An Original Sin

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sin

Original Sin, Originating Shame

As the example in my last post (Thank God!) indicates, while the participants in our toxic drama often change, the central theme of that drama does not. This is the psychological equivalent of original sin. An originating trauma becomes an ongoing problem. We rarely want to face our shame –sin– because shame, at its core and in its darkest places, makes us feel fatally flawed, unfixable, and unworthy. To feel unfixable is unendurable.

The Flight to Desire

The most common solution to the problem of shame-sin is to deny that it exists and then flee desperately into our desire nature as fast as we can. Unfortunately, our desires are not well equipped to save us from our deeply entrenched and hidden shame and sense of sin. Instead of releasing us from the oppressive weight of our toxicity/sin, and the toxic situations we draw to us, they divert us from the hidden issues that dominate our lives. While desire may distract us, it can never redeem us.

Camouflage and Packaging

In my client’s case, the future repetition of the original problem of shame/sin arrived in a compelling disguise, packaged in a different personality and starring in a different role. If we allow ourselves to be distracted by the superficial differences provided by an appealing disguise, we will fall victim to the devious power that our denied shame/sin possesses to reach into the future and sabotage our life. (to be coninued.)

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Thank God!

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The Lethal Nature of Unconscious Toxicity

If we permit unconscious toxicity to remain entrenched in our system, however, it will recreate the dysfunctional patterns of our original wounding experience. The wounds of the past will become the wounds of the present. The way we once bled will be the way we bleed again. Subconscious determinism will override the will of the conscious mind, severely limiting our ability to experience real inner freedom or find fulfillment.

When the subconscious contains hidden toxicity the people and situations we draw to us may seem to be very different from those that were toxic to us in the past, but the underlying patterns we experience in our encounters with them will be the same. They will still carry the same toxic charge for us as the people who originally shamed us, and they will infect us with that same toxicity all over again.

The Lawyer and the Judge

I once had a client, a female attorney, who was divorcing her husband, who happened to be a judge. She constantly complained that her husband was dry, distant, cold, and critical. While he may have had the perfect personality for a judge, he had the wrong one for a marriage. He constantly put her down and made her feel inadequate. Her self-esteem was virtually non-existent. When she first came to see me, her system was full of rage toward all men. In our first few sessions, we were able to clear some of her rage. That clearing created enough reflective space in her system for me to ask her about her childhood and her parents. When I asked her about her father, she answered that he had been warm, outgoing, engaging, and funny, nothing at all like her husband.
“Was your childhood a happy one?” I asked.

“Not really,” she admitted in a low voice.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well,” she started hesitantly, “My father was warm and funny, but he picked on me and made fun of me! He made me feel really inadequate and ashamed of myself, although I’m sure he didn’t mean to.”

With that confession, she burst into tears. I let her cry, making no attempt to console her. Consolation, like sympathy, validates the inner victim and interferes with the clearing process. Consoling her would have kept her rage intact, stopped her progress, and deprived her of the opportunity to discharge an important piece of her childhood shame. When she finished crying and became more peaceful, I pointed out the connection between her father and her husband.

“So,” I began, “while your husband and father are nothing alike, at least in terms of their personality, they are very much alike with regard to the quality that wounded and shamed you. Both of them were critical of you. Both of them made fun of you. Both of them put you down. Both of them made you feel inadequate and worthless. Your father caused your original shame. Your husband reopened that wound. Chronologically, the wounding events of your childhood are many years behind you, but the toxic emotion from those experiences is still very present in your system. Those emotions haven’t been banished. Instead, they have traveled with you into the present. Although hidden, they control your life.”

Shame

“Shame is a very powerful ongoing emotional event. It is not over just because the time it happened in is past. Time doesn’t separate you from your toxic emotions, as it separates you from the historical events of the past. If your toxicity remains unconscious, it will continue to terrorize you until you clear your childhood shame. If you don’t clear your shame, you will pull someone else into your life that will do the same thing to you. If your childhood dynamics had been more positive, you never would have married your husband in the first place. The source of your problem lies in your relationship to your father. Your husband is the result of that originating pattern.”

Getting Over Daddy

“Great!” she said, feeling frustrated by the task ahead of her. She had come to me to get over her husband. Now she had to deal with something even more difficult and overwhelming, her father.

