Some time ago, a friend recommended a book to me, Healing The Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors, (Fisher, Janina. New York: Routledge, 2017), which talks about the neurobiological basis of compartmentalization of the mind. The fascinating premise of Dr. Fisher is that rather than just a response to extreme trauma in childhood such as produces Dissociative Identity Disorder, the brain actually uses either total or partial fragmentation, or "self-alienation," in order to cope with trauma as a rule. While DID is the most extreme version of this, and the easiest to see as the "personalities" are distinctly compartmentalized and separate from one another, partial compartmentalization can be seen in people who might otherwise appear on the surface to have a fully integrated personality. In the book, which is incredibly well documented, she describes people who are able to put on a separate "self" in order to function with relative normalcy in work, school, and social situations, but internally remain broken and traumatized from past wounds often succumbing to self-destructive behavior and addiction in order to quiet that still hurting "self." In other words, this person, even though a single identity, can operate as two separate personalities because the brain compartmentalized the core personality to protect itself while creating another to take the trauma in a similar, though milder way to DID.
I wrote before in previous posts that, "the EMI [the 'ego/mind/identity; what we would call the "self"] itself is an artificial construct, the physical brain's attempt to jury rig an OS if you will because of the interruption of its connection to that original Consciousness due to the overactive survival responses and the underlying panic mode in which it finds itself." And also, "In this way, one's ego, Old Man, or EMI is intrinsically tied to the hamartia malfunction, and is a by-product of it just as much as our sense of "right and wrong" or "good and bad" is a product of that malfunction. Furthermore, our assignation of "good" or "bad" to those things which please or displease, what the brain's fight/flight/feeding/sex response system mistakenly registers as survival necessities or survival threats, further reinforces those things as a part of our personal identity with which the ego uses to define itself, being a product of that malfunctioning fear survival response. Why does it do this? Because our survival response system is always in overdrive, it reacts with fear to nearly everything. And when we are panicked and afraid, we blind ourselves to our Source, the God in whose image we ourselves are made and carry, and are cut off in this way from the Spirit of Christ as Fear and Love cannot coexist together in the same place. One is blinded to God when he or she submits to their fear responses, and as human beings, we are subconsciously ruled by fear because of our malfunctioning survival responses. Being blind to the genuine source of identity, the brain panics and devises its own in order for it to continue to function." Thich Nhat Hanh writes in The Art of Living (New York: HarperCollins: 2017), "In Buddhist Psychology, the part of our consciousness that has a tendency to create a sense of self is known in Sanskrit as manas. ... Manas manifests from deep in our consciousness. It is our survival instinct, and it always urges us to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Manas keeps saying, 'This is me; this is my body; this is mine,' because manas is unable to perceive reality clearly. Manas tries to protect and defend what it mistakenly thinks is a self." (p. 31)
Based on these two ideas, the thought occurred to me this morning that the original development of the human EMI, the "self," is actually the human brain reacting to the trauma of fear induced separation from that Source of consciousness. That is, the person we originally identify with, our core personality, is itself the brain's first and original compartmentalization in response to the trauma of being "blinded" from the Source of consciousness due to the malfunctioning and overactive survival response. The "self" we identify as is itself a fiction created by the brain in order to continue functioning in its perpetual, emergency panic state.
The ego/mind/identity, the fictional "self" created by the malfunctioning survival response, must be dealt with before one might truly experience unity with the Spirit of Christ. That we are all one with Jesus Christ is an accomplished fact, but we do not all experience it, and not at all times, because of this physiologically produced mind or personality which is founded or based on the malfunctioning brain's fears and cravings. This must be rendered inert or disengaged from before one might experience functioning from the Spirit of Christ. There are several means of accomplishing a disengagement from it, even for just a short time, but they all require discipline and practice to maintain. They all involve continuous conscious effort.
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