Controllers Can Play, Too. Really.

What happens when someone stuck in the Controller pattern (Compulsive Perfectionist Disorder) enlists the help of the Self Compass?

You start appreciating appreciating yourself more. 

That you possess the virtue of discipline. That you are:

• Conscientious, industrious, and reliable.
• Value self-discipline and stick-to-itiveness.
• Endorse social conventions and proprieties.
• Pillar of the community. 
• Emphasize rationality and logic.
• A champion of morality.

It's a relief to know that by enlisting the Self Compass LAWS of personality, the recovering Controller gets to relax. And play. Instead of relying entirely on the Strength compass point, you grow by drawing in the wisdom offered through the Weakness and Love compass points.  

Compulsive Perfectionist Disorder

• You find the grimness of constant competence replaced by tasks completed in due time without the need for perfection. 
• You organize yourself to have fun. 
• Going on walks for pleasure as much as exercise, you breathe in the air; listen for the sounds of a bird’s song. 
• The fillips of joy floating up from your belly, you realize, come only from letting go.

When you hear that inner judge start up with the old tirades of self-condemnation about how you should have done something better, you stop. I’m human, you say. The planet will carry on without me being perfect. 

Feelings of Joy

Other people become less of an annoyance and more of a gift. You are amazed to discover that when you move into the Weakness compass point and ask for help, others actually do assist you. Caringly. Even efficiently. It shocks you to feel tears in your eyes when this happens. 

Taking in more deeply that other people love you brings emotional vulnerability. That is uncomfortable. But you are good at persevering, so you allow yourself a degree of surrender, with discernment, to the untidy, not always controllable, world of feelings.

And you begin experiencing what Jesus had in mind when he said, “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (Jn 14:27). 

Peace As Christ Gives

Instead of predictably patterned behavior, the Self Compass now offers you 360 degrees of choice to use as appropriate for any given situation. Now you are freed to express your own individual style in Christ. Precious in his eyes, there is no one else like you, because “the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Mt 10:30).

For more, read: 

THE SELF COMPASS: 

Charting Your Personality In Christ 

How Schizoid Loners Come Out Of Their Shell

If you are a Loner, you are stuck on the Weakness compass point with too much detachment. You pull back into a shell, much like a hermit crab.

As a recovering Schizoid Loner, you move past the pattern’s rigidity by touching others, literally. You risk reaching out and touching another human being, in an appropriate context, like a pat on the shoulder of your son; a brush on the cheek of your spouse. 

Pat on the Shoulder

Neurons, millions of them, fire in response to this kind of physical contact, providing an emotional connection that strengthens your bond with others. But the recovering Loner perseveres, in spite of initial discomfort. By learning to breathe and relax, you offer more smiles that let people know you care about them. When they smile back, you feel the enjoyment God intended in creating you.

Jesus understood the importance of sensual contact with others. He fully enjoyed the experience of the woman anointing his feet with expensive oil. He even took the disciples to task for criticizing the expense. 

Jesus' Feet Anointed With Oil

So, too, by moving into the Strength and Love compass points, the redeemed Loner finds creative ways to bless others with newfound expressions of love and appreciation. You learn to bask in the warm glow of a compliment, and feel the pleasure of participating more at work and in family life. 

Schizoid Loner Self Compass Growth

Once this process is underway, you bring the virtue of objectivity to human interaction. If a discussion grows overly impassioned, recovering Loners can offer a perspective on the situation unseen by people more emotionally driven. You don’t take things personally, so your feedback is honest. By moving into the Assertion compass point, you challenge unfairness toward yourself or others.  

As you exercise your full Self Compass, all the benefits of objectivity emerge:

Redeemed Loner—virtue of objectivity. 

• Lives and lets live.
• Can be fair-minded and impartial.
• Separates facts from feelings.
• Responds to emergencies with calm detachment.
• Not burdened by other people’s expectations.
• Doesn’t need to impress anyone.
• Inner-directed.

