10-Personality Disorder

Personality is one of the most tightly held beliefs of the ego. It forms a significant part of identity. Personality is essentially the ego with just a few less identifiers. For example, you might identify with your profession but you don't consider it a part of your personality. You consider it a part of your person-hood, but not your personality. Personality is essentially how the ego acts and its behavior. It is the outward expression of the ego. It represents the ego to others and it represents the ego to yourself. That's why it is such a tightly held concept. Most people consider it their number one identifier. It is what is unique to them. It's what makes them special to themselves. It is the leading role performance of the character in your play.

Identifying with conscious awareness doesn't eliminate personality from the ego. The ego will still have its personality, but a lot of the identifiers of the personality will dissipate and its behavior will change into an even better personality. For one thing, the ego won't feel such a need to prove itself through its personality. It won't feel the need to be dishonest or phony. Imagine not caring about what people think of you and never worrying about it. You no longer will govern your behavior by what you want people to think of you. What freedom! Imagine being free of that burden of the ego's concern of others' opinion of it. It could stop the big act – the act of proving itself.

Perceiving yourself as conscious awareness requires you to perceive others as their conscious awareness as well, but you still have to be aware that their ego isn't aware of that. Seeing others as conscious awareness and not their personality and ego opens up a great deal of understanding about their ego and behavior. You see that they are doing the same thing you've been doing your entire life. There is no reason to make judgments about their ego because the ego isn't what they are. Their behavior and personality isn't what they are. There is no need to gossip about their ego. There is no need to be offended by their ego. There is no need to argue and get angry with their ego. You're not dealing with a real entity and that which is dealing with that entity isn't a real entity. The ego is nothing but a thought form manufactured and constructed by beliefs in the mind. Their ego is just doing what egos do – proving itself. Its what your ego does and has been doing nearly your entire life. It does it through your personality.

By no means does that mean that we accept any and all behavior of others and ourselves as well, we just don't attach identity to it. That is essentially what forgiveness is. Somebody somewhere said something about loving the sinner and hating the sin. That's not associating the behavior with the person causing it. It's the ego causing it and that isn't what we are. I think whoever said that was essentially saying the same thing. What ever happened to that guy anyway?

By not attaching to our behavior allows us to free ourselves of poor behavior. By not identifying others with their behavior allows us to see them in a more forgiving light. We might hold onto a grudge for years and that person may have changed that behavior in themselves. We may have misperceived their behavior in the first place due to what we wanted to believe according to our own self interests and agenda. We may have perceived their behavior in a self-serving biased way that fit into our beliefs about our self being “right.” If we could come from conscious awareness perspective, we might see reasons for the person's behavior that we were unaware of before and we will have a greater understanding of it and it might actually lead to compassion and a desire to help that person out of the turmoil that caused that behavior.

If you've read all the posts up to here, can you understand how the ego/identity is a concept in your mind? It doesn't exist out of the mind. Its personality is just the outward expression of the belief in your identity. You might think pretty highly of yourself and consider your acts as being good. They very well may be, but those acts aren't you. They may be the result of who you think you are and an outward expression of it, but they still come from a construct of the mind – a thought form. How selfless are those good deeds and accomplishments you do? Is the motivation pure without any trace of yourself? Do you pat yourself on your back for doing them. Can you do them and not tell anyone about them? Do you need to identify with your identity to do them and are those acts limited by your ego in some way? Keep doing those good deeds but just don't identify with them. That way you'll be able to more clearly see the real need. Giving $5 to a panhandler might just support their alcoholism. Did you take the time to speak with him and try to find out what he truly needs? Maybe the act of you showing that someone cares enough to speak to him is what he needs the most.

My ex-wife was full of good deeds but she did those deeds primarily to feel good about herself. At one point, I thought she was the best person I had ever known. That's what she wanted everybody to believe and worked extremely hard to convince people to believe that. That was her motivation for her good deeds. She was a compulsive liar that would lie even when the truth would suffice and there was no need to lie except to put herself in a better light. She accomplished a lot of good deeds, but now I see her as one of the most self-serving egos I've ever known. If someone didn't perceive her the way she wanted them to, she had absolutely no concern for them whatsoever. She was a great salesperson and a master manipulator. Her manipulation and lies caused so much damage to so many relationships. Her self-serving agenda caused more damage than good but she does accomplish her goal. Most people buy her phony act portraying the kindhearted thoughtful generous person she really isn't. She has one of the most exuberant personalities I've ever known, but it isn't even the real belief of her self. It's all an act – an act that she even believes and justifies with abhorrent self-serving behavior at times. People that have had a conflict with her know a completely different person. But my ex-wife isn't her ego or personality. I can now see that she was a very troubled ego with extremely poor self-esteem. She really must feel terrible inside and ridden with guilt. I feel for her. She must actually believe she is a very bad person to try so hard to get people to think she is a good person. That belief can be hidden and covered up but it eventually reveals itself with behavior and if that behavior has been repressed for along time, that behavior can come out in very extreme ways and then that belief is validated and reinforced with more identification. If she could only see that she isn't her personality, behavior and beliefs about herself she would feel so much better and not have to prove herself. Then her deeds could all be good. I admit I was no angel either. The difference was I didn't pretend to be one, but I had my ego problems as well and still have others today. But by not being attached and identifying with those past problems, I've been able to let them go. My ego is essentially an entirely different ego now, but it's still an ego and a thought form. It's meaningless except as a tool.

Our personality has such a tight grip on us. Your ego is probably fighting what I'm saying tooth and nail right now because of it. The personality is very self important to your ego. The personality is the representative of the ego. You probably associate your identity with it more than anything else, but it is working to block you from so much more of what you truly are. You don't know that yet so you have a great excuse to keep identifying with it. If you accepted what I'm saying and had the experience I had, do you think your identity and personality would simply vanish. It didn't with me, but it sure did become less important to me. I don't feel the need to defend it and prove it the way I did. The ego's concern of other people's opinions about it are a lot less. You won't lose your identity and personality but it will change for the better. You'll want to lose a lot of it. You'll see how it limits you. You'll want to be more of what you actually are. You will have an entirely different perspective and things that were important to you won't be any more. Don't worry. You'll see those things weren't important in the first place.

So, what's it going to take to convince you of what I'm saying here? If you're not convinced yet, how do I get through to you? What can change your mind? Only you can change your mind. I can't do it. If you're still clinging on to your identity, I guess all I can do is keep on writing and hope you read it. I can go on and on. I have so much to say I'm writing a book as well. What else can I do but keep on writing? Maybe one more thing I write will make it click for you. I honestly hope so.