Applying the idea of sub-personalities to process inner conflicts and inconsistency

Is a human a battlefield within himself?

[ Epistemic status: description of personal experience, with some ideas that are yet to be verified by mass scrutiny ]

For last ~5 months, I have been studying how my mind works at different times and moods. I was dragged into this study by a strong wish of mine: a desire to be a truthful, consistent person, to act with integrity, to think clearly and without self-deception.

The problem I want to solve is a common one. It arises when you want to change your life in a positive way but old harmful habits slow you down or even halt you entirely. For example, imagine you are building a habit of Sunday morning exercises. If you are anything like me you would promise it to yourself every weekday, and think on Saturday evening: “I will definitely exercise tomorrow! I will do stretches, pull-ups, push-ups, and maybe even go outside for a run“.

You go to sleep with a steady wish to be more fit and energetic, and fantasize about the joys of having a healthy start of the day.

Morning comes and you are in a totally different mood, old habits kick in, and the only thing you want is to stay in bed. The idea of morning exercise is clearly an utter nonsense. What was yesterday me thinking?!

Such a pattern repeats many times in many variations. At one moment I want to do something useful and reasonable but after some time I end up doing something completely opposite - often destroying my well-being in the process, or hurting people around me.

It is normal that our wishes and desires are changing over time, but it is not healthy and not productive to move back and forth with little, if any, progress. Even more unhealthy is to fool yourself with empty promises, getting disappointed in yourself afterwards, and losing self-trust and confidence.

I got tired of this cycle and wanted to find a way out.

In order to achieve this goal I had to carefully observe and explore how I really feel and what I really want. I had to note how I actually behave in various moods and situations, how they affect me and how I react to them. I wanted to recognize my shortcomings and find how to address them effectively.

While going through this self-study I’ve mastered a skill which helped me to come to peace with myself, and to start improving my life in a more consistent way than before.

Of course I don’t claim that my observations are universal and applicable to anyone. I feel like they should be universal, but is that really so? I don’t know. People are different. But I hope that these notes would help someone to explore their mind in a similar way, and to gain similar skills.

(I)

Let’s review common views on personality.

Most peoples and cultures view a human as a whole inseparable being. For example, nobody ever speaks about their own plural minds or hearts. A man would say “my heart is not in it“, or “I’ve made my mind about this“. You never hear someone saying “I had a change of my hearts“, or “I’m losing one of my minds“. You (and everyone else) are supposed to have a single brain, single mind, single “I“.

It is the norm to view yourself as a more or less consistent person, who acts as a single, unified entity and follows goals originating from the same source. Deviations from this image are considered to be unhealthy and unnatural. E.g. when someone suddenly acts in anger or does something unusual, unexpected, we could say “He is out of his mind“. Or, “I don’t know what got into him“. It is implied that this person’s mental state has been somehow altered for a moment, and he is expected to get back into a ‘normal’ state and keep acting as usual - i.e, as the same old ‘Joe’ that is predictable and familiar.

We think that there exists such a ‘Joe’, who is always a ‘Joe’ and always will be. He may gradually change over time but once you get to know a person you will never have to view him as someone completely different and unfamiliar. Joe is a Joe, isn’t it?

This mode of thinking is even stronger when we are evaluating ourselves and painting a picture of our own personalities. We are generally able to recognize our inner conflicts and dilemmas as a source of frustration and unhappiness. But the core assumption stays the same - "I am a single person, a single entity, and always will be". And our problems may become impossible to solve because of this misconception.

I present here an alternative view which has been useful to me. I don’t know whether this view is supported by modern science in any way. Maybe there are some studies on this topic, some data to support or refute my ideas? For now, this view is just a speculation which led me to interesting observations, made my self-improvement efforts more effective and improved my overall life satisfaction. I would be happy if it helped someone else, too.

(II)

A human personality is not something monolithic and integrated. It usually consists of several sub-characters, who are at odds with each other. A typical man is a battlefield where everyone fights everyone. At some time one of the sub-characters may dominate the inner battlefield and solely decide how you would feel and act. At other times, two different sub-characters may be of equal “strength“ and their struggle would produce noticeable inner conflict, a state of frustration and chaos. Most of the time actions and decisions of one sub-character are detrimental and unwanted for other sub-characters, increasing overall dissatisfaction in life.

This view is expressed, for example, by G.I. Gurdjieff:

When we speak of ourselves ordinarily, we speak of "I". We say "I did this", "I think this", "I want to do this" — but this is a mistake. There is no such "I" or rather there are hundreds, thousands of little "I"s in every one of us. We are divided in ourselves but we cannot recognize the plurality of our being except by observation and study.

