emERGe

“What is necessary to change a person, is to change his awareness of self. -Abraham Maslow

The short and sweet of this theory is that you have to be comfortable in an area to grow. If you’re not comfortable in that area – you’ll move to a lower priority area until you can refocus. This theory changed the structure from a hierarchy to more of a revolving door, allowing some wiggle room from Maslow’s original theory. As you gain awareness and skill in your lower priority needs, you’ll be able to advance to higher ones and start going through a cycle of growth. At any time you can be put back into any category, depending on what is happening and which needs are being unmet. It can get rather confusing to talk about in general, so I like to think about personally. I was doing good, progressing in many areas, my existence was solid and secure, I enjoyed my support system. About a year ago all of that changed. My existence got shaken, I wasn’t so secure anymore. I didn’t lose my progress in those areas I had learned before, but it completely changed my cycle. I’ve been feeling rather stuck in the existence stage of the ERG Theory. It makes relating and growing very difficult.

Now for the fun. If you know your MBTI preferences you can actually determine the best way to work through the different stages of growth. During our struggles we generally go into an auto-pilot of our main two functions. While this helps us survive, it doesn’t help us grow and can cause us to get stuck in our perspective personality loops. Here we merely exist. We can, instead, use our backup functions to create a balance and forward momentum. While we’re in that stage of growth we can then use our main two functions to operate and naturally drive us forward. Once we find a balance it’s very easy to then regress through the cycle, though we should remember that each time through the cycle strengthens us and gives us the opportunity to learn. We also have our shadow functions to think of. These tend to live in the outskirts of our personalities and come to light most when we’re under the most pressure.

Our shadow functions are those we try to repress. That side of yourself you don’t want to see when you look in the mirror. We all have one. When we’re confident in our existence and our primary function stack is strong, we can begin to look deeper within ourselves. Bringing our shadow functions into the light, spending time with them, learning them, seeing how we could love them more – this is growth. So first we grow by improving our lesser preferred functions, and then we continue going through the cycle until we feel more balanced. After that, most people are content. If you’re like me and constantly look for ways to improve/heal/grow it won’t stop there. So we look to the things we don’t prefer. We look to the shadows and shine some light.

Have you ever had a moment where you’re so stressed or overwhelmed that you do something out of character? Have you ever made an impulsive decision and later wondered why? These are your shadow functions stepping in. Though we don’t prefer them, and possibly abhor them, we still have them. They are part of us whether we’re willing to acknowledge them or not. This leaves us with the question of relying on the subconscious or bringing it to light so we can hone the skill for when necessary. Depending on your level of comfort with yourself this can be good or bad. I like to put it this way:

Primary function stack: our ego Shadow function stack: our head Emotions, our heart, also play a part.

So when you’re up at night and everything seems to be at war inside of you, this is actually your different function stacks competing for dominance. Ignore them and you risk them growing strong enough to overpower. Embrace them too much and you’ll cause yourself pain. Rely only on your ego and…I’ll let you draw your own conclusion there. For my more logical side I like to think of my function stacks as the set variables in the equation of who I am. Regardless of the strength they possess, my variables remain the same. My heart is the unknown factor. Depending on the sress it is enduring, the decisions I make will fall to either side. For me it looks a little like this:

(NixFexTixSex) + (FixNexSixTex) ^ <+/-3 = ME Primary Stack(ego) plus Shadow Stack(head) raised to the power of a happy/hurting heart = ME

For a list of the function stacks and what their shadows are, this post does fairly well with descriptions. For the purposes of this post, I’ve included the list of functions and shadow functions below.

http://www.cognitiveprocesses.com/16Types/16Types.cfm

By being aware of our shadow functions, and becoming more comfortable with them allows us to better understand ourselves. Though at times this is kinda opposite for introverted types, because we tend to show our shadow functions to the world. It’s a way of protection, but also very insightful into just how bad the world stresses us at any given time. That’s why it’s important to make sure your primary function stack is strong before focusing on your shadow stack.

A healthy ego is NOT a bad thing. It can put you on solid footing, it can allow you to exist without further regressing, it can put you in a place where you WANT to heal and you WANT to grow. Many trauma victims struggle here because we’ve been put through so many times where our shadow functions stepped in to save us, we may not know up from down anymore. In this instance reaching into the shadows can be as healing as it is harmful. Proceed with caution.

Again, the heart also plays that unknown variable on whether we can accept this side of ourselves. Understanding is not acceptance; in case you’ve never heard me say that before. Bringing these things to light and working on them can often lead us into remembering things we don’t want to, looking at ourselves in a different light, and having to be really open with ourselves. If that isn’t something you have strength in – I would definitely advise seeking help. If it feels like acknowledging or working on these functions may break you, I would recommend working on your primary functions first.