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Impersonal selves

There are lots of inner selves like super-responsible pusher and the logical mind who work at the impersonal level. They are the ones that allow a wide range of safe communication ranging from distant and formal to a kind of impersonal linking involving trust, yet maintaining the ability to draw back as much as needed should things get too close.

When you are under the influence of an impersonal self, you will feel more protected because it helps you maintain a safer distance and better separation from other people.

Personal selves

The opposite kind of selves operate at the personal level. This allows a much closer connection.

Almost all the personal inner selves permit or even encourage warm interaction and more intimate communication.

When two people are both operating under the influence of these most intimate of the personal selves they will find they can get incredibly close to each other. For many individuals this is what they experience as love or intimacy but it may only be the personal selves at work.

There is a downside to operating in a very personal state. Sooner or later something goes wrong. And because of your closeness you are extremely vulnerable. The trouble with personal selves is that they lack the strength (or the boundaries) to protect your vulnerability. Section 7 explains more about boundaries as part of the aware adult system.

If you have no boundaries, your only protection is to return control to the impersonal selves that specialise in distancing, criticism, anger, shaming, blaming, punishing and aggression. This, of course, causes the other person to withdraw. These selves may try to appear as if they are boundaries and so distract attention away from boundary issues but actually they just set up ‘walls’ that block or even destroy a relationship if it seems to be causing too much pain.

Moving into your grown-up aware adult

When you are in your grown-up aware adult system, you become more conscious as to whether you are operating in a personal or impersonal state. You also learn to move from one side to the other as needed and to balance the two together. This provides a new kind of intimacy which is both personal and safe at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOW TO BECOME MORE AWARE OF WHICH CHANNEL I AM USING

Here are some of the easier pointers that help alert you to the channel you are using at the time. Of course these same pointers help you to tell which channel the other person is using with you.

 

IMPERSONAL POINTERS

Impersonal communication is described as closed, while personal communication is described as open. When we are using our impersonal channel we keep to safe topics, that is topics of conversation that will keep the discussion safely away from anything which might bring up or even give the other person a hint as to our vulnerability. The less connected you feel, the better protected you are. So, most impersonal or closed conversation does not reveal much at all about what we are feeling or the person we really are. Personal or open communication is the opposite way round as the examples below will illustrate.

Typical impersonal topics in the list below are ranked with the top ones being the most impersonal and the safest. Notice that the lower you go down the list the less protected and the more connected communication becomes but it still will be quite impersonal.

 

Notice also how few of the topics involve anything that the people talking about have any power to change, fix or improve no matter how they feel about the topic.

 

   * impersonal events or activities - weather and government policy, sport, television,

   * impersonal objects, cars, clothing, houses, furniture.

   * other people particularly others who are not in the room. Also their impersonal objects their jobs, their faults, and their activities. (their sport, their finances, their politics, their cars, their clothing, their pets).

   * the past rather than the present, but only those topics from the past that are safe and impersonal.

   * impersonal things that I did recently or will be doing, playing sport, watching television, getting drunk, gambling, business or work-related activities.

   * impersonal problems that I might do something to change such as finance, accommodation, transport, computers and my lack of time

   * impersonal thoughts or ideas. For example quoting ideas from books or well known authorities. This helps to avoid expressing personal views, thoughts or feelings on the subject.

 

IMPERSONAL ENERGY

  1. Quantity rather than quality. – Become more aware of the speed, volume and intensity of each conversation. Think of each of these three as a the different gauges on your dashboard. The higher the reading on each gauge, that is the stronger the intensity, the harder the speaker is working to maintain protection rather than connection. (impersonal channel). A sufficiently strong “wall of words” can block almost any attempt to develop a personal connection.

  2. Focus on a third party - the more the conversation is about “I, me and them” issues (impersonal) the less connected and the more protected because it’s obviously less about “I, you and me” issues which would require less protection and more connection.

  3. Imbalance – each speaker tries to get as much as they can of the available “air time” without concern for the way this reduces the other person’s share. Typically an  impersonal speaker doesn’t even listen very much to what the other person is saying. They are busy thinking about what they want to say next, waiting for a chance to get back to being the speaker again. Their lack of feedback or response helps maintain a high level of impersonal contact.

