Holy Ground: Conflict, Struggle, and Identity

There is a branch in psychology that approaches dysfunction and psychosis through a lens that identifies various subpersonalities of individuals as “parts.” To those not familiar with this perspective, it may resemble Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Think DID, but instead of those subpersonalities in a state of disassociation, they regularly associate, like family; all working to support the family unit, but not always getting along. Hang tight, because if you grew up in a faith culture that minimizes any psychic influence outside of God as a demon or Satanic entity, this entry has the propensity of being the biggest trigger I’ve served up yet. 

For those just tuning in, I took to writing a blog several years ago because writing is how I process and bookmark the layers and complexities of my life- the topics written for this blog focus on the spiritual aspects of those layers and complexities because spirituality is the lens through which I interpret and connect with my world. My adult spirituality rests on a spectrum ranging from hot mess deconstruction to what I can best describe as a complex awareness of just how simple, yet vast, of creatures we are. 

Understanding Subpersonalities

Back to the subpersonality thing. Nearly two years ago, I came across a therapy modality called Internal Family Systems (IFS). In a nutshell, it suggests that like a family, we as individuals also operate with various identities (“parts”) within ourselves that propel us to behave in various styles and mannerisms- sometimes amicably, and other times at odds with one another which is likely the root of much indecisiveness and contradictory behavior. This modality helped me parse out the major players within me that have been frozen in fear believing it wrong to disagree or even question the fundamental religiosity forced on me throughout my childhood (parts labeled within IFS as “exiles”). It also helped me understand some of the extreme roles these “parts” had taken on as a way to keep me safe (masked) to survive and thrive within the extreme climate of my childhood’s authoritarian religion (parts known as “managers”). And other parts of me that would simply disassociate or derail normative/healthy behavior (parts that IFS refers to as “firefighters”). 

Public Service Announcement- If you’ve ever struggled with codependency stemming from a narcissistic community who refused to admit they are a cult, which likely created some intense borderline qualities that destroy your chance of having any relationships outside of that cult, then I highly suggest obtaining a therapist trained in this modality. Three words; Serious. Game. Changer. 

I recognize the red flags this sort of subject triggers when we have been taught to believe that any influence within us, that does not qualify as our innate character or God, must be some sort of satanic influence. However, in the name of satanic suspicion, we likely miss out on taking an opportunity to speak with the root of various pains, emotions, and fears in an effort to ward off “evil” from influencing our hearts and minds. Once I was able to accept that fear has no real power other than the power we hand over to it, I obtained the freedom necessary to uncover what it is I felt impressed to write about here today. 

The book, Subpersonalities by John Rowan (a book that supports the IFS view and other similar views), suggests that not only can we communicate and learn from various pains, emotions, and fears, but also that we can attempt to communicate with any hurdle or blockade that we might traditionally pray about or “Give it to God” (as is typically the phrase we recognize in church-speak). 

Wisdom as a Subpersonality

I am not against praying about anything. I’m actually for it. I have just found that there are aspects within ourselves and even aspects outside ourselves who can and do influence our lives. Take, for instance, Wisdom. I have written a previous blog describing Wisdom as a being who interacts through her own agency. Proverbs even addresses Wisdom as a female likeness. We are told that those who seek Wisdom diligently find her (Proverbs 8:17). Wisdom is personified as a being separate from God, but possessed by God as the first act of God’s beginning works. 

Other verses that demonstrate Wisdom as a subpersonality we are in encouraged to invite and take root within us as a beneficial influence follow;

The key aspect to each of us, and greater than our exiled, manager, and firefighter parts, is our authentic “Self” according to Internal Family Systems. I personally define Self as a part of us that reflects and expresses a distinct subpersonality of God. We are possessed with God’s nature because we share and reflect aspects of similar DNA woven throughout creation. That “Self” has a free will and is surrounded by our “Parts” (subpersonalities) that carry out the roles that best help us survive and aim to thrive in the broken world we inhabit.

