Category: Depth Psychology Reflection on the Unconscious

Picture of a palimpsest…

“Sometimes we project fractal scripts, palimpsests of possibility, onto others and then relate to them as if this is who they are rather than recognizing them as fictive characters in our inner drama. Thus we unwittingly seek out persons to play and replay our persecutors, or rescuers, or victims. Sometimes we repress stories, and their presence may only be surmised when they leak into our dreams, our bodies, our children, our anaesthetizing addictions. Sometimes we dissociate from or condemn others when they enact our secret lives and embody our shadow, which is always repulsive to the ego. The vastness of the human psyche is such that we will never know it fully, or even in significant measure. So we who pride ourselves on being conscious, lead lives in service to stories, some conscious but construed and witnessed aslant, some unconscious but persistent, and almost always binding us to a past over which we had no control. Given the ubiquity of these silent formative narratives, what is our alternative to struggling for a precious purchase on consciousness…… over and against whatever agencies are there dictating our lives?”

Hollis, James. Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives (Kindle Locations 296-301). Chiron Publications. Kindle Edition.

 

Ooooh Ooooh Oooh. ….  Don’t let go while I’m hanging on ‘Cause I’ve been hanging on so long.

Intellectual intelligence has, in the recent decades, been distinguished from emotional intelligence.  What predicts future success?  Emotional intelligence.  Like an over- protective parent who rationalizes or justifies her child’s every mis-step, or intervenes too often and too soon, the intellect will thwart the emotional growth of the heart and lead us, unwittingly, to jeopardy…again and again…until the shell of the intellect is cracked by the storms of life, allowing some light in to reveal where there is festering deprivation, illusion, or pain lying in darkness.  Before the crack’s light is covered in bandages, allowing us to move on as we were, we would be blessed to encounter the healing conditions that include emotionally intelligent mirrors that will not reflect back what was known but, rather, what can be known.  Emotional intelligence is beyond nice or kind.  It is beyond platitudes, formulas, positive thinking, and good marketing.  Emotional intelligence is a quiet patient space between ourselves and the co-existing shadow and light being revealed…where we may hear our own voice for the first time.  It is awakened…with steady practice.  It is the part of our self that refuses the bandages and seeks mirrors that do not merely reflect back what is easy, instant and feels good or what culture dictates, persuades, tempts.  It is the part of self that seeks to be alive and do more than “hang on”.