Further, he paints a harsh but sobering picture of inner battlefield:

The individual is an arena of struggle, of competition of all sorts of wishes, all of them calling themselves 'I', that is, they consider themselves masters, and none of them is willing to acknowledge the other. Each of them, for the short time he is in power, does what he likes, no matter what, and then the others have to pay the price. And there is no order among them. The one who jumps to the top is the one who becomes the boss. He whips everyone right and left and is not afraid of anything, but the next moment another grabs the whip and beats him. This goes on throughout human life. Imagine a country where everyone can be king for five minutes and for those five minutes, do whatever he wants with the kingdom. And such is our life.

Another fitting observation is made by Rudashevskiy who invented the technique of differentiating perceptions:

When we move to this level of consideration, we are trapped in a some kind of logical deadlock, because all our language, all our culture, all creativity, are all built on the word "I" and are unthinkable without it. When we apply decomposition into perceptions, the "I" becomes a phantom, a garment that any dominant sub-personality pulls over itself. We are simply not used to this kind of consideration; we lack the proper syntax! For example, if I now ask the question: “how to change the balance of power in my perceptions”, another question immediately arises - "who" is going to do it? How do we influence something if the influencing entity itself seems to disappear? When I build a house - "I want" to build it, there is me and there is a tree - it's simple. But when "I" want to rebuild the "I", who is the actor, especially in a situation where the word "I" is pulled over by any dominant sub-personality?

I am a longtime follower of Rudashevskiy’s ideas but only recently I’ve started giving serious consideration to the idea of multiple sub-personalities. I sensed that this concept could provide me with a breakthrough, eventually allowing me to tackle the long-standing problem of inner conflict and self-deception.

After some time I’ve learned to observe my mind in a sufficient clarity to view it as a collection of several sub-personalities, each with his own goals and values.

Here are descriptions for the four most prominent ones:

Sufferer. He finds life to be full of misery and suffering and agrees with them. To him, suffering is something expected, justified, and inevitable. Sufferer is usually a tame person, his primary goal is to suffer passively, to make life miserable in subtle ways. But sometimes he wants to actively punish himself, to hate himself, to indulge in self-loathing. In such moments “sadomasochist“ seems to be a more fitting name. Sufferer values pain and misery - it is like a food to him, a source of strength, and a cause to exist.

Sufferer also welcomes anxiety, worries, self-pity, fears, and readily produces them when he is a dominating force.

Drudge. He views life as full of obstacles and troubles and accepts them as the norm. Hard, thankless work is his way of life, and he must struggle to fulfill his goals. Drudge never can be fully at peace, and any joy in his life should be earned by doing something undesirable and unpleasant. He sometimes indulges in guilt and shame: ‘I am not good enough‘. Drudge is never satisfied and readily finds something to criticize - either in him, or around him.

He is easily annoyed and irritated, and can be violent and aggressive at times. Spilling out bottled aggression allows him to temporarily feel himself in charge, and to get some perverse kind of satisfaction.

Drudge welcomes self-coercion. He whole-hearty believes that to force and to push oneself is the proper and effective way to Get Things Done. Doing something out of interest, fascination or passion sounds to him like a silly tale.

Potato. His ultimate goal is to be satisfied while doing nothing of substance. Potato is averse to any kind of exertion. He is a dopamine addict and prefers to do a bare minimum in life, just enough to get his dopamine fix immediately. Potato is also prone to binge-eating, binge-watching and all other sorts of binge. He is doing that to help himself forget all those problems and issues that welcome him as soon as he is back to facing harsh reality.

He is easily bored and usually spends his time watching YouTube, surfing net, or dreaming. He readily procrastinates, ignoring potential problems and complications that would inevitably arise out of that. “I’ll think about it later“, says Potato.

Al. He is a lover and he loves life. To him, life is a wonderful journey and endless source of interests, joys, and passion. Al strongly believes that life can be pleasant, rich, interesting and fulfilling. He is an optimist and believes in self-improvement. Any hardship is temporary and life will inevitably get better thanks to his targeted efforts.

Al believes in himself and thinks that he can solve any personal problem if he acts intelligently, honestly and consistently. To him, suffering and self-coercion is something that is generally unnecessary and should be eliminated. Al is sure that there is always some effective method to do that - you just need to find it and apply. He is creative, playful and humorous. He strives to enjoy life in its fullest, and to improve his conditions where possible.

Al truly values himself and cares about the well-being of body and mind. He values other people too and is capable of compassion, sympathy, and falling in love. That’s why I call him a lover. To him, just being alive is a great gift, something to celebrate and to be happy about.

(III)

Of course, all these descriptions are somewhat cartoonish, lacking nuance and subtlety, and the real situation is more complex and varied. But the overall picture here is painted close to reality.

