Prosperity Law No. 1:
"When we know who we are and, what we want, we can have what we want in life."

     Did you ever, as a child, look in a mirror or sit on the side of a pool of water and look at your own reflection and wonder, "Who am !?" I remember one day standing in front of a three-way mirror in a neighbor's house when I was thirteen.  I was fascinated that I could see so many sides of me by moving one mirror - or both.  I looked so different depending on the angle.
     My need to look at different aspects of myself didn't stop in adolescence.  I soon found that what I wanted in life depended on how I defined myself.  How I defined myself depended on how I looked at myself (a good example of this was my going through a period in which I thought I had to define myself as a 'strong' woman or a 'weak' woman).  The answers I got to "Who am I?" were different as I grew older.  I needed to continuously identify the new part of me that was growing and developing with new challenges.
     Finding the answers to the questions, "Who am I?" and "What do I want?" is the hardest part in life.  Getting what we want is a cinch after that - it's all down hill.
     Learning who the 'l' is in the question, "Who Am I?", is what this chapter is all about.
     The following approach to understanding yourself can be used at any age, and repeated, helps you keep a running profile on how you see yourself.  We will look for the 'I' through our 'sub-personahties' vs. the 'inner self', and through ego vs. essence.

     One theory of personality, Psychosynthesis, indicates that we are not one 'I' but a complex of 'I's' - a collection of 'sub-personalities'.
     Sub-personalities are different sides of us that have developed as a result of our interaction with the world in different capacities.  As our roles, interests, and moods change, the way we respond to the environment changes.  We are much different with the boss, for example, than we are with a new friend we've just met at a bar.  We do not usually act the same with all our friends either.  Every person brings out different aspects of us.  In other words, the way we dress, act, and think, can change quite dramatically depending on the people we're with and the situations we're in.
     Can you think of ways you are different with different people?  Roles call for various responses from us and we play dozens of roles.  What are some of the roles in your life - sweetheart, wife, mother, cook, sister, secretary, President?  What position toward the world do you take in each role?  What makes you happy in each role?
     Other sub-personahties develop around dominant attitudes, moods, and feelings.  For example, the 'Happy Helper' is continuously there to please, and will bend over backward to help anybody, anywhere, anytime.  The 'Pessimist' remains so in the best of situations.  The 'Judge' always has an improvement that could be made.  If these and other sub-personalities are strong enough, they can dominate - no matter what role is being played.

     Sub-personalities are our roles we play, our main interests, and our ways of interacting with others.  They often pass for being the real 'I'.

     We all have a dozen or more sub-personalities and are operating in two or three at any given time.  Each sub-personality wants something from us, and is offering something to us - all at once!  In order to find peace and satisfaction in life, we need to identify our sub-personalities and discover what each one wants from us.  Here's how-

1. Ask yourself the question "Who Am I?" twenty or thirty times.  All your roles, attitudes, feelings, interests and ideas about yourself will emerge.
2. Write down your answers.
3. Categorize your answers by themes.  In what way do your answers seem to be connected with each other? (For example some of my answers had to do with my concern for family, profession, health, love, security, fun, and strong feeling-states.)
4. Give your sub-personalities a name, and picture them in your mind.

     List what each sub-personality wants in life.  Do any of these wants conflict?  When our sub-personalities have opposing wants, we feel as if there is a war going on inside us.  We often end up in confusion over our goals because of this disparity.
     For example, Martha, an older client of mine, had entered college after 20 years of devoting herself to being a wife and mother, and was experiencing some deep inner turmoil by her changing desires.  She came to therapy in great confusion and had to uncover the sabotage being caused by her different sub-personalities.  One part of her, 'Student-Martha' was now making great demands on her time.  But 'Child-Martha' was getting pouty because she wanted more time to relax and enjoy life.  Child-Martha undercut Student-Martha's efforts at every opportunity.  Judge-Martha was always there - usually with derisive statements about responsibility to the family.
     Wife-Martha', trying to play her multiple roles such as Sensuous Lady and Ms. Efficiency, was feeling stress-ful from lack of time and energy.  'Mother-Martha' was seeing her cherished role diminished as the children were now grown, and she required consolation and con-sideration about this sense of loss.
     'Banker-Martha' was constantly warning that less time should be spent on schooling for the future and more time spent on earning money now.  As these and other sub-personalities' voices were speaking nearly simultaneously, and each was demanding a great deal of attention, few needs were actually being met.
     The value of identifying her sub-personalities in this manner was that Martha was able to stop blaming others for her anxiety, conflict, and pain and to see clearly that the real source of her upsets was inside herself.  Her change in values and shift in priorities required some internal dialogue among her conflicting sub-personalities.

