Personality Style ONE: The Good Person
Core Value Tendency: ONES are attracted to and value goodness. They desire to be good persons, seeking to make the world a better place to live in. They want to realize all of their potential and help others actualize theirs. They want to be all that they can be and help others do the same. Doing your best and living up to your potential is what life is all about.
Adaptive Cognitive Schema: The objective vision that keeps ONES aligned with their true nature and with reality is the realization that becoming all that they can be, coming to completion, wholeness, and perfection is a continually unfolding process vs a sooner- rather – than – later finished product. As long as ONES are living in accordance with their true nature, allowing the process of organismic self-regulation to occur, they are perfect. They cannot be other than who they are at the moment.
Adaptive Emotional Schema: The state that accompanies ONES’ objective paradigm is serenity, a sense of inner wholeness and self-support. Those who are serene are at ease with themselves, are relaxed with others, and are in touch with the present moment. Serenity responds where personal intervention is required and acquiesces when letting go is appropriate.
Adaptive Behavioral Schemas: The actions that flow from an understanding of perfection as a process and a state of serenity involve a passion and habit for excellence and a desire to do things well. ONES have high principles, high moral standards, and high performance requirements. They are conscientious, dedicated, persevering, reliable, hard-working, and industrious. They have a highly developed and practiced intuition for when someone or something is doing what it is supposed to do. A being is good when it is fully itself and when it is fully doing what it is meant to do. ONES constantly compare a present reality to its ideal state. They know what is missing and what should be there. This makes them natural quality control experts.
Maladaptive Cognitive Schema: When ONES exaggerate their good qualities, they over-identify with the idealized self-image of I am good; I am right. To compensate for a maladaptive belief that they are not good enough, and to keep themselves immune from criticism, they hold unrealistically high standards, trying to be perfect and do most things perfectly in order to be acceptable to others and to themselves. They habitually compare what is to what they think should be and reality falls short of their ideals and absolutes.
Maladaptive Emotional Schema: As a consequence of never living up to their idealizations, ONES experience the passion of anger and resentment since no one (especially themselves) ever comes up to their expectations. They are angry because nothing is as right as it ought to be. And they are resentful because they aren’t recognized or rewarded enough for their efforts nor are they accepted for who they are. Life isn’t fair.
Maladaptive Behavioral Schemas: Perennially perceiving the world as imperfect, and relentlessly feeling resentment about the shoddy state of affairs, ONES are driven to make things better. They tense their jaws, clench their teeth, bear down, and carry on. They interfere with the natural unfolding of life and events in an effort to make things perfect NOW. The better becomes the enemy of the good. It’s a challenge for ONES to leave things alone and just let them be.
What is Avoided: Because they are trying hard to be good, ONES avoid experiencing or expressing their anger. Good boys and good girls shouldn’t be angry. They are either unaware of their anger or are reluctant to express it directly. Since they want to be right, they avoid and protest being wrong. They don’t like to think of themselves as being lazy, irresponsible, sloppy, etc.
Defensive Maneuvers: ONES ward off unacceptable impulses and behaviors by doing the opposite of what they are tempted to do. This is called reaction formation. If they are tempted to take it easy, they work harder. If unwanted sexual desires arise, ONES become moralistic and Puritanical. If anger surfaces, they may rely on righteous indignation; that is, they have a right to be angry. Or they may sublimate their anger and wage the cosmic war against crud, crusading against injustice, inexactness, tardiness, sloppiness, etc.
Childhood Development: ONES were rewarded for being good and excelling and punished for being bad and performing poorly. They were often “hero” children who did everything right to help out their parents. They hoped their being good would hold the family together. They started out with the sense that everything, including themselves, was fine as it was. But then significant people came along and informed them that their spontaneous responses weren’t O.K. This was the beginning of their “judging mind.” As ONES began to do something spontaneously, the judgment arose: “Is this good enough? Am I doing this right?” Eventually shoulds and abstract idealizations replaced wants and personal values. ONES came to believe they would be somebody if their standards were higher than everyone else’s. And they were nobody or worth nothing if they weren’t perfect.
Non-Resourceful State: When ONES are under stress, they do more of the same, that is, they try harder, put out more effort, get more serious, and become more frustrated and resentful. When all their efforts still don’t get them affirmed or don’t satisfy their needs or fill their emptiness, they get discouraged, give up trying to fix things, point their criticisms toward themselves, pull the trigger, get depressed, and lapse into melancholy. In this non-resourceful state they feel misunderstood, victimized, taken advantage of. The world doesn’t appreciate or reward their efforts to make things better.
Resourceful State: When ONES are in a resourceful relaxed state, they take themselves and the situation less seriously. They lighten up instead of getting heavier. They get in touch with their spontaneous playful side. They notice what’s right and what’s there instead of what’s wrong or what’s missing. They operate from the adaptive belief that they are O.K., even though they’re not perfect. They trust that the universe is unfolding as it should. It’s O.K., too. Trust allows them to go with the flow and not push the river, since it’s flowing by itself. They do what they find pleasurable and desirable, what they want to do instead of what they should do. In a resourceful place, ONES are optimistic, accepting and present to whatever is. I am therefore I am good replaces I’m perfect therefore I’m acceptable.
