Personalities and characters

A story read by a person can be viewed from different perspectives. The reader can create different versions of the main character and also read from the perspectives of different other characters. If we are able to take an observer stance, then we can see the story from a neutral perspective and understand it without getting emotionally entangled in it. Even more, we could engage reading it from a skeptic perspective, effectively reading the story seeing the false assumptions behind the character's unique belief bubble. 

The characters within a person can engage without being aware of each other and play their own unique role from moment to moment. As an observer and a skeptic, only a third person is able to see how each character is enmeshed in its own distinctive belief system. Most of us are not aware of which characters are active, distinctively, or simultaneously, at a given point in time. As we become aware of the thoughts and beliefs, we gain a grip on our emotional reactions by a change in perspective. As we shift our perspectives consciously, we can change our beliefs and effective emotional reactions. Progressively, we become conscious of the deeper assumptions that support these beliefs and thereby drop the opinions and judgments as well. We expand and gain the skill to see things from multiple points of view. Through the right contemplation, we can cause the mind to shift through its own inherent mechanism. By intentionally changing our perspectives that are interwoven in our beliefs, the mind shifts the angle of vision through its own inherent mechanism. Subsequently, we can change our thoughts and emotional reactions. Through the application of full attention without judgment, a permanent change in the character occurs. 

Quite often, we create scenarios of the dramatic future and generate emotions, from a certain perspective. The emotions of fear, worry, anxiety and even panic attacks can be happening as a result of the expectation of a future tragedy. This expectation can come from a compilation of past events or fabrication of a future negative event. By identifying the characters assumed in the past and in the future scenarios, we can deliberately change perspectives without re-adoption of the previous character. The assumption of these future pessimistic and fearful characters is pivoted on the individual identity. The individual identity thinks negatively through a certain perspective putting us into the belief bubble of the perceived character at a given moment. 

The best way to change these automatic thinking is to change the use of the language that traps us in false identities. If we revisit the past events through the perspective of the past identity, we may experience ‘normal’ judgmental criticism, regret, anger, sadness, guilt, and shame, and we could replay it to enjoy the bitterness or the sweetness. In order to avoid the replacement of the present identity with the past one, we need to shift our seat to an and observer’s place. As we shift the character perspective, it becomes easier to let go of the associated emotional reactions. One way I do this is by calling different names to different characters I perform. I notice that my father, my mother, my siblings, my friends, my colleagues, etc., usually called my name differently. I call my current self with my spiritual name and all past characters with its special names. Thereafter, I allowed the past characters to play their roles in me and to act out their untold stories. When I listened as a third person in the present moment (change in self-perspective), I have noticed that the interpretations and effective emotions shift which in turn shifts the future characters. 

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Works Cited

Warmerdam, G. V. (2014). MindWorks: A practical guide for changing thoughts, beliefs and emotional reactions. Santa Barbara, CA: Cairn Publishing.