You are not the personality

It can be beneficial to know your personality. What does it like, get motivated by, get upset by and so on. It is also good to know its hang-ups. Its pitfalls. My body/mind-system for example has a tendency at times to become super-sensitive about its bodily states. It gets hyper-vigilant and treats every signal from the body as danger, as if something is really wrong. Fortunately it doesn't happen so often anymore, but I know that some situations still can trigger that mechanism. For example if I over-exhaust myself and become very tired. That is “yummy” for that particular defence mechanism to start its show. Helpful for me to know.

So to know and be aware of your personality is a good thing. To know which situations, people, and places make me feel good—I can move towards that. To know in which circumstances I perform better or am more effective. In my case, my body-mind organism works better in the mornings, and in the evening it's no use for me to do anything mentally or physically demanding. Useful information to have and live by.

But don't get the idea that you are that personality (the person). Your personality is a combination of innate traits and experiences gathered throughout life. That combination makes your body-mind system prefer certain things and dislike others. Being overly sensitive to bodily signals (high interoceptive sensitivity) is, for example, a trait I was born with and did not choose for myself. Nor did you choose your parents, your upbringing, or your genetics. Not to mention epigenetics—the activity or inactivity of millions of your genes was programmed before you were even born.

So you see, the person "You" is the result of events completely outside of your control or making. The actions you engage in are simply a combination of the context in the moment and the personality's automatic reaction, dictated by its programming. So much for free will! ;) The right question is of course – who is aware of this? – more on that later…

When we believe that we are our personality, we become entangled in it. We feel good about ourselves when the personality does something we think is good (which usually corresponds to what is preferable in our culture or social group). And when our personality does something it thinks is “bad” or “negative”—like saying YES again to someone when you knew perfectly well that you should have said NO—then, on top of having to do something you'd rather not do, the personality blames you for being an idiot again.

In classical psychology, Freud called this internal judge the Superego—that continuous inner commentator that judges every move the personality makes. But when you step back into awareness, you realize it's just another voice. Just another mechanism. And of course there is no Superego different from your other ego. Just the ego (personality) judging itself. Ha—fun to look at, isn't it!? ;)

Knowing that you are not the personality, you can be much more relaxed about everything. OK, the person Magnus did something nice that I liked. Ahh—I enjoyed that. And the next moment it went into a loop again doing something that was less pleasant or more stupid. And you just notice that. Ahh—the person Magnus fell into a trap again. Oops! Being aware of your personality's doings and non-doings without being too involved in it not only gives you immense freedom, but also gives it a chance to change, to adjust. Not because it has to, but awareness just opens up to that possibility. If you on the other hand resent yourself for making a “mistake”, it will strengthen that same habit. If you are just silently aware of it, it has a greater chance of adjusting or dissolving, or at least you will save some energy by not fighting it. If you want, you could say that you treat it with Love when you step back from it.

But also the nice things get more pleasant when you drop your involvement. When you are less identified with who you think you are. You can enjoy the nice sides without having to cling to them. Enjoy it while it lasts—without having to feel proud or better, or shout to the world (read social media) what a great person you are. Because the next moment you might not be so great. But what's the problem? It's not you anyway. You didn't do anything. You are not the personality. You are not your traits or your upbringing. It happened to you. You are THAT which is aware of the personality and its funny and not-so-funny ways. So enjoy it. Don't take it too seriously. If you need to, look into your personality, do some work with it, some therapy perhaps (or read my previous article: Tired of self-improvement? Time for Self-realization?). But if you believe that you are that personality and its endless tricks, the main problem will always remain. Separation and suffering will always be there.

So wake up! See that you are not the person you think you are. And you can start to enjoy life—with its ups and its downs…