Persona and how to work with it in coaching

The Leaf by Elizabeth Adela Stanhope Forbes, 1898

The persona refers to the masks we might wear in social, professional, and even personal situations. The mask serves to promote our most idealized qualities to the world, and in some cases the qualities that most conform to our culture's values. In some cases, persona is all about aspects of the self that are socially and professionally acceptable and valued in the culture. And of course, sub-cultures and micro-cultures as well.

There is the persona we show to the world when we want to fit in. And there is the persona we might show to the world when we want to stand out. In either case, the persona is not the self. It is indeed a mask. Its how we wish to see ourselves, and how we wish others to see us.

For our clients, its important to bring their awareness to the fact that persona does not equal self. Persona is the client's way of getting around in the world and portraying a certain person to others. Persona can serve a useful purpose. But as a client identifies more and more with the persona, he or she loses touch with the true authentic self--a self that they may not be liked very much, a self that society may not value, and a self that the client may not even really know.

The path of individuation involves becoming who one authentically is. There are glorious parts and ugly parts. Our job as coaches is to help clients understand the value that underlies the individuation process and the rewards. When a client is over-identified with the persona, a lack of wholeness results. We need to help the client bring the parts of the personality he or she has split off back into consciousness.

Without doing so--without bringing these repressed elements of the personality into consciousness, people become more and more discontent, angry, depressed and anxious. When we don't acknowledge and bring to consciousness aspects of the less-than-ideal-self, we project these qualities onto others. The beauty of the individuation process is in experiencing the wholeness that comes from bringing these repressed aspects to consciousness. While some of them may be disagreeable or socially unacceptable, many of these repressed aspects can actually be wonderful and very rewarding to experience.

In the Authentic Wholeness Coach Training Certification Program, I teach the language you can use with clients to orient them toward their persona, as well as the coaching and facilitation skills needed to help clients shift out of solely identifying with their persona. Living life with the persona as one's only identification will leave clients brittle and angry. In moving toward wholeness, the client must come to see the uses and limitations of the persona. And upon helping the client reflect more deeply, more choices emerge for individuation and for clients to become more and more of who they are.

Against Lawn by GRACE BAUER

The midnight streetlight illuminating the white of clover assures me I am right not to manicure my patch of grass into a dull carpet of uniform green, but to allow whatever will to take over. Somewhere in that lace lies luck, though I may never swoop down to find it. Three, too, is an auspicious number. And this seeing a reminder to avoid too much taming of what, even here, wants to be wild.