We each knew all the answers to most
of life's questions when we met almost thirty years ago. They
were often opposite answers, but we were in love and this didn't
seem to be a problem. Instead, we were fascinated by our differences,
and, as two seasoned, mature clinical psychologists, we were
curious to explore them.
As a matter of fact, we were so in love that we wanted to know
everything that we could about one another. So it was that we
talked about our lives, our feelings, our dreams and our imaginings.
We meditated and prayed together. It was a truly profound interaction,
but there were no real surprises. We each still knew what we
knew, we still did not know what we did not know, and we did
not move very far beyond those boundaries.
And then one day we discovered our "selves." We had
been talking about vulnerability and Hal suggested that I (Sidra)
move over to another part of the room and become the vulnerable
child instead of talking about it. I trusted Hal and so I left
the couch I'd been sitting on, sat on the floor next to the
coffee table, put my head down on it and suddenly everything
changed. I became absolutely quiet and experienced the world
around me differently. Sounds, colors and feelings were more
intense than before.
The sophisticated, rational, articulate woman with all the answers
was gone and in her place was a very young child. I was extremely
quiet and very sensitive to everything in my surroundings. I
responded to energies rather than thoughts. I felt things I
had not felt in decades, and knew things that were not known
by my everyday mind. I knew, without question, the realities
of my soul. After about an hour, Hal asked me to move to my
original seat on the couch and I returned to my previous way
of being in the world... but my little girl was still with me
and I would never lose her completely again.
This experience was a surprise to both of us! I (Hal) knew that
something extremely important had just happened, that we had
moved into another dimension of consciousness. I had played
with talking to parts, but they were never real to me. Now they
were real people. This was indeed a little girl - it wasn't
a concept or a complex; she was a real person with rules of
behavior, feelings, perceptions, reactions, and a history of
her own.
This was the beginning of Voice Dialogue, or the dialogue with
the family of selves that lives within each of us. It was conceived
out of a genuine curiosity about another human being and was
born in love. Embracing Our Selves: The Voice Dialogue Manual
gives the details on how Voice Dialogue works.
We were very excited about our discovery. We saw that our psyches
were not unitary but, instead, were made up of many selves and
we set out on what has proven to be an unending journey. We
went on to explore a vast multitude of selves. We spoke with
pushers and critics and pleasers and perfectionists. And we
spoke with beach bums, slackers, and manipulators. We spoke
with feeling selves and unfeeling selves, with vulnerable, playful
and magical children. We spoke with heroes and villains, matriarchs
and patriarchs. We spoke with visionaries and cynics. The range
of selves is amazing; it seems to be limitless.
We spoke to our "primary selves" which were very well
developed. They ran our lives or, as we liked to put it, they
drove our psychological cars. They were the ones that made up
our personalities; the selves that "knew all the answers"
when we first met. Then we went on to learn about our "disowned
selves." For each primary self there were opposite disowned
selves, that were buried or repressed so that the primaries
could keep control of our lives.
The primary selves were familiar and we were comfortable with
them. It was easy to get them to talk and to tell us how cleverly
and successfully they ran our lives. The disowned selves were
unfamiliar and threatening to our primary selves. Each primary
self felt that the disowned self on the other side was a potential
destroyer of our wellbeing. For instance: "What happens
if you really let go and learned to 'be' instead of to 'do?'
You might never want to work again!" would be the Pusher's
concern.
When we talked with these disowned selves we felt as though
we were living in a house with endless doors waiting to be opened
with new rooms to explore. These selves carried new ways of
looking at the world, new information, and creative solutions
to old problems.
Then there were the areas in which one of us had a primary self
that was the disowned self of the other. For example, Sidra
had a strong "What will people think?" self while
Hal's was the opposite: "I do what is right for me."
Hal had a deeply spiritual self while Sidra's was more pragmatic.
Hal was the Introvert while Sidra was the Extrovert. Sidra had
a Financial Conservative while Hal had a Financial Liberal.
Hal was a fearless explorer of the world within and Sidra was
a fearless explorer of the world outside. And so it went.
These opposite primary selves presented a challenge. They added
a new dimension to our relationship: judgment. Each of these
disowned selves was one of God's little heat-seeking missiles
that impacted us where it hurt the most. In our relationship!
When we examined this phenomenon, we discovered that our judgments
were not bad, they were simply signs that we had something to
learn. Each time one of us judged the other, we were facing
a disowned self.
In the past we had tried hard to avoid judging others. We felt
that we were too mature and spiritually evolved for this. Now
we learned to use our judgments. Each time we felt a judgment,
it gave us the picture of a disowned self that needed integration.
So we looked at the judgment, clarified it, and found the disowned
self. For instance, Sidra might have judged Hal to be too free
with money. We would look at this, determine that her primary
self was a financial conservative and then work with the opposites
of big spender and financial conservative in her.
We went on to discover how these selves interact in relationships.
Relationships, we discovered, are the interactions of not just
two people, but two groups of selves. These interactions follow
simple predictable patterns. To move beyond the automatic, unconscious
relating of these selves, we entered a new area of exploration
and understanding.
As a way of learning about ourselves and others, Voice Dialogue
is completely accepting and non-judgmental. It simply looks
at what is. Some have called it a Western meditation because,
as each self is explored, an awareness of that self develops.
This awareness is separate from the self and acts as a witness.
It carries with it a memory and an ability to recognize this
self as it operates in our lives.
But that is not all that happens. Yes, it is important to have
a witness that is aware of a self, but a witness just witnesses.
We live in the world, however, not in an ashram. Who lives life?
We saw that after we had separated from one of our primary selves,
there was a qualitative change in the way we lived our lives.
In the deepest spiritual sense, we were separating from who
we thought we were and allowing a new process to emerge. We
named it an Aware Ego.
Voice Dialogue is about separating from the many selves that
make up the human psyche and creating this Aware Ego. We do
not discard anything. We embrace the selves that are already
ours and we add to them those we have disowned. It is as though
we were living in ancient Greece and worshipping at the shrines
of all the gods and goddesses. We can have our favorites, but
we take care not to neglect any of the others.
And as we embrace all that we are, we naturally become more
fully human and more compassionate. We don't have to learn compassion,
it just appears. After all, everything out there is within each
of us.
We feel that the Aware Ego is an evolutionary step forward.
This Aware Ego blends awareness with an experience of selves.
It moves beyond duality by carrying the tension of opposites
and, because it does so, it allows us real choices in life.
It enables us to follow - safely - our unique paths.
As someone wrote to us recently: "There is something built
into the method you have seeded which reminds me of a desert
proverb: 'Listen to the path... it is wiser than he who travels
it'."
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