Real Self – False Self

Our baby – Our Delight
We all love or children and want them to find happiness in life. When they are first born, we delight in their every act, every funny expression, their first smile, their first step and words. We allow them the full range of expression of their personalities and desires, setting boundaries only for safety. They are selfish, demanding little dictators who do their very best to take control of everyone and everything in the periphery.

Child Training
At some point, we realize that we have to get a grip on them and their behavior lest they become juvenile delinquents and end up in prison. So we begin to place demands on them to change their behavior to comply with social norms. We teach them manners, respect for adults, respect for the rights of others and a whole list of ideas that “good” people teach their children. We use whatever means we can conceive that “work” on our children to make them comply with our new rules. We bribe them with our praise and approval. We scare them by spanking them when they resist our demands.

Personhood is not Behavior
Well informed parents recognize the distinction between a child’s person (real self) and their behaviors. The real self, while selfish and demanding is also tender, easily hurt and certain to misunderstand why parents implement their ever increasing demands. Loving parents who understand how vulnerable their children are try to protect and reassure their children while they tighten behavioral boundaries. They teach their children why they have created rules about behavior and help them to align their true desires with the expectations of society. The goal is to allow their children to express their true self and channel them into constructive avenues without suppressing the real self. It is not possible to avoid suppressing their desires but in love, parents try to minimize it as much as possible. I pray that I have given my children the love and approval they need, taught them the truth about why Christians do what they do and most of all been a good model of a Christian who serves the Lord with all of his heart because I love Him. I wish the same for you.

Real Self – False Self

The following principles have been developed from the observations of psychologists who study the patterns of human behavior. These concepts describe the adaptations children make based on conclusions they reach when they enter into the socialization process. Children adapt to the pressures exerted on them by parents and authority figures by practicing behaviors that are demanded of them. Children conclude that by adopting these overt behaviors they can gain the approval, acceptance and praise from parents, authority figures and peers and protect themselves from the pain of rejection by these same people.

These concepts track the adaptations of the real self, our original, authentic, honest self that is egocentric, selfish, demanding and resistant to authority. Under pressure to conform overt behaviors to meet social expectations, children create a false self, actually layers of false selves that serve as masks and roles played that please the authority figures over them. The adoption of overt behaviors that conflict with the true desires in their hearts causes children to abandon their real feelings and identify their personhood with these false constructs termed the false self.

1. Synonyms for Real Self: True self, Child within, Inner child, Deepest self, Inner core.

2. At the core of our inner experience, under the layers of learned behavior and defensive adaptations, is the real self, the childish self with which we began.
· We began life as a child with childish thoughts, feelings and expressions.
· At our core, we are still the child who is genuine, authentic, honest & real.
· Our real self is needy, selfish, self indulgent, fearful and demanding of others
· Our real self is genuinely simple, uncomplicated, need focused & relational
· Our real self is naïve, believes easily, acts on what he/she believes
· Our real self is shamelessly aware of our needs, unafraid to selfishly pursue our needs, willing to use any means to receive our needs from others.

3. The false self is a learned strategy that is put around the real self to evoke approval, acceptance & praise from people and prevent disapproval, rejection & anger from significant people in our life.
· Real self’s honest, selfish, demanding approach is not acceptable in society.
· Parents & other authority figures exert pressure on children to comply with their demands and adopt acceptable behaviors in exchange for approval & praise.
· Children, unable to orient to God, comply with the demands of parents, authority to gain the approval, acceptance & praise they crave.
· False self consists of overt behaviors that play the part, assume the characteristics that were expected for the purpose of pleasing parents in exchange for their approval.
· Children build a false self, built in layers, by putting on specific behaviors that comply with expectations during different phases of human development.
· At every stage of growth, new and different demands are made and forced upon children who comply by playing the part expected, to gain the needed approval.

4. Initially, parents accept & delight in our real self, overlook our selfishness, comply with our demands and express affection unconditionally regardless of our behavior.
· Parents are delighted with babies, lavish affection on them without expectation of any behaviors and praise them for every action they perform.
· From birth until parents begin to train children, the child is allowed and even encouraged to express his real self for which he is praised and rewarded with laughter and affection.

