I’m curious about your thoughts on burned secondaries. Is it possible to completely burn away and replace secondary? What about a model and can a model come back? And what to all the different burned secondaries look like?
Confused? Pretty sure this was sent to a different blog? @wisteria-lodge had a lot of asks to answer and asked for some help from the SHC community, so I’ll be answering a few they sent my way!
Is it possible to completely burn away and replace secondary?
My personal view on this is that yes, it’s possible; or at least, this is a reasonable way of describing things. This possibility was always mentioned for the system with fictional characters specifically -- the basics still discuss characters who have thoroughly and completely burned their secondaries; as I remember the breakdown, or possibly lost posts, previously discussed these characters also building a new one. Burning a secondary completely probably isn’t something that happens easily or to most people. I think most people retain at least enough of their secondary to point them in a direction, even if that pointing’s being done by feeling like you really particularly lack that particular skill set because your trust in your abilities is so far gone. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen sometimes.
More to the point, I can see why someone might find it a useful way to describe themselves over time, and since the point of the whole system is to give you a way to describe yourself, I don’t think there’s any reason to rule out that option for someone who wants it. What is essentially the same feeling and thought process could be described as either: “I was a Lion Secondary but I burned so completely I lost it. Now I’m a Bird Secondary.” or “I burned my Lion Secondary so thoroughly I don’t really feel those instincts anymore. I live in my Bird Secondary Model now, and I feel more comfortable that way; in fact I think I’d feel more strained and unhappy trying to behave like a Lion Secondary.”
It just depends on what feels right to the person. And the only way to really know for sure which is more accurate is for someone to get pushed to the point of being forced to drop that Bird Model if it is one, and that’s not exactly something you want to make happen.
That said, I’m under the impression my feelings on this one are less popular, and a lot of the SHC community doesn’t think changing your houses is possible. If anyone else wants to jump in with an alternate view, please do!
What about a model and can a model come back?
Models can burn, models can return! Models can change much more freely and easily than core houses even if, like me, you do believe core sortings can change. While it’s possible that a model could just be dropped when unnecessary without burning, it’s also absolutely possible for something to happen to damage whatever benefit you were getting from your model or make you lose trust in your ability to use it. You’re using that model because you get something from it, after all, and there’s no reason you can’t be disillusioned towards that even if it isn’t your first instinct.
That might be temporary to begin with -- something like a depressive episode might thoroughly burn all your secondary states, core and model, in a way that recedes when that particular episode ends. Or you might have liked your model enough that you work on unburning it so you can use it, either consciously or not, the same way you might with your core secondary if it’s burned. But you can definitely get a model back, even if it burns on you; you might just need to clean out the muck of where things went bad.
And what to all the different burned secondaries look like?
To be honest, I’m not sure I can answer this any better than the basics post and the quiz already do. A fully and completely burned secondary looks like doing things without any real comfort, joy, or even preference for how it’s getting done. If there’s enough left of the secondary in there to sort out which it is, it’s probably in the form of wanting to use those skills, but feeling like they’re not capable of it, or like it’d be nice to be able to do things that way in a perfect world, but that won’t work. From the outside, it can look very similar no matter what’s below. Thorough burning with no models is someone who just does, no preferred method. Someone with models and a burned enough secondary probably looks like their model, but in their own head might be beating themselves up a bit for not being able to do it the better way. A less-thorough burning without models is harder to pin down, because people deal with burning in different ways: it might also look like no preferred method, it might be that they second-guess that instinct so much it makes the act look clumsy or they end up self-defeating their attempt, or it might just involve shrugging it off as not good enough no matter how much it looks like they’re using their house fine from the outside.