Mind Benders — no. 1

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Find A Loop-hole Into The Secrets Of the Unconscious Mind

Exercise no. 1

  • I. Write down everything that bothers you about someone you know.
  • Be petty! (These thoughts are for your eyes only).
  • What about this person upsets you?

    • How would you characterize this person?

  • How should s/he change?
      • Now — simply put your writing aside.

    What you are about to learn is two-fold.

    1. That we actually have no power over anyone else, period .

    2. The place we have power is in becoming our true selves.

    Notice that it was our own mind that chose the words we wrote down about another.

    If we reverse the spotlight now, we can open our awareness to the unconscious mind , thereby learning a great deal about ourselves.

    I want to caution you though — This “window” into the unconscious tends to cause an myriad of responses from the ego: “it’s not me…”,

    … But if you know anything about our “shadow figures“, you know that, once understood , they no longer act as monsters. We only need to meet them with understanding.

    So this exercise is, at first, a leap of faith. Yet, I promise you, after a few discoveries, we become friends with these mistaken monsters, and can actually learn to respect them in assisting your own personal growth.

    II. Find a time in your day when you can spend a moment with yourself. Get as relaxed, mentally, physically, and emotionally, as you can.

    • Read the paper you wrote about the person you are upset with.
    • Shift the pronouns. YOU becomes ME, and vice-versa.
    • Sit with this new idea. Can you find the truth in it?

    EXAMPLE

    Me and The Old Hag Archetype

    When I was going through my divorce, with 6 year old twins, I sometimes felt such anger and even had visions of violence: like ripping up old love letters that I found while trying to box up His verses My personal stuff. These feelings, which felt overwhelming during each episode, were entirely foreign to me. I didn’t want to claim this “ugly, horrible” side of myself — if it even was myself…. (but seriously, who else could it be?)

    So I researched the Old Hag Archetype.
    “She is the figure in myth of the evil woman who is capable of stealing peace from the innocent. In each historical portrayal, she is uniquely terrifying and at the same time, remains a universal symbol of woman’s unconquerable power.She is thought to arise during traumatic events or severe disruptions in life.”
    Well, that made sense. My divorce was very traumatic to me – my “Perfect Life” was in shambles and I was so-so afraid of the future I would have to endure.

    Somehow I needed the strength she represented, to move forward despite my fears. She said, “Don’t cross me! I’ll kick your a@!”

    Yet, my best bet was to be-friend her… to “use” her so I wouldn’t collapse in it all. I needed, however to keep her in check.

    “I hate my ex” becomes “I hate me” … ? … for failing my family.

    Ok. That makes sense. … but, can I forgive me, too?

    “I need to destroy my idea that we had a good marriage” became, “I need to embrace my idea that we had a good marriage, but it’s over.”

    I felt calmed by that statement. At least it wasn’t unusual, right? Many people decide that they don’t want to stay in stagnant lives, even though it was, at one time, thriving.

    So I invite you to try this exercise. Let me know how it goes!

    The Meaning of Life (Wants to be) Revealed!

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    Throughout time, people have wondered what life is about — is it all meaningless? Am I here to learn certain things? To resist certain things?

    Regardless of what we believe about our place in the universe, it appears to be our nature to search for meaning.

    And I believe there are patterns in our lives that imply we have lessons to learn during our lifetime.

    We may ask ourselves: Why?…

    Why do I keep getting into abusive relationships?

    Why do I often feel like a victim?

    Why can’t I relax in the moment with friends?

    Why do people see me as unapproachable?

    A HERO’S JOURNEY

    Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and other scholars have placed a lot of emphasis on the unconscious mind— the parts of ourselves that we know little about — yet an essential part of mind, as it controls much of our interpretation or experience of life. These wise men emphasize the need to do whatever it takes to make as much of the unconscious conscious in order to live a full, meaningful, authentic life.

    So how can we make the unconscious more conscious?

    As we journey through our lives, we can learn to interpret our experiences by understanding archetypal characters, looking for symbolism in our dreams, and becoming curious about the characters we relate to in stories.

    1. DREAM INTERPRETATION

    One avenue of discovery is focusing on our dreams, both day and night, and looking for clues in the symbolism. Keeping a Dream Journal, that is, waking and quickly writing down what we recall from a dream, can be a rich clue for unraveling our personal lessons for living a meaningful life. Accuracy isn’t important — it turns out that the words we choose become the clues to the unconscious mind.

    EXAMPLE — I HAD A DREAM … where I had a set of keys that seemed very important, yet I fumbled and dropped them down a storm drain. My oldest brother had to help me retrieve them.

    Symbolism:

    • OLDEST BROTHER, for me, represented maturity, authority, intelligence and wisdom.
    • KEYS represented my responsibility to take care of something important.
    • NEEDING HELP reminded me that, although awkward, it was ok to seek the wisdom of someone wiser than me.

    2. STORIES

    I think another avenue to self-discovery is in reading literature and/or watching shows. The unconscious seems to only be available through indirect means: a kind of charade; or archetypal imagery; metaphor and/or symbolism.

    A good novel reaches around our ego defenses and potentially reveals to us the next step in our developmental journey. We identify with particular characters, abhor others, and may be attracted to others still. When we have an emotional responses to a character’s experiences, we grow ourselves without even trying. Unconsciously we have discovered an archetype just waiting to be given a voice. Music, poetry, even astrology, coincidence and tea leaves can lead to similar self-discovery!

    Each is a potential window into our deepest parts of being.

    • EXAMPLE –– I love the story of “Alice In Wonderland“. I even love the

    White Rabbit” song by “Jefferson Airplane”. Without being able to properly understand why I was so touched by the story, I was later able to recognize that it reflected some of my core values:

    • be curious.
    • Question the “rules”.
    • And enjoy the journey — no matter how strange.

    3. Getting FEEDBACK

    Another avenue to getting to the root of our purpose in life is to be open to feedback from others. As risky as this may feel, asking others about what they think of us can be revealing. The key is having a desire to really know who you are.

    “Life is about floating on the seas of turbulence, drifting on the eddies and currents, flowing, and along the way, learning: whatever that may look like for each of us currently experiencing a mortal life.” 

    ~Joanna Hunter