We and our multiple personalities…

I have always wondered why people say that you can’t trust Wikipedia as a reliable source…And then I Googled Nic White: “Professional rugby player and actor.  Famous for his acting role in the Rugy Championship game against the Springboks in the scene “A Brush with Death”, which debuted 27 August 2022.  Referee Paul Williams of NZ Rugby had a supporting role in this Oscar-winning performance…”

Of course, Nic White is not really an actor, but Hip Hip Hooray to the genius of a person who edited the guy’s biography so cleverly!  For White, the rugby player with whiskers like a privet hedge, definitely has a career in football or acting if it doesn’t work out for him on the rugby field…

We are all still very upset about the yellow card Faf de Klerk received last Saturday…De Klerk attempted to swipe the ball out of White’s hands, but lightly made contact with his face/moustache instead.  Despite the slightest contact being made, White waited a few seconds before falling to his knees in agony.  Ridiculous! 🙄

But what was it that turned the Wallaby player into a Barbie girl in that moment?

Maybe the fact that with De Klerk in the sin bin, the Wallabies did what the Springboks couldn’t – take advantage of a 14-man defence?

I truly wonder what White has to say for himself after that pathetic emotional charade: “I don’t know what got into me?”, or “I just wasn’t myself?”  Or was it White’s alter ego, one of his other personalities having a field day?

Look, don’t get me wrong today, I’m not trying to make fun of Multiple Personality Disorder, or DID, as it is more commonly referred to.  I realize that it’s a sad reality and a serious psychological condition.  The TV documentary “Me and my multiple personalities” recently referred to Kim Noble, a British woman with 100 personalities!

It’s just that Nic White’s crazy behaviour last Saturday had me wondering – don’t we all maybe “suffer” from Multiple Personality Disorder to some degree?  I remember years ago, when we lived in Vereeniging, my sister’s best friend was Maggie, our maid’s daughter.  Adele and Maggie were both 5 years old, and inseparable.  What was very peculiar, though, was that Maggie insisted that everybody had to call her “Ruth” on Sundays – yes, from Monday to Saturday her name was Maggie, but every Sunday she turned into Ruth…

Let’s also think about the popular musical “Grease”, where the late, beautiful Olivia Newton-John in the role of Sandy, shed her goody-goody persona, to become a leather-clad, pelvis-thrusting “bad” girl.  Surely all that smokiness and gyration was Sandy…?  Or was it? 

As much as we all loved the movie, isn’t it a bit disturbing to think that Sandy had to change her appearance and personality, forsaking her true self, in order to please Danny and fit in with his friends…?

In her book “Multiplicity”, science journalist Rita Carter writes: “The idea of there being two or more selves in a single body sounds crazy, but we all consist of multiple characters, each one with its own viewpoint, emotions, and ambitions.”

Carter argues that the mother who feeds breakfast to her children, for example, has quite different concerns and opinions from the woman taking part in a boardroom discussion two hours later, and from the woman she will be with her husband that night. Yet, all three may share the same body, and none is any more “authentic” than another.

We all learn so much about ourselves every single day – I came to terms years ago with the fact that I undergo a huge transformation every single time I set foot on stage to teach an aerobics class.  When my kids watch my workout videos, they just smile and shake their heads in disbelief, because when I’m with my family I’m really a normal human being, nothing like the erratic, loud fitness instructor/entertainer my members are familiar with. 

I am in total agreement with the theory of the American psychologist John “Jack” Watkins, who envisages our personalities as a family of selves – “each of us is just a bundle of learned and/or programmed responses that click in as and when the situation demands…”

Most of us have to juggle about 52 roles in life – wife, mother, sister, friend, author, employee, driver, cook, psychiatrist, etc etc etc.  Can the world blame us for feeling a bit “multiple-personality” sometimes?

The inspirational author, Shannon L Adler recently said: “We are all a little schizophrenic. Each of us has three different people living inside us every day—who you were, who you are and who you will become. The road to sanity is to recognize those identities, in order to know which one you are today.”

To me it’s quite reassuring to learn that not all personality changes in a person need to be frowned upon, but rather, that in today’s world, our ability to switch from one personality to another according to what is demanded of us is a huge strength, providing, of course, that our personalities work together as a team rather than against each other.

As long as we stay true to ourselves.  But what does this even mean? Here’s what pops into my head when I think about being true to yourself — integrity, honesty, sincerity, unwavering principles, being complete and authentic.

Mmm, sounds idealistic, but what does that imply for me, Mirna?  Something simple like being just as entertaining and enthusiastic when there are only 4 people in Cardio Fun class on an icy cold Monday morning, as when the studio is filled to the brim. 

I think it comes down to this – choosing every day to be ourselves, but always our better selves.

And whether you have 1 personality or 100, maybe being true to yourself IS this simple – either you live in integrity, or you live out of integrity. That’s it. In or out. Moment to moment. No other choices. No other way to live other than being true to who you are. You choose one course of action. One way to be.  When you’re true to yourself you’re also true to other people. And in being true to others you’re being true right back at yourself. It’s an inseparable dance of ethics.

In the words of Shakespeare:

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Yours in fitness

Mirna

082 779 0507