“It only seems impossible now,” I told her. “The reality is that it should be fairly simple to clear the childhood shame from your system. The worst is over. You have faced the truth. When you know the truth you know what to do. The truth about your toxicity is a map that reveals your path to wholeness. Right now, your path goes through your relationship to your father. Every time you reveal and redeem another layer of your toxicity, you will discover more of your path and stand in more of your light. We make our way to our truth, step by step. Every step we take brings us more freedom. Much of life is about overcoming the negative. Since we all have had a different life experience, we each have a unique path to discover who we really are. This is your path.”

“Is this about the worst thing you’ve ever had to deal with?” she asked in the wounded voice of a child.

“No,” I replied. “It’s actually one of the easier dilemmas I have faced. This should be routine. The good news is that we now know where we’re going. The next step of your path is clearly defined. Your material is fairly mobile and should be easy to move. We should get through it quickly.”

“Thank God!”

Generating Karma: The Anger Virus

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Anger and Riot Police

Clearing Toxicity

While clearing the unconscious emotional toxicity from your past may be too complex a task to take on by yourself, clearing your current anger and negativity is a task that you can work through on your own. Let’s say, for example, that you’ve had a stressful day filled with conflict and hostility. You leave work feeling tense, angry, and worried. Your first thought when you walk through your front door and greet your family is to get a drink or two to soothe your nerves. You want to forget what happened as quickly as you can, and ignore those  troublesome feelings of anger that have tied your stomach up in knots. Your anger, however, is not eager to cooperate with your intentions and will not readily accede to your wishes. Anger is an agitated, aggressive, restless, and unhappy energy in need of an outlet and in search of a target. It cannot be stilled or pacified for long. Unless you transform your anger it will manifest in unexpected ways that are destructive to both yourself and other people.

Lashing Out: The Danger of Impulse

You’ve finished one drink now and are finally beginning to unwind. Your stomach is loosening up. You are finally able to breathe again. Then your spouse or one of your children barges into your study and asks you an innocent question. Before you can catch yourself you are taking the weight of your anger out on them. “Leave me alone, goddamitt! ” you scream. “Can’t you see that I need to be by myself for a few minutes? Is that too damn much to ask? Go away!” It’s not the way you intended to react, but you couldn’t help yourself. The words just slipped out of your mouth before you could stop yourself from saying them. Once they are out there you can’t take them back. The anger that hurt you in the workplace is now hurting those you love at home. A single, momentary slip of the tongue is all it took to cause emotional damage. Dinner is not pleasant, the air is toxic, charged with unexpressed emotion. No one says much. Instead, everyone retreats into his or her own world, upset, knotted up with anger, and silent.

An Emotional Infection

While that is painful enough, the events of the evening do not end at the dinner table. Every family member carries that toxicity with them into the next day. The toxicity in their systems will, in turn, infect many of the people they interact with perpetuating the anger and expanding its reach.

As the above example illustrates, the failure to process anger and other negative emotions can have serious consequences beyond your own experience. Instead of trying to assuage your anger and hope it goes away on its own, a far better approach to dealing with toxic emotion involves confronting and clearing your negativity as it arises. When you confront your anger and negativity as it occurs, you regain your balance and increase your power, clarity, and confidence. When you clear your anger and negativity you will be less prone to creating more negative karma.

In Harm’s Way

The opposite, however, is also true. When you ignore your anger, hoping that it will go away of its own accord, you lose your power and balance. By ignoring your anger, you put yourself in harm’s way, for you never know when or how that anger might surface and cause you to explode. When your anger does surface, the one thing you can count on is that the way you express it will not be in your best interests. Angry people are never at peace. They are karma generating machines.

The False Path

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soul

Meditating Monk

The Trap

The path that starts in the light, stays in the light, and ends in the light, never finds the bright light of the soul. We don’t evolve by avoiding our darkness. We evolve by facing our darkness, and face it we must. We can’t go up and elevate our life if we are unwilling to go down and eliminate our toxicity. When we clear our darkness we create more room for the light of our soul to shine brightly in our lives. Unconscious toxicity is the fuel of conscious growth.

If we try to “stay” in the light and avoid facing the darkness of our unconscious toxicity, we will not grow further. Our light will not burn brighter, and we will be unable to build the bridge to our soul. We might gain a method to reduce daily stress but not a means to elevate our life. Without clearing our toxic content, we cannot open ourselves to our soul or integrate the higher facets of our nature into our life in any cohesive way. Conquering our inner darkness is the secret to finding our path, our identity, our soul and our purpose.

