True Self and Impermanence

01

Origin

Recently I watched a movie: Luc Besson's "Dog God". Douglas lived under the violent abuse of his father since he was a child. His mother could not protect him and ran away from home. When he was ten years old, he was locked up in a kennel with dozens of dogs by his father for four years, and then he was shot and paralyzed by his father. He lived in different foster homes, experienced the pain of unrequited love, was refused to work by almost all places, became a marginalized person in society, lived with his hundreds of dogs in an abandoned house, and made a living by dressing up as a woman to sing on stage. He used dogs to steal jewelry from rich people and even started killing people in the name of justice. When he told the psychiatrist everything, he was ready to be sentenced to death, because under the heavy blows of life, he had lost the desire to live. What moved me most in the film was the following conversation between him and psychologist Emily.

E: Did you know that you could be sentenced to death?

D: I have died many times.

E: Maybe this is the last time.

D: Well, if this is God's will, I am just a puppet manipulated by him.

E: No, you are not. Life is not going as you wish, yes, most of the time you can't do anything about it, but in the end, it's how we deal with it that matters. I mean, you can be sad, you can be desperate, you can resist, or you can laugh it off, it's all up to you, it's your decision, not someone else's. This is called free will, invented by God.

Yes, free will. Although we were once victims, we can still decide how to face our own lives. Should we continue to sink in pain in the position of victims, or should we awaken from the pain, face the pain, resolve the pain, and return to our true selves. The conversation between Douglas and the psychologist Emily in the film is the process of his healing and awakening. At the end of the film, he decided to face himself and his future life as he really is. It was shocking to see him throw away his wheelchair, stand up and walk tenaciously, and walk to the church with open arms. At this time, he is no longer a puppet at the mercy of fate, but his true self is awakening. If we remove the religious meaning in the film, this film actually explores the common topic of all human beings: how to face the impermanence of fate and live your own life.

02

Impermanence

Fate is unpredictable. We don't know what kind of family we will be born into, what kind of natural disasters and man-made disasters we will experience. We can't know when we will die, what kind of people we will meet, and we don't even know what will happen in the next moment. But that doesn't mean that we can only accept impermanence and can't do anything about it. We can still choose how to face the impermanence in life. You can choose to go with the flow, or you can choose to live according to your heart. You can choose to escape from pain, or you can choose to face and resolve pain. So in this sense, we have the right to choose to decide the direction of our own destiny. But that is not free will. Because having a choice is only superficial freedom. The heart locked by fate is not free, and it is still a puppet controlled by fate. Douglas has been passively coping under the control of fate. He has met the person he loves, found a job, and became a transvestite singer. Before the huge trauma in his heart was healed, he made all efforts to survive. But his heart is dark and closed to others and the world. He has not escaped the curse of fate and slid into the abyss of becoming a murderer. It was not until he had a heart-to-heart talk with psychologist Emily that his inner pain was truly seen and understood, and his true self began to awaken, and that was the beginning of his change of fate. He chose to face the pain, open his heart, and believe in someone, thus healing himself and gaining true inner freedom.

In psychological counseling, many clients are limited by fate and cannot live out their own lives. They may know or not know at all that they have experienced past injuries, which may be intentional or unintentional, but the pain is real. Those pains would make them feel ashamed, uneasy or fearful at the time, and they had to develop some adaptive coping patterns to gain temporary security. For example, self-blame allows us to avoid conflicts with the external environment, anger at others allows us to avoid facing our own pain, and flattery allows us to adapt to the environment, etc. This is our protection mechanism that allows us to survive. However, if those pains have not been seen and healed, but have been forgotten or hidden by us, then this pain and the protection mechanism developed will always follow us. Even if the environment has changed, we will continue to use the previous coping patterns to interact with people and things around us in other relationships. This is why we are still living under the manipulation of fate. We have changed different life scenes, but because our hearts have not changed, similar plots have been repeated.

03

True Self

How to get rid of the limitations of fate and live your own life? It is not about changing a job, a partner, or a place to live. We need to change our hearts, that is, to connect with our true self. In the past years of self-healing, learning psychological counseling, and healing for others, I gradually realized that the reason why we suffer is that we have lost connection with our true self, and the root of healing lies in re-establishing connection with our true self, which is the nature of all of us. It is just that in the process of growing up, due to historical, social, cultural, and family factors, it has gradually been obscured, blocked, and forgotten. And pain is a signal for us to wake up.

