At the prompting of commenter Susanna in the prior post, I’d like to offer some additional thoughts on the two selves: public and private.
“Public” refers to the outer professional self—the one everyone sees when I show up. It’s prone to busyness.
“Private” refers to the interior or personal self, often hidden from view. It’s prone to passivity.
I journal almost every day. Often I ask, “How are the two selves doing?” For me, they are generally in conflict. The professional self is well-trained, missional, and highly motivated. It always says yes, always shows up, takes risks, steps out in faith, and is mostly fearless.
The private self, by contrast, is reticent and, if I may be very frank, lazy. I hate to admit that. I’m not a lazy person overall. But left to the inner self, I might not get anything done at all. The private self loves to coast along without conflict. It often delegates duties such as public interaction and risk-taking to the active outer self.
Yet the private self plays an important role: regulating the public self, telling it to slow down. The private self feels fatigue—keenly so. It protests a busy schedule, too many conversations, the next airport on my calendar. Whereas the outer self seems to have unlimited energy and capacity, the inner self simply disengages. It pulls back, withdraws, goes into hiding.
I’d like to defend the reticent private self as a safeguard against overwork. But that is problematic. As much as “Private” is needed to regulate “Public” in my life, I don’t always trust it. Private loves to coast. It’s not as motivated as Public, and since I do need to punch into work every day, I can’t rely on Private to show up.
And if Private fails to show, I’m reduced to professional-only: skilled (one hopes) and dutiful. But is that enough?
Coaxing the inner self to emerge from its shell and engage publicly in caregiving, conversation, teaching, witness, etc., is not easy. But when the private self does get involved outwardly, it’s a game-changer.
I’ll be standing in front of a group of graduate students, fielding questions about the faith, and suddenly I’m all in. Every part of me is present. I notice in these moments that my knowledge base in theology and philosophy is inexplicably expanded. I say more than I know. And my heart is in every interaction with students and faculty. The professional self finally feels supported and animated, not simply competent for the job at hand.
That’s when I feel most connected to the power of the Holy Spirit. I seem to be a different person when the two selves work together.
And so I’m learning to ask a difficult question: Does the fatigue I often feel result from the crazy outer self over-functioning as usual? That’s legit. I need rest. Or is the tired, reticent inner self simply shrinking from the smallest hardship or challenge? That’s disappointing. I need a kick in the stern.
And an even harder question: How can I get the inner self more involved in the world—into more engagement and risk? For me, this is the pathway to increased Christian maturity.
In a fitting end to this post, the inner self has gone into protest: “Too much sharing. Too transparent. Don’t put me in the spotlight. I’m headed back to the couch, back to the Golf Channel.”
There you have it. Actually, there is much more to say. I’ve been journaling about this for years.
But the inner man tells me to shut it down.
No more blogging for today.
Another wonderful, vulnerable blog; I love how you cleverly got your Inner Private self to object to even sending it out. Dietrich
Dietrich, I had to pay off the Private self to tell its story