Chapter 8
Connection and Disconnection
Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.
—Hafiz
In review, the personality self is the part of us that identifies with our experiences, whether on a conscious or unconscious level, and our spirit self is our true or authentic self that knows our perfection and our innocence. The connection or disconnection we experience with either our personality self or our spirit self can be confusing, especially when we look around and see so many variations within different individuals. From a psycho-spiritual perspective, let’s explore what it means to be connected or disconnected to both the personality self and the spirit self.
Being disconnected from our personality self means that we are unconscious of and in denial about certain beliefs we hold about ourselves. When we are connected, it means that we are consciously aware of the beliefs we hold about ourselves. We might not like some of those beliefs, and they might cause us to feel various unpleasant emotions, but we are aware of them, and we know what we believe.
To offer an example, I had a client, “Mary,” who held a responsible job but had not gone to college even though she really wanted to. She was raised to believe that she was not, in her words, “college material.” We talked about her desire to attend college and whether she had anything to lose by trying. She said she did not, and told me that she wanted to start classes as soon as she could and that she would pick up an application to a nearby college before our next session. When we met again the following week, she stated several reasons why she had been too busy to pick up the application. She said she planned to get it in the next few days. The following week, she again had