PINK AND BLUE BOOTIES

The Story of the Pink and Blue Booties

?By Paul Lamb

Inspirational/Motivational Growth

Certified Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator

Author

Exploring the Iceberg ?

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‘Hey, what’s happened??What was that pressure? It’s so different, now.?Where am I??I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, help me!?Can you hear me??I don’t want to leave you!?I can hardly hear you!?It’s hard to know what you’re saying – like a far away echo.?What were far away echoes of voices before are now clear, like yours was. ?Your voice is now the far away echo and no longer clear.?Help me. I’m screaming!?Can you hear me?’

Baby, I hear you -- clearly.?Yes, this is what happens.?There is a birth -- and the birth is you!?You are in two worlds.?You are in a paradox, baby. ?You are on the centre of a teeter totter.?Though you are still with me, you are in another world.?You will soon leave me completely to join a new and different world.?I will be with you always, baby, even as you grow; I will know you forever, though you may not know me.?You and everyone else will see my influence in this new world you are in but some will never actually know me again.?I hope you will know me, again, baby.

‘Hey, what are those??They are putting blue ones on me and putting pink ones on that baby over there.’

Ahhh -- Finally.?‘Welcome to my world, baby.?I am your Ego.?I will protect you and keep you safe.’

The voice within baby echoes, ‘Adieu, baby.?Remember - avoid growing within and you will simply grow without.’

Baby left the unconscious world, and entered the conscious world -- more precisely, baby entered Culture in which baby will be raised.

?As our parents learned from their parents and we learn from our parents, boys wear blue booties and girls wear pink booties -- this from Culture in which we are raised.?Of course, other Cultures have different rules-of-the-road.

?Here, diversity refers to Gender, Racial, Cultural and Religious differences.?This applies to the macro and micro scales -- the world, community, neighbourhood and workplace.

We are born out of the unconscious within which are the shadow and archetypes -- our original totality (the Self) (Carl Gustav Jung -- Analytical Psychology).?After birth, we are bodily in the conscious world and mindfully in the unconscious world.?Being in different places at one time is a paradox.?Like a teeter totter with baby balancing on the fulcrum.?When we learn from our parents the notion of ‘difference’, we move to one side of the teeter totter.?We are then completely in the conscious world.?We are no longer in this paradox.

When differences are recognized, things happen at the same time -- of note --

·??????We begin learning Cultural rules-of-the-road;

·??????Our Ego is born and takes its orders from Culture;

·??????The self (small ‘s’) is born

Now Ego pays little attention to the unconscious and great attention to the self.?Our Self, in the unconscious, is repressed by Ego and our self, in the conscious, is born (upper and lower case ‘s’ is intentional to distinguish our original totality – the Self – from our Ego-self).

Each archetype is both dragon and guide (each a metaphorical representation).?Archetypes are intangible like the wind.?We don’t see the wind but we see its effects.?We don’t see the archetypes but we see their effects.?Throughout life, the archetypes catch us off guard.?

To maintain the rules-of-the-road, Ego has us wear masks to cover our archetypes.?For us to be accepted, each mask hides the archetypes from Culture.?To ensure our growth into Culture and avoid deep internal growth, each mask hides the archetypes from each of us.?It is dangerous to Culture and Ego for us to know our original-Self.?This could potentially undermine Culture’s primary task -- to survive.?

?To be clear, in our current growth, Ego is vital to keep us civil.?Masks are placed on us to oppress the archetypes.?Not wearing the masks, we may, at times, be seen as a boor – anywhere from rude to dangerous or evil.

The archetypes are not welcomed in Culture because the dragon manifests the boor we see.?Have you ever thought something about someone with no intention of saying it – but did??Have you ever embarrassed or hurt someone without meaning to?

The dragon trips us up.?Sarcastically, like -- returning the favour for not respecting them!

Initially, our parents or guardians teach us the cultural rules-of-the-road to oppress the archetypes.?Unless we choose to take another life path, step out of their Shadow, we live what we learn.?As we get older and after learning the attitude of Culture, we ourselves, take on that task of donning the right mask for the situation.?We learn to do this from being surreptitiously oppressed so we don’t even know it happened.?We repress our own archetypes.?We have become imbedded in the Culture in which we are raised. Culture survives.

