Chief Feature
From New Age Village
By Shepherd Hoodwin
Our chief feature (or chief obstacle, as I now refer to it in my practice) is our Achilles’ heel or primary stumbling block—it is the focus of our fears and illusions. Since it is our dominant blind spot, it can be hard to recognize it, and even if we acknowledge it in theory, it can be difficult to recognize in action (although, no doubt, we can see other people’s chief features plain as day!). The chief feature can be blatant, or it can be relatively subtle, especially after we’ve been working for a while on extinguishing it. The chief feature can also be relatively mild; it may not be a major focus during a particular lifetime, so its influence may be relatively minor.
As with the other overleaves, we can slide across the axis, or to any of the other chief features from the neutral position, which is stubbornness. We can also hold a secondary chief feature, which is simultaneous rather than alternating. According to Michael’s People, the secondary chief feature distorts the attitude, whereas the (primary) chief feature distorts the goal. Usually, the secondary chief feature is more at work in personal relationships. Although I recall Michael’s People saying that everyone has a secondary chief feature, I do not consistently get secondaries on the charts I channel. (Rarely, I get two secondaries.)
The chief feature and the negative poles of the role and other overleaves are activated by fear. Ironically, they make matters worse because they generate inappropriate responses, and then it seems that more fear is warranted when these responses don’t work. For example, stubbornness is a fear of change, but when we resist change, we make things worse for ourselves by creating conflict, making it appear that even more fear is warranted, which can lead to still more stubbornness. The inappropriate responses build on themselves, increasing the hold of the false personality and maya. False personality is made up of the chief feature and the negative poles of the overleaves; maya means illusion, and relates to the essence, particularly the negative pole of the role.
Fear’s purpose in the scheme of things is to alert us when there is a genuine threat to our physical safety so that we will take the necessary steps to ensure our protection. Fear springs largely from the body’s survival urge, and the body’s ultimate fear is the fear of death. Our chief feature stems from what we falsely and habitually perceive as the greatest threat to our survival. In arrogance, one believes, “If others criticize me, I will die.” In self-deprecation, one believes, “If I cannot improve myself and become adequate somehow, I will die.” In impatience, one believes, “If I don’t beat the race against time, if I miss out, I will die.” In martyrdom, one believes, “If I don’t become worthy and prove my worth, I will die.” In self-destruction, one believes, “If I lose control, I will die.” In greed, one believes, “If I don’t get enough, I will die.” And in stubbornness, one believes, “If things change, I will die.”
These fear-based beliefs, although illusions, can be self-fulfilling prophecies. With self-destruction, a person can be so afraid of dying through losing control that he directs his anger toward himself and implodes, becoming seriously ill or dulling his discomfort through substance abuse. In another scenario, the pressure builds up to the point at which he explodes uncontrollably, creating exactly what he had been dreading. In greed, a person can die, or at least suffer, from having too much; too much food can lead to obesity; too much money can become a heavy responsibility; and so on. The arrogance that is supposed to protect a person from the barbs of others can make him a target for them; acting superior to others can cause them to want to put him in his place; criticizing others can make them want to criticize him. Self-deprecation’s fear of inadequacy can lead to actual inadequacy and failure, from a person trying too hard and getting in his own way, or from not making an effort at all. The impatient person may actually miss out by trying to pack in too much and then being late. The martyr becomes a victim of his self-inflicted pain. And a stubborn person’s resistance to change can cause changes to be negative that would not have been otherwise.
Our essence settles on a chief feature at the beginning of adulthood, usually around the age of twenty in this culture. Before that, we might “play with” various chief features, or even all of them, especially during adolescence.
The chief feature isn’t manufactured out of nothing. It is made up of previously latent fears, from past lives or earlier in the present lifetime. Concentrating them into a chief feature makes it easier for us to recognize and work on them. Overcoming these particular fears becomes the focus of our growth. People with no chief feature may be focusing on growth in other ways.
Each pair of chief features, like the other overleaves, are opposites. The inspiration axis chief features are arrogance, which perceives self in an inflated way, and self-deprecation, which perceives self in a deflated way. The expression axis chief features are greed, which attempts to add to the self, and self-destruction, which attempts to subtract from it. The action axis chief features are impatience, which audaciously tries to make things happen in the environment, and martyrdom, which experiences the environment as acting on itself. The assimilation axis chief feature is stubbornness; it is neutral and not a member of a pair.
