The Self Compass: Hope for Personality Disorders

There is a curious paradox rooted in personality patterns. Each of them possesses a particular virtue unique to that pattern. 

Yet it is only accessible by embracing your whole Self Compass. If you have been stuck on the Assertion compass point in the Rule-breaker pattern, for example, it is only by embracing the caring of the Love compass point that you reap the virtue of creativity inherent in the Rule-breaker pattern.

This is because true creativity requires caring for others. Without it, creativity deteriorates into manipulative ploys to deceive. But once Rule-breakers reach for the Love compass point, energy used for deception shifts to creative enhancement of others' lives as well as sincere self-expression.

As rigid patterns fall away, in their stead comes the harvest of your labor: Compass Virtues. Virtues that can now sprout forth as fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22). Why? Because you are surrendering your patterns to the Lord. 

Here are the Compass Virtues charted on the Self Compass:

Compass Virtues

• The Dependent Pleaser and Histrionic Storyteller patterns yield to the Love compass point virtues of charity and good cheer. 
• The Paranoid Arguer and Antisocial Rule-breaker patterns give way to the Assertion compass point virtues of courage and creativity. 
• The Avoidant Worrier and Schizoid Loner patterns transform into the Weakness compass point virtues of empathy and objectivity. 
• And the Narcissistic Boaster and Compulsive Controller patterns find wholeness in the Strength compass point virtues of autonomy and discipline.

The rhythmic and self-correcting polarities of Love, Assertion, Weakness and Strength, combined with a deep reliance on Christ, support your transformation from the inside out.

Notice how a person’s trust in God anchors the center of the Self Compass. Most of the time, serenity replaces the fear produced by personality patterns when you “trust in the Lord with all your heart” (Prov 3:5).

Jesus encourages us in this hope for personality transformation when he says, "You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16).

For more, read:

THE SELF COMPASS: 

CHARTING YOUR PERSONALITY IN CHRIST

Billy Graham Through the Lens of the Self Compass

Most of us find great people fascinating. We want to know what they believe, what hardships they've lived through, and what legacy they hope to leave. Billy Graham is such a person. Not many who live nearly a century are able to tell the world what they've held most dear for a lifetime. In his book Nearing Home, written at the age of ninety-three, Graham does just that. 

Dr. Billy Graham at the Billy Graham Library

Using the Self Compass as a lens for seeing into Billy Graham's personality and life perspective, I've organized quotes from Nearing Home into the compass categories of Love and Assertion, Weakness and Strength.

LOVE COMPASS POINT

"God proved His love on the cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, 'I love you.'"

"When we come to Christ and trust Him alone for our salvation, God forgives our sins, and we become reconciled to Him forever. He also comes to live with His Holy Spirit and adopt us into His family as sons and daughters. And because we now belong to Him we will be with Him in heaven some day. In the meantime He is with us every moment of the day, to the very end of our earthly journey."

"One of my saddest moments was when Ruth preceded me in death. I watched her suffer with dignity, with feisty humor, and with a gentle spirit ready to meet our Lord. She taught me so much about the last chapter of life. Knowing where she is, the One she is with, and the fact that I will be with her soon are of monumental comfort to me."

ASSERTION COMPASS POINT

"At the time of our personal surrender and acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, He commands us to walk in His footsteps. Receiving His power gives us courage to follow him and abide in His presence."

"For many years I made it a practice to read a chapter a day from the book of Proverbs, thus covering the entire book every month. Proverbs is filled with practical wisdom on a wide variety of topics: relationships, possessions, family, speech, work, habits, and so much more. The Bible is our authority in everything."

"God wants to use you right where you are. Every day you probably come into contact with people who will never enter a church or talk with a pastor or open a Bible. You may be the bridge God uses to bring them to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ."

WEAKNESS COMPASS POINT

"Grief is a reality; those who say that we shouldn't grieve the loss of loved ones 'because they're better off now' have never understood the enormous hole that is left in our hearts when loved ones die. Yes, they may be better off if they are in Heaven—but we aren't better off. A major part of our lives has been ripped from us, and just as it takes time to heal from a major surgery, so it takes time to heal from the loss of a loved one."

"Death is always an intruder, even when it is expected. It disrupts our lives and brings grief in its wake. No one welcomes death's legacy of pain and emptiness and loneliness—but God has not abandoned us and even in the midst of life's greatest sorrows His Word is still true: 'Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you' (Hebrews 13:5)."

