Queen of People’s Hearts

I do things differently, because I don’t go by a rule book, because I lead from the heart, not the head, and albeit that’s got me into trouble in my work, I understand that.  But someone’s got to go out there, love people and show it.

                                I am a free spirit – unfortunately for some.”

dianax1

“This is me, this is me!” exclaimed Princess Diana when she was read Dr. David Keirsey‘s portrait of an Healer Idealist, (INFP).

In 1991, her masseur, Stephen Twigg, had given her a copy of Please Understand Me to help her understand the spiritual journey she was undertaking. Her enthusiasm and excitement showed as Stephen read the Healer Idealist (INFP) portrait:

“Healers care deeply and passionately about a few special persons or a favorite cause, and their fervent aim is to bring peace to the world and wholeness to themselves and their loved ones. They base their self-image on being seen as empathic, benevolent, and authentic. Often enthusiastic, they trust intuition, yearn for romance, seek identity, prize recognition and aspire to the wisdom of the sage.”

According to Diana: In Pursuit of Love, a book released in the Summer of 2004 by Andrew Morton, Diana’s unofficial biographer, Diana was astonished and amazed by the portrait’s accuracy. At that time, Diana was in the midst of dealing with her dissolving marriage to Prince Charles while at the same time beginning to recognize her “potency as an international icon,” and the fulfillment she felt from helping others in great need. Taking the Keirsey Temperament Sorter confirmed what Diana had known by her intuition, that her gift was that of a Healer. Diana felt she would be able to use this new-found knowledge as a foundation to what she wanted to do with herself for the rest of her short life.

The portrait of the Healer Idealist goes on:

“It may be that Healers seek unity within themselves, and between themselves and others, because of a feeling of alienation which comes from their often unhappy childhood. INFPs live a fantasy-filled childhood… They are the Prince or Princess of fairy-tales… Healers come to see themselves as ugly ducklings… They wonder, some of them for the rest of their lives, whether they are OK. They are quite OK, just different from the others – swans reared in a family of ducks.”

Interestingly, Diana fit the description of Healer Idealist to a tee because she was initially viewed as fairy-tale Princess, who felt like an “ugly duckling” but really was a “swan.” To the outside world she was viewed as one of the beautiful people – she seemed to have it all. However, inside Diana felt like an “ugly duckling,” or, as she put it her own words at one time, “lower than a Bosnian peasant.”

Diana went on to become the most popular princess in modern history, despite all the power of Windsor and St James courts arrayed against her because she overshadowed Charles publicly, and eventually would not keep quiet about his mistress and lack of love for her. She became a famous public example of the Healer Idealist, despite her monumental self-doubt and the power of the British Crown. Prince Charles and the Queen should have realized temperament is powerful force, and nothing can get in its way.

Even in childhood Diana lacked self-confidence. Her parents had divorced when she was young and her mother, Frances, left but failed to get custody of her children, partly because Frances’ own mother, Lady Fermoy, had sided with Diana’s father. Diana, only six at the time, did not understand why her mother left. She felt abandoned and blamed herself for the failed marriage as kids often do in that situation.

Diana never was to forget the scrunching sound of the gravel and the slam of a car door as her mother left the family home for good..

This kind of childhood turmoil has a very great impact on an Healer. Dr. Keirsey says, “Healers find it difficult to believe in themselves and to trust themselves.”

dianax2 as teenager

Diana grew up as a shy but likable student but didn’t excel in her schooling. Being the third girl of a nominally aristocratic family, no real plan was made for her regarding her schooling or career, so she was quietly allowed to drop out of a finishing school in Switzerland at age 16. Without high-paying skills, she worked as a quasi-nanny, baby-sitter, and charwoman for her upper crust friends and family, as many Healers are, Diana was a natural with children, and started working at a kindergarten.

diana and charlesx3

Diana was probably on the path of becoming a schoolteacher when she was reacquainted with Prince Charles, who was being strongly pushed by his Royal parents into getting an acceptable, pliant, royal wife and to produce an heir to the throne. The beautiful Lady Diana Spencer, young at 19 compared to the Prince at 33, was definitely from an acceptable British family, her father being the Eighth Earl of Spencer.

With a fairy tale wedding and delivery of two children, Diana created a very positive public role. Almost too positive – the Brits and the world went gaga over Diana, virtually ignoring Charles. Moreover, Charles had found his young, naive, and emotional needy wife not to his liking. Additionally, he found her sicknesses caused by bulimia to be annoying and he soon started to ignore her as well as becoming verbally abusive. Not able to verbalize her frustration, she cut herself and tried to commit suicide.

