We all shift into different views and identities throughout the day, fluidly, depending on the situation. We may not always like it, and sometimes we do, but it happens anyway.

We shift into different voices or subpersonalities, taking on their perspectives, seeing and feeling the world from their viewpoints, relating to the world from their place.

And that is why we can shift in this way on command (or invitation) as well, sometimes with surprising ease, for instance in the context of voice dialog or the Big Mind process.

But what are those voices? Are they little men, women, animals, creatures, living in us, pulling our strings?

Here is a quick summary of what comes up for me when I look…

• Each voice (subpersonality) is created from a story or combination of stories.
  • The story of separation creates fear.
  • The story of need creates wants.
  • The story of an identity gives flavor to attractions and aversions.
  • The story of loss creates sadness.
  • The story of wrong creates anger.
  • The story of lack creates seeking.
  • The story of fullness creates non-seeking.
• Each voice has its own perspective, viewpoint, and filters the world in a particular way.
• There are story, emotional and action components to each voice, all following from the initial story.
• Voices can be identified with, disowned, or owned, familiar and free to function yet not taken as an “I”.
  • When voices are closely identified with, there is a belief in the stories creating them. (This tends to lead to a disowning of the polar opposite voices, and the validity of the reversals of the story.)
  • When voices are disowned, the validity of the stories creating them is also disowned.
  • When voices and their polar opposites are all familiar and owned, there is a fluidity among them. Each one is free to function when needed, and none of them are taken as an “I”.
• These voices and stories can be identified with or not.
  • We are identified with a voice when we disown its polar opposites, just as we believe in a story when we deny the validity of its reversals. The voices and stories are taken as an I, we get caught up in the drama of it, and it all seems very real.
  • Identification is released out of a voice when we embrace, own and become familiar with it and all of its opposites, just a belief is released when we find the validity of its reversals. In this case, there is a fluidity among them, each one available to come out when the situation calls for it. From a voice appearing as “I” and a story as the absolute truth, they are revealed as simply tools for this human self to operate in the world.

So in the Big Mind process, we explore all the different voices, the gestalts of stories, emotions and behaviors created from an initial, often quite simple, story. We gradually disidentify with those we are overly identified with. We become familiar with and own those that were previously disowned. We find a larger space holding voices at each end of the polarities and find a new fluidity among them. Our identity expands to hold and be comfortable with more and more voices.

In The Work, there is a quite similar process. We find a belief and question it, finding what is already more true for us. Our identification releases out of the initial story and expands to embrace the validity of all of its reversals as well. We find a new fluidity among and within this initial story and each of its reversals.

And each of those stories have its own gestalt. They each have associated emotions and behaviors. So we (are invited to) find a new familiarity and fluidity with these as well, in our daily life.

Each of these gestalts, these voices, are more familiar, owned, part of the active repertoire of our human self. There is more of a fluidity among them in daily life. And less identification with them.

They just happen. Living their own life, on their own schedule. There is no “I” there, anywhere.

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A portion of what we think of as being human are effects of beliefs. It is the portion that has to do with a rigid view, reactive emotions and behaviors, and a more closed heart.

How do we relate to this part of our humanness?

Often, we defend it. We find reasons why it is right and even good. Or we may be ashamed, unable to change it much even as we see it unfold. We may blindly be in the grips of it, experiencing it and also living it out in ways we sometimes regret afterwards. We may distract ourselves from it as much as possible. We may try to stuff it, holding it back, resisting the experience or living from it.

Or we may work with it more consciously.

We can allow these parts their voice and insights, through Process Work, Voice Dialog or the Big Mind process. We can step into their perspective, and see what they have to say to our human self, what they ask of us, what their contributions are, what gifts they offer, and how our human self can relate to them in a more constructive way, and how they can help our human self in a more constructive way.

We can allow the experience fully. We can fully allow the anger, sadness, pain, frustration, or whatever it may be. Just by releasing identification with the resistance to it, a lot changes. There is a release of identification with the dynamic as a whole (whatever arises and the resistance to it), which gives a sense of freedom from it, and even an opportunity of a more conscious choice in how to relate to it and express it.

We can use it as a pointer or invitation to explore more in detail what is going on. For instance, what is the belief behind the reactiveness? Is it true? What happens when I believe that thought? Who would I be without it? What are the grain of truths in its turnarounds?

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Many traditions have ways of bringing all of us into transformative processes.

In Tibetan Buddhism, it is done - among other ways - through visualizing all beings taking refuge with us, during the first of the four ngondro practices, each done a hundred thousand times. In Shamanic traditions, by inviting in the protectors from the six directions. In Christianity, through the Christ meditation where Christ is visualized in the six directions and the heart. In many traditions, through prayer or well-wishing for all beings, including our enemies and those in the hell realms. And so on.

In each of these apart from the Christ meditation, there is an intention and visualization of all beings aligned… in taking refuge in Buddha nature, in participating in sacred space, being included in healing and awakening. And even the Christ meditation has a sense of completeness and absolute inclusion in it, by visualizing Christ in all directions and in the heart.

And each of these is a way of inviting all of us to participate, and to align all parts of us. Using voice dialog language, each subpersonality or voice is invited to join and align in the same overall purpose of healing and awakening of the mind and heart.

In addition, it helps us see all beings in the same boat in different ways. All beings are taking part in this sacred process of life. All have the potential for awakening, and all have Buddha nature. We can learn to see beyond the surface ripples of contraction, and see how we each seek happiness and freedom from suffering, and all are awakeness.