"Why is it that money, success, and pleasure bring no lasting satisfaction? Because they ignore one of life's greatest truths: we don't have just bodies and minds, but we also have souls, also called spirits. If we ignore this truth—if we feed our bodies but starve our souls—our lives will be incomplete and unfulfilled, and we will find ourselves weak and unprepared for life's inevitable challenges."

STRENGTH COMPASS POINT

"George Beverly Shea enjoys life at a hundred and two. He considers me his younger friend. Those who are blessed with living a healthy and full life for a century and counting are in a class of their own. Many often ask why Bev can so effectively communicate with the young. I believe the reason is that Bev embraces his age with grace and humor and people are drawn to that authenticity. They are invigorated by his good spirit and his testimony to what the Lord Jesus means to him."

"God doesn't want us to waste our later years or spend them in superficial meaningless pursuits. Instead He wants us to use them in whatever ways we can infuence those whill come after us. God wants us to finish well—and one of the ways we do this is by passing on our values and our faith to those who follow us."

"No matter what our age nothing prepares us for the future like a solid moral and spiritual foundation based on God's will for our lives."

In what may well be the his last written words, Graham closes Nearing Home with an assuring word to every Christian:

"For those who have received the most precious gift of Christ's redeemed blood...you have reason to look forward to the glories of Heaven, for you will be perfected, you will be joyful, you will once again be active, and right now you can be certain you are nearing home."

The Self Compass and Personality Disorders

How does the Self Compass help you understand personality disorders?

Here's how. The LAWS of personality and relationships form four universal compass points of Love and Assertion, Weakness and Strength.

A personality pattern is a set of manipulative behaviors stemming from unconscious assumptions that directly affect how you perceive, think, feel, and act. Whether you became this way through how you were parented or other factors, you can only change a personality disorder through accurate insight and new choices.

There are primarily nine patterns that hamper personality growth, shown as they are located on the Self Compass. They are serious enough to undermine your attempts for love and happiness. But you can change them more easily than most people think. Self Compass knowledge is the key.

These descriptors are psychologically accurate, yet easy to remember because in the compass model, we pair the clinical name of the disorder with a descriptor that anyone can understand. You can think of these terms as temporary descriptions of a person’s behavior until that you make new choices that reflect personality balance and constructive change.

• Those stuck in the Dependent Pleaser and Histrionic Storyteller personality patterns exaggerate the Love compass point. Too much love makes them compliant or attention craving. They don't realize that they lack a stable identity within themselves.
• Paranoid Arguer and Antisocial Rule-breaker patterned people are stuck on the Assertion compass point. Too much assertion makes them argumentative or exploitive. 
• Avoidant Worrier and Schizoid Loner patterned people are stuck on the Weakness compass point. Too much weakness makes them withdrawn or detached. 
• Narcissistic Boaster and Compulsive Controller patterned people are stuck on the Strength compass point. Too much strength makes them arrogant or compulsive.  
• Borderline Challengers flip-flop from the Top Dog patterns of Strength and Assertion into the Underdog patterns of Weakness and Love and back again. This unstable volatility makes the borderline person believe that everyone else is responsible for their troubles, when the truth is their own personality pattern is to blame.

Most people lay claim to several of these patterns at some point in their lives. But the Self Compass both diagnoses the problem and shows you how to fix it. Whatever compass point your personality is stuck on determines your path for getting unstuck. If you are stuck in the Worrier pattern on the Weakness compass point, you take growth stretches primarily toward the opposite compass point: Strength. Over time, you move from self-defeating thoughts like “No one feels as scared as I do. I may as well give up,” to “I might blow this, because I’m human. But I’m doing it anyway.”

In our book The Self Compass my wife Kate illustrates the Controller Pattern this way:

I hand Dan my printed-out chapter to edit. He picks up the red pen and starts in, crossing out here, adding words there, deleting whole sentences. I bite my tongue to keep from protesting. My shoulders tighten, my jaw clenches, and I watch him like a hawk, ready to swoop down in defense of a brilliant phrase that must be kept just so. 

Even though I know objectively that Dan’s editing greatly improves my writing, when the Controller pattern has the upper hand, I feel driven to present him with a draft so perfect he won’t need to change a thing. 

Without a compass correction, this inner tension would spill over into our relationship, making it difficult for Dan to give honest feedback for fear of upsetting me. Then we’d both be held hostage to the harsh taskmaster of perfection.

