Beyond Jekyll & Hyde – Outgrowing our fear of ourselves

When you’re dealing with the part of yourself that’s getting in your way, it’s helpful sometimes to grab onto a metaphor - an image or idea - that helps you understand what’s going on.

But what if that metaphor is making things worse?

I read a post a month ago by Marelisa where she did an excellent review of a book by Theodore Bryant called “Self-Discipline in 10 Days: How to Go From Thinking to Doing”. Her post was very well written (and I thank her hugely for the inspiration), but Bryant’s book sums up every single thing that I object to about classic ‘self-discipline” thinking.

And the metaphor he uses for our inner impulses toward action and avoidance of it is, of course, Jekyll and Hyde.

By the time I finished reading the article, I was ranting. When I’d finished my rant, I realized that I had finally summed up the essence of why I believe this traditional view is so un-supportive of our growth.

Today, I want to take apart the Jekyll and Hyde metaphor and show you why it’s so very damaging and why we MUST outgrow it in order to create truly healthy, encouraging relationships with ourselves.

Mr. Hyde is an icon for our fear of what’s inside us.

Most of the people who use the image of Mr. Hyde these days do so pretty lightly. They sometimes paint him as a kind of trickster or mischief or someone who just enjoys going against our decided course of action and messing things up.

But his image is actually much darker.

The reason that Robert Louis Stevenson’s original book was so powerful, and so horribly fascinating, in 1886 was that Mr. Hyde was a character of pure evil with no human mixture of both good and bad. Other characters felt disgust for him immediately without being able to say why.

There’s no middle ground with Hyde. No grey area. He’s all bad and he lurks within. The idea that there might be something that dark in us brings up as much fear now as it did when the book was first published.

And the thing about an icon is that the mere mention of it calls up everything it represents in our subconscious, whether we’re aware of it or not.

So every time we invoke him, we’re telling ourselves there’s something in us to be very afraid of. And that shuts down all our impulses to explore our inner world.

Hyde is also an icon for the “inner enemy”.

This image puts us into a battle with something inside us that we can’t quite see or name.

It creates a constant tension, an “us and them” mentality within our very self that means we need to constantly use our energy to keep up the fight and keep our unknown enemy from winning.

As some of you know, it’s the battle metaphors that really set my teeth on edge when it comes to working with resistance.

And that’s one more reason that I truly hate this image. It consigns us to a lifetime of using up all our energy in a battle with something that will never go away.

So now, let me tell you 2 things very, very clearly:

#1 – NOTHING in you has EVER been your enemy!

Read that again and let it really sink in.

EVERY single impulse you’ve ever had, EVERY action you’ve ever taken, EVERY behaviour you’ve ever engaged in, even the darkest ones you can think of, have been in the service of your ultimate protection, survival and ability to meet your needs and thrive.

There’s nothing in you to fight against.

There are definitely parts of you that believe that going towards your stated desires and intentions won’t be safe for you. And they’ll get in your way if they think they must.

And there are also more instinctive parts of you that might not want to act in accordance with your higher intentions. They’re more like children that simply need a parent around for firm direction.

But what these parts are calling for is deep questioning, compassion and understanding in order to address the buried fears, impulses and safety needs.

As soon as they’re brought into your awarness, you get to meet them in the best way you can and move forward without a battle.

What would it feel like to relax into a deep knowing that every single part of you is working for you and can be trusted and guided?

And what if you knew that, far from trying to mess with you and thwart you, these parts of you actually WANT you to show up in all your loving awareness and bring the guidance and healing they need?

How would that change your relationship with them?

And now for the second place where Hyde misses the mark:

#2 – You have NO bad parts!

Read that again, slowly, and breathe.

You only have qualities that have been buried, wounded or thwarted into less than constructive and beautiful expressions of themselves.

And what they need is not more denial and ignoring. Their thwarted expressions and behaviours begin to transform with even the slightest amounts of love and attention.

But when we grab hold of a metaphor that makes us fear, mistrust and ignore these parts of ourselves, we close down all possibility for real dialogue and healing to happen.

We need a metaphor that encourages exploring and deep inner friendship.

 I’m not sure what that metaphor would be right now, but I sure as heck want to see Jekyll and Hyde replaced permanently!

For me, this quest to understand and guide all the parts of me is really more like a treasure hunt. And the treasure is what our denied parts become when they’re honoured and allowed to find balanced expressions in our lives.

What are your metaphors for YOUR inner parts or your resistance? How do they work for you?

What do you feel when you think of the Jekyll and Hyde metaphor and what would you like to feel about these parts of yourself?

I really want to hear your thoughts and ideas below. Please share a comment! I’d love to see this whole conversation evolve over the next few weeks and months as I share the next installments of “the rant”.

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