The chief features are defensive. The cardinal chief features artificially expand the self in defense, while the ordinal ones artificially contract it.
Our psychological shadow, or dark side, includes our chief feature and the negative poles of our role and overleaves. However, everyone’s shadow goes beyond them and is unique.
Michael’s main tool for reducing our chief feature is simply to “photograph” it, noticing it when it is influencing us. If we can do that, we can begin to anticipate when it is likely to be activated, and can take steps to avoid it.
Regression into past lives or early childhood can be another useful tool for working with the chief feature. For example, someone in arrogance might unconsciously be reacting to a past life in which the judgments of others were literally fatal to him. Regressing to that lifetime can help him realize on a gut level that he is not at risk in his present situation.
Affirmations are also useful. The following affirmation can help someone in arrogance: “It is all right if others judge and criticize me. I love and accept myself.” Welcoming what was feared reduces its power over us. Along these lines, it can also be helpful to recognize the valuable lessons offered by what is feared. Again, with arrogance, we can realize that many people are judgmental, and it is impossible to avoid the judgments of others all the time. However, although we do not need to take them personally, we can learn from them; we can explore what is valid in the criticism we receive and use it to grow into, ultimately, a happier person.
Let’s look at the chief features individually. Since we’ve been using arrogance as an example, we’ll begin there.
ARROGANCE
I knew a person who was quite intelligent and seemed to think that that made him better than most people. I was surprised when Michael said that he had no chief feature—I was sure that he was in arrogance. Michael said that he used the style of arrogance consciously to achieve his goals. Because it did not spring from fear and was not unconscious, it is not a chief feature. A person can have a big ego and be self-important and still not have the chief feature of arrogance.
Arrogance is a fear of vulnerability, of being judged and found wanting. This may manifest in the form of overt arrogance, as a “first-strike” defense: the arrogant person hopes that by criticizing those who appear to be threats before they have a chance to criticize him, he will be safe. He may also criticize himself before others have a chance to do so, hoping that “if I’m perfect, no one will judge me,” which can look like self-deprecation, although it is not a fear of inadequacy motivating him. (However, those in arrogance frequently slide to self-deprecation, and vice versa.) Those in both of these chief features can be painfully self-conscious, and everyone in arrogance has, by definition, a shell around himself to some degree. However, not everyone with a shell around himself, or who is critical (or self-critical), is in arrogance. Again, it is a matter of what the motivation is. A shell, or being critical, is indicative of this chief feature only when it is motivated by a desire to avoid being judged and found wanting.
Cynics and discriminators, for example, can also be critical.
STUBBORNNESS
Stubbornness is the chief feature that my clients most often think that they don’t have when they do. Its position on the assimilation axis gives it neutrality and contributes to its invisibility—it’s harder to see something neutral. It manifests not so much by doing something as by not doing something, by digging in one’s heels and not moving. Someone who is classically stubborn is inflexible and difficult to deal with—he insists on his own way. However, stubbornness is not always so blatant. One of its subtler manifestations can be when someone sticks with an approach or a way of thinking that is not working. It can also masquerade as perseverance or integrity. People who tend to say no first may be in stubbornness, or may have an attitude of skeptic or cynic. Although it’s hard for us to see our stubbornness, others feel it when they run up against it—it’s like hitting an invisible wall.
A useful affirmation for stubbornness is: I am fluid and flexible, and welcome change. The changes in my life bring blessings and growth.
IMPATIENCE
Impatience, on the other hand, is the chief feature that my clients most often think they have when they don’t. Like most terms in the Michael teachings, impatience has a more narrow definition than it does in common usage. It specifically refers to a habitual, irrational fear of missing out. Its negative pole, intolerance, isn’t ordinary prejudice; it springs from this fear, and often manifests as testiness when someone seems to be delaying us. Drivers who are always trying to go faster than traffic conditions gracefully allow often have this chief feature. Impatience is characterized by a restless malaise and a lack of grace. In impatience, we “push the river” or “strip our gears” trying to get to the next thing.
I once assumed that a king I know who claimed to have no patience and who tends to be irritable, critical, and short-tempered is in impatience. However, Michael said that he is in arrogance (as well as tyranny, the negative pole of king). I was able to validate that by observing that he is not the type to constantly look at his watch, curse when forced to wait, or drive overly aggressively—all telltale signs of impatience. However, the testiness of impatience can look similar to the criticalness of arrogance.
