Welcome to this Selves Inside series.
This time I would like to talk about the rebel.
The rebel,
That part of us,
Is interesting because we tend to believe that it's no longer operating in us once we move beyond our teenage years.
But one can consciously or unconsciously have the rebel be motivating them and making their decisions well into old age.
And of course that's not necessarily a bad thing because as with all voices the rebel brings its gifts and its difficulties.
So the rebel,
Broadly speaking,
Arises in response to discipline or authority figures.
It's as if as soon as there is a locked door something in us wants to unlock that door.
As soon as there are some boundaries set something in us or in someone else wants to go beyond those boundaries.
And this is good.
It's good that we don't just submit to authority but something in us challenges that.
It's necessary and it keeps a balance.
The rebel,
We could say,
Fears being controlled.
It's a part of us that does not want to have others exert power and limit us.
Limitation is a problem for the rebel.
A certain kind of limitation that arises culturally is conformity.
We receive messages of what's okay and what's not and the rebel will push against what we're told is not okay.
Now of course we can be conforming by rebelling because it is actually expected.
It's actually part of a developmental unfolding that,
For example,
Children or teenagers will rebel.
But that's another story,
Whether our rebelling is conformity.
The rebel is that which refuses to be put in the box or put in the shackles or refuses to swallow other people's belief systems.
The rebel may carry our energy of self-assertion and if we don't allow the rebel in our life,
If we've suppressed it,
Then the resource,
The energy to break out of agreements with people or groups,
To break through,
To separate ourselves from situations that may not be serving us,
We may not have that energy available because the rebel is that which carries it in us.
And the challenge here is sometimes we don't want to bring forward the rebellious energy because maybe we've seen it rock the boat and it's brought forth by others or we're afraid of how much power is there.
We are concerned.
We're afraid of what happens when we do challenge authority figures.
We don't know how they'll respond to our rebel.
We know that sometimes authority figures become more intense and buckle down in their authority in response to rebellious energy.
But it may be necessary for us to challenge power,
To challenge ideas imposed on us,
And maybe most importantly we need to rebel against our own inner conformity.
We need to rebel against our own agreement with ideas of who we are and how life should be that are just too small.
And the rebel is exactly that part of us that feels that the conformity,
The box,
The role we're in is too small.
Of course,
As with all voices,
The rebel sees from the rebel's point of view.
So it may rebel against,
For example,
Being in some kind of routine that it sees us as selling out into or as confining.
But from another perspective,
That may very well just be adult maturity.
That may very well be the mature and actually growthful step to take is to commit to the routine or to take on the role with its limitations.
So we have to bring discernment to when the rebel is acting in service of wisdom and when it's confusing us.
The rebel sometimes rebels simply to rebel without discriminating.
You may meet someone who pushes against all power structures,
All belief systems,
All disciplines,
Simply because they are belief systems or simply because they are power structures.
And it's not bringing a discriminating eye as to whether they're healthy or not,
But basically for this kind of rebelling energy,
Any kind of authority,
Any kind of limitation has been put in the category of bad and the rebels pushing against it.
It is often the case that in relationships,
In family systems,
In various groups,
The rebel may have the impulse to do whatever is different from the group.
It may be necessary for every group,
For every family to have someone carrying this energy that says,
I'm not going to be like that or refuses to just go with the flow.
It brings in a balance.
It actually is an offering to the group.
Even if the rebel is somewhat rejected by the group and becomes a kind of outcast,
It's a gift to the group because the rebel carries for them or reflects it in the question of,
Wow,
Maybe I am just conforming or maybe there is something to Bob's rebelling against these ideas.
So the rebel could be said to be a living emblem of healthy skepticism about the structures that we may blindly consent to.
In becoming aware of the rebel in us on a daily basis,
We can listen for and feel in ourselves a knee jerk reaction to any time someone is speaking from a place of authority or someone is having power over us.
We're in a power dynamic always.
We're always in power dynamics and the rebel may,
In a hair trigger way,
Without even taking in,
Without even allowing us to take in the real vibe of the authority situation,
It may just rebel immediately and have us tune out or close down or begin to leave the situation,
Begin to criticize,
Et cetera.
So we feel the rebel in those kind of reactions and we feel the rebel as maybe a humming in our belly or a certain kind of restlessness that arises over time and situations,
Especially if we've given time to different situations we find ourselves in,
We've really given them a chance when the rebellious energy arises that may be a power coming from within us that's going to help us break free of the mold and it may be entirely a blessing.
So we have to bring awareness to the rebel.
It may be quite the ally.
It may be having us play the part of a fool and it may be both or somewhere in between.
We're living beings and all the parts in us are totally alive and enter in interaction with the moment and so they don't remain fixed entities.
So we have to listen and really be alive in our curiosity with the rebellious energy.
So thank you for listening to this Selves Inside episode and if you are interested in finding out more about parts work,
Feel free to reach out and we could arrange that and you can get a taste of working directly with the Selves Inside.
