The Psychotic Within

The past week has been a fascinating experience of seeing and engaging with the man within me with murderous intent against me. I am training in Psychodrama, a therapeutic method for working with groups and manifesting the truth within on a stage, using the group as actors/auxiliaries in the drama. There is a woman in the group who, last year, was my lover, and who suddenly decided to depart, and I felt hurt, anger, rage, sad and alone. I found plenty of healing within was required to move through the debris of the situation. This past weekend as I was in training, I found myself observing her. She was alive, comfortable, free, clearly blossoming and shining as a person, solid and beautiful in her presence. The more I saw and admired her, the more I connected with and understood the love I felt, and do feel for her. That was a beautiful and freeing experience.
However, I also experienced another voice within, that started up quietly and grew through the weekend. The gist of the voice was “She is so beautiful and gorgeous, no wonder she left because you are dirty and filthy and there is no way someone as beautiful as she is would choose to have you in their life.” To call the voice vicious is an understatement. I would have preferred to have had a chance to do a drama and bring out that part of me and work with it. Instead, the opportunity was not available to me. I experienced much distress as, at one point I became overwhelmed by my own vicious attacks, and felt shattered and defenceless.
I subsequently had a dream. I was on a very dark uphill path from a set of cabins and heading to my sleeping quarters. I met a man. In the darkness he attacked me. He punched me, kicked me, and mercilessly and relentlessly laid into me. Murder was his intent. I escaped somehow, finally reaching my cabin. I found my mattress rolled up, and as I was standing on steps to the upper bunk bed, the man opened my cabin door. Futilely I attempted to slam it shut, but he got inside, and I awoke, knowing he was going to kill me. I knew the man in the dream with such vicious intent was me, and I knew he was out in strength, long time buried, because of the experience with my ex-lover, and other events of the past week.
I recognise that he developed in me when, as a child my father left the family when I was seven, and I tried answering my own question: why did he leave me? My answer was: because I am not good enough for him. Over the years that voice was strengthened to my psychotic killer of self as I did things I judged as evil and wrong. Sexual desires as a developing young man were among the myriad of feelings and expressions that I judged as bad, indicative of my evil, and piece by piece my vicious self-destructive self was developed. I am thrilled now that I am able to work with this part of me, a part that over the years has taken many forms and intensities, and that now I am prepared to engage with and resolve. This is an example of my inner world that creates fog for me to work with, and maybe now I can change its intent as I find a new way of being within, train and develop a kinder, gentler person as those who know me see in the external world. What a fabulous opportunity to heal myself, and resolve some inappropriate aspects developed by myself as a growing child and teenager who wanted to understand some things that did not have good answers, but as a child had to be “my fault”. We can create so much pain for ourselves simply by attempting to interpret a world we are not equipped to comprehend as a child, or even as an adult.

Change of Metaphors

I recently had the good fortune of being on a Co-Counselling training programme where I explored the internal pressure I experience between multiple options. I awoke from a dream that I found very unsettling. I was in a skyscrapper, bottom floor, that was on fire, and I fled outside only to miss being hit by a falling person who dies right in front of me as he smashed into the pavement. I ran back through the building and realised the other side had even more people falling, dressed in the fineries, and that if I went that way I would surely die. The choice was stay in the building and burn and be crushed to death, or try leave and be killed by plummeting bodies.
I was able to work with this dream in a group session, having five people on each arm pulling my arms in different directions. As a large man I did not feel overly troubled by the pressure, and was then open to and surprised with how much forward and backward movement was available. While being stretched in two directions, the attempt being to rip me apart, I started to see myself as soaring like a eagle, riding thermals, and quite capable of moving through life, without having to respond directly to pressure. I found a new sense of freedom, a way to work with the fog arising from pressure, and being more potent in the moment.
I have seen this tearing process occur in my current relationship, where my interests and desires and availability for the relationship do not match my partners, and tension and pressure build up, pushing me for a decision. A decision in such moments will tend towards breaking up, dissatisfaction being a major driver. In allowing myself to soar, to be less caught in the tension, I have found a greater depth of experience with H, and a greater peace within. I don’t have to know what will happen between us RIGHT NOW! And I can let it unfold in its own good time, or until I recognise clearly where I want to be from some other process.
I spend so much time being torn when I could in fact use the pressure to support my soaring and flight and develop a whole new way of Being, thriving instead of surviving.

Fear-Based Reactions vs. Power-Based Responses

It is well established that Fight or Flight are fundamental survival modes, driven from the Amygdala, the reptilian brain as part of the brain stem. Freeze is well represented in nature, the freezing of the rabbit or the deer in headlights, confused over what to do, or hoping stillness will result in the threat passing. It can also be the denial that anything is happening. Finally, the fourth reaction is Fabricate, the use of masks or camouflage to attempt to throw off the threat. This is a higher order reaction to fear, represented by the chameleon, and by so many disingenuous people on this planet.
Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fabricate are all fear-based, and reactions because they are initiated when confronted with some form of threat. The threat may be physical danger, emotion upset, mental confusion or a host of other possibilities. They can be essential to survival (dodging a speeding car!) but overused they can set a negative basis for life that is focused on dealing with fears and only short-term outcomes.
When working from personal power, experiencing life and consciously engaging from a place of innate power, has a very different outcome. For each of the fear-based reactions there is a power-based response that takes a longer-term, strategic view of a situation. The responses are Assert (Fight), Attend (Flight), Freeze (Act), and Authenticate (Fabricate). While survival reactions are essential, conscious development and application of the power-based responses has greater capacity to create a meaningful life, focused on thriving rather than surviving.

Introduction

The first 35 years of my life were spent living in a self-constructed box, established to keep me safe, restrict my experience of life, ensure my emotional world was as smooth as possible. It did not work, but it was “existing” in the best way I knew. Since that time I have been on a journey of exploration and discovery, opening up to my inner world, living more fully in the outer world, and connecting with my authentic self with greater ease. Each defence mechanism I have removed has exposed me to more life, but the deconstruction process also creates rubble, stirs up dust, and may leave me stumbling for a while as I learn a new way of Being.
The confusion and chaos is what I refer to as fog. It is a necessary aspect of personal growth and development. It is to be embraced and engaged with, and appreciated for the learning it offers. Fog is a call to get more intimate with oneself. Attempting to push on, move forward fast when shrouded in fog is likely to end with injury or losing yourself. Fog invites you to slow down, be still, take stock of your surroundings. More specifically it is an invitation to explore within, connect with and love Self, and establish a solid foundation to move from once the fog has cleared.
My intention with this blog is to expand on the idea of appreciating the fog by sharing my insights as I get them, drawing on past or emerging experience to solidify my concepts. I am also exploring the interrelationship of sharing my ideas and working with what that creates in others and returns to me. I am on a journey and this blog is part of it.
Join me if you choose...