Time is usually a big issue for people in impatience. One type of person in impatience chronically arrives late after trying to cram one more thing into his schedule before leaving—he doesn’t want to miss out on other, last-minute things. He takes a phone call he doesn’t have time for, tries to “kill two birds with one stone” by fitting in an errand, and so forth. (I speak from experience!) Another type usually arrives excessively early because he doesn’t want to miss out on the event at hand. He then impatiently waits for it to start, hurrying it along if he can.
However, impatience is more than issues about time. I know someone who chronically tries to fit in too many activities, and then runs late and hurries, but is not in impatience, even as a secondary chief feature; she is in self-deprecation and growth. She is motivated to rush not so much because she fears missing out, but because she fears being inadequate, and is trying to “catch up,” to gain the skills and experiences that would make her “adequate.” The goal of growth motivates her to seek stimulation and be busy; our chief feature distorts our goal, so self-deprecation’s fear of inadequacy causes her to seek growth with an edge of desperation, which sometimes interferes with or blocks her ability to grow, whereas my impatience can do the same with my ability to accept myself and my situations, my goal being acceptance.
Most of us are impatient, in the generic sense of the word, when we don’t understand why other people are different from us, why they don’t care about something we do or aren’t as good at something as we are. For example, a sage may be irritated with someone of another role who doesn’t communicate well; a king may be critical of someone who doesn’t strive for excellence; and a server may be intolerant of someone who doesn’t care deeply about the common good. This is not the same as the chief feature of impatience, because it is not sourced in a fear of missing out; it is simply a lack of understanding or acceptance of the differences between people. A major purpose of the Michael teachings is to illuminate the reasons for those differences so that we can learn to be loving rather than judgmental.
In impatience, it can be helpful to affirm: I have all the time I need in order to do each thing I need to do and to experience everything I wish to experience; everything is in order.
MARTYRDOM
Martyrdom brings up images of loudly proclaimed suffering or silent manipulation. However, like all chief features, martyrdom can be subtle. I have sometimes seen it manifest as chronic back pain in people who don’t complain or otherwise act like martyrs. They unconsciously put into their body their belief in their unworthiness and need to suffer. Although it’s true for all of us that there are negative influences in our lives beyond our control, if we are not in martyrdom, we tend to take them in stride; someone in martyrdom might instead see them, at least unconsciously, as confirmation that he is a victim of outside forces that are conspiring against him. He may rail against them, yet feel that he must somehow deserve his treatment.
I have heard a couple of people say, upon learning that martyrdom is their chief feature, “Oh, no! My mother was a martyr, and I always swore I would never be that way!” Maybe these people chose mothers in martyrdom to see their own similar beliefs. Rebellion certainly indicates a charge around the issue, but usually does not bring deep changes, even if it involves swinging to opposite behaviors. Of course, this applies to all the chief features.
All chief features are problematic, and the problems they cause are in proportion to their severity. Nonetheless, martyrdom and self-destruction generally seem to create the biggest problems in terms of life events. I’ve seen people who were unconsciously controlled by these chief features suffer painful deaths or prison terms because of them. Although the ultimate goal is to eliminate one’s chief feature altogether, it can be useful for someone with these chief features to temporarily slide to impatience or greed.
Those in martyrdom can benefit from affirming: I deserve the blessings of life; I am worthy of them just for being who I am.
SELF-DEPRECATION
Sometimes people confuse self-deprecation with martyrdom. It is useful to consider the axes. Martyrdom is on the action axis, which relates to the external world. In martyrdom, people do things to prove their worth. They feel that they don’t deserve external rewards. Self-deprecation is on the inspiration axis, which relates to the internal world. We might say that in self-deprecation, someone has trouble feeling inspired about himself. He feels that he doesn’t have what it takes within to “measure up.” He tries to make himself seem smaller than he is, just as someone in arrogance tries to make himself seem larger than he is.
More than the other chief features, a little self-deprecation can sometimes be comfortable for other people; someone in self-deprecation generally isn’t a threatening authority figure. However, after a while, self-deprecation can get on other people’s nerves, just like all the other chief features.
A useful affirmation for self-deprecation is: I am fully capable of doing everything I wish to do.
GREED AND SELF-DESTRUCTION
I come across greed and self-destruction less often than the other chief features. They are more often chosen by younger souls, and I don’t see that many younger souls in my practice. By the same token, arrogance and self-deprecation are more often chosen by older souls (because of the self-worth issues that naturally come up during the later cycles). Stubbornness, impatience, and martyrdom seem universally “popular” among all soul ages.