Understanding that your primary satisfaction comes from inner-direction, you add to this the emotional payoffs of reaching out to others. 

For more, read:

THE SELF COMPASS:

Charting Your Personality in Christ 

Does God Expect You To Be Perfect?

Gradual Growth, Not Perfection

It is normal for people to think that they need to present a picture of perfection in order to gain God’s approval. 

But human beings are “perfect” only in the sense that David, Job, and Peter were perfect. Each loved and responded to God as they knew him, yet each was seriously flawed and prone to human frailty. It was when they stood up and counted themselves as most perfect that they fell on their faces. As the proverb says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Pro 16:18).

Haughty Spirit

The perfection that God desires is an ever-humbling growth process in the direction of surrendering your personality patterns to God’s healing agency.

Though imperfections always remain, you are gradually transformed into your unique version of the image of Christ. 

Being Transformed in Christ

God knows the innermost workings of your personality—the motives, foibles, and desires—for “before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account” (Heb 4:13).

Because Christ became sin as humanity’s representative, God has patience, not condemnation, for the fear-driven personality patterns that plague people. 

God is Patient

Jesus says, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mt 24:13). Enduring means committing yourself to an open-ended process of inspired personality development over your lifetime.

I invite you to take your first action step in surrendering your patterns to the Lord:

The Self Compass: Charting Your Personality in Christ 

offers a self-administered inventory that provides a compass reading of patterns that are interfering with your personality growth, as well as revealing dimensions of your Self Compass that are functioning with good balance and integrity.

The Self Compass

Grow Christlike with The Youth Self Compass!

Jesus cares about your personality. He wants you to know what you're like as a person and how to change any parts that need changing.  

Check out the diagram below to see how the Youth Self Compass makes sense of personality.

The Self Compass is just that: a compass that points the way to personality health. First, notice where the LAWS of personality are located: Everybody needs a balance of LOVE and ASSERTION, WEAKNESS and STRENGTH compass points. 

Jesus is the only person who ever had a perfect balance of these compass points. The Gospels, like Matthew or John, show how Jesus was caring and brave, as well as humble and confident, depending on the situation. 

The rest of us get stuck out of balance on one or more of the compass points. Think of yourself or friends or family members you know. Do see where you or they may be stuck?

If  you point to the "Too nice" or "Pleaser" it means being stuck on the LOVE compass point without enough ASSERTION.

If you choose "Mean" or "Sneaky" it means being stuck on the ASSERTION compass point without enough LOVE.

It's simple but not always easy to change. Your goal is to combine LOVE with ASSERTION. That way you balance out your Self Compass with more choices about how to act. You can choose to be kind, yet still say what you think. 

What happens over time? You find yourself being Caring and Brave instead of  mean or overly agreeable. 

What about the "Worries" or "Pulls back" part of the diagram? This means a person is stuck on the WEAKNESS compass point without enough STRENGTH.

If you choose "Bossy" or "Complains" it means you're stuck on the STRENGTH compass point without enough WEAKNESS. 

The Self Compass answer? We all need to combine both WEAKNESS and STRENGTH to develop a balanced personality. 

Instead of being a know-it-all, or saying, "I can't" too much, you can choose to humbly admit your mistakes and take action to correct them. This is how you grow in becoming Humble and Confident.  

The cool thing is that the Holy Spirit is right there to help you when you pray to become more of your real self in Christ. With the Youth Self Compass as a guide, you can grow more like Jesus, the best model you could ever have!

For more on how to do this, read:

THE SELF COMPASS: 

Charting Your Personality In Christ

Why Your Personality Matters to Jesus

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts.

—Ps 51:6 NIV

The sun has arced to its highest point in the desert sky as the wind sculpts patterns in the sand, which is all the eye can see in any direction, save for a white-robed man seated by the edge of an ancient well, and a Samaritan woman standing nearby, a water jug by her side. 

She is asking questions. And giving replies.

Surface replies, that bat away insight. Openness. Transparency.

The man persists.

Still there is avoidance. Refusal to go deeper.

