Close your eyes and peruse that which is the movie script of your life. Notice how often you have had situations arise that have a similar theme. The people and the places may have changed, however, your responses were always the same. The personality rules the way we function and react to our life circumstances. Often, experiencing the same reaction will only produce a lesson over and over again until we learn.
How is it possible to change the outcome if we are always approaching life from the same perspective?
Within each one of us is a multitude of personalities. However, generally one dominates and becomes what other people come to know as our ‘reactive personality’. From that place our experience of courage or weakness, passion or aloofness, strength or vulnerability takes shape only to result in feelings that can range from joy and happiness to rage and sadness.
The reactive personality is the place that is predictable. It is who others know you to be, your typical response pattern, and the manifested product of memory stemming from childhood experiences. For example, a female child that experienced harsh language or lack of compliments as a child, an absentee parent, and minimal love may project a reactive personality based on low self esteem and lack of confidence. Approaching life from this perspective will result in no choices, timid choices, or a very cautious approach to life. There may be a lack of joy and passion resulting from fear of taking charge of ones own existence.
How would someone with this historical perspective change their world? How would this young woman change her life or approach to be able to experience an existence that is passionate and confident?
WHAT IS THE ALTER EGO?
The alter ego is the extreme most part of the personality. It would be the person that you would never see yourself as. It is the person you are most frightened of walking out onto the street to be. She is the deepest, most intimate, part of you…the part that has been so hidden, you did not even know she existed.
For some this may be a woman of the streets, that has had to survive, leads a tough existence, and has no qualms of speaking her mind or taking what she wants. For someone else, it might be a drug addict placed into a mental institution that has no care of what she says or does. For someone else, it may be an infant that screams and shouts and is spoiled rotten. And for another…it may be a holy person full of wisdom that speaks seldom but always in truth and integrity. There is an alter ego inside every woman waiting to be discovered. It is the other extreme of your polarity and probably the side of you that is your greatest fear. It is also your key to freedom…and the life you desire.
THE ALTER EGO IS YOUR SOURCE OF POWER… IT IS THE DEEPEST PART OF YOUR CORE WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED SO THAT IT MAY EMPOWER YOU!
How could experiencing yourself as a street-walker, a drug addicted mental patient, a nun, an infant, a dominatrix, a soldier, a superhero, or a villain be empowering? How does one experience that type of personality?
Experiencing your alter ego means knowing her…and that means dressing her, seeing her in the mirror and acting her personality out to yourself. It is giving her voice by allowing her to have a name and say what she needs to say. And, if you truly want to empower yourself…go to a city where no one knows you and dress like her, speak like her, be her by going to a club and getting in touch with how she approaches life. You need not perform any of her actions just experience her having a good time dancing. See how others look at her and respond to her. See the power she holds. (Get a group of friends together and do this in support of each other.)
What purpose would be served in going to a club dressed like that?
First of all, it takes courage. The greatest empowerment and growth comes from stretching yourself to do things that seem unfathomable. The ones of you that are reading this smirking, laughing, or simply saying ‘Right, I am going to do that.’ would actually gain the most from it.
Secondly, you will meet the part of yourself that approaches life with ‘RECKLESS ABANDON’. (Reckless abandon is when you go out and grab life and you are open to what ever comes back to you without fear.) She does not play it safe. She does not care what other people think. She relies on herself and lives completely in her own world.
Thirdly, she will become your ally when you need her strengths most. This is the ‘greatest’ friend you will ever meet. You will experience a new part of you.
Often in life, we are faced with situations that cause fear or intimidation. it is during those moments, we must step outside of our typical personalities and pull strength from deep within to approach it differently. Whether your alter ego’s name is ‘Passion, Sheniqua, Cocoa, Crazy lady, or Sister Bertha’, she will speak, act, and think you through. You simply have to ask… ‘How would ‘_______’ approach this?… and let her come forward.
Much of the reason that true joy and passion is missing from the lives of so many is because life is lived with a sense of caution and reservedness. We trap ourselves in the confines of who we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to act. If you truly want joy and passion in your life, you have to take risks and live life with reckless abandon. It does not mean you won’t experience the ebbs and flows of life that are challenges and triumphs. However, your experience of life will no longer have that film of haziness draped over it. Ever experience will burst forth with emotion, color, and manifestation.
Allow your life to be the experience of truly living. Do not let one more moment pass where you wonder what it is all for. Do not let it become this monotonous series of days where numbness rules your existence. The world needs us to be our greatest, most authentic selves. That means allowing all of who we are to come forward when necessary.
Celebrate your alter ego…get to know your new best friend. I would love to hear about some of them and your experiences. Take charge of your life…no one can do it for you…except maybe your ALTER EGO!
Until the next…Fashion Emergency!!!
Warmest Regards,
Simran Singh