Compassion Matters

“Although we are born genetically unique individuals, we internalize our early environment, so that when we grow up, we are not really fully differentiated selves. In many ways we are reliving rather than living. This dichotomy can influence us to act in ways we don't even like or say things we don't even mean.”

---Setting aside the problem (and idiocy) of genetic determinism for a moment: Let's say a person’s “genetically unique” self were a psychopathic murderer. But s/he internalized attitudes of a loving, caring person from his/her parents. S/he really isn’t nice person, but those early childhood experiences taught him/her to act in kind and thoughtful ways s/he didn’t even like or mean. Later in life, while in therapy, s/he came to identify those encouraging voices that told him/her s/he wanted to be nice to people as his/her parents and not his/her own. Realizing that acting in these ways was a result of lack of differentiation from his/her parents ways of acting, s/he began to take notice of where those positive points of view were infiltrating his/her way of thinking. S/he was finally on his/her way to his/her true life as a serial murderer….

All hyperbole aside:
"We engage in behavior that is not our own, which can be destructive to our own best interest."

---I have a problem with this statement - and the overall theme of this article that this statement represents. I agree that we learn certain attitudes and patterns of emotional and behavioral responses from, for instance, our parents. I fail to see how those learned attitudes/patterns of responses then belong to our parents, and not us. By this logic – the only way our attitudes/patterns would truly be our own would be if we raised ourselves and had no human interaction from birth onward. And this logic makes zero sense in the real world if you know anything about child development.

There is no dichotomy between “us” and what we’ve learned/internalized. What you've learned is yours and is part of you - whether you like it or not, whether you’re consciously aware of it or not. Looking at the examples in this article - it seems we’re more than happy to deny ownership of the ‘negative’ aspects of ourselves: “Oh, that’s my MOTHER talking. That’s not really me or how I really feel.”

I would predict that the more out of line a response is from what you think you are or should be (i.e. self-image – which is socially and culturally mediated), the more likely you are to claim that that response "really" belongs to “someone else.”

This is not to say that figuring where/how/from whom you learned a particular response isn’t useful. But denying that it isn’t your own is simply a method to avoid dealing with both aspects of one’s own self and with the reason that that response arises in the first place.

There is a subconscious, "other" inside me and it expresses itself as either a voice that says, "you're not wanted, not good enough, not valued," or sabotages relationships with others by similar aggressive words or actions that are not "mine" because they don't come from my brain but rather directly from my subconscious. It happens instantaneously and the thinking brain is not involved. Perhaps these words come from my parents but then they probably got the same words from their parents.
They say that the devil is always in a hurry - this negative reflex reaction tends to happen quickly. I believe that it comes from the instinctual reptilian part of our brain and has to do with survival and evolution. If I am not good enough, I will be motivated to evolve, change, grow. If we (as human race) believed that we were good enough we'd soon die out.
So, in my opinion, it is still me that's "the other" but on a deeper level. We can be grateful for it and so take away some of the sting - it's looking out for our safety and survival.

That quote, and this article, hit home for me in a big way.

Suddenly I'm asking myself if anything I think, say, and feel is actually something I own.

So often, I can see my mother's cynicism, bitterness, and resentment towards things spilling out of me...and I wonder when and how I became this way (though clearly this article answers that!)

I always look forward to your Huffington Post articles, and this one was especially great!