In More Messages from Michael, Michael defined self-destruction as a fear of loss of control. Elsewhere, they said that in self-destruction, one can be authoritarian and can be thought of as difficult. In Michael’s People, they related it to a childhood of neglect and rigidity, resulting in a feeling of having no control over one’s life, often leading to extreme self-discipline as a compensation. Despite Celebrities—The Complete Michael Database listing Nancy Reagan’s chief feature as arrogance, I think of her as exemplifying self-destruction—she seemed to feel the need to use authoritarian means to control the Reagan White House. Along with reserve mode (negative pole, inhibition), this chief feature might have contributed to her being “uptight.” Hillary Clinton may have the same chief feature, to a lesser extent, although JP Van Hulle channeled her as being in stubbornness. Others who have literally self-destructed through substance abuse, such as John Belushi, have also been given as examples of people in self-destruction.
I wondered how a fear of loss of control relates to destroying oneself. Then it occurred to me that if someone feels that order must be maintained at all costs, he does not feel it is safe to genuinely express his anger or share his pain. He turns his anger in on himself, increasing his pain, which he suffers silently. He may use alcohol, drugs, or food to dull it, which compounds his problem. Or, he may continue to suffer silently, until his self-denial manifests as cancer or another disease. As his pain and anger grow, so does the apparent danger of losing control. He feels like he would explode and cause great damage if he ever let loose. It appears safer to implode and damage himself instead. Under those circumstances, it might look like life isn’t worth living anyway, causing him to take daredevil risks. His only way out of this inexorable downward spiral is to find a safe place to express his feelings, perhaps with a therapist. He might affirm: My life is precious to me. I trust the free expression of my life.
Greed is the fear of not having enough, no matter how much one has. Greed does not usually arise universally; it tends to be fixated on a particular area(s), such as money, food, attention, love, and so forth. Actually, this isn’t all that different from the other chief features; someone in impatience, for instance, isn’t impatient under every circumstance, but only when his “buttons” are pushed. But greed, by its nature, attaches itself to a particular definable area, whereas the other chief features are more generalized.
People in greed carry a sense of a bottomless pit of emptiness; no matter how hard they try, they cannot fill it. For example, a person with greed for food never feels satiated, no matter how much he eats. (This is not always the dynamic in gluttony: someone else might stuff himself past satiation, perhaps because he is hedonistic and undisciplined. Incidentally, Michael has similarly differentiated between drunkards, who may simply be lazy and unwilling to deal with their lives, and alcoholics, who are physically intolerant of alcohol. These two are often lumped together nowadays.) A person with greed for experience may rush around, looking similar to someone in impatience, but his motivation is different—he is trying to fill the hole he feels rather than trying to avoid missing out. It is a subtle distinction, but in greed, although one can be ruthless in extreme cases, a person looks more voracious than testy (intolerance is the negative pole of impatience).
Those in greed are so busy trying to get more of whatever they feel they lack that they do not recognize and acknowledge what they already have. A useful affirmation for greed is: I recognize and enjoy the abundance of my life. I have enough.
NO CHIEF FEATURE
I have channeled a few adults as having no chief feature. I do not find them to be “enlightened,” in the sense of having arrived at spiritual mastery, but they usually seem to lack those “rough edges” that the chief feature imparts to the rest of us. They may have extinguished their chief feature, or they may have qualities of several of them, but not enough of any one to have it constitute a chief feature.
CHILDREN AND CHIEF FEATURES
Although we do not settle on a chief feature until around the age of twenty, we can show signs of a particular chief feature even in early childhood, not only because of the influences of others, but because of unresolved issues brought forward from past lifetimes.
- If you have a child leaning toward a particular chief feature, you may not be able to help him erase it during his childhood—he may need adult capabilities and experiences to complete the lessons involved. Nonetheless, you can certainly give him tools with which to deal with it, so he can soften it and perhaps even eliminate it, at least later on. For example, if you have a child who is leaning heavily toward self-deprecation, there is much you can do to build his self-esteem, mainly by giving him plenty of encouragement and unqualified approval.
Transforming Your Dragons—Turning Personality Fear Patterns into Personal Power by José Stevens (Bear & Company, 1994) is entirely devoted to chief features. I highly recommend it.
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