5. When parents begin to train children, to bring them into compliance with social norms, the rules of the game change for children.
· Specific behaviors are demanded in exchange for approval & praise.
· When children resist, parents often use pain to induce obedience
· When children resist, parents can withhold affection, approval and praise.
· When children comply with parental demands, approval is used as a reward
· Children confuse love that gives them self worth with the approval for compliance
· Children believe that the love they need is dependent upon their compliance with parental demands to practice specific overt behaviors.
· Children adopt and practice behaviors they believe will give approval and praise.
· Children learn a human works system that succeeds in gaining the approval they crave from parents, peers and everyone they deem important.

6. Under pressure from others, children learn to practice specific desired behaviors in order to gain or maintain the approval/love they crave.
· These overt behaviors are not a genuine expression of a child’s changed belief system
· The overt behaviors adopted are in conflict with the child’s genuine desires and natural ways of expressing himself.
· The overt behaviors become a necessary role that children play to be accepted.
· Children adopt a false self, a self that is not in concert with their inner desires but a self that does whatever is expected to gain the pleasure of approval and avoids the pain of disapproval from those they need to meet their needs.

7. The real self is left behind & forgotten in the child’s heart as layer upon layer of different roles are adopted in order to comply with parental and peer expectations.
· The child rightly concludes that the honest expression of his selfish, demanding real self is not valued but produces pain and rejection from parents.
· The child rightly concludes that his real self has no value to produce approval from parents or peers because only specific overt behaviors are accepted.
· The child devalues his real self, abandons his honest cravings & feelings by repressing them, he becomes numb to his true self, no longer aware of his real self.

8. The child builds layers of pretense by compliance with social demands, loses touch with his real self and identifies his self with the false self he has constructed.
· The real self has no value to produce approval, therefore he/she concludes that he/she has no intrinsic value – this causes the self the ultimate pain of rejection.
· The pain of rejection must be minimized so the self implements the defense mechanism of repression through going numb & forgetting the real self.
· The child views self as the false self that produces the desired result – approval.

9. By the time we reach adulthood, we have put on layers of expected behaviors from parents, peers, teachers, coaches, the world and anyone else we give the power to accept or reject us by caring about them and what they think of us.
· Peter had long ago lost touch with the real condition of his soul, had identified himself with his pretense of manhood and was committed to playing his part.
· Peter truly believes he can produce courage and loyalty from his human will, believes that is what God desires from him and believes if he is able to produce courage and loyalty that God will be pleased.
· Peter’s real self is still needy, fearful and totally alienated from the reality of God’s grace and what God truly desires from the believer.
· New believers learn the system of desired behaviors, learn what is considered worthy of approval and adopt these behaviors as a new role to play out using the power of human ability and human will.
· We enter into the Christian life using the only skills we know, using the only strategies that have ever worked for us and assume that God expects the same things that our parents, peers and others expected.

10. At the moment of salvation, God gives us His righteousness in Christ making our real self as worthy as Jesus, by grace, before we have a chance to perform any behaviors.
· God invests value in our real self, rejects our false self, rejects the strategies that built the false self and has no interest in works produced by human ability or will power.
· God never asks or expects us to produce overt behaviors that are not in concert with our inner desires and true motives.
· God never asks or expects us to play a part or produce overt behaviors that create the appearance of spirituality apart from the power of the Spirit in concert with genuine love for Him and desire to please Him.
· God’s plan is for us to lay aside the false self, to reject role playing, reject man’s expectations and reject the practice of overt behaviors to gain man’s approval.
· God’s plan is for us to become totally honest about what we truly want, what we are thinking, what we are truly feeling at any moment regardless of whether our desires, thoughts and feelings align with His essence or not.

11. God gives us a new nature that is connected to the real self and enters us into His plan of transformation that takes off the false self/old man and replaces it with the new man that is aligned with the beliefs of Christ.
· We must take off the layers of the false self, the human works systems, the human good systems that we have used to gain approval from man.
· The old man is populated by these different false systems of behaviors we use to please people and gain their approval.
· The new nature and new man is totally honest, genuine, pretends about nothing, uses only truth, practices only truthfulness, rejects pretense and works only because he loves God, never to gain man’s approval.