#3 - Identify Our Micro-Voices (part 1)
Updated: Mar 20, 2023
Common descriptions of the personality hold that we have an ego that drives us. This is much too simplistic to be useful for understanding the dynamics behind our thoughts and actions. We are a collection of loosely connected entities referred to here as micro-voices. Each entity is selfishly intent on managing an aspect of our life as it protects our Inner Child. These entities are just energies we hold within us but we use micro-voice terms as a way to better understand these held energies.
Think of a group of children in a large room together. Some are gregarious and playful, some are withdrawn and shy, some are leaders, some are manipulators, some are easily angered, and some are the peacemakers. Each child brings unique aspects to the group with individual needs, with their own survival skills in place, and with their own view of what their role is to be within the group.
Our micro-voices interact similarly with our other micro-voices. Each voice has its own set of developed skills, its own responses to specific challenges, and its own needs. There is no one micro-voice representing who we are.
To carry the group-of-children analogy further there will be some dominant and passive members reflecting a range of emotional energies as well. Each one is on a continuum of learned abilities to function within the situation. Change the situation and each child will likely behave differently to the new circumstances but still the same within its learned way of interacting with the world.
But there will be some dominant personality types each child presents. There can be passive controllers and dominant controllers. Some are judgers and critical of others while some negotiate through the differences that arise by rounding up willing collaborators to forge ahead. Those who are shy might find other shy-types and create a safe clique to play within. Each child has distinctive skills and unique responses to situations.
We can create a list of our own unique character micro-voices. But more than just lists of each character type our list needs to break down the features we can identify within each character voice. Listing a judger voice can be further refined by who we are judging, what type of behaviors do we use to express our judgment, what situations bring out our judgment, going as deeply as we feel comfortable exploring.
This process can in time identify dozens of micro-voice entities. The dominant will come out first and will even try to prevent minor, more passive voices from being heard. It is helpful to do this at various times since each voice has its own comfort level for being seen. As they begin appearing on the page, we can also begin to see those voices that support each other just like the shy group of children.
This can be a very difficult process to engage in since voice creation stems from difficult, even very traumatic circumstances and focusing on deeper voice energies means revisiting some of those original experiences. When doing this self-discovery we can go at a slow pace, gradually getting comfortable recognizing what our emotional energies are, and opening ourselves to taking even further exploratory steps. - kc
