The Personality's Broken Legs

From the book "Contemporary Parables"
by Robert Elias Najemy

It is important to begin to realize that our personality is just like our body. It is not our true self, but rather a vehicle, or "mental body", through which our true self, the soul, is expressing itself. We tend to be more detached from our physical bodies than from our «emotional body» or «personality body».

For example, we would not reject someone because he has gallstones, a malfunctioning kidney, high blood pressure, a broken leg or cancer. We accept these physical weakness as natural and as no reason to reject someone or withdraw our love or approval.

On the other hand, we do tend to reject people when they are lazy, negative, egotistical, fearful, weak, jealous, angry or aggressive. What we need to understand is that these emotional weaknesses are no different than our physical weaknesses. They are a natural part of our limited temporal existence in these physical and emotional bodies.

You may be interested to know that the legs, which most personalities have broken in their childhood years and seldom mend completely, even though many years have passed, are the legs called «self-confidence» and «self acceptance» or «self esteem». When these emotional legs are broken in childhood by, perhaps well meaning but often ignorant, parents and teachers, that person’s personality manifests a number of negative traits, which require understanding, love and help in mending, rather than rejection or criticism.

Having a "jealousy problem" or a "laziness problem" is like having a «liver problem». It is not reason for rejecting ourselves or others. We do, however, want to see what is causing it, so that we can cure it. In the same way, it makes no sense to reject ourselves or others for being weak, or fearful, or aggressive. The most useful approach would be to recognize that this problem exists, and try to find the cause within ourselves and others.

The next time we recognize some weakness or negative trait within ourselves or others, rather than criticize and reject, let us remember what we have said here, and think «my personality has a broken leg», or «his personality has a broken leg». Then let us ask what we can do to help ourselves or the other, mend our legs.

Remember this simple truth concerning yourself and others.