4. Outwards focused on getting results – aim or need to “get” a specific reaction or response that we want, from another person – It doesn’t take much practice to feel the intention behind an impersonal message, even if the words used suggest otherwise. Example: “Darling, I just want you to be happy. And I know this is what you really need to become the happiest person in the whole world.” Personal communication is largely free of this desire to “get” things and is more likely to include “giving” freely and unconditionally.

5. Parent to child energy Typically much of an impersonal conversation like this involves our getting hooked into “child-like” or “parent-like” attitudes or switching back and forth between them. If one person is too busy  “telling” (impersonal parent) this automatically hooks the other person into a child-like feeling of being “told”. This in turn causes that receiver to become more protective of themselves and lessens their desire to connect. So less and less time gets spent in what I like to call a “grown-up” state of mind where there might be more connecting and more “sharing”. Sharing is grown-up and enhances the personal connection.

This is a favorite feeding ground for the Inner Patriarch and Matriarch who love to take the “parental power” position in order to gain more control over the relationship

 

All the above pointers are more obvious if one person is trying to move over to their personal channel but the second person feels uncomfortable about this. The uncomfortable person will quickly increase the level of their impersonal communication to block the move. It’s quite easy for one person to maintain their impersonal protection, even though the other wants to shift. It’s much harder, often impossible, for the personal player to keep off their own all too familiar  impersonal state. They soon get hooked back into it again.

Example:

Kerry: (impersonal third party focus) “ ……. so I drove all the way over to her house and when I got there she wasn’t even home!”

Kim: (trying to be more personal) “I’ll bet you felt frustrated. I know I would. I remember something like that happened to me with my father last month.”

Kerry: (staying in her impersonal third party focus) “So I called her on the mobile and I told her what I thought of her!”

Kim: (trying to be more personal) “And did you get any kind of understanding from her?”

Kerry: (impersonal) “I was so mad at her I went home and deleted her name from my address book.”

Kim: (still trying to be more personal) “I’ll bet you felt better after that!”

Kerry: (impersonal) “Next thing, she was knocking on my door. She just stood there and so I told her exactly …….etc ...etc (unbroken monologue for 2 minutes …..) .

 

Kim: (who can’t get a personal word in, finally moves into her impersonal)

“Well it’s good to catch up with you Kim, but I have to go now and talk to my husband. Bye.”

 

Personal topics are more connected and less protected

Impersonal communication is described as closed, personal communication is open.

Listening and sharing about you and me rather than telling about a third party

The more distant the connection with third paty or external people pr events the more impersonal the conversation. One of the most obvious signs that the communicationis becoming personal is the degree to which third parties are no longer a major point of focus. People who are using personal energy will be sharing listening to and talking time with one or more people who are present rather than telling them about other people who are somewhere else (as in the example above)

If we are talking about  the very special people in our lives as third parties it is still impersonal but the communication is moving closer to the personal side.

 

Personal topics.

Notice that the lower you go down the list the less protected and the more open and connected the linkage will become between the people communicating. When I am are using personal energy I will be sharing talking and listening as I :

• share personal information about myself and my life
• share negative as well as positive feedback
• negotiate calmly about power and control issues and how they affect my life (this is actually quite personal)
• Describe how I respond to or resist manipulation.
• Share information about what you or I are thinking or feeling about this
• Talk about the future as you and I see it
• describe myself as the person I feel really am rather than what I feel that others would like me to be
• talk about my faults, fears, failings, foolishness, fantasies etc that cause me to feel vulnerable
• share my own inner feelings that am experiencing at this time just now, as I am speaking
• discuss the un-discussable, sharing things that I would only share with someone I felt absolutely safe with

See also Personal and Impersonal styles in a relationship - case studies

Personal and Impersonal selves

 

Another way of looking at your inner selves (and one that is particularly relevant in all your relationships) is to compare or divide them according to their personal or impersonal nature. I will explain more about these in later sections but as I often refer to ‘personal’ and ‘impersonal’  I thought a short outline would help here.

But how do you identify these two styles?

One way to distinguish the two is to remember that:

Impersonal is “more protected but less connected”

Personal is “more connected but less protected ”