     By pretending to place each one on a chair and to speak as that sub-personality, she was able to listen to what each wanted and to hear what each was contribut-ing to her life.  She saw then how she could compromise and give a little time to each and bring balance internally.  The outside world was easy after that.

     The object of looking at sub-personalities is not to become schizoid by seeing all the opposing parts, but to improve our ability as a conductor in charge of this orchestra of virtuosos.  We become victimized by putting too much energy into any one aspect of ourselves and over-identifying with any one part to the exclusion of others.
     While all sub-personalities do not need all they are demanding, if any one of them should feel starved for attention, she can become a real nuisance.  Did you ever just have to go out for a candy bar or ice cream cone at midnight after a long, exhausting day?  That's the child in you.  Children will only be put off so long.  With too many undernourished parts, we have a rebellion on our hands.  Our peace is quickly gone, and our sense of prosperity has moved further away.
We need to bring balance, to the demands of our sub-personalities, allowing ourselves to move forward toward a chosen goal.  See the parts of yourself as an impartial observer would.  Ask each part what she wants, and what she is giving.  Prioritize their needs.  Work to-ward a balance in meeting those needs by allotting some time and energy for each part.  To get what you want in life with the minimum amount of inner opposition, make sure your major wants are satisfying the majority of your sub-personality needs.

     We developed each sub-personality as a way of expressing ourselves in the world.  They are responses to environmental needs which are always changing.  Another part of our 'I-ness' is unrelated to changing circumstances.  This is our central 'I' or 'inner self' behind our sub-personalities.  This 'I' is always quiet, always centered.  As you still your chattering mind, you feel its calm, 'knowing' strength that speaks when you're ready to listen.  Another way of looking at this inner 'I' is to see it as expressing your essence.

     The ego 'I' is who we think we are.  We created it, and by its very nature, it is limited.  When we are in our ego, we constantly judge and compare ourselves with others.  We feel separate, out of touch with our oneness with the universe.  We rarely feel satisfied, for the ego is greedy and there is never enough to feel full.  In ego consciousness, our real wants are often hidden from us.
     Ego is who we think we are; essence is who we really are.  Essence is our true nature, that part of us that has never changed, is never fearful, never lost.  The spirit of essence is like a tiny flame, mostly forgotten, but still determined to be.
     Breathing life into this aspect of our self, we recognize that essence is our 'light' within - that soft voice of inner awareness that connects us with all there is.  In this state of mind, we see we are a child of the universe, that we are already a miracle.  When we are in touch with our essence, we do not have to prove anything to anyone, nor get permission or approval from anyone in order to be ourselves.
     Our essence does not have a need for material pos-sessions to be satisfied.  It is complete in itself.  In seeking to satisfy our essence, we are seeking our highest good.  By limiting ourselves just to satisfying ego wants, we can become exhausted.  Satisfying our essence can balance us and nourish us at a deep level.  Anytime we express who we truly are, we are satisfying essence.  Give yourself plenty of quiet time alone with nothing to do in order to get in touch with who you are.  When we're in touch with our essence, everything we do is an expression of it -whether we're singing our heart out on stage or talking with a friend on the phone.
     By acknowledging our inner essence, our real 'I', we feel closer to our spiritual nature.  We know as long as our desires are life-affirming, and for the good of all, we deserve what we desire.  With this freeing, prospering consciousness, we can go after what we want with a lighter heart, unattached to results.  This allows us to handle another paradox in prospering: We need to want with a strong desire and at the same time let go of attach-ment to a particular outcome.  Coming from our essence, we know our good fortune does not depend upon any one outcome.
     Finding our peace, our center, our true 'I', is not always easy.  We have layer upon layer of conflicting shoulds and can'ts covering that little flame and the wisdom it imparts.  It can be reached, however, by a variety of paths, some of which are deliberate, such as yoga, breath and body work, therapy, dreamwork, and meditation.
     Our centered 'l' is also sometimes reached in the most unexpected ways, such as quietly walking on the beach, making love, jogging, looking at the clouds.  At such moments, we can temporarily transcend our ego, making possible that high moment of contact with our essence, where we know that everything is perfect in the universe, here and now.
     To feel fully satisfied by our efforts, our wants must be based on an awareness of who that 'I' is that we're trying to satisfy - at the sub-personality and ego level, and at the level of essence.  Only then can we best utilize our time and energy to get the most out of life.  Finding out who we are is an exciting on-going process.  To start with, reflect on these words:

We are not our feelings -
          although we have feelings,
We are not our bodies -
          although we have bodies
We are not our minds -
          although we have minds
We are a center of consciousness -
          designed to be self-aware