If you’ve ever felt at odds yourself, you may have wondered how to make peace with two sides of your personality. Have you seen a cartoon where the character has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other? When the character wrestles with temptation, the two appear and argue about what the character should do. We’re all familiar with this type of back-and-forth battle. The technical term for this experience is Psychomachia (“Battle of the Soul”). If we were to put this into psychological words, we’d use Freud’s terms with the Devil as the Id, the Angel as the Superego, and the character on whose shoulders they stand is the Ego.
Life continually presents these temptations, decisions and challenges. This creates an exhausting internal battle that convinces us we need to choose sides. Self-doubt fills us, and we lose trust in ourselves. So, what can we do as mere humans to make peace with these little entities. How can we regain our self-trust and energy? Here’s how to make peace with two sides of your personality.
Acknowledge this process
I recently listened to intuitive and insightful life coach Martha Beck’s Gathering Room. During her program, she took questions from the audience. Someone asked a question about why we chose to sabotage our best efforts for self-improvement. She explained that we all have two aspects of ourselves, the Monster and the Controller. They are continuously battling each other, and we haven’t learned to make peace with both sides.
Looking at these two sides as a monster (the Devil) and Controller (the Angel) goes beyond good and evil. It helps us understand how they interact with each other. The Controller is moralistic, high, mighty, and overly judgemental. It learned the ropes from your parents, religion, or society about what is right and wrong. According to your Superego, eating Ben and Jerry’s and binging on Netflix is wrong! The Monster is impulsive and pleasure-seeking. It’s the driving force behind binge-watching on Netflix until two am and eating a litre of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
Step back and observe
Now that you know how they interact, you can become aware of who is in the driver’s seat. You’ll need to step back to notice their characteristics from the observer’s viewpoint. To develop your awareness as the observer, you’ll need to boost your awareness through mediation, mindfulness, therapy or other practices. Observing yourself lets you step out of your own jar and read your labels without harsh judgment or criticism. The observer viewpoint empowers you to make a more conscious choice that supports your goals and dreams. You can gradually become aware of your behaviour and identify who is driving, the Controller, the Monster or the Ego.
Imagine you decide on a goal of losing 10kgs and prepare to embark on a diet and exercise program. You’re motivated and ready for Monday morning when you plan to wake up early, exercise and eat a healthy breakfast. Your alarm goes off at 5:30 am, and you hit snooze; it’s too cold, you’re tired, you need more sleep. You’ll start tomorrow; well, you’ve just encountered the Monster.
Later that day, you cursed yourself; why didn’t you get up? You say, “You see; I told you I couldn’t do this; why do you always set out to do something but consistently fail? You better get it together, you silly lazy such and such.” Well, now you’ve met the Controller. Constantly monitoring your behaviour and judging you for not being enough, correct, intelligent, wealthy, etc. The Controller attempts to control you by breaking you down and criticising you. It loves serving up a healthy dose of guilt for any missteps.
The Constant Battle
These two are in a constant battle, and they can make things very loud and uncomfortable for you on the inside. And there you are, stuck in the middle. The You that is in the middle is the Ego. The Ego is more adaptive and mature about everything. It behaves like a sensible adult that tells you to eat your veggies, drink plenty of water and use your manners. The Ego is developed during the first three years of life to keep the id in check like a referee. The Ego sees itself as separate from everything and everyone and looks out for your own best interest; however, because it is so focused on being number one, it can also get out of control.
Energy draining effects of “fighting” the Monster
Continual use of willpower drains us of glucose and affects us on a physiological level. All this back and forth and competing for attention inside you impacts your ability to flow through life and drains you. Learning how to make peace with two sides of your personality will save you precious energy! A ground-breaking study on self-control invited participants into a chocolatey, sweet aroma-filled room with tempting chocolates on display. They asked half of them to resist the temptation and eat radishes, making them highly cranky! In contrast, the other half could indulge to their heart’s content.
The next step was to ask participants to perform a persistence-testing puzzle. The effect of the manipulation was apparent. The radish eaters made fewer attempts and committed less than half the time to the challenge compared to their chocolate-eating counterparts. In other words, those who utilised their “controller” to force themselves to eat radishes lost the will to apply themselves fully to the arduous task.
Using the Controller is like a muscle that can be used in different situations. After repeated use, it becomes tired and ineffectual. Suppose you are continuously using your Controller throughout the day. In that case, it will become exhausted, and while the Controller is down, the Monster can jump in. The next thing you know, you’re polishing off an entire bottle of wine, while scrolling through your Facebook feed the night before a big presentation! They were fatigued!
The Higher Self
So how do you make peace with two sides of your personality, the Controller and the Monster? The higher self quietly and confidently carries the truth of everything and provides you with unconditional love. There is another player always with you. This part of you provides subtle, gentle guidance and coming from a place of peace and true wisdom. Because it is ever present, you can easily take this part of you for granted and ignore its guidance.
The higher self understands your connection with everything and everyone. This part of yourself has no “story”; it doesn’t think you are good, bad, ugly, beautiful, silly, right or wrong. This part of yourself holds no judgement and loves and accepts ALL aspects of you. The higher self has no fear. Instead, the higher self consists of only positive qualities such as love, patience, and joy.
The higher self gently pulls you toward your full potential using people, and situations, for personal and soul growth opportunities. It communicates through symbols and messages that have unique meanings to you. For example, when you hear a song reminding you of someone you haven’t seen for years and you are shocked to run into them at the shops. Carl Young called these synchronicities.
Getting still for unconditional love
Through meditation, contemplation and self-love, you can start to see your Monster and Controller for what they are. Aspects of the perfectly imperfect, continually expanding human experience and making peace with two sides of your personality.
Show yourself radical compassion for being human and experiencing the full range of emotions. Remove the labels of good and evil and see the shades between light and dark.
