It seems like a no brainer to me that the shoes I wear should be comfortable. Yet a great deal of people are walking around everyday in shoes that cause them pain. Some people go so far as to wear shoes that become so uncomfortable the person ends up taking them off and walking barefoot. The result is a pair of shoes that serves its opposite purpose. Uncomfortable shoe buying, a practice primarily driven by the female gender, is perplexing to me. Shoes + Feet + Comfort seems like an equation everyone would understand and seek out.
The practice is perplexing, yes, but not surprising. I grew up watching those around me wearing uncomfortable shoes. Women at work wear uncomfortable shoes, women going out on the weekend wear uncomfortable shoes, women in magazines wear uncomfortable shoes, women in movies wear uncomfortable shoes; there are women everywhere wearing uncomfortable shoes! Uncomfortable shoes, given this structure, are a social comfort.
This process and predicament heavily parallels my understanding of personality structures. A personality is a concept and associated behaviors that run in patterns, are motivated by desires, driven by fears and provide very little in the way of spontaneity and freedom. We each have a personality to the extent that we identify with anything. It is the "I am (fill in the blank)" as opposed to the "I AM."
Why do we have personalities? Because those around us have personalities. People we work with have personalities, people who go out on the weekends have personalities, people in magazines have personalities, people in movies have personalities; people everywhere have personalities! We love personalities, we glorify personalities, but most of all, we are unaware of personalities. Living beyond the structure and limits of personality then becomes quite a challenge.
It is said that personalities grow out of our natural temperaments. As children, even infants, we notice that some things come easily to us and we begin to identify and rely on these behaviors and attitudes as a way to survive in the world around us. The qualities we admire as adults, such as serenity, harmony, authenticity, etc etc, are not always nurtured in us as developing children, so our natural responses become more narrow as we feel less safe express our Truth. Our personality is like a cast. In those moments where our needs could not be provided for and we experienced stress or trauma, we looked to our personality to help us respond and protect our wounds. Falling out of contact with our wholly open and vulnerable selves, we began to cultivate patterns that helped us respond to the fears we confronted in daily life: not having enough, not being competent, not receiving love or not being seen as valuable. In moments where we feel cut off from our Essential needs (Love, freedom, clarity, value, etc), we have simultaneously lost contact with our Essential Selves (the "I AM"). In place of true contact with our Essence, we begin to rely on our personality structure.
The personality (ego), then, is not an enemy. It began as a trusted friend we could rely on when we perceived a threatening separation from Essence. As we mature, however, we have the capacity to re-connect with the Essential Self. As adults, continuing to rely on our personalities to respond to the world is like wearing a cast even after the bone has healed (or wearing shoes that are entirely uncomfortable). They restrict us. They create situations that are the opposite of what we truly desire. The personality becomes a hindrance, just as a cast denies the full range of mobility available to the body. While focusing on being joyful in the face of overwhelming pain was a sensible alternative in childhood, now it keeps my range of emotions and experiences very narrow. While working hard to achieve something in order to experience a deeper sense of value was useful in the past, now i am out of touch with my inherent value and am patterned to only find my value in the things that I do. Keeping quiet and out of the way helped keep stress and conflict down in the house growing up, but now I am afraid to participate in my own life for fear of causing upset to others. As adults, our personalities have been given full ownership of who we are. Anything beyond them feels threatening. This is, again, not because there is anything wrong with the personality or because it is a scheming evil-doer, but because from the ego's perspective, nothing else exists beyond itself. It is merely trying to prevent our complete obliteration.
The practice is perplexing, yes, but not surprising. I grew up watching those around me wearing uncomfortable shoes. Women at work wear uncomfortable shoes, women going out on the weekend wear uncomfortable shoes, women in magazines wear uncomfortable shoes, women in movies wear uncomfortable shoes; there are women everywhere wearing uncomfortable shoes! Uncomfortable shoes, given this structure, are a social comfort.
This process and predicament heavily parallels my understanding of personality structures. A personality is a concept and associated behaviors that run in patterns, are motivated by desires, driven by fears and provide very little in the way of spontaneity and freedom. We each have a personality to the extent that we identify with anything. It is the "I am (fill in the blank)" as opposed to the "I AM."
Why do we have personalities? Because those around us have personalities. People we work with have personalities, people who go out on the weekends have personalities, people in magazines have personalities, people in movies have personalities; people everywhere have personalities! We love personalities, we glorify personalities, but most of all, we are unaware of personalities. Living beyond the structure and limits of personality then becomes quite a challenge.
It is said that personalities grow out of our natural temperaments. As children, even infants, we notice that some things come easily to us and we begin to identify and rely on these behaviors and attitudes as a way to survive in the world around us. The qualities we admire as adults, such as serenity, harmony, authenticity, etc etc, are not always nurtured in us as developing children, so our natural responses become more narrow as we feel less safe express our Truth. Our personality is like a cast. In those moments where our needs could not be provided for and we experienced stress or trauma, we looked to our personality to help us respond and protect our wounds. Falling out of contact with our wholly open and vulnerable selves, we began to cultivate patterns that helped us respond to the fears we confronted in daily life: not having enough, not being competent, not receiving love or not being seen as valuable. In moments where we feel cut off from our Essential needs (Love, freedom, clarity, value, etc), we have simultaneously lost contact with our Essential Selves (the "I AM"). In place of true contact with our Essence, we begin to rely on our personality structure.
The personality (ego), then, is not an enemy. It began as a trusted friend we could rely on when we perceived a threatening separation from Essence. As we mature, however, we have the capacity to re-connect with the Essential Self. As adults, continuing to rely on our personalities to respond to the world is like wearing a cast even after the bone has healed (or wearing shoes that are entirely uncomfortable). They restrict us. They create situations that are the opposite of what we truly desire. The personality becomes a hindrance, just as a cast denies the full range of mobility available to the body. While focusing on being joyful in the face of overwhelming pain was a sensible alternative in childhood, now it keeps my range of emotions and experiences very narrow. While working hard to achieve something in order to experience a deeper sense of value was useful in the past, now i am out of touch with my inherent value and am patterned to only find my value in the things that I do. Keeping quiet and out of the way helped keep stress and conflict down in the house growing up, but now I am afraid to participate in my own life for fear of causing upset to others. As adults, our personalities have been given full ownership of who we are. Anything beyond them feels threatening. This is, again, not because there is anything wrong with the personality or because it is a scheming evil-doer, but because from the ego's perspective, nothing else exists beyond itself. It is merely trying to prevent our complete obliteration.