The Playground Bully

Since the negative ego is rooted in unconscious toxicity and draws its strength from our repressed shame, clearing the toxic shame from our system will deprive the ego of its heavyweight status in the psyche. It will no longer be the playground bully, using fear to bind us in the darkness and suppress the superior voice of the soul. Of course, the negative ego does not fall easily, nor does it fall all at once. That would be far too easy. Usually, we must process several layers of unconscious toxicity before the negative ego begins to lose its strength. Nevertheless, every layer and toxic experience we clear diminishes the power the negative ego has over us until that power is fully deflated.

Defeating the negative ego is a goal that often evades the grasp of dedicated people, who have pursued their growth and spiritual development for years. Much of that failure is not due to lack of effort, level of commitment, or degree of consistent application, but rather to the use of inadequate methods that do not go deep enough, reach far enough, or have enough power to provide the desired results.

The Path Begins in Darkness

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negative emotions

Fighting Our Way Into the Light

There is no obvious, straight, or clear road through the dim maze and negative emotions of the subconscious. We fight our way into the light by challenging the dark and hidden forces inside us. When we finally challenge our inner darkness, we begin to forge our real path. That path does not begin until we face our darkness.

Where We Begin

We start where we feel anxiety, fear, discomfort, grief, sadness, rage, or pain. We start with our most prominent, obvious, and available negative emotions. Those negative emotions are the triggers that will help us unlock the door sealing our toxicity from our conscious mind. If we continue to feel and express those negative emotions until they become mobile and rise to meet our conscious mind, we will defeat the hidden toxic events they conceal.

Mobilizing Negative Emotions

We mobilize our toxicity by feeling our negative emotions as intensely as we can, then giving them a sound that expresses those feelings. That sound may be a guttural Urhhh!, or an Oohh!, or a string of curses. It really doesn’t matter what the sound is as long as it conveys our repressed feelings. By consciously expressing those negative emotions, we will eventually reach the stream of unconscious toxicity that lies behind them. When that toxic stream surfaces, we will no longer have to consciously force the process because those negative emotions will surge through us, and we will feel and express them with unexpected intensity. When that happens, the toxic events associated with the expression of those negative emotions will be released from our system.

The Moment of Transformation

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subconscious

Opening the Door

Opening the door to our subconscious toxicity may in the beginning prove to be a bit more difficult than we might imagine. After all, we are dealing with the realm of the irrational, the obscure, and the hidden. It is not a realm that most of us are used to dealing with. Its currents are unpredictable and uncertain. The subconscious as a rule does not yield its secrets easily or surrender them on demand. Rather, it laughs at and mocks the conscious affirmations we make asserting we have overcome our subconscious resistance and disarmed our fear, shame, and guilt. The subconscious knows that the toxicity buried in its vaults cannot be disarmed or controlled by the assertions of our conscious mind. We can’t wish ourselves out of the clutches of our toxicity, but with diligent effort we can bring our toxicity to the gates of the conscious mind. The arrival of unconscious toxicity at the doors of the conscious mind is the moment of transformation. While that moment may elicit our deepest fears, facing those fears leads to the integration of the physical and supra-physical aspects of our system.

 Entering the Shadow World

Our initial attempts to enter the shadow world of the subconscious often reveal a formidable opponent who is skilled at hiding and excels in resisting detection. A few screams, kicks, and knocks in the hopes of unleashing a torrent of buried emotion are not always going to be enough to open the barriers separating the conscious mind from the subconscious. Persistence and determination are important qualities to bring to the fight for clarity.

Do not forget that the negative ego’s intention is to hide our pain from us. It invariably exceeds its mandate by hiding itself in our repressed toxicity as well. The secret to the negative ego’s longevity is our fear of facing what we fear most. Our resistance to facing those fears keeps fear alive, increases the negative ego’s authority in our lives, and prevents us from integrating our system. Whenever fear is present and remains unchallenged, the negative ego avoids exposure and maintains its dominion.

