I read an interesting quote today, which reminds me of a story that describes in metaphor how we develop our many-faceted and very interesting personalities. The quote is “Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with a part of another; people are friends in spots.’ SANTAYANA
Metaphorically, Heinrich Zimmer tells a story about a baby tiger in the opening of his book, The Philosophy of India. The story is about a baby tiger that grows up with a herd of goats. In the process he forgets about his tiger nature and adopts the ways of the goats. Later, he is helped to reconnect to his tiger nature and at that point he roars with awakening.
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a tigress who was about to give birth. One day, she was out walking in the forest when she saw a herd of goats in a field. She chased after them and even in her condition she managed to kill one of them. But the stress resulted in her going into labour and she dies giving birth to a young male cub. When the goats perceived that the danger was over they returned to where the dead tigress was lying, saw the baby cub and adopted it.
The tiger cub grew up with the goats believing that he was also a goat. He bleated like 
them – as well as he could – he smelled like a goat, was vegetarian like a goat and behaved in every respect like a goat. But inside, as we know, there beat the heart of a tiger.
Time passed and the one day, an older tiger was walking in the forest and ran into the field and killed one of the goats. All the goats ran away but the little tiger-goat stayed where he was because he naturally sensed no danger. The old tiger had never been as shocked in his life as when he saw the young tiger-goat. He did not know what to make of a tiger that smelled like a goat, bleated like a goat and behaved in every way like a goat. So, he grabbed the tiger-goat by the scruff of his neck, dragged him over to a pool and showed him his reflection in the water. But the young tiger-goat was unable to make any sense of the reflection he saw and couldn’t see any connection between himself and the old tiger.
Frustrated, the old tiger dragged the young tiger-goat back to the goat he’d killed. He tore off a piece of the meat and pushed it into the mouth of the young tiger.
Well, we can imagine the effect this had on the young tiger goat. At first he gagged and tried to spit out the raw flesh but the old tiger was determined to show this young tiger what he really was so he made sure the young tiger swallowed the meat. Then the old tiger took another piece of meat and pushed it into the young tiger-cubs mouth. But this time there was a change.
The young tiger now let himself taste the raw meat and the blood and he eat it up energetically. When he had finished eating this piece of meat, the young tiger stretched and then for the first time in his young life he let out the powerful roar of a jungle cat. Then the two tigers walked into the forest together.
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Hal and Sidra use this story as a metaphor to illustrate how we are all born into a family and we learn to fit into the family just as the tiger learns to fit into the goat family in order to feel safe and secure and in order to be accepted and loved. In a similar fashion, in the process of development, we often have to let go parts of our original way of functioning, just like the tiger had to put away his tiger nature in order that we are able to live with our family of origin. The “roar of awakening” is the discovery that we are more than we think we are. It’s like when we wake up from a dream and find we are in a completely different reality.
Hal and Sidra tell us that “Because children need to be loved and need to feel safe and secure, many functions develop in this way. We become perfectionists (the capacity to do something well) and the capacity to sometimes stop when something is ‘good enough’ is ‘pushed underground so we fanatically seek to do everything perfectly whether it is appropriate or not. Some people become sloppy in everything they do because sloppiness was modelled or because the parent’s perfectionist requirements were so unattainable that the child gave up. We might also become cold, distanced rational intellectuals and our warmth and feeling goes underground. Sometimes this is because a parent was emotionally so unstable that the feeling function seemed too dangerous and so, was cut out of the person’s life. And some people are loved and rewarded for what they achieve when they persevere/remain constant in the face of obstacles or discouragement (the capacity to complete or achieve something). If they have been one-sidedly praised for this capacity, chances are that they don’t know how to relax (and hate doing nothing and even feel guilty if they do). The “beach bum” or relaxing self has gone underground. Such people often drive themselves into a heart attack” (Stone & Winkelman, 1989).
And so, we find that we are one person with many parts or selves – one personality with many sub-personalities. Voice Dialogue was developed by Hal Stone P.D and Sidra Stone Ph.D. Visit their website on www.voicedialogue.org
Leslie Zimmermann, a Jungian Analyst based in Johannesburg, offers a range of services, which she integrates, to meet the needs and aspirations of people. In a word, her work is in the service of wholeness. Wholeness includes both our vulnerabilities and our strengths, becoming conscious of our own unique mix of these, honoring our own unique way of functioning and with this knowledge and confidence, contributing as only we each can in our own way, to this evolving world we find ourselves to be a part of.
Leslie specializes in Analytical Psychology, Voice Dialogue, Coaching solutions for business executives. Consulting and coaching for family owned and home-based business