There is no more accurate representation of the fractured nature of the psyche than those balls you see hanging from the ceiling of the dance floor.
Everyone’s psyche is fragmented to one degree or another, and the most important contributing factor to this by far is the environment we grew up in as children.
If the conditions for healthy brain development do not exist for the young child, it will be recorded in the nervous system and manifest as behavioural symptoms. Over time, these symptoms become so entrenched we call them personality traits and use them in the diagnosis of mental illness.
We can alter the operating system underlying our personality only once we recognize how it got to be what it is in the first place. Our most unconscious traits as adults were behaviours that served us when we were children. They are out-dated to the extent that the conditions under which they developed do not exist anymore.
To this end, the problem contains its own solution: if our psyches did not get what they needed when we were children, we can always create those favourable conditions for ourselves now that we are grown and have agency over our lives.
Life is a crucible for learning; everywhere shards of glass reflect ourselves back to us, and it is our task to decipher and give meaning to these. As each piece comes into awareness, we can ask ourselves these questions: Is this a reflection of who I truly am? And if not, who am I? Who do I want to be in this moment?
We are all on our way to becoming the best possible version of ourselves. To this end, the hall of mirrors will lead us to the goal of all healing which is integrity, the state of being whole and undivided.
Margo, I have read about this and talked about this lots but never in such clear and concise words. The way you put it weight every word and none are dispensable. I love how easy to understand you made it. Thankfully science is proving our brains to be more malleable than originally thought. Like you so elegantly explain: their is room to rewrite the pathways to healthier, more useful and satisfying behaviour. Thanks Margo!