In my mind these characters are present in various compositions over time. E.g. at some moment I could be 20% Sufferer, 70% Drudge, 5% Potato and 5% Al. Drudge would decide what I am to do and feel, with little intervention from other characters. Some time passes and I am a totally different person - 80% Al, 10% Potato, 5% Sufferer and 5% Drudge. Reins of government now in hands of Al, and he rules as he deems just and proper.

You can probably guess that this is Al who writes this article - other sub-personalities don’t consider writing and self-reflection to be worthy of their time and effort.

I should also note that these sub-personalities are not something that exists objectively. I don’t perceive them as separate, distinct entities in my mind. I’ve just noticed that certain perceptions could be conveniently grouped into clusters and labeled accordingly. If I feel something that belongs to “Sufferer“ cluster (e.g self-pity) then I am likely to also feel something else related to the same cluster ( e.g hopelessness). I could group these perceptions and patterns in many different ways but I’ve chosen this particular grouping because this feels “natural“ and useful.

Imagine a map of someone’s mind where different thoughts and emotions are pictured as dots in some space:

The more close two dots in this image, the more likely that person to experience both of these perceptions during a short period of time.

You could group those perceptions in four large clusters:

But this is a arbitrary decision and you could use any other convenient grouping:

It is somewhat similar to stargazing. When several stars are seen as a compact group, it is natural to assume they are somehow linked to each other, and refer to them as a single entity, a constellation. But in reality there is no such object as a constellation. And it is probably the case that there are no such objects as "sub-personalities”.

I use this notion just because it helps me to reach my goals. Maybe someday neurologists will be able to find out whether there are actual neural structures or activities corresponding to sub-personalities. Maybe there isn’t any.

It is interesting to note that there are wildly different goals and values between my sub-personalities. For example, both Sufferer and Drudge view suffering as an integral part of their lives. They accept it. On the contrary, Potato and Al both reject suffering and try to get rid of it (though Potato is using rather stupid and ineffective methods while doing so). We see completely opposite goals here.

Another notable discrepancy is that both Sufferer and Potato are passive, and both Drudge and Al are active beings, in the sense that they are either avoiding action or seeking it.

The general outcome is that I’m torn between conflicting goals and wishes each time when two opposing sub-personalities are fighting each other. And when one sub-personality has established dominance and starts acting freely, it often leads to disruption of something that is dear to some other sub-personality. What one hand builds, other hand tears down.

At the first glance this situation seems to be hopeless. Am I fated to forever have these struggles and inner turmoil?

(IV)

There are two important ideas (first expressed by Rudashevskiy) which allow us to eventually escape this seemingly never-ending inner battle.

1. You can sort out everything you feel into separate perceptions.

2. You can choose which perceptions to support and which to decline.

There are four most common types of perceptions: emotions, wishes, thoughts, body sensations. With the due practice you will be able to take note of them at any given moment and make a full inventory of your perceptions:

• what are my thoughts, my assumptions and expectations? why am I thinking in that specific way?

• what are the emotions I am experiencing right now? what is their cause?

• what am I wishing for at this moment? and why am I wishing this?

• what does my body sense? what is the source for its sensations?

I must note that this process must not be purely intellectual speculation. It should be a specific mental effort of actually “seeing“ separate perceptions, registering them as separate entities in your mental space.

E.g. when you want to take a shower (a wish), you could conjure an image of pleasant sensations which will arise from taking a shower (a thought), and anticipate them (an emotion). You could predict and imagine all the separate qualities of a nice pleasant shower: water temperature and pressure on the skin, scent of a shampoo, a feeling of refreshment and cleanliness. But the wish to experience these sensations could be perceived as something that is separate and drastically different from thoughts about shower, from its anticipation.

It is very important to recognize that thoughts, sensations, emotions and wishes are completely different kinds of perceptions and they can be “differentiated“. Though they influence each other they still are separate events in your mind. Yes, they are interrelated - e.g. a thought can summon a wish or emotion, and vice versa. But their relation is not a law - it is more like a general rule. Once you have differentiated your perceptions, you are able to rewrite these rules and create new ones, by consciously and consistently diverting your attention in a chosen way.

E.g. if some kind of wishes or thoughts usually makes you feel unhappy, you don’t have to be unhappy each time they arise. You can choose to react in some different, more productive way, and establish a new habit of reacting.

Here is a silly but telling example. I sometimes spill something on the floor and have to go through the hassle of cleaning up. My original habit was to reluctantly start cleaning while feeling irritation and annoyance. But at the same time I’ve noted that the floor became a bit more tidy after this compelled action. And I’ve started to say jokingly: “OK :), at least the floor is cleaner than before“. This redirected my attention from negative event to its positive consequences. In most of these cases I was able to stop myself from reacting negatively and to switch to positive, humorous behavior. Eventually I’ve formed a new habit of reacting: anytime something is spilled I completely skip the irritation phase and just start cleaning up while humoring the situation.

