psychosynthesis

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How Many Light Bulbs Does It Take to Change a Person?

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This week I unleash my "Inner Geek" with a Star Trek reference. In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard is interrogated by a sadistic captor, Gul Madred. Day after day, Madred tells Captain Picard to look at an overhead lamp with four light bulbs. He asks Picard, "How many lights do you see?" When Captain Picard responds with the correct number, he is tortured and starved. Madred wants Captain Picard to claim that he sees five lights, when, in fact, there are only four. Shortly after he is rescued, Captain Picard confesses to his ship's counselor that toward the end of his captivity he believed he could see five lights. Self-delusion is a common occurrence, particularly when we are under duress. It's easy to see it in others. The homophobic preacher battling his own repressed sexual orientation. The "peace" activist who is angry and belligerent.

Of course, by definition, we tend not to see our own self-delusions. We may see ourselves as basically kind, generous, virtuous, open-minded or sophisticated. We tend not to see, however, the times in which we are or have the capacity to be mean-spirited, greedy, promiscuous, judgmental or a total geek.

Self-delusions can be a gift.  In a crisis, we only see the part of reality we can actually process. In our formative years, the emerging ego creates a partially-true identity that helps us navigate the tricky social structures in which we live. However, to be mature and whole and avoid self-sabotage, these delusions must eventually give way to a more accurate perspective.

When I was in Japan, I went to verdant Mount Koya-san. Accessed only by funicular, over 100 Buddhist temples populate its slopes. At the temple where I spent the night, guests are invited each morning to join the monks for a fire ceremony.  All of the monks except one sit together on the right side of a screen that divides the temple in half. They play drums and chant while surrounded by massive urns that house their sect's sacred scrolls. On the other side of the partition sits one monk stoking a large fire. The fire symbolizes the goal of the chanting meditation, which is not only to burn away our self-delusions, but also to illuminate them when they return throughout the day so that we can make more conscious choices that are appropriate for the moment.

Besides meditation, methods of burning away and illuminating self-delusions include:

  • Ask a partner or trusted friend for honest feedback without defending yourself
  • Pause for self-reflection once in a while when you sense an unseemly urge, thought or feeling emerge within you
  • Journal about what you consider to be unbearable in other people and then get real about the ways in which you behave (or are trying with every fiber of your being not to behave) in a similar way
  • Lighten up. These self-delusions are part of the human coping system and are not unique to you. When from a place of objectivity you see them for what they are, there's no need to take them personally or too seriously. You might even laugh at yourself...and everyone else.

What have you found helpful in illuminating your self-delusions? Please share your ideas in the comments section below.

Illuminating our self-delusions takes courage to boldly go within in order to become more present, clear and real in our daily lives. Every time we see through a delusion, we have an "aha" experience as a light bulb goes on. How many such light bulbs does it take to change a person? Who knows? Wisdom is less about changing and more about accepting the fullness of who we are, as we are, and then choosing to act from our brighter nature.  I can think of at least five Star Trek references I could use to make this point crystal clear, but I am choosing not to unfurl my Inner Geek again...for the moment.

Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," Sigmund Freud Even Freud sensed that the complex work of psychoanalysis could take itself so seriously that it found sexually-charged, repressed monsters everywhere in the psyche. To balance this perceived over-emphasis on the darker aspects of the psyche, Roberto Assagioli, an Italian contemporary of Freud, created a school of psychology known as Psychosynthesis.

Assagioli sought a more well-rounded approach in which the spiritual aspects of the psyche become an intentional part of the growth process. He believed that each of us has a unifying center, which contains an Observant Self and the will. The will is not characterized by willfulness but rather a sense of willingness to accept and integrate what is present. From this center, we can observe, harmonize, integrate and direct the various parts of the psyche.

The wonderful thing about this work is that it can be fun. Rather than years focused on navel gazing in which we see only lint and the failures of our parents, this approach uses drawing, imagination, guided imagery and other techniques to move us toward wholeness. Assagioli even believed that when we engage in this kind of personal growth and self-realization, we are doing nothing less than participating in the evolution of humanity.

