Understanding the Divisions of Your “Self”

In her book Conquering Shame and Codependency, Darlene Lancer says there are varying divisions of SELF. We are all born as our REAL selves. The REAL self is who God created us to be in all of our personal uniqueness. The REAL self is authentic and whole, acknowledges and works through all of the feelings God has blessed us with, understands its desires and needs and voices them honestly, and it is spontaneous. The REAL self knows how to allow its “Yes” to be “Yes” and its “No” to be “No.”

According to Lancer the REAL self makes decisions based on “internal assessments,” not the external opinions of others, without any serious inner-conflict between thoughts and feelings. The REAL self develops in children if their parents reflect their authentic real self back to them.

If parents, however, are incapable of reflecting a child’s REAL self back to the child, the child will develop a DEVALUED self. Instead of being affirmed for who they are, many children are constantly reminded of how they are not good enough. They are told by parents that they must change to be the perfect little boy or girl that Mom or Dad demands they be— if they want to be loveable. The child then feels a disconnect from the parents, or abandonment. He/she feels personally inadequate, fearful, anxious and alienated from his/her parents and most others as well.

As a result, the child will begin to create an IDEAL self. This ideal self will reflect the qualities and behaviors that Mom and Dad find acceptable. The quest for an idealized self is a quest for acceptance, love and a sense of belonging, all of which are essential to a child’s well-being.

Eventually, the child may lose his/her REAL self underneath the false IDEAL self that they have created to please parents. In doing so, the child feels alienated from him/herself. He/she may be winning momentary approval from Mom or Dad, but that approval is always fleeting. Because the child never fully feels accepted and loved, he/she continues to experience fear, anxiety, unhappiness, dissatisfaction and dislike of self. These negative feelings are also heightened by the fact that the child feels the discomfort of having alienated him/herself from his/her REAL self.

Codependents and others with addictive personalities can relate to the alienation that leads to the development of a devalued and an ideal self. Many of us were deemed defective as children and we have done a marvelous job of devaluing ourselves as well as burying our real selves under a falsified, people-pleasing ideal self. For us, our “ideal” self became our Codependent Self.

The good news is that as adults in recovery, we have a choice. We can choose to cling to our very familiar and comfortable codependent/devalued/ideal selves and remain the puppets of others, or we can choose to uncover and rediscover our REAL selves through truly working our recovery programs EVERYDAY. We can work through our issues with self-acceptance and self-love and we can choose free ourselves from our false selves and return to our natural wholeness as the REAL people God created us to be.