How Compass Virtues Replace Personality Patterns

There is a curious paradox rooted in our personality patterns (personality disorders). Every one of these patterns 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 Antisocial Rule-breaker pattern. 

Virtue of Creativity

 

Why? 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 other’s 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). This is because you are surrendering your patterns to the Lord.

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.

Compass Virtues

 

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 replaces the fear produced by personality patterns when you “trust in the Lord with all your heart” (Prov 3:5).

For The Dependent Pleaser Pattern

When nurturing others' well-being is combined with the willingness to stand up for your needs and confront unfairness, the capacity for healthy love, untinged with resentment, grows. 

By exercising the Strength compass point, you develop confidence in your personal power and loving concern for others, realizing that you really count in the world. Instead of automatically disowning compliments, recovering Pleasers are finally comfortable receiving them. You humbly accept your imperfections, knowing that God and others love you as you are.  

With the full use of the Self Compass comes the authentic virtue of charity, uniquely expressed by each redeemed Pleaser:

• Sensitive and sympathetic.
• Doesn’t need the limelight.
• A good listener and follower.
• Tender and talented in care for children.
• Quick to forgive. 
• Compromises easily.
• Is kind and helpful.             

For more, read:

COMPASS PSYCHOTHEOLOGY"

Where Psychology & Theology Really Meet

 

Why God Wants A Humble Mind From You

Here is a Bible verse that has seen me through sixty years of Christian faith, and challenges me to this day: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

All who walk with the Lord -- you and me included -- are challenged to open our minds to His mysterious ways. Abraham opened his mind to God's strange promise that his ninety-year-old wife, Sarah would conceive a child. His humble mind allowed him to believe the impossible dream. 

Moses shook in his sandals when he thought of confronting Pharoah, the most powerful man on earth. God told him to give Pharoah an ultimatum to deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt. Albeit reluctantly, Moses opened his mind to God's direct guidance. Moses' flexibility allowed him to obey God's unusual commands.

An angel appeared to Mary and announced that the Holy Spirit would mysteriously impregnate her with the Son of God. The angel praised Mary for her humble and receptive mind.

After Christ's ascension into heaven, the apostle Peter made up his mind that only Jews could be saved. The Holy Spirit gave him an inspired dream that contradicted his rigid bias: “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean” (Acts 10:15). Peter opened his mind and responded to God's new directions. He preached the Gospel in the Gentile household of Cornelius. After all gathered had received the Holy Spirit, Peter said, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:34-35).

 Scripture refers to the importance of a humble mind in Isaiah 55:9:

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so my ways are higher than your ways
    and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

 NEW WINESKINS

Sometimes we think we've figured out God. We judge everyone according to what we think are God's standards. Occasionally, God has to dash our prideful thinking to pieces.

Compass Psychotheology reveals ten different ways that people from all cultures and every age can close their minds and hearts to God. This is why your personality matters so much to Christ. Every rigid personality pattern embodies represents a set of inflexible attitudes captured by in name of the pattern: Narcissistic Boaster; Compulsive Controller; Antisocial Rule-breaker; Paranoid Arguer; Dependent Pleaser; Histrionic Storyteller; Schizoid Loner, and Avoidant Worriers.

We all hold one or more of these unconscious mindsets. It is part of the sin that burdens us and sets us at odds with one another. We even resist and grieve the Holy Spirit when He would otherwise guide us to health and wholeness. As long as these mindsets are intact, our thinking is intractable. We unknowingly resist the grand adventure of God's will for us. 

Following the Lord on a daily basis requires a maximum openness so that we can keep revising our narrow assumptions into more complete versions of the Way, the Life, and the Truth in Jesus Christ.

Remember Jesus' metaphor about wineskins? The new wine of the Spirit-led life must continuously be put into fresh wineskins of new attitudes, perceptions. and values. Humble minds are constantly renewed, while rigid minds get stuck in a God-resistant rut.

The more obedient to Christ's Spirit we become, the more our minds are humbled. We are responsive to the genius of God in daily living. Giving up our rigid personality patterns and underlying attitudes brings us liberty -- a sense of creative living that is fresh and original -- in the Holy Spirit. “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).