For a more serious example, my habit of self-judgment has similarly been replaced by a more constructive attitude. Each time I had discerned a wish to hate myself for something, I had reminded myself that self-hate does nothing to address the original problem and usually makes things worse. I then tried to switch my attention to something positive, and to react in some other way - without self-loathing. Eventually I’ve gained enough experience to combat self-hating habit effectively. It is now by dozens of times weaker than before. And it is now much easier to react to my mistakes and shortcomings in a kind, positive manner.

My intuition is that a sub-personality is nothing more than a closely knit cluster of habits. If I have a habit of reacting to some situation negatively, each time I’m doing that I’m reinforcing not only that specific habit but similar ones too. The opposite is also true - each time I refuse to act out of a negative habit I’m diminishing not only that habit, but all others that are linked with it. In other words, my positive sub-personality (PSP) just had won off a tiny bit of territory from negative sub-personality (NSP). Repeat this process enough times and PSP will strengthen noticeably, while NSPs are getting less and less of opportunities to dominate and to destroy my well-being.

While I was able to successfully apply Rudashevskiy’s ideas and methods for isolated, separate cases and habits, I was missing more general patterns and had hit the wall I’ve described at the beginning of this article. Now this situation has changed with discovery of specific sub-personalities, their quirks and predispositions. That wall turned into a sort of a slope I’m slowly ascending upon. This still requires a lot of hard work but at least I’m seeing my progress and I’m inching towards my goal.

The most curious thing here is that while PSP is able to consciously fight NSP and undermine its negativity, the opposite is often impossible. NSP is naturally averted to introspection and reflection. It usually acts blindly and mechanically, out of anger, anxiety, jealousy, self-pity and other negative emotions. Negative emotions hinder rational thinking so NSP cannot act precisely and effectively. It has to act by brute force, by lashing out. Conversely, PSP is able to calmly analyze situation, to apply wisdom and knowledge and to choose its reactions. That makes its efforts much more nuanced and effective.

For example, I’ve noticed that balance of power between PSP and NSPs is greatly influenced by my levels of mental energy. When I am hungry or tired or lacking sleep, my levels of mental energy are depleted and PSP is getting noticeably weaker, it loses the ability to influence my moods and actions. At the same time NSPs are getting much stronger, I could easily turn into a Sufferer or a Drudge in these periods.

(Note: In physics, “energy“ is defined as the ability to do work. Similarly, Rudashevskiy defines “mental energy“ as an ability to carry out all kinds of mental work: intellectual, emotional, creative, conversational, etc. He is strongly opposed to attaching any kind of esoteric meaning to “mental energy“.)

When I am already drained and cannot do anything productive, I should try to relax and do nothing, because any steps to achieve something would be likely done by Sufferer of Drudge who usually make things worse. Of course, an attempt to relax in such a state often leads to Potato taking power, and uncontrolled binging. But this is still better compared to self-loathing of Sufferer or tyranny of Drudge.

Another notable observation is that Sufferer and Drudge gain more power each time I fail to notice and address my pains and needs. I sometimes prefer to pretend that I’m OK, everything is fine, whereas my frustrations stay hidden and untouched. This self-deception and insincerity eventually lead to strong, lingering emotions of self-hate or self-pity which are almost impossible to overcome by attempts to “think positively“. In other words, Sufferer or Drudge getting dominant because of my self-neglect and self-deception. If I happen to have plenty of mental energy at this moment, they would just use it to generate stronger negative emotions, greater suffering and self-punishment. To avoid this I have to be truthful with myself, to dig out my deeply buried insecurities and emotional needs, to work with it instead of ignoring it. Only after doing all that necessary work I have a real chance to be Al, to become better version of myself.

And if I manage to avoid overexertion and self-neglect then the outcome is remarkably improved: Al stays in power and makes sure that my life is getting better instead of worse.

Such kind of knowledge is obtained by Al’s observations and he is the only one who is capable of using it properly. Sufferer or Drudge usually act in ways that deprive me of ability to improve situation, but they are unable to tune their actions and to extend their domination. They are acting intuitively, out of blind habit. And they are unable to change their habits, to avoid the disarming effect of Al’s sincerity.

This gives me hope that I (Al) would be eventually able to subdue NSPs to such an extent where they cannot noticeably harm me. I’m merely midway through and there is still a long way to go. But when I look back and remember where I started, I see tremendous progress in my well-being.

(V)

This article is already too long and I’ve only slightly brushed over other important details which could help apply the concepts of differentiated perceptions and sub-personalities into practice. There are almost zero materials about them in English, and there is much trial and error involved in tailoring them to each personal case. I will probably write another article covering the basics.

Still, I hope that someone will get something useful out of this idea of sub-personalities. It could be thought-provoking, at least.