Rabbit Write

From the ages of twelve to thirteen, I was s fangirl. My affinity for The Spice Girls reached obsession. I collected any hot pink item with the band’s name on it, covered my room in posters of Ginger Spice and spent the day crying when she left the group. Recently, on a lazy Saturday, Ned and I decided to watch Spiceworld, for nostalgic kicks. About ten minutes into the movie Ned said “I get it…it’s like the Sex and the City thing.”

To an extent he was right. Both the Spice Girls and Sex and the City were wildly popular and worked because of the unbreakable group of distinct characters. It’s not because there is one girl in both groups that we can each relate to — you are not one Spice Girl or one Sex and the City character but all of them, the personalities taken together make one whole woman.

If you’ve ever felt at war with yourself as different voices carry on in your head, or if you’ve ever found yourself saying “well, a part of me wants to…” you are know that you are made up of different selves–or parts.

Parts can seem simple — like a self attack part that seems stuck spewing the same few sentences over and over — or parts can be complex — such as a  personality that takes hold of you with distinct preferences and styles of talking and dressing. According to psychologist, Dick Schwartz most of his clients can conjure up images for these sub-selves. Schwartz says in a sense we all are made up of multiple personalities, “The condition we call multiple personality disorder only represents an extremely disengaged and polarized version of the ordinary operation of our internal system.”

It now seems easy to see why artists like Madonna or Tori Amos have achieved such success and attract intrigue. They both seem to whole heartedly embrace (or perhaps become consumed by) parts. Madonna and Tori become a one woman show for their respective internal system, making them visible for all to see and experience.

The Spice Girls represent the cast of internal characters, but you can still have a favorite Spice Girl. Sometimes one part of the internal system can become louder than the rest, taking over. As this highlighted part takes over it can become enmeshed with the “self”, to those around you you appear to just be this part. You may also confuse your “self” with this inflated aspect of yourself.

Schultz likens the way the self and the parts work together to an orchestra where the parts are musicians and the self is the conductor. Where the orchestra runs into trouble according to Schultz is when the conductor favors one section over another, or if the conductor cannot keep a perspective on how the symphony as a whole should sound…or if the conductor stops conducting all together!

In these situations the symphony becomes cacophonous. But there is always the potential for harmony. As Schultz writes, a good conductor has a sense for the value of each instrument and can sense the best point in a symphony to draw out one section over the other, just as good musicians can silence their instrument at the right time and respect the conductor’s judgment. This harmony is called being centered.

I can’t think of any pop culture references or characters that do a really good job of representing the complexities of a person.  The stereotypes in the metaphors laid out are pretty generic, we have the tomboy one: Sporty or Scary AKA Miranda, the sexy one: Ginger AKA Samantha, the innocent one: Baby AKA Charlotte and the self centered one: Posh AKA Carrie. After thinking about this I can’t watch an episode of Sex and the City without viewing it Fight Club style, meaning, Carrie is a crazy person…her friends don’t exist and she is actually the one with all the tribulations, dates and one night stands… making her one busy lady.

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