Personality patterns left unchecked can undermine and even destroy relationships. They hamper your ability to love God and others as yourself, keeping you from fulfilling Christ’s purpose for your personality. 

To find out more, read:

THE SELF COMPASS: CHARTING YOUR PERSONALITY IN CHRIST

The Self Compass and the Year of Faith

It has come to my attention that the Catholic Church has declared October 11, 2012 to November 24, 2013 as The Year of Faith. As a committed Christian and theologian-psychologist I applaud this emphasis. 

I believe The Year of Faith expresses the heartfelt cry of Christians worldwide to draw close to the Lord Jesus Christ in our modern day. As Paul says, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).

When the Catechism of the Catholic Church first came out I read it cover to cover in a week. It is a profoundly spiritual, Scriptural, and psychologically sensitive work. Pope Benedict XVI, when he was still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, was a chief architect of the Catechism. 

I want to share with you one powerful paragraph from Pope Benedict's apostolic letter “Porta Fidei” that has introduced The Year of Faith. I do this with admiration for his spirit of pastoral care—and with the conviction that he is speaking on behalf of the Body of Christ, Catholics and Protestants alike:

“The Year of Faith is a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world. In the mystery of his death and resurrection, God has revealed in its fullness the Love that saves and calls us to conversion of life through the forgiveness of sins (cf. Acts 5:31). For Saint Paul, this Love ushers us into a new life: “We were buried ... with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). Through faith, this new life shapes the whole of human existence according to the radical new reality of the resurrection. To the extent that he freely cooperates, man’s thoughts and affections, mentality and conduct are slowly purified and transformed, on a journey that is never completely finished in this life. “Faith working through love” (Gal 5:6) becomes a new criterion of understanding and action that changes the whole of man’s life” (cf. Rom 12:2; Col 3:9-10; Eph 4:20-29; 2 Cor 5:17).

As the Pope says, personal transformation “is a journey never completely finished in this life.” But we can benefit from psychological and spiritual tools that help us move forward. One of these is the Self Compass. The Self Compass helps us renew our personal conversion to Jesus and cooperate with the Holy Spirit in guiding our daily lives. 

This Vatican has endorsed the Compass Model for personality transformation because it is based on Christ's personality, and therefore supports "the radical new reality of his resurrection" in our personalities. By applying the Self Compass growth tool, your life can be "purified and transformed" during this Year of Faith.

LOVE & ASSERTION

Faith is deeply connected to personality health. Faith helps to counter the corrosive effects of anxiety, depression, and anger. The Self Compass promotes personality health and thereby increases a person's faith. 

Love and Assertion are two complementary compass points within every person's Self Compass. What is the connection between faith and Love? In order to love God or another person, we must reach out to them. We must open our hearts. We must risk caring for them. This requires faith! I have counseled hundreds of people who suddenly received this insight and gasped: "Oh no, now I realize I've lived my whole life to be safely self-contained. I've been too afraid to ever really love anyone." 

To grow in Love requires the courage of Assertion. Mary risked trusting the Angel Gabriel's message to her. Though she no doubt felt some fear, and though she certainly didn't know how she could become the Mother of our Lord, she ended the conversation assertively: "May everything you have said about me come true" (Luke 1:38). Mary dared to assertively express faith in the God whom she loved and trusted. We can become more like Mary.

WEAKNESS AND STRENGTH

Spend a few concentrated moments today or tonight hungering and thirsting for Christ’s presence in your life. Don’t be afraid of any Weakness. Integrate your vulnerability and even self-doubts into your faith in God’s Strength. The Catechism says, “Only faith can embrace the mysterious ways of God’s almighty power. This faith glories in its weaknesses in order to draw to itself Christ’s power” (273). Out of Weakness we are made strong. This humble Strength is what God loves to foster in us. A rhythm between Weakness and Strength never makes us arrogant.  

The Self Compass helps you cooperate with grace, so that in Pope Benedict's words, your "thoughts and affections, mentality and conduct are slowly purified and transformed." 

In case it might help your journey of faith this year, I'm including a link to God and Your Personality: The Newly Revised Catholic Edition. You can imagine my humble gratitude when Pope Benedict's personal theologian wrote and told me that this book had been added to his personal library. 

Paul Cardinal Poupard of The Vatican has this to say: “God & Your Personality is no New Age influenced waffle clouded in a mystique of blurb, but a useful tool for all those who seek to address personality issues and quench their innate spiritual thirst with the living-water which truly satisfies.”

 

GOD AND YOUR PERSONALITY