the way of the unconscious
Everyday we experience the unconscious. Through a surge of emotion we don’t understand where it’s coming from, when we overreact, with what we despise or reject, with repetitive patterns. It can work along the conscious mind, and other times it takes over, and we encounter an inexplicable conflict that we can’t seem to resolve.
What it is certain of, is that it consistently tries to communicate. The hidden parts look for expression. What is hidden within can be as diverse as humanity. Subpersonalities can be vile, greedy, violent, or can be revealed in moments where a surge of wisdom, generosity, or strength not known to our conscious mind emerges. Each time, it shows us that we are different, or that there’s more to what and who we think we are.
We have a rich inner world, either we begin to know it voluntarily or involuntarily when it gets us in trouble and when we get “stuck”. The invitation is to voluntarily get to know what lives within you. Welcome the messages from the unconscious, to understand its expressions. The unconscious is meant to be known, when it wants or needs to be expressed, but it is not to be controlled, overcomed or fully integrated. It is bigger than what our conscious mind can hold. It’s ever producing and intelligent, trusting that what needs to be known will arise and communicate.
Get curious, pay attention to the ways in which it’s already communicating with you, listen to what it has to say, learn to work with your dreams, explore your life story, your relationships, how the world and it’s trouble reflects parts of who we all are, or venture into transformational experiences that can reveal to you what wants to be seen and accepted by you. Working with the unconscious is humbling, can be grounding, and liberating.
“The unconscious is a marvelous universe of unseen energies, forces, forms of intelligence -even distinct personalities-that live within us. It is a much larger realm than most of us realize, one that has a complete life of its own running parallel to the ordinary life we live day to day. The unconscious is the secret source of much of our thought, feeling, and behavior. It influences us in ways that are all the more powerful because unsuspected.” (Jonhson, R. )