While this school is very positive in its outlook, a major focus of the work is to befriend the "sub-personalities" that sabotage us. Simply put, sub-personalities are powerful, largely unconscious, psychic patterns from early life that easily hijack us. Psychosynthesis teaches us to become a conductor of sub-personalities who takes the cacophony of these often dissonant voices and brings them into harmony to sing the same song. The key, as with all spiritual and psychological work, is to accept and befriend whatever we find.

Here's a very simple practice based on Assagioli's work:

  • Spend a minute observing the thoughts that enter your awareness.
  • Notice that during that minute your thoughts changed, perhaps even contradicted each other. This shows that while you have thoughts, you are not your thoughts. There is some other part of you that is observing the constant flow.
  • Now spend another minute with your thoughts. This time see if you can also become aware of the part that is witnessing your changing thoughts.
  • This Observant Self is the part of you that notices your thoughts (or feelings or physical sensations) without becoming them, taking them too seriously or making them your identity.
  • Cultivating awareness of your Observant Self frees you to make a conscious, appropriate choice in any situation.

If you would like to learn more about Psychosynthesis and its tools for integrating your life, then please join us on Saturday, June 16 for a retreat day entitled "Path to Wholeness: Harmonizing the Conflicting Parts of Ourselves". It will be held in San Anselmo, CA.

Retreat details and registration form

 

 

May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor!

In The Hunger Games, the ruling leisure class subjugates their starving fellow citizens, who are confined to several districts, each of which provides an essential natural resource for the Capitol.  In an annual contest, a male and a female adolescent is taken from each district to fight to the death in “games” that are part gladiatorial entertainment and part brutal reminder that the government can and will crush any semblance of resistance. Adolescents are chosen by lottery, before which the mantra of the games is broadcast: “May the odds be ever in your favor!” I can’t help but wonder if the odds are in our favor. Let’s take a look at the game board. Economic upheaval. 1% vs. 99%. Overpopulation. (Despite claims by the Duggar family, it’s real.) Political and religious extremism. Irreversible environmental degradation. Looming termination of the petroleum era. The odds seem dicey, at best.

In The Great Work, Thomas Berry wrote, “The distorted dream of an industrial technological paradise is being replaced by the more viable dream of a mutually enhancing human presence within an ever-renewing organic-based earth community.” (p. 201) In other words, your odds, my odds and the odds of all life on the planet are linked.

What’s needed is a shift in pronouns: May the odds be ever in our favor, where “our” includes the 99% and the 1%, documented Americans and undocumented immigrants, Christian children in Iowa and Muslim children in Afghanistan, humans, trees, bees, whales, oceans, and air.

Our odds of survival rise when we see ourselves not as Masters of the Universe plundering every district of life for our own temporary satiation, but rather as one expression of a vast evolutionary story that precedes, exceeds and yet includes us.  In that story we do not see things, people, or even the Earth itself as belonging to us, but rather everything, including us, belonging to Life. It is in the service of Life that we can consciously choose to write a new chapter in the history of the emerging Universe, an era in which each of us becomes a fierce practitioner of justice, sustainability, and community.

The challenge before us is immense. Eventually, it will require birthing a new way of being human on the planet. We need more than tinkering with policies and developing a few renewable energy resources. We need a new lifestyle that is simpler, less industrial and more organic, less driven by global corporations and more community-driven.  One that respects and synchronizes with Life on the planet.

Where do we start? Once this week walk, ride a bike, or use public transportation when you would normally drive. Replace one supermarket trip with a visit to a local farmer's market.

On a more political note, become an unrelenting squeaky wheel for the cause of a more inclusive and sustainable Earth community. For instance:

Will we continue to decimate the very ecosystem upon which our survival depends? Or will we become a "mutually enhancing human presence" for humanity and the rest of our Earth community? Our chances of survival depend on the choices we make. May the odds be ever in our favor!

Please take a few moments to post below your thoughts, suggestions and steps you are taking to move us toward a “mutually enhancing human presence”.