Primary Selves and Disowned Selves
Greetings everyone and welcome back! 🙂
Today we’re gonna talk about primary selves and disowned selves in the context of relationships.
This is in reference to the book, Partnering: A New Kind of Relationship by Hal and Sidra Stone.
In the last post, I talked about how every relationship is a mirror to our inner world. The concepts we discuss today can be applied to any relationship in your life.
According to the Stones, we all have multiple selves, or parts, that were developed in order to help us survive, starting from a young age.
The Primary Self
Our primary self is the self that was developed in order to protect our inner vulnerability. There are many selves that were regarded as “better” or “more acceptable” when we were growing up. As we decided to “adopt” these personalities, we hid our disowned selves, which means we are only operating at ~50% of our absolute best.
The Disowned Self
The disowned self, (also known as the shadow in other forms of psychology), are the parts of us we hid in the past in order to survive. Perhaps we were shamed for possessing those qualities as young people.
Often they show up now as things we dislike or yearn for in another person, but are really the underdeveloped sides of ourselves.
Let’s review some examples of Primary and Disowned Selves. (not all-inclusive).
The Pusher // The Relaxer
The Rule-Follower // The Rebel
The Perfectionist // The Good Enough-ist
The Responsible One // The Wild and Spontaneous One
The Caretaker // The Emotive One
The Spender // The Saver (with money)
The Organized One // The Disorganized One
The Tidy One // The Untidy One
The Critic // The Vulnerable One
Let’s review easy ways to discover which are your primary and disowned selves.
Ask Yourself:
Who annoys me? What part of them do I judge? What part of them makes me feel superior to them? Write this down → this is your disowned self!
What is the opposite or contrasting quality? What qualities do I like about myself or makes me feel better than others? Write this down → this is your primary self!
Similarly, you can ask yourself:
Who is someone I overvalue, yearn for, or feel they are so great that I feel “less than” them? What qualities do they have that I want? Write this down → this is your disowned self too!
What is the opposite quality? Write this down → that’s your primary self as well!
The Problem With the Selves
The problem with primary selves and disowned selves is that they are actually not the truth of who we are. Primary selves and disowned selves tend to be on opposite poles of a spectrum. So they are, in effect, a more exaggerated version of one part of ourselves. Kind of like masks that we wear that automatically make decisions for us.
Our true self is our Highest Self, which is whole and complete and encompasses all energies. Our Highest Selves help us make decisions from our truest and most authentic place. To access our Highest Self, we have to disassociate from these “masked selves” by accessing our moment-by-moment awareness.
Why Is This Important?
This is important because, when we operate from our masked selves, we forget our wholeness and completeness. This affects the quality and dynamics of our relationships. Either we get into a space of annoyance with (or are easily triggered by) our partners and loved ones, or we look to them to complete our perceived sense of lack. Both detract from the quality of our relationships.
Further… when we operate strictly from our Primary Selves, we block the truth of who we are. Neither end of the spectrum is right or wrong, but very likely an exaggerated version of who we think we are. We block our vulnerability, the very thing that connects us to others in relationships.
Lastly… if we continue to operate from our primary self while remaining underdeveloped in our disowned self, this can create a polarization in our relationships. Meaning, we are stuck in roles, so the distance between us and the other person increases, and we are in a very uncomfortable power struggle and stalemate with them.
An Example of Polarization
A mom is really tidy, but has an untidy child. The more she expects the child to be tidy, the less tidy the child becomes. Because the mom cannot accept that she sometimes can be untidy (aren’t we all this way sometimes?), she judges the child for not being like her. Often, this is remedied when the child moves out, because they no longer feel the pressure to be any certain way.
This is actually what happened with me and my mom! I became very tidy once I left for college lol.
Another Personal Example
I did not realize how much of a pusher I was until I stopped working. And I’ll just mention I think it’s why I burned out so badly. Now that I have the time to relax, I’ve been cultivating this side of me more. But it’s not about completely abandoning one side and becoming the other. It’s about finding my balance by connecting with my Highest Self instead.
For example, now when I write, bake, or cook, I do it from a place of inspiration versus forcing or even “doing to complete something” - kind of like what’s expected in the workplace.
This new way of doing allows me to discern when to do things inspirationally versus when to kick back and rest instead. The doing emanates from my being.
What you disown, you attract
Each person you meet has something you teach you about your disowned self.
As you integrate these disowned parts, you become more aware of your inherent wholeness. You learn to accept yourself more, and in turn, you are able to accept other people who are different from you, much more easily.
Further, you start to see other people (friends, lovers, children, family members, etc.) as partners, and therefore equals. Not as people you can dominate or control to act to your liking.
On a global level
If we all learned to accept our shadows/disowned selves, we’d be much more accepting of people who are different from us. Perhaps we wouldn’t need to go to war, as we could realize that we are all one interconnected entity, and it’s okay for others to be different.
We’d have less attachment to the selves we project into the world, and we’d operate from our souls/Highest Selves.
So, the work starts with us, but it heals the collective.
Pretty cool, right?
If you feel comfortable sharing, what was one primary self that you identified? Were you aware of it before, or did you find it through the exercise above? What disowned self did you discover? No judgment here!! Most of the selves listed above are part of my primary self 🙂
Have a wonderful and restful weekend!
Love,
Angeli
“The key here is that each of us must learn to feel our own vulnerability so that we can feel the vulnerability of our partners. This deepens connections. Embracing our vulnerability is a very threatening thing to do in relationship because it means meeting the other person without defenses.” ~ Hal Stone, Partnering: A New Kind of Relationship
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