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Opposite Selves and Polarity Issues
It is not a fixed rule, but most active selves have
what is called a ‘polar opposite’ self.
 
Polar opposite selves within you can be identified by their contradictory beliefs or
opposing attitudes about what is ‘best’ for you and what is not. For example
your ‘pusher’ self may believe that you need to study harder to help gain your
qualification sooner, while your polar opposite, the ‘take it easy’ self
believes that you are working too much and need a break. Often one self wants to stay in a
relationship while another (inside the same person) is hell-bent on breaking it up! Each
being a ‘specialist,’ holds their approach to be correct and true and
sees the opposite position as totally wrong.
Unbalanced Opposite Selves
Many of the ‘problems’ you experience with your own
inner selves will turn out to be connected with this lack of balance between polar
opposites, particularly where each one is trying to be stronger than the other. Awareness
of these problems is the key to much of the most empowering work you will find yourself
doing with the selves.
What about Polar Opposites in Other People?
Polar opposites also exist outside you, usually in someone near
to you and particularly in your partner. Because their self has an ‘opposite’
energy as well as a contradictory attitude, the two selves operate something like magnets,
attracting and repelling in turn. The conservative accountant is attracted at first to the
wild uninhibited alternative therapist and she is attracted to his stability and common
sense. But after two years together the opposite selves find themselves locked in a
love-hate battle called a negative bonding pattern,a particularly damaging kind of
all-in war that destroys love and ends relationships. Each partner’s self uses up
time and energy trying to outweigh the opposite one in the other person, with little
success. You can see that the polarised nature of the selves has much to do with your
fights with others as well as the conflict of interests within you.
The Selves go to War in Relationships
Another example is the kind of relationship where each partner
has a self that is concerned with solving a mutual problem. If partner A’s specialist
self is ‘cold and logical’which happens to be the polar opposite of the
‘sensitive and caring’ self in partner B then when they try to resolve the
problem they usually end up in another negative bonding war. As you come to understand the
patterns you will find it easier to resolve or get out of this kind of fight and keep love
alive.
Power Struggles Within You
Two polar opposites inside one person can also get into an
internal fight. For example Jill may have a one-above ‘strong and sensible’ self
who is good at handling difficult situations. But Jill often experiences an internal
struggle if her ‘strong and sensible’ self fails to get the results she hopes
for, because another member of her inner self family is her equally prominent and dramatic
‘aggressive’ self. It does not happen to agree with the ‘strong and
sensible’ approach when things need fixing and it believes its way (the opposite way)
is much better. Both selves are there to protect her underlying vulnerability which is a
fear of being controlled by others. But that does not stop the inner conflict within Jill,
as each self tries to control the other. The stronger the intensity or energy of the two
selves, the further apart they tend to get and the greater the sense of imbalance when
either is ‘in command’. This is another time when balancing, using the
aware adult seems to be the only effective solution.
Stronger Selves Over Protect or ‘Parent’ Weaker Opposites
However, polar opposite selves do not always fight. Sometimes
the stronger one in the pair acts very much like an over protective controlling parent and
after judging the other one as being too soft or weak to look after itself, makes a fuss
of having to support and protect it. Unfortunately the stronger self believes the best way
to do this is for it to restrain and control the weaker one. Parenting selves are not
always one-above, just the stronger of the pair. A relatively weak one-below protector
like ‘put others first’ can still take control and restrain an even softer self
like ‘free to be me’ to the point where it is stifled and is unable to grow or
gain in strength. The ‘others first’ self justifies this (again like a
judgemental, controlling parent) because it believes the ‘free to be me’ self
would be labelled as selfish and the rest of the inner self family would be facing too
much stress and anxiety if ‘free to be me’ was allowed to grow. This is usually
untrue.
‘Flips’ between Opposite Selves
However, despite the parental control of the ‘others
first’ self, there are times when the softer opposite self (‘I want to be who I
really am’) suddenly rebels and for a while acts in the one-above position. It’s
a bit like an animal escaping from its cage, and running free. Usually, the original
parental self regains control after a little time and returns the softer one to its
‘cage’ to be hidden away again, but that self has not forgotten its taste of
freedom and starts working immediately on a new escape plan for next time. This process
where a weaker self suddenly seizes control is called a ‘flip’. Throughout this
book you will find many examples and some more detailed discussions and explanations of
these flips.
Polarised Thinking
Polarised selves also tend to think in a polarised way, seeing
the world in terms of black and white, right and wrong, with no room for a middle road or
third option in between. When you are making a decision, one of the clearest signs that
the aware adult has created a balance between polarised selves, is when you find yourself
thinking about third and fourth options rather than only one or two solutions.
Though common, examples of polar opposites do not always involve a one-above versus a
one-below self. The opposites can be a pair of any kind in which both are active and have
a high level of energy, each believes it is better or more successful than the other and
each disagrees strongly enough with what the other one wants or does.
Comparatively lower power one-below protectors like ‘let someone else do it’ can
still end up in conflict with another similarly low powered polar opposite like
‘victim’ just because they have opposite views about who knows the best way deal
with life from the low power position.
All this leads on to a connected problem when
selves get themselves trapped into thinking that the world outside them is also polarised.
As we get caught up in the polarised thinking trap (duality) we limit our options and lose
sight of the choices we really have, as explained in the Trap
of Polarised Thinking or Duality
MOVE BACK TO VOICE DIALOGUE - INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF THE INNER SELVES
GO TO THE TRAP OF POLARISED THINKING
* NOTE: The term "Aware Adult" is not a direct equivalent to
the "Aware Ego" "Aware Adult" as I observe it reflects
many of the characteristics of the part Hal and Sidra call the "Awareness Self"
or "The Watcher" and is much the same as Pia Mellody's 'functional
adult' I find this appraoch more acceptable for Australians particularly as the term
"ego" in Australia has so many different connotations and meanings for people
(some of them quite negative) See EXPLANATION - NEW OR DIFFERENT EMPHASIS IN THE WAY I TALK ABOUT THE
INNER SELVES
Copyright © John Nutting 1996- 2000 and ©
GROWING AWARENESS All rights reserved World Wide LAST UPDATE Tuesday, 22 January 2008 14:39
Don't worry about those copyright notices at the foot of each page. It just
means I want to hang on to legal ownership of what I write for use in future books.
Until that day, please feel free to copy, adapt and use them to your heart's content as
long as you don't charge anyone for them. If you want to use them commercially (charge a
fee for them) I would appreciate an acknowledgment and if they go well and you make a
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