Teachings: Chief Feature Control

May 17, 1999

Q. When Chief Feature raises its head, what might be done in the moment to control it?

A. It might not be amiss, should you choose to do so, to say, "My Chief Feature is kicking in", or to acknowledge that due to Chief-Feature interference your responses are skewed. If this too difficult, it might not be inappropriate to delay response entirely by saying such things as, "I need to think about that", or "I'm not ready to deal with that", or "Do you mind if we postpone this?" or "I'm overloading. Can we do this later?" or any similar acknowledgment.

It might also be of use to keep a diary not only of Chief-Feature eruptions but a record of how you handled them at the time, to demonstrate that they can be dealt with. Incidentally, it might be worthwhile, should you choose to do so, to recollect that in relationships, Secondary Chief Features are as strong as Primaries.

Let us also remark that Chief-Feature acknowledgment is one of the most difficult things for any fragment to accomplish, and generally speaking, when Chief-Feature activity has been identified, Chief Feature will attempt to bludgeon the fragment into ignoring the validation of the experience as well as blocking any recognition of future incursions. By addressing Chief-Feature activity when it is taking place, progress is possible but so is dread, and "sticking with it" to prove that you can may turn out to be Pyrrhic.