Help! I can't live with myself anymore!

"Help! I can't live with myself anymore!"

That line was scribbled across the top of one of my old diaries. I was twenty four at the time, and very depressed. 

Every once in a while I go through old diaries. It's a practice that makes me laugh, cry, cringe, smile, get angry... the whole gamut of emotions sometimes. But I do it because I enjoy having a bird's-eye view of my life, finding patterns that repeat themselves and meeting the deeper questions that I have always asked myself.

Can I live with my self today?

I can (most of the time); but I have now realized that there are many selves, and one bigger, wider Self.

I know this from first hand experience.

How many times have you made a resolution that makes full, absolute and complete rational sense to you, that feels just right, and that has a long list of benefits that will come from carrying it through... only to sabotage yourself not two minutes after having made it?

Let me tell you about my latest experience with this.

I have been trying to get into the habit of doing a short, thirty-minute practice of yoga in the morning, before starting my day. I have everything in place to do it as I go to bed the night before: a practice video that I really enjoy, the motivation, the space, the time, the mindset. But when the alarm goes off at 6am every morning I repeatedly hit snooze. In the past three weeks I haven't once succeeded in carrying out my before-bed plan.

Why does this happen?

Haven't I thought out the best means-whereby? Am I not fully convinced on the logic and benefits of pursuing this course of action? Haven't I created the best conditions for it to happen again and again?

And yet, nothing new is happening! I'm getting the same results day in and day out. Come on Vicky! Get your act together!

As I was writing about this in my current journal it suddenly hit me.  Wham!

I slowly re-read the line I just wrote,  "Come on Vicky"

Which Vicky am I talking to?

Obviously the one that makes the plan needs no further convincing or egging on. 
There must be another Vicky lurking around somewhere, totally sabotaging my consciously thought out plan again and again and again and again. 
This Vicky is a master guerrilla fighter! I am not aware of when she comes or leaves and yet, she is making the effects of her presence felt.

Whenever there is any form of war there is a break-up in communication between the warring parts. Obviously my guerrilla-Vicky was not feeling that her side was getting a fair deal; in-power-Vicky was not listening (in-power-Vicky can do that a lot, she's kind of a bulldozer whenever she decides that something is "in my best interest").

Isn't it obvious that this is another form of false sensory appreciation?

There is one part of me that I was not aware of, and hence I wasn't integrating it into the conversation. Since that part exists within the matrix, it is having an effect on the overall outcome whether I like it or not.

So think about this next time one of your carefully thought out plans don't come through the way you expected: What part am I not aware of? Who am I not consciously integrating into the conversation? 
This part, person or persona will anyway be having an effect on the outcome by its mere existence. 

It may take some investigating, some prodding and experimenting, and a whole deal of openness and patience. Perhaps you think you're integrating the part, but you haven't really sounded it out fully. 

And please, please, please, when you find it, be kind... to all your selves.

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Image attribution

"And They're All Easily Amused," by Lotus Carroll  
used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/