While self-control has been shown to produce more successful life outcomes, if applied excessively, it doesn’t lead to sustained happiness. Rather, like an authoritarian regime forcing itself on a population, it might achieve apparent stability, but only at the cost of seething resentments that ultimately lead to acts of sabotage and potentially even revolution. Instead, establishing a more wholesome ‘democracy of consciousness’ can lead to both greater stability and a more peaceful inner experience.

The key to a successful democracy of consciousness is a full and ongoing integration of the different aspects of ‘I’ and the self. By welcoming and honoring the various needs and feelings of the self, ‘I’ am more able to incorporate them into the direction I set for my life. If I learn to listen carefully to the ‘wisdom of the body’, I can become a wiser person in the decisions I make and actions I take. At the same time, if the self recognizes that its needs are being acknowledged, it can also relax, and is less likely to sabotage the life that ‘I’ have constructed.

The relationship between ‘I’ and self is a bit like a partner dance set to the music of life. Each partner differs from the other, but can learn to attune to the other and respond harmoniously to the other’s moves, sometimes closing in, sometimes moving further away, sometimes setting a new tone and sometimes following the other’s lead, but always remaining in relationship – and rather than trying to dominate or surrender, coordinating with the other to co-create an experience that neither could ever attain by themselves.