“When no one listens to you, or you feel no one’s listening to you, all sorts of things start to happen.
For instance you have so much pain inside yourself that you try and hurt yourself on the outside because you want help, but it’s the wrong help you’re asking for. People see it as crying wolf or attention-seeking, and they think because you’re in the media all the time you’ve got enough attention, inverted commas.
But I was actually crying out because I wanted to get better in order to go forward and continue my duty and my role as wife, mother, Princess of Wales.
So yes, I did inflict upon myself. I didn’t like myself, I was ashamed because I couldn’t cope with the pressures.”

In their mating role, Healers have a deep commitment to their vows… Healers cling to their dreams, and often find it difficult to reconcile a romantic, idealized concept of conjugal life with the everyday living with another person.” [Please Understand Me II]

Duty aside, the Prince would probably have been happier continuing as a bachelor, keeping to his hunting and polo life style forever. However, mistresses are very common in the circle of Royals, and it wasn’t long before Charles went back into the arms of his past girlfriend, Camilla, and the St. James’ courtiers helped with a royal cover-up.

At Windsor, Queen Elizabeth II, a straight and narrow, closed lipped “Inspector Guardian” was not happy with Charles’ implicit decision, but was not the type to rock the boat or jeopardize the monarchy – she had sacrificed too much and done her duty for almost 50 years. Elizabeth’s response to Diana’s complaints was typical – “do your duty, besides it’s all in your imagination.” The Queen, herself, had put up with her Philip’s wanderings and brusque “German” ways. Diana early in her marriage realized that the Queen and the Queen Mother had no support to give to her except to advise her to “keep a stiff upper lip,” as the Brits would say.

“It’s so bloody dishonest, a damned farce,” Diana had exclaimed about the maintaining of the illusion of the happy royal families for Charles and Andrew.”

diana and sons laughter x4

Absolutely devoted to her boys, as any Healer would be, she realized however, that the Queen had the power. Custody and access to Diana’s children was in the hands of the Queen of England by law. Diana had a new-found understanding of her mother now, because she was in a similar situation, not having control of her own children because of the British aristocracy. Because of this, she was cautious, compared to her sister-in-law, Sarah Ferguson, on what she was to do.

diana greetingsonsx5

Diana was locked in a gilded cage and realized that if she didn’t do anything, she would die there. She had a suspicion, for good reason, that her apartment and phone line were bugged by the family. The fish bowl of a life at Kensington palace, with all the servants whose loyalty could not be completely trusted, made her paranoid. Having been unsuccessful at love in this restrictive environment and bottled up by the court, she looked more and more at what she could do with her life, without being dependent on Charles and the resources of the monarchy. Diana said:

“I love going round places like Stoke Mandeville Hospital. I’m not so gripped by those getting better. It’s the ones on the way out that I feel a deep need to be with.”

In the late eighties and early nineties Diana had been making secret visits to see London’s homeless at the Passage Idea Centre in Victoria. She realized that her style of ambassadorship, visiting the less fortunate and the down and out, could have great impact – compared to her official, Windsor sponsored royal tours.

“I found myself being more and more involved with people who were rejected by society – with, I’d say, drug addicts, alcoholism, battered this, battered that – and I found an affinity there.

And I respected very much the honesty I found on that level with people I met, because in hospices, for instance, when people are dying they’re much more open and more vulnerable, and much more real than other people. And I appreciated that.

I used to sit on hospital beds and hold people’s hands, people used to be sort of shocked because they said they’d never seen this before, and to me it was quite a normal thing to do.

And when I saw the reassurance that an action like that gave, I did it everywhere, and will always do that.”

Her vision as being an ambassador-at-large for the British people and advocating for causes like the banning of landmines, could work without the support of the royal family, who were tightening the purse strings in the hope that she would fade into the background.

diana-and aids baby x 6

In the 1995 BBC1 Panorama interview with Martin Bashir the then, Princess of Wales was asked about the future she saw for herself:

BASHIR: Do you think you will ever be Queen?

DIANA: No, I don’t, no.

BASHIR: Why do you think that?

DIANA: I’d like to be a Queen of people’s hearts, in people’s hearts, but I don’t see myself being Queen of this country.

In her last interview, just before her tragic death, she said:

Yes I do touch. I believe that everyone needs that whatever their age. When you put your hand on a friendly face, you make contact right away; you communicate warmth that you’re close by. It’s a gesture that comes to me naturally from the heart.

I’ve got tremendous knowledge about people and how to communicate. I’ve learnt that, I’ve got it, and I want to use it.

And when I look at people in public life, I’m not a political animal but I think the biggest disease this world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved, and I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give – I’m very happy to do that and I want to do that.”

Retrospective of Princess Diana

2 thoughts on “Queen of People’s Hearts”

  1. Diana said “I will never be Queen”. The world of your imagining doesn’t question how you see the world, it simply answers your request!
    We are all of us pawns to our greatest hopes and fears, be careful what you pray for, dream great and fear nothing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *