memory of interactions with people from my early past.
WHAT IS AN OBJECT RELATIONSHIP?
- Let’s explore what we mean when we talk about an object relationship and how it can help us discriminate when we are being real or false in our relationships. True identity or true self is an experience of great spiritual degree. It is the realization that what is truly you is not mediated by the mind in any sense. It is the free and spontaneous presence of your timeless nature. It is not a mental idea or image based on your history. The mind cannot know Being directly. It has no idea what an autonomous self is.
- False identity is the ‘mind made self,’ the ego or personality. As you explore ego more you will find that it is in fact a fiction. It’s not real in any fundamental way, but it appears to exist because the mind can only manufacture a ‘sense of self’ when two things are present together – a subject and an object - a YOU and the OTHER person or thing. As a result the 'ego-self’ is always emerging out of a mental matrix of relationship with someone or something else. This is an object relationship. In fact the mind cannot think about who one is without reference to this OTHER. For the mind it is the reflection and interplay between the two that makes a ‘self.’
- When I ask my mind, “Who am I?” it replies, “I am a teacher.” Of course this implies that there is a student somewhere (the other) and that there is a predetermined atmosphere of feelings that exist in the relationship of teacher-student: I love teaching, I am a happy teacher. Teaching is my life. I am liked by my students.. I am a good teacher. However the most important result of this mental process is that ‘I’ exist because the ‘student’ exists.
We will discuss some of the most prevalent relationships which act to create our sense of identity, and in the process we can explore why the: Who I take myself to be in this moment.” is a combination of three elements:
ME--------------RELATIONSHIP---------OTHER
(Defines WHO I am!")
Me--------------------------TEACHER--------------------------Student
Me----------------------------FRIEND--------------------------Sally/Bill
Me----------------------------LOVER---------------------Special Other
Me------------------------CARPENTER---------------------------Work
Me-------------------ATHEIST, SAVED SOUL-------------------God
Me---------------------SHORT, BEAUTIFUL--------------------Body
Me--------------------ONE WHO IS LOVING----------------Cat/Car
Me---------MERE DUST, FRUIT OF CREATION--------Universe
Me---------ANXIOUS, DUTIFUL, REBELLIOUS------Super Ego
(Defines WHO I am!")
Me--------------------------TEACHER--------------------------Student
Me----------------------------FRIEND--------------------------Sally/Bill
Me----------------------------LOVER---------------------Special Other
Me------------------------CARPENTER---------------------------Work
Me-------------------ATHEIST, SAVED SOUL-------------------God
Me---------------------SHORT, BEAUTIFUL--------------------Body
Me--------------------ONE WHO IS LOVING----------------Cat/Car
Me---------MERE DUST, FRUIT OF CREATION--------Universe
Me---------ANXIOUS, DUTIFUL, REBELLIOUS------Super Ego
OBJECT RELATIONS PROBLEMS IN MY RELATIONSHIPS?
So far the creation of an identity out of my past experience seems pretty benign, pretty normal. However there is a kind of object relationship that is very difficult and damaging to a good relationship. It is the Parent-Child Object Relationship and it looks and feels like this:
YOU – Subject - Child------------------------------------OTHER- Object- Parent
Small-----------------------------------------------------------------------Big
Young---------------------------------------------------------------------Older
Sensitive----------------------------------------------------------------Callous
Sweet, loving---------------------------------------------------------Indifferent
Vulnerable------------------------------------------------------------Punishing
Fearful, scared----------------------------------------------------------Scary
Need to be seen-----------------------------------------------------Self absorbed
Want to be heard-------------------------------------------Unwilling/incapable of listening
Want to be understood-----------------------------------------‘Knows’ you already
Needing safety--------------------------------------------------------Attacking
Contracted---------------------------------------------------------Expansive/intrusive
Needs contact---------------------------------------------------------Withdraws
Need what the other has---------------------------------------------Withholds
Small-----------------------------------------------------------------------Big
Young---------------------------------------------------------------------Older
Sensitive----------------------------------------------------------------Callous
Sweet, loving---------------------------------------------------------Indifferent
Vulnerable------------------------------------------------------------Punishing
Fearful, scared----------------------------------------------------------Scary
Need to be seen-----------------------------------------------------Self absorbed
Want to be heard-------------------------------------------Unwilling/incapable of listening
Want to be understood-----------------------------------------‘Knows’ you already
Needing safety--------------------------------------------------------Attacking
Contracted---------------------------------------------------------Expansive/intrusive
Needs contact---------------------------------------------------------Withdraws
Need what the other has---------------------------------------------Withholds
As was said earlier, in relationship there are two only two states of being that will largely determine the quality of the interaction. A person takes their seat as who they truly are or they present themselves as a ‘false self’, a manufactured personality or ego. In the example above we have a false identity we call the ‘soul child’. You could call it your child of the past. This idea of a self was laid down in early childhood by the accumulation of actual experiences with the parental figures in your early environment.
Over time the child believes it is the person identified by the list of qualities on the left hand column above. And since object relationships require that the object (the other person) have the appropriate set of characteristics and qualities, the mind projects those on whoever is on the other side of the relationship when this false identity gets triggered.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT MY RELATIONSHIP?
The Four Primary Scenarios
- Scenario One: I go crazy.
Once the unconscious has been triggered, as we discussed earlier, bad things start to happen. First, I lose contact with the reality of who I am and become the small one. Two, I lose contact with who you are and automatically project the qualities in the right hand column on to you. Three, the way the two roles are defined I must protect, defend, or exit from your presence – or remain in a tremendously frustrating and/or fearful connection to you. Four, the strategy to survive was programmed in childhood. How I will feel, think, and react was determined long ago. The behavior is habitual once in the grip of this false identity and the outcome is cast in stone. There is no way to change the scenario defined by the mind, because there is no contact with reality: self, partner, situation, etc. In this scenario I withdraw, create a wall of separation, or stay stuck in the negative feelings engendered by the relationship.
- Scenario Two: You go crazy with me!
I’m lost in my illusion and projecting negativity onto you. Projection and the behavior that I exhibit toward you is a tremendously powerful psychic force. You may start out the scene feeling present and centered in your being. But the more I treat you as the bad parent - the uncaring, unfeeling one – the one who doesn’t see me, understand me, or listen to me – you may begin to feel your own behavior change dramatically. And you could start to treat me as this whiny baby, this ungrateful partner, this person who doesn’t see or appreciate you for who you are. Your own frustration, anger, hurt, etc. could emerge and get directed at me. In effect you are becoming the person defined by my object relationship. You may begin to act just like the other person in my projection; you may even attack me verbally which just reinforces the 'truth' of the whole illusion. In fact, from the perspective of the unconscious operation at play here, the need and desire is for you to assume and act out the role of the 'bad other.' If you do not assume this role...my whole identity is threatened and could fall apart.
You may have had times when your partner gets caught in this syndrome and you are able to stay present as your true self. In those times you can see how your partner has transformed into something unreal, and you could feel the desperation in their attempts to coerce you into the fake role defined by their object relationship. If you stay present in the moment they may become very disoriented, or really lash out at you to force you into the role.
If you get sucked into the object relationship another option is to withdraw yourself for protection. When this dynamic arises it can make both parties in the relationship feel totally stuck, as if they are in a repeating dream/nightmare. Usually the couple can take some space and both become more present. However if the underlying unconsciousness is not addressed directly, the depth of the pattern almost assures its recurrence, often until the couple calls it quits.
You may have had times when your partner gets caught in this syndrome and you are able to stay present as your true self. In those times you can see how your partner has transformed into something unreal, and you could feel the desperation in their attempts to coerce you into the fake role defined by their object relationship. If you stay present in the moment they may become very disoriented, or really lash out at you to force you into the role.
If you get sucked into the object relationship another option is to withdraw yourself for protection. When this dynamic arises it can make both parties in the relationship feel totally stuck, as if they are in a repeating dream/nightmare. Usually the couple can take some space and both become more present. However if the underlying unconsciousness is not addressed directly, the depth of the pattern almost assures its recurrence, often until the couple calls it quits.
- Scenario Three: I’m going to get Big and make you feel Little.
It is critically important to come to the understanding that there is no such thing as true autonomous identity for the mind. It always has the two players who together form an identity. When my false identity manufacturing process is triggered I have two faces to present to you. One is the small child, but the other is the big, powerful, and mostly mean parent.
Here I have the usual trigger that initiates the false self duo. Over time I realize that playing the part of the soul child is really weak, and I never get what I want from my partner. I learn that by becoming angry and hateful I can slide over to the ‘big’ identity. Now I feel the false strength of my anger and I can attack you verbally, make you wrong, accuse you of abusing me, and hopefully make you feel guilty. If I am successful in shifting the dynamic I can achieve a sadistic pleasure in causing you to feel what its like to be little, powerless and scared - my usual position in the object relationship.
Here we have a situation where my false power has triggered your own object relationship and you have been driven into the child position. In time we both may recover our senses. If no fundamental understanding occurs we can get into the emotionally abusive dynamic of the victim and the perpetrator, which can continue for a long time until one party ends the relationship.
Here I have the usual trigger that initiates the false self duo. Over time I realize that playing the part of the soul child is really weak, and I never get what I want from my partner. I learn that by becoming angry and hateful I can slide over to the ‘big’ identity. Now I feel the false strength of my anger and I can attack you verbally, make you wrong, accuse you of abusing me, and hopefully make you feel guilty. If I am successful in shifting the dynamic I can achieve a sadistic pleasure in causing you to feel what its like to be little, powerless and scared - my usual position in the object relationship.
Here we have a situation where my false power has triggered your own object relationship and you have been driven into the child position. In time we both may recover our senses. If no fundamental understanding occurs we can get into the emotionally abusive dynamic of the victim and the perpetrator, which can continue for a long time until one party ends the relationship.
- Scenario Four: Let’s both get big, punitive and hateful!
In scenario Three I chose to take on the big side of the object relationship and try to cause you to identify with the child role. In this scenario my ploy doesn’t work, or only works for a short time, because you too take on the ‘big’ role. Now we have both parties coming from what is primarily a position of anger and hate articulated as complaints and attacks aimed at each other. This usually ends the relationship pretty quickly, but I have actually seen some couples that somehow thrive on this kind of emotional escalation.
I’m sure you can think of other combinations but these are the basic strategies that appear in most relationships from time to time. It is also important to point out that on any given day I or my partner could find ourselves in any of the four scenarios, or watch one scenario morph into another during one interaction.
I’m sure you can think of other combinations but these are the basic strategies that appear in most relationships from time to time. It is also important to point out that on any given day I or my partner could find ourselves in any of the four scenarios, or watch one scenario morph into another during one interaction.
UNDERSTANDING REACTIVITY IN THE OBJECT RELATIONSHIP
- Reactions are the personal feelings/emotions of the false personality or ego. Reactivity and reactions are the same thing for the purpose of this discussion. We distinguish them from the genuine responses that arise due to our clear sense of who we are and our ability to respond maturely to the demands of any situation which reality is presenting to us in the moment.
- Reactivity implies that we are not being who we truly are in the moment. Our personal history, through the medium of memory, has emerged in our consciousness and is contaminating our perception. It disconnects me from who I really am and determines: (1) who I will take myself to be, (2) who you (the other person/situation) will become in my mind, and (3) how I must think and feel about you and treat you. Reactivity is the source of the emotional energy that fuels the actions and behaviors that were appropriate in the past but are no longer in accord with the needs and opportunities of one’s present life situation and relationships.
These reactions, which are happening all of the time, (including the feeling of being independent and dependent) sustain the illusion of an identity. Unless we know ourselves in a deep way, most of the time what we call our personal feelings, impulses, attitudes, plans, inclinations, etc. are really just those reactions. Until a person has direct knowledge of Being or True Nature, it is very difficult to discriminate between a spontaneously arising expression of one’s true nature and what is reactivity. However, if you study reactions carefully and their results you will begin to see that they always repeat a habitual pattern of thought, feeling, and behavior. There is no freedom in them, nothing fresh and nothing creative. They are always familiar, stale, and limiting.
Diligent observation will allow you to discover that the emergence of emotional reactivity and mental reactivity (based on old outworn ideas, beliefs, and assumptions) that drive one’s behavior are not really spontaneous thoughts and feelings, but quite automatic. Automatic and mechanical, because just as in a soft drink dispenser, if you push the right button and right can of juice comes out of the vending machine…every time.
Reactivity begins when a person identifies with some idea or image of a self from the past. The consciousness becomes dominated by that self image, or identity. As we discussed earlier this identity exists as part of an object relation. The identity always has three parts: the self object, the other, and a set of feelings, attitudes, and behaviors. All three parts of the object relation are reactivity. That is, all three parts are determined by the past and prevent us from being authentic & spontaneous. It is understandable that a person will have a predictable pattern of behavior, or reaction, or automatic action – to a situation or relationship because they are taking themselves to be some kind of unchanging and historically defined person.
E.g. If your unconscious identification is of being a little girl who is afraid of Daddy’s anger; then as an adult every time someone gets mad you get scared. But getting scared is dependent on taking yourself to be a little girl who is defenseless and lacks essential strength. In the moment of identification with any self image you believe you are a somebody without certain qualities and capacities. What is common to all identifications is that you feel deficient, cut off from your own resources and not in touch with reality. There is a need to flee, fight and/or defend.
