Is our “darkness” inherently wicked or evil—or is it just a consequence of our genetic and nurtured personality? Do you know what your potential for “darkness” is? Do you think that you have control over your potential darkness? Continue on if you are interested in what your potential for darkness is and how to enlighten yourself.
This will be the first part of a 4-part series dealing with the negative and positive aspects of our lives. Part-1 deals with your negative "Dark Side"; Part-2 with your positive "Bright Side", Part-3 with your "Joyful Life" and Part-4 with "That Caring Feeling". We will use "Genetic Human Personality" as the tool to analyze why we have a positive and a negative side.
The purpose of this Part-1 “darkness” discussion is to provide you with a tool for understanding and controlling your natural level of darkness, which your experiences have more or less nurtured. Important: this "Dark Side" discussion does not refer to so-called “insane” people who are born emotionally/rationally damaged, it only includes those of us so-called “sane” people (“appropriately reacting with reasonable, sound judgment”). Hopefully, you will understand your potential for darkness and realize that when you don’t react with your dark impulses that you are brightening up that darkness.
What is our “Darkness”?
The term “darkness” has many definitions, but the one referred to here is: exhibiting or stemming from evil characteristics or forces—sinister. There are many levels of this darkness, anything from just being: unpleasant, disagreeable, ornery, cantankerous or spiteful, to being: abusive, mean, hateful, nasty, cruel, malicious or evil. This gray-to-dark range of reactions is triggered by our rational director style memories. These memories were initially created by experiences that triggered anger and were nurtured, or not, by similar negative experiences. For example, we may have been wronged by someone, which created an anger memory of it. That anger memory could have intensified to hate by being wronged again by them, making us wish harm on or do harm to them. Or, that anger memory could have been subdued when that person apologized to us and we forgave them.
Since anger/hate and negative director memories is the root of our darkness, the stronger our anger/director style the higher our potential for darkness. When we are genetically strong in anger (and thus the director style), anger is easily expressed along with a proclivity to harm another. The purpose of anger is to “alert us to confrontation” and the purpose of the director style is “to deal with that confrontation”. Thus, the anger created by a particular experience has its attached director memories to deal with that situation. And if that angry situation is repeated it can intensify that emotional anger to rational hatred or rage.
On the other hand, our relator style is totally opposite to our director style and helps to modify it, lowering our potential darkness. The purpose of the relator style is “to reconnect with our connections” (connections are things important to us). Thus, our potential for darkness decreases when we are weak in the relator style and strong in the opposite director style. But why are they opposite and what affect do they have on our reactions? Our reactions are based on each style’s three genetic motivations:
1) When I use my director style “only my opinions are valid”—but when I use my relator style “only others opinions are valid”.
2) When I use my director style “only my needs are important”—but when I use my relator style “only the needs of others are important”.
3) When I use my director style “only my decisions matter”—but when I use my relator style “only other’s decisions matter”.
It is obvious that reacting with our relator style is much more altruistic (lighter) than reacting with our selfish director style (darker).
If unsure about your personality, use that attached PDF to determine “Your Personality Strengths and Weaknesses”. Important: if you are a genetically Strong-Director/Weak-Relator it doesn’t mean that you are a bad person; it just means that you don’t react as appropriately as you should when around others, which is something that you can learn to do.
Your Potential Darkness
As indicated above, your potential for darkness stems from a strong angry/director and weak sorrow/relator genetic personality. But that genetic darkness can be rationally modified by nurturing, making you darker or lighter. Negative nurturing experiences from our family and from the environment we grew up in create dark, negative memories, increasing our darkness. Positive nurturing experiences create positive relator memories, decreasing our darkness. Below is a test that you can use to determine your potential darkness—just check off your preferences and add up your {scores} to find out:
Rational Styles—are you a Genetically:
[ ] Weak Director/Strong Relator {0}
[ ] Strong Director/Strong Relator {2}
[ ] Strong-Director/Weak Relator {4}
Family—do you presently feel that you are?
[ ] Knowingly loved by your parents {0}
[ ] Belittled by one of your parents {2}
[ ] Belittled by all of your family {4}
Growing up—the family members and friends you gravitated towards were:
[ ] Mostly kind and open-minded {0}
[ ] Partly open-minded and partly hateful or racist {2}
[ ] Mostly angry, hateful or racist {4}
Mental or Physical Harm you have done to others—the number of people are:
[ ] None {0}
[ ] one to four {2}
[ ] Five to ten {4}
[ ] Many more than ten {8}
Add your scores for your potential darkness total = _____. If you had a score of:
0-6 = none to little darkness
7-11 = somewhat dark
12-15 = dark
16 to 20 = very dark
It may help to give you examples of this potential darkness to put it into social prospective. Hitler, Putin and all dictators and despots would have a score of 16-20; too many people in a government would probably have a score of 10–16; and, most people who devote their lives to helping others would probably have a score of 3–9, but their darkness could be higher and just not acted upon.
Modifying Your Potential Darkness
Now that you know your potential for darkness you might do something about it if you don’t like it! You should check off those below that apply to you below and do something about them:
[ ] Concentrate on reacting more with your caring relator memories and reacting less with your angry director memories.
[ ] Try to reconnect with your parents/family using your bonding relator style—or at least forgive them for how they negatively treated you.
[ ] Dispel memories of and/or disassociate yourself from the angry/hateful/racist people in your life or at least let them know that you are not interested in what they have to say.
[ ] Dispel thoughts about harming others who have wronged you and replace them with thoughts about the positive things that they did for you.
[ ] Try to "step outside yourself" and accept other’s opposite opinions, realizing that accepting doesn’t mean that you agree, it just means that you are open to a discussion that will most likely modify both of your opinions.
Our genetic rational and emotional strengths, weaknesses and memories determine our emotional and rational reactions, which are more or less appropriate (not good or bad, right or wrong).
Important, we can modify those natural personality strengths and weaknesses to lead a more appropriate life and lessen the potential for that darkness within us expressed.