So what is the true self? There are different views on the true self throughout the history of psychology. For example, Horney believed that the true self is the most dynamic, unique, and central part of oneself, and the only part that is able and willing to grow. According to Winnicott, only the true self is creative and feels real, and is essentially unaffected by external stimuli. Jung believed that the true self consists of the essence and inner part of a person's true identity, which allows the individual to feel satisfied and realistic. Maslow believed that each of us has an inner natural nature that is instinctive, inherent, natural, and unchangeable. He said that the true self can be defined in part as "the ability to hear those voices within a person, what he really wants, what he doesn't want, what is suitable and what is not suitable for himself." 1

The latest understanding of the true self in the field of psychology comes from Dr. Richard Schwarz. Based on more than 20 years of experience in clinical visitor reports and his own meditation experience, he summarized the characteristics of a person in the true self state: calm, connected, compassionate, clear, confident, brave, curious, and creative. He also found that when a person is in such a state, he seems to know clearly what is happening to the pain in himself and what to do and say to help himself. Because of the universality and stability of these true self state experiences in clinical practice, his description of the true self is now being verified and accepted by more and more psychologists, counselors, and therapists and used in psychotherapy.

The healing experiences reported by my own clients in clinical practice also clearly confirm the state of the true self: calm, connected, compassionate, clear, confident, brave, curious, and creative. In psychological counseling, I and my clients feel and understand the pain felt by their eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body, their thoughts, and their behaviors from the shallow to the deep. From those feelings and understandings, we process and transform them, thus connecting to the state of the true self. One of my clients came to me for counseling because of an emotional breakdown. After six months of treatment, the patient mentioned that he had reached the state of his true self: "Now I feel that everything I do is smooth and natural. I understand other people's feelings, but I won't try to please others. I can trust others and myself, so I don't worry. I feel that I can give full play to my wisdom and ability. I feel that I can really fit myself in after clearing those things, and I can really feel my own feelings. This is not selfish, but I can finally be one with myself. I can really give full play to myself, do what I want to do, and love who I want to love. I finally found a part of myself as a person. I feel that this is a part that everyone has, but many people don't realize it, and they don't have the opportunity to realize it." What my visitors said can be summarized as: calmness, connection, compassion, clarity, courage, confidence, curiosity, and creativity. That is the state of the true self.

Obviously, the true self is something that is universal and essential to human beings. The true self is something that is innate and is the same for everyone. However, the self is gradually formed under the influence of family and society during our growth process and is different for everyone. Many people believe that understanding their own personality is to understand their true self. The popularity of various personality analyses such as Enneagram and MBTI reflects people's eager desire to understand themselves. But in fact, what they understand is only the different self of each person, not the true self.

Many people may feel that the state of the true self is a little far away from themselves, but in fact, as my visitor said, "It feels like this is a part of everyone, many people don't realize it, and don't have the opportunity to realize it." Many people may be busy with coping with the challenges of life every day, and rarely have the opportunity to truly face themselves. Those who can come to the consultation room are all seeking help when they encounter something in their lives that they cannot solve. They are at the bottom of their lives, surrounded by pain that they have never experienced or pain that recurs in their lives. But pain also gives them the opportunity to truly face themselves and seek answers to life. "Trouble is Bodhi." If there is no pain, they will not have the opportunity to open their hearts and find the real self that has been forgotten and hidden for a long time with the company of the counselor. Douglas was also desperate at the police station and was arranged to meet with psychologist Emily, and then he began his journey of healing and discovering his true self. So in this sense, pain is Bodhi. (Of course, real psychotherapy is not as shown in the movie, just listening and saying a few words in the middle.)

04

End

How to live out your true self in the impermanence of fate? The answer is not in the outside world, nor in books, but in your heart. I just want everyone to know that the true self is not out of reach, but is accessible to everyone. Appropriate psychotherapy is only one of the ways to reach the true self. Moreover, we always live in fate, and all kinds of birth, aging, sickness and death, joys and sorrows are the norm of life. Therefore, reaching the state of the true self is not an end, but a lifelong process of cultivation. But once the true self is truly realized and experienced, we are no longer puppets manipulated by the impermanence of fate, but people with free will in the impermanence of fate.

References:

1. Jian D. (2020). "Know Thyself": A Review of True Self" . Psychology and Behavioral Sciences 2020, 9(3): 24-30.

Author: Yoly Lin

Certified Psychological Counselor in British Columbia, Canada, Master of Psychological Counseling, Master of Management

Website: www.coastalforest.ca

Email: hello@coastalforest.ca