When we look carefully at this thing called personality we will find that it is composed of numerous identifications (IDs). Each ID has its own set of feelings, attitudes and behaviors. Different situations, people, and relationships in your life activate different IDs or self images. For example, you might notice that your ID changes depending upon whom you are relating to: a woman, man, your boss, children, etc. The false personality is nothing more than an amalgamation of all these IDs, grossly integrated into a sense of being a person.
I hope it is becoming clearer that when we are caught in an identification with a false personality it makes real relating almost impossible. There is no one there to relate to, and we can’t really see our partner through our projections. We need to become self-reflective about the times when we fall under the influence of an object relationship and bring our curiosity and inquiry to bear on this phenomenon.
We also need a great deal of compassion. When we really understand the child object relationship and stop repressing its needs and desires. We can expose the original circumstances under which it was made to feel little and deficient. This can bring a lot of hurt, frustration, and hopelessness. It usually opens the door to clarify who was making our life so miserable, the person that is now represented by the ‘other’ in our object relationship. Then this long held mental construct can be clarified and released.
Reactivity begins when a person identifies with some idea or image of a self from the past. The consciousness becomes dominated by that self image, or identity. As we discussed earlier this identity exists as part of an object relation. The identity always has three parts: the self object, the other, and a set of feelings, attitudes, and behaviors. All three parts of the object relation are reactivity. That is, all three parts are determined by the past and prevent us from being authentic & spontaneous. It is understandable that a person will have a predictable pattern of behavior, or reaction, or automatic action – to a situation or relationship because they are taking themselves to be some kind of unchanging and historically defined person.
E.g. If your unconscious identification is of being a little girl who is afraid of Daddy’s anger; then as an adult every time someone gets mad you get scared. But getting scared is dependent on taking yourself to be a little girl who is defenseless and lacks essential strength. In the moment of identification with any self image you believe you are a somebody without certain qualities and capacities. What is common to all identifications is that you feel deficient, cut off from your own resources and not in touch with reality. There is a need to flee, fight and/or defend.
When we look carefully at this thing called personality we will find that it is composed of numerous identifications (IDs). Each ID has its own set of feelings, attitudes and behaviors. Different situations, people, and relationships in your life activate different IDs or self images. For example, you might notice that your ID changes depending upon whom you are relating to: a woman, man, your boss, children, etc. The false personality is nothing more than an amalgamation of all these IDs, grossly integrated into a sense of being a person.
I hope it is becoming clearer that when we are caught in an identification with a false personality it makes real relating almost impossible. There is no one there to relate to, and we can’t really see our partner through our projections. We need to become self-reflective about the times when we fall under the influence of an object relationship and bring our curiosity and inquiry to bear on this phenomenon.
We also need a great deal of compassion. When we really understand the child object relationship and stop repressing its needs and desires. We can expose the original circumstances under which it was made to feel little and deficient. This can bring a lot of hurt, frustration, and hopelessness. It usually opens the door to clarify who was making our life so miserable, the person that is now represented by the ‘other’ in our object relationship. Then this long held mental construct can be clarified and released.
SKILLLFUL MEANS IN WORKING WITH IDENTIFICATIONS
- Recognize you are under the influence of identification – see the object relationship.
- See how it determines & controls your behavior and response to life in the moment.
- Begin to inquire into the historic origin of the identification, where did it come from?
- Feel the pain, contraction, stress, and inherent deficiency caused by the identification.
- Contrast this experience of reactivity with those of Being. Which do you prefer and value?
- Examine why you are attached to your reactivity, even though you know Being.
- Bring more attention to the moment when the identification wants to emerge. Consciously choose to stay grounded in the present, and stabilized in your own real presence. Another way to say it is, stop acting out the pattern once you have identified it and seen the damage it does.
- Denying energy to enliven these false-self manifestations will result in their power diminishing.
- Then it is possible to live in Being and not in reactivity – possible to be who you truly are in your life and in your relationships.
- True freedom/autonomy is only gained by letting go of these identifications.
THE PRACTICE OF DISENGAGING FROM REACTIVITY
We are embarking on a path to acquire the tools & techniques to gain the greatest awareness possible of the identifications that affect each person. We will also use each other’s presence to assist in becoming aware of the process by which identification and subsequent reactivity cause us to lose touch with who we truly are, who the other person is, and become the False Personality of the past.
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