When a Subpersonality Becomes Our Prime Identity

In response to prolonged fear and trauma, various “Parts” of us will take on extreme personas. When we outgrow the use for these personas (often developed during childhood), these parts can and often do continue to persuade and drive how we engage our world. For example, my inner-landscape of Parts largely relied on a persona of mine who was forced to develop an extreme role which allowed me to blend-in to my religious community. She is quite adept at perfectionistic qualities I once relied on to bury my natural propensity to be loud and opinionated (I often was disciplined for “talking back”) because those qualities did not bode well for a young girl in a patriarchal and hierarchical community. She also made sure I maintained an awareness and habit of adhering to the many expectations that my religious community enforced through shame. Purity culture, church attendance, and a fierce obligation to look, act, and be whom that community deemed necessary for both mortal and eternal inclusion. Outsiders were at best “lost,” and at worst “damned.” 

My perfectionistic persona was an excellent source of strength and safety throughout the youngest season of my life. She even made me one hell of a preacher’s wife. But like all certain trajectories, my world began to fracture when, like the Titanic that couldn’t sink, the underside of my vessel met an iceberg that would forever challenge my inadequate and fragile foundation. I had no choice but to question the extremism of the religious community I had always identified with. My well-honed and perfectionistic sub-persona continued to respond to benign surroundings and our daughters as if I were still required to appease a fierce God and religious community of ridiculous expectations well into our post pastorate phase. I maintained a degree of survival  that accommodates the childhood and extended family I survived and continue to adhere to these pressures, rather than adjust to my own evolving understanding. My honed perfectionistic “part” continued to fulfill a role that allowed me to avoid the judgment and shame that accommodated my childhood culture. 

Consequently, it was my husband and daughters who dealt with the brunt of my perfectionistic anxiety- large and lethal enough to take on an army of attackers. Our life was happy as long as this perfectionistic side of me felt we safely fit within the perimeters of my authoritarian childhood- you know, as long as the kids maintained their assigned gender and appropriate heterosexual pursuits. It wasn’t until one of my daughters identified as agnostic and the other identified as bisexual that I found the will to examine and address the faith of my childhood that was shattering before me- despite the superior job my perfectionism accomplished within that community. She provided myself and my family a way to mask and survive the shame and judgment that comes with religious authority. My daughters would arrive to their adulthood prepared to survive a world they would never opt to inhabit, along with a malnourished sense of Self. 

The Echos of Judgment

As a cautionary side note; Living to avoid the shame of others is the best way to develop an inner voice who continues to shame you when you are no longer in the presence of those who’ve shamed you. For me, perfectionism designed to help me survive a toxic community had to include a voice that shamed me and everyone else. She preserved me through judgment by either beating them to the punchline, or shaming others into doing the same. She also almost killed my marriage and destroyed my relationship with my kids who no doubt hear an eternity of my echoed judgments. Like myself, I believe they will continue to struggle with their own bouts of self-shaming as a result for many years to come. I speak from a position of tragic experience. This is why we must address our triggers and dark places in our minds. I suggest sooner than later. Life sucks at giving us second chances with people we hurt. 

Addressing the Root of the Issue

At the prompting of a suggestion I came across in Subpersonalities, I thought it worth a try to address an ongoing situation in my life as if I could access and talk to it as an entity with its own personality and motives. Here’s the crazy thing; it worked. The situation I’m bringing to light is one that has been the source of the most shame and pain I have ever experienced. A shame indiscriminately known by a few who are close to me, because it is severe enough to make even those individuals shy away from me or the subject for reasons I can only assume are a fear of contagion. 

