One mind or many?

Have you ever heard someone say when considering their opinion on an issue or topic, “I’m in two minds about it”?  Or perhaps you’ve found yourself wrangling with a decision and noticed yourself thinking “my head says one thing but my heart says another”? If you have then you’ve come across the phenomenon of multi-minds. This is the understanding that we are all made up of a variety of different selves which have developed as a result of our past experiences in interaction with the different roles we hold in our day to day lives and our lived experience of our biological and emotional urges alongside our intrinsic personalities. Each mind and the self that goes with it is theorised to have its own area of the brain.

To demonstrate the idea further, examples of the different selves that we might have include a forgiving self, an ambitious self, a sexual self, a loving self and a perfectionistic self. In day to day life these selves can be varyingly active, according to what we are doing (e.g. at work or at home with our family), what is happening in our body (e.g. feeling hungry or energetic) and the emotions we are experiencing (e.g. feeling excited or loving.)

When I think about this, the fact that these different selves can exist together is a pretty amazing organisational feat! What also occurs to me is that it makes sense that there will of course be times when our different selves and their motives might be in direct contrast to each other. For example, we might find ourselves feeling energetic and ambitious in a situation where someone we care about is distressed and needs our loving care. It can be at these times that the conflict between our different minds and the sense of self these each give us can create emotions such as anxiety, anger, or low mood that we might find difficult to navigate. It is no wonder we sometimes fall apart, what is amazing is that we so often manage to keep it all together.

And what do we need in those times when we feel as if the coherence between our different selves is ‘falling apart’? A way to have a compassionate understanding and approach to ourselves, knowing that our minds are navigating something pretty complex and amazing in an increasingly complicated world.