Again, he persists, now with home truths about this woman.

Truths that shock. Truths about her real self.

Her response?

Not defensiveness. Not resistance.

But honesty.

And surrender.

To the Son of God.

“Come,” the Samaritan woman entreats the townspeople, “come, see a man who told me everything I ever did” (Jn 4:29 NIV).

Come, invites Jesus. Open yourself to me. Your interior self. Your personality and behavior. Your person-hood matters to me. 

Why is that, Lord? Why is my personality important?

Knowing the truth about your inner self allows you to “do what is true” Jesus says. This self-knowledge will set you free so that you can better love God and others as you love yourself (Mk 12:30-31).

As you examine and refine thoughts and actions, behavior and feelings, you develop the loving connection God desires with you. And build satisfying relationships with other people that flourish, and do no harm. For “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (Mk 7:14). Only when you take action concerning the truth about your inner self can you “come to the light” (Jn 3:21).

What sort of action, Lord? How do I grow in the ability to love you and other people as I love myself?

To discover more, read:

THE SELF COMPASS: CHARTING YOUR PERSONALITY IN CHRIST 

Empower Christian Discipleship with The Self Compass

Traditionally, Christian discipleship has involved taking the truth and principles Jesus taught and seeking to make individuals think and behave like Jesus did.

It's hard to imagine a worthier goal than growing more Christlike. And worth questioning how to help people do this. If we mechanically stamp the image of Christ onto people the way we rubber-stamp an envelope, we risk creating superficial Christian behavior that is not integrated with the depth dimensions of their personality.

What if we start with Christ's behavior as revealed in Scripture and place Jesus at the center of a personality model? One that helps Christians grow psychologically and spiritually, not as Jesus' clone, but as a unique individual in Christ. 

Dan and Kate Montgomery propose that such a process of Christian discipleship can emerge from using the Self Compass: an empirically validated growth tool that promotes healthy personality and relationships, while reflecting Jesus' behavior in the Gospels.

The Self Compass equips Christian discipleship with a personality model that enables Christians to understand inner conflicts, thoughts, feelings, the unconscious, and healthy versus unhealthy communication. Through this knowledge Christians can more effectively love God and others as they love themselves.

Utilizing the LAWS (Love/Assertion; Weakness/Strength) embedded in the Self Compass allows individuals to intuitively cooperate with Christ's transforming power in their personality. This process of discipleship combines biblical fidelity with psychological maturing.

Employing the Self Compass growth tool means that Christians express both tender care and diplomatic assertion. They are competent and strong, yet at the same time humbly aware of their weaknesses, maintaining free and equal access to all four compass points. To study how Christ's Self Compass is the definitive model for thinking, feeling, and acting with compass balance, read Compass Psychotheology: Where Psychology and Theology Really Meet.

Love lets individuals care for themselves and others, drawing out their potential for nurturance, compassion, and forgiveness. Love provides the bridge of intimacy that connects them to people in caring ways. But no one remains loving all the time. There are times to stand up for yourself and negotiate for what is fair and just. Assertion allows people to do just that: express their point of view with diplomacy.

Weakness helps Christians accept as normal the times when they feel uncertain or anxious. When they admit these vulnerable feelings into awareness, they can freely acknowledge their clay feet and ask for help when needed. On the other hand, Strength provides a sense of competence, confidence, and personal power. Healthy strength encourages Christians to achieve their best, while humbly acknowledging their weaknesses.

Christian discipleship can effectively help Christians become like Christ, each in their individual way, especially with the compass points of Love and Assertion, Weakness and Strength up and running. Jesus’ behavior in the Gospels reveals this personality balance and flexibility, and modern research on personality affirms these attributes as crucial for mental health.

The correlation of Jesus’ personality with the Self Compass combines a psychological and spiritual understanding of Christ, with trust in the Holy Spirit to indwell and influence a Christian's personality and relationships.

For the definitive book connecting the Self Compass with 

Christian transformation and discipleship, read:

Christian Personality Theory:

A Self Compass for Humanity