You had an ultra-busy week and are really looking forward to a relaxing weekend. If you had your way, you would stay in your pajamas with a good book to read, binging on yogurt and fruit. Saturday at 9 am, the doorbell goes. You pull on a tracksuit and pull a brush through your hair. It’s a friend of a friend that you have met once before. She has come for coffee and a chat.
Your heart sinks. There goes your much-needed rest. To make it worse, you smile from ear to ear, tell her how good it is to see her, and ask if she wants to join you for breakfast. “No, of course, you have nothing on,” you lie. She tells her long-winded story and you have to fake a lunch date to get rid of her four hours later.
Without thinking, you have put on your Helper Personality, making other people’s needs more important than your own. Because you have taught yourself that you should spend more kindness on others than on yourself. In the process, your nervous system gets more depleted and you don’t realise that this kind of giving is unsustainable.
We all have subconscious ways of responding to ourselves, to people, and the world around us. This is our way of making the world a safe place for ourselves. But we seldom stop to question our patterns, which are often energy depleting and outright bad for us.
The Achiever Personality defines his self-worth by what he does or achieves. He believes that he is “not enough” and has to earn others’ acceptance through performance. He drives himself around the bend, depleting his energy resources in proving his worth.
The Perfectionist maintains that her self-worth is defined by doing things right. She cannot live in the moment and focuses on the detail, trying to avoid mistakes, lambasting herself along the way.
Closely related is the Controller Personality, who believes that the world is only a safe place if he is in control of people and events.
The Anxious Personality tries to think his way to a feeling of safety. He practices snowball thinking, driving himself mad with “what if” statements.
None of these patterns are good for us. When we have an overload of stress, they deplete our energy and make the world increasingly overwhelming. The more awareness we build, the more we can see it, and the more we can connect with ourselves and the world, in a healthy way.
