By Laura

There are many approaches and exercises that promote personal and spiritual growth. Personally I like meditation and mindfulness practice the best. However I've recently been looking into psychosynthesis and other psychological approaches to understanding ourselves.

Many of the exercises mirror new age and meditative approaches. For example, our exercise on training the imagination could be a psychosynthesis exercises created by a psychologist or it could be an exercises designed by a new age thinker, like Deepak Chopra, designed to help us in our meditative experiences. I don't think the discipline is important, the boundaries blur, the exercises overlap. Simply find a unique approach that works for you; incorporate new ideas, investigate concepts from diverse disciplines and create dynamic exercises.

We first discussed archetypes in the Jungian Dream Interpretation Article. Deepak Chopra has a detailed meditation designed to unlock our inner archetypes in the Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. I have adapted an exercise here from our favorite Psychosynthesis book; What We May Be. This exercises uses the concepts of archetypes to help us better understand and integrate our multifaceted personalities.

Introduction

We may automatically think of ourselves as an "I." A concrete self with a distinct personality. This notion can be rather unhelpful when we try to understand our inner selves. We are actually quite dynamic, multifaceted, changeable beings. Take a minute to think about how often your perceptions change during a normal day.

During any one day we may see our lives as routine, exciting, depressing, stressful, or repetitive. As our perception of our day changes it influences our behavior, self image, feelings, habits and beliefs (or perhaps the entire thing is reversed, as our behavior, self image and feelings change, then our perception of our day changes, but let's leave that discussion for another article).

The founder of psychosynthesis, Roberto Assagioli said this; "We are not unified; we often feel that we are, because we do not have many bodies and many limbs, and because one hand doesn't usually hit the other. But, metaphorically, that is exactly what does happen within us." This grouping of our changeable behaviors, feelings and habits makes up our personality. We are full of mini personalities, groupings of behaviors, beliefs and gestures that emerge at different times. These mini personalities are our sub-personalities and they coexist together within our overarching personality. Assagioli writes; "Sub-personalities are continually scuffling: impulses, desires, principles, aspirations are engaged in an unceasing struggle." Learning about and understanding these sub-personalities is a powerful way to understand our inner, subconscious and unconscious selves and motivations. By gaining these insights, we can grow.

It's useful to think of these sub-personalities as archetypes. Archetypes are symbols that have occurred in almost every culture throughout history. They are timeless and contain universal qualities that belong to the collective unconscious and higher levels of the psyche. Our sub-personalities can be thought of as degradations or distortions of the archetypes of higher qualities. Piero Ferrucci explains:

Any content of our psyche can be degraded (literally, stepped down from its higher state). Compassion can become self-pity, joy can become mania, peace can become inertia, humor can become sarcasm....But the converse is also true: contents of consciousness can be elevated; self-pity becomes compassion, and so on. In fact, nothing is ever static in the life of the psyche. And the higher we rise, the closer we will be to unity. Conflict is among distortions...everything that ascends, converges.

Exercise 1

Getting to know your sub-personalities is the first step. Later you'll be able to understand and harmonize their energies.

1. Begin to think about a prominent trait, behavior, attitude or motive you have
2. Close your eyes and become aware of this part of you.
3. Let an image emerge of this trait. Don't create an image, but let an image emerge on it's own. The image could be male, female, mythical being, animal or object.
4. Allow the image to present itself to you. Don't interfere or judge it. The image may change spontaneously.
5. Get a sense of the feeling that the image emanates.
6. All the image to talk. Give it space and find out about it's needs.
7. Open your eyes and record everything that happened
8. Give the sub-personality a name. For example, the Complainer, the Artist, the Bitch, the Drunken Sailor etc. Write down its traits, habits and peculiarities
9. After you've identified and described in detail one sub-personality, continue with the others.

Ferrucci points out, "you can also discover other sub-personalities by taking stock of the various ways in which you look at life, by reviewing your behavior in various situations, and by considering your various styles of being you."

After you've identified your sub-personalities, you can begin to elevate them to higher archetypal states.

Exercise II

Choose a sub-personality you already know well.

Close your eyes.
Imagine yourself in a valley with the sub-personality.
Visualize the valley using all of the senses (see Training the Imagination for help with this).
Begin walking up the mountain with your sub-personality.
Visualize the changing scenery as you ascend.
Perceive the elevation. Experience yourself ascending higher and higher.
Notice the air becoming purer and the silence stronger.
As you ascend notice your sub-personality. Watch the sub-personality transform. This transformation could be subtle or extreme.
As you reach the top, watch the sun shine on the two of you and "reveal the very essence of your sub-personality...at this point let the sub-personality express itself for what it is now, and let it communicate with you".

This exercise may not work at first, your sub-personality may not transform or may be reduced to a more degraded form. This happens when we haven't recognized the sub-personality for what it is, "with all it's needs and limitations".

*Ideas for exercises and some concepts from What We May Be by Piero Ferrucci