This then becomes a double-edged sword.?

First, we mask ourselves to repress the archetype for fear of the boor coming forth which is unacceptable to Culture.?

Second, we see the boor because we repress the archetype. ?The dragon looks for an opportune moment to reach out and trip us up, embarrass us or to hurt someone.?Besides having fun at our expense its intent is for us to pay attention and respect the archetype.

The guide holds our gold.?So, when we repress the dragon, we also repress our gold.?We prefer to attend the bad things more than the good – hence, we attend the bad news more than the good.?

Because we wear different masks all the time, we and the world only see portions of us.?Our original totality – the Self -- is kept within each of us.?Because it is our original totality, we are often unaware of our gold within our true Self.

To clarify notions that may seem convoluted, Culture and ego enable us to explore only as much as they deem right for themselves.?This is so we may avoid excavating any gold deep within that may contravene Culture’s desires.?Yet, knowing ourselves deeply is the bedrock of Self-Esteem (Exploring the Iceberg).

Foundationally, we are driven by Culture’s attitude of being ‘better-than’ another.?Culture teaches us to oppress the golden qualities in others to enable us to shine over another.???Our attitude is imbedded in Culture and we believe we have enough or adequate self-esteem. This belief is very much understated and insidious.?It is so deeply imbedded that most would deny this shrewd belief to be prevalent.

Although we will always need Ego, the more Self-esteem we have the less we need Ego for protection and safety.?Ego doesn’t like this notion.?No encouragement is provided by Ego for us to emerge our deep Self-esteem.?Rather, there is encouragement to repress it.?Here falls an example of a mask we often wear.?With our repressed Self-esteem, Ego advances the mask of bravado, conceit or bullying to make up for our lack.?These behavioiurs act as a catalyst to look for what is wrong with the other.?This, then, gives Culture and Ego more power over us.?The deeper Self-esteem we hold, the more wisdom we have to enable us to move away from being-the-same.?

Enhancing our deep self-esteem enables us to grow, approaching the life long paradox – for the self and the Self to join together again. Rather than cast out our Ego, we can teach it and help it mature with us up the spiral of personal growth.

?Diversity is held within Culture and, with the assistance of Ego, teaches us to fit in by wearing masks.?There are different rules-of-the-road for different Cultures.?We wear different masks depending on Culture in which we are raised.?However, the same archetypes are throughout the world – our commonality (the Collective Unconscious).

?Two Diverse Attitudes –

Diversity makes our world and Culture overwhelmingly difficult and challenging

1. Directed by Culture, the self creates the notions that ‘if you are not-like-us then you are different; and, if you are different, you’re ‘not-as-good-as’ us because ‘we’ are the best.
2. Another orientation is different from the previous and is more respectful and stronger.?That is ‘you are not-like-us then you are different; and, if you are different, you have different strengths than us and we can join forces to become more than the sum of our parts.

This second notion may seem to undermine Culture and would prefer the first Attitude to survive.

We desperately need acceptance in society.?We desperately need to follow the rules-of-the-road and the rules-of-sameness in Culture.?At times Culture attaches zero tolerance creating tight boundaries.?We struggle.?We so want to be the same and different.??Once accepted, we are the same as everyone and lose identity.?Then we desperately need to be different to be an individual.?But can’t because we have to be the same to be accepted!?So begins the journey of being the same and different at one time -- Life’s paradox.

We can be an individual – but only as different as Culture allows us to be. For example, we can often be different because we are seen to be the best in accomplishments and/or with strong financial resources.?These individuals are, at times, ‘permitted’ to go beyond the boundaries.

?The Pink and Blue Booties revisited …?

?Are pink and blue booties cute??Are blue and pink booties the beginning of life’s meanings and challenges??Once we know the meaningful difference between the pink and blue booties, we are driven by Culture’s meaning and resolve of difference.?Culture does two things.?It protects its survival and represses each individual’s deep gold.

Continue wearing blue or pink booties.?We must hide our archetype from others; but we must never hide it from ourselves.

Today, become more powerful and more liberated – learn something about yourself.

Thanks to Resources:?Wilfred Bion and Group Theory, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Carol S. Pearson, Robert A. Johnson