When I focused on the situation with the intent of asking it, what is your purpose in inflicting this situation on me and what it wants me to learn from it, I experienced what I can only describe as an existential narrative with a distinct identity. This identity went on to explain their knowledge of my experience and the experience of those on the other side of this situation. I felt safe because I knew the identity had been witnessing and holding all of my pain, sadness, isolation, shame, weakness, and grief tied to my situation, but has also been there to coach and encourage me through this process I would have never chosen. It also expressed knowledge of those on the other end of this painful situation. I felt compassion, calmness, assurance, and an expressed need to maintain a patience for everyone engaged in this situation. 

And in this strange warm void, I came to realize this familiar presence as Wisdom. Physically, I experienced a pressure residing from the top right center of my head that passed through the space between my nose and right eye, and ended at the base of my cheek bone. While processing the experience in my journal immediately following this experience, I wrote the following:

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find Wisdom at the helm of this long and painful/rewarding voyage. Wisdom is in the obstacles we face- she is the pain and the joy of the process. She is outside of our finite timeline and does not reveal herself on a whim- but she persists in the shadows of the things we don’t want to face because of the pain in the frustration and struggle we so often choose to avoid rather than confront. I am grateful she was willing to reveal herself when I was willing to inquire about her purpose. She is both a familiar friend and an illusive stranger- both at the heart of all I feel and experience, and always just out of reach. One step ahead, and an eternity behind and before me. A friend to my ‘Self,’ and a fearful force/foe to the ‘parts’ of me who have refused to heal. She is a relationship worth pursuing for the eternity it takes for each of my “Parts” to come into who they were each created to fully be. She is not me, but holds a place tightly to the right side of my soul and purpose. I feel bad that I have resented her through this process for so long- when my conscious goal has been to pursue her.”

The Holy Ground of Conflict, Struggle, and Identity

Just before this experience, I made the statement that I am done being angry with people because they can be, and often are, selfish and awful. My mirror often looks strikingly similar. I want to love and accept them without feeling like I have to accept their burdensome expectations. I want to lean into the why of their shadow sides. I believe this is where Wisdom patiently waits for us to seek her out. I believe she has been waiting to reveal herself to me until I was willing to relate to the struggles of others I have judged. I have come to recognize our conflicts and struggles as holy ground.” 

If I haven’t lost you yet, I hope that the message resounds longer and louder than the oddly foreign way I obtained this message. The practice was worth it as I have been pondering since this experience: If the message behind our struggles is holy ground, what happens when we dare judge another’s struggles? 

I am both a victim and perpetrator of my own judgment. Throughout my religious history, there is plenty of evidence of my having trod all over the holy ground of others’. I am by no means innocent being a serial murderer flailing judgment like a battle-axe. The intrusion of my judgment onto what is an authentic expression or struggle of someone else has only served to isolate me from both others and my own freedom to express or truly live my own authenticity. 

Judge Not, Lest We Be Judged

Judgment serves to divide and separate us from not only an authentic connection with others, but also to ourSelves. When we refuse to address the programming of those who have influenced us in a negative way, without meaning to, we continue the harm we misinterpret as “safety” by picking up and wielding that same weapon with an unabashed and savage vigor. Each layer of judgment repeatedly cementing to the previous layers, until (if we’re lucky) those layers become fractured by a life-experience so violent that we have no choice but to finally question and separate the truth from the bullshit.

Wisdom From Within

I left my Evangelical church community a little over a year ago so that I could sort out my thoughts without pressure to insert pithy songs and bible verses sans context. It’s not just judgmental church-attenders who have a reputation of clouding my sense of self; I also took a year off of social media where cheap judgment and expectations flow freely from the lowest bidders. In this space, I came to discover an internal and authentic universe that finally makes sense to my will and sense of purpose. And although I may return to church and dive more fully into social media, or both sometime in the future, I can do so with a confidence and clarity of “Self” I have never before possessed. In the meantime, I will be searching for Wisdom in the struggle and will aim to identify every individual’s expressions and struggles no longer through the judgmental lens of the religious elite. Unique expressions, struggles, of ourselves and others; this is Holy Ground.