According to Freud, the personality is composed of 3 parts: The Id, Ego and the Superego. The Id is the pleasure principle. It is the part of ourselves that develops to meet our wants, needs and desires. The ego is the reasoning aspect of the Id. It is the part of ourselves that progresses forward to justify and self realize the aspects of the Id in a way that protects us from getting hurt or feeling grief. The superego is a deeply embedded consciousness which is composed of ideals constructed from society, our environment and our parents. The superego’s sole aim is perfection. What is the purpose of the personality and does it ultimately serve us or destroy us?

The consciousness is a sensitive relationship between the mental and emotional space. It is constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed through time, based on how we’re assimilating experiences. While we initially have natural tendencies, gifts and abilities that become embedded as part of this personality, through time we begin to acquire new ideas, observations and reactions that dictate to our consciousness how we can successfully go about meeting our needs. Hierarchically, every human has basic physical needs like food and water, followed by the need for safety-like health and resources. Thereafter, the human seeks to fulfill the needs of love met by friends, family and sexual intimacy and ultimately seeks self esteem and self actualization. Let me clarify that these needs are not separate. They are completely interrelated. In most cases, not having one of the needs met, affects your ability to meet the remaining needs of the hierarchy. Our highly complex and intelligent consciousness coexists with the complexity of survival and develops a coping mechanism that is primarily socially constructed, called the “personality.” We develop this personality in order to meet our needs.

We may only understand our personality through our relationship to others. The more conflict we have in our relationships either in the family, at work or romantically the clearer we can detect the story that we’re telling ourselves. Through time, our experiences cultivate deeply embedded belief systems. As we go through life and find that our needs are not always being met, we begin to manufacture ideas about the external and therefore internal reality. We come to believe that we are lacking something, that we are unlovable, that we’re not strong enough or good enough, that we’re powerless, insignificant, alienated etc and we embed these belief systems in our personality. As a result, the human will manufacture a personality to cope with these painful beliefs. In this sense, the personality is developed to protect and validate you, but ultimately pushes you further from your true self, which is pure love.

The personality is a creative presence. It is the self-created product of your emotional landscape. It is fluid and dependent on the internal reality for its existence. It evolves based on the conditions you believe will meet your needs. As we are living and operating in a universe driven by the law of oneness, it is important to note that we are all codependent on one another. It is not possible to meet all of our needs by ourselves. However, as independent creatures of infinite potential and free will we are able to create any desire to the degree that we are aware of the possibility of that desire. In other words, if something is impossible or unattainable for you, through the law of attraction you cannot actualize it. As you have believed, so it shall be. This makes possibility the single most important source of your happiness. If your personality is based on beliefs that love, health, wealth, survival, connection and safety are not possible, then you are moving through life as a prisoner of your insecurities.

When we see life in terms of infinite potential we are able to heal our misconstrued and dysfunctional beliefs, thus coming into union with our true selves. The True self knows that God is the ultimate creator and provider, and has complete faith in the laws of the universe. This faith deconstructs the falsity and insecurity of our own self-rejection, bringing us into greater alignment with all of life. As we come to embody a life that is aligned with God we enable a higher self to step forward. Let us live by the great words of the visionary Fyodor Dostoyevsky: “Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”