Disidentification

The capacity for disidentification can develop in two ways: The first is by increasing the capacity to tolerate greater distance from certain self-representations, which allows us to experience Being more easily... The second way the capacity for disidentification develops is that our overall self-representation becomes so much more complete that our identity becomes very flexible. This ultimately leads to a strong general capacity for disidentification such that we can actually be disidentified from the overall self-representation while still maintaining our identity. This capacity requires thorough clarification, that is, objective understanding and seeing through delusions regarding the various segments of our self-representation. It also requires a measure of balance in our spiritual development: balance in relation to mind, heart and body for example; balance in relation to stillness and movement, knowledge and expression, and so on. (The Point of Existence, pg 128).

The final outcome of the process of disidentification is the experience of the dissolution of the psychic structure or self-image. This is the experience of space, of what is sometimes called the void - when self-image is dissolved the person will experience the loss of boundaries, both physical and mental. (Essence, pg 46)

Usually, one is so identified with the self-representations that it is difficult to achieve an objective awareness of them. One needs some distance, some disidentification from the self-images, for there to be a clarity about their nature. Disidentification involves the awareness of both the identifications and the process of identifying with them. This is possible when one is not totally identified with a particular self-image, when one is already sensing that these images are just images, and they are not who one truly is. (The Pearl Beyond Price, pg 59)

What is disidentification really? To understand disidentification, you need to understand identification. To identify with anything, any state, means simply that your mind takes a certain state for identity. Your mind holds on to an expression, or a feeling, or a state, and uses it to define you. The mind then contracts around the state in the activity of holding onto it. This very contraction of the mind creates what we call "identity." (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 170)

Disidentification is simply the absence of identification, the absence of the contraction, the absence of the belief. If you believe that there is a part that is pushed away, you are making it real; the mind is still holding on, contracting in that place. The mind is still restricting itself. Identification is a contraction, and disidentification is a relaxation of that contraction. (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 171)

Disidentification and activity

So we can see why disidentification can't be an activity; if it were an activity, it would not be disidentification, but identification with something else. It would be just a substitution. If there is someone who is moving away from something else, that someone must be identified with something, or at least with the desire to move away from something. Disidentification means the cessation of identification, the cessation of taking something to be you, or to belong to you, or to define you. (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 172)

Disidentification and holes

As we have seen in our case histories, disidentifying with an ego structure often exposes a sense of deficiency, lack or weakness, which is sometimes experienced as an emptiness, or more specifically, an empty hole. Allowing an understanding the deficient emptiness precipitates the emergence of the Personal Essence in consciousness. (The Pearl Beyond Price, pg 134)