The Inner Revolution

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power

The Coming Storm

The Balance of Power


The main purpose of the Elimination Zone is to shift the balance of power in the psyche from the negative ego to the soul. Since the source of the negative ego’s power is seated in the repressed emotional toxicity hidden in the psyche, the transfer of power from the negative ego to the soul is always preceded by emotional upheaval. The purpose of that upheaval is to clear unconscious toxicity from the psyche. This catharsis is a revolution, a change that initiates a new order of authority and power in the psyche and marks the beginning of the path of personal evolution. When that purge takes place, the negative ego loses its power base. The negative ego is no longer in control, and the psyche is no longer split and divided.

As a consequence of that revolution, things in our life that no longer work will depart of their own volition or be shown the door. Outmoded working and living conditions, relationships, beliefs, and lifestyles will fall away. Conditions and opportunities that are more in harmony with our true nature and real power will begin to take their place.

A Shift in Consciousness

One of the governing principles of all true internal work is that a shift in consciousness leads to a change in circumstances. As we move forward in the work of personal evolution, there will be several such shifts. Each shift will upgrade and elevate our life experience and increase our inner power. Personal evolution has the potential to compress the work of several lifetimes into a few lifetimes, or even one. How long the work will take depends upon our level of evolution, our willingness to stand in our true power, and our readiness for the journey. Regardless of where we may think we are or how advanced we think we might be, the journey begins in the same way for all of us. Entering the Elimination Zone and purging our unconscious toxicity is the foundation for all further advances in consciousness.

The Path to Mastery

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giving

Maitreya

Service and Self Interest

The truth the negative ego cannot grasp is that we always feel more fulfilled when we serve the well-being of others through giving than when we adhere strictly to our own self-interest. Giving of ourselves enriches us more than taking from others ever could. The richest among us are those who have succeeded in their inner journey. Their consciousness is filled with inner light. They have integrated their system and are whole. Their spirit, soul, mind, personality, emotions, and physical body are in alignment. Because of that alignment, their outer activities are in harmony with their essential nature. What they choose to do and how they go about giving reflects who they really are. They have no internal resistance and no toxic shadow to deprive them of fulfillment. Instead, they have the support of a higher power in their endeavor. The “force” is with them. The world benefits from their vision, their work, their love, their giving and their words. They are not here to take. They are here to serve and to give.

True masters walk among us. However, most people have not developed enough inner light to recognize that state of giving in others and so disregard what is offered them.

The Critical Importance of Personal Evolution

The purpose of the path of personal evolution is to help us find ourselves and succeed in life’s journey. Life works when we are whole and involved in giving to others. Kindness counts. Life is difficult enough. It is a far more difficult proposition when we have not integrated the physical and spiritual aspects of our nature. The world needs us all to be successful in that endeavor.

This is the path to mastery.  Are you ready to answer the call of your soul? Are you prepared for the journey to mastery? Are you ready to give more and take less? The journey will cost you everything you are and everything you have, but nothing more. In the process you will convert the heavy lead in your nature into pure gold.

The Negative Ego and Its Core Dilemma

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negative ego

Candle in the Darkness

The Problem

Meanwhile, the negative ego has a dilemma on its hands. While the negative ego feels safe in moving outward in the world, as opposed to moving inward to face the toxicity buried in its host’s system, it will never find lasting safety in doing so. The primary role of the negative ego is to protect its host from having to feel his original pain and fear again. The negative ego does this by burying those toxic experiences in his body, determined to keep them out of sight at all costs. If the host never has to feel them again, he can pretend they no longer exist. Unfortunately, denial is not a solution. It simply creates more internal distance between the host’s conscious mind and his subconscious afflictions. That distance doesn’t strengthen him. Instead, it undermines him by empowering his unconscious toxicity.

Dredging the Darkness

As we know, we cannot heal the splits in our nature until we raise the pain hidden in our body to the surface of our conscious mind. Given that operational truth, the negative ego cannot succeed in its primary mission of protecting us from pain. However, the negative ego does a very good job in distracting us from our primary mission in life, which is to realize who we really are. The truth is that the negative ego cannot protect us from fear and pain. The fact that pain is buried in our body means that we will attract more of it into our life, no matter how strong our resistance to it is or how powerful our sense of denial about it may be. As long as unresolved issues plague the subconscious, the will of the subconscious is negatively polarized. When an aspect of the will is negatively polarized, it holds the entire will hostage.

How Long Will We Stay in the Dark?

The negative ego then has little real security beyond how well it can keep us in the dark about our own darkness. A key goal of the relationship between the negative ego and the three forces of alienation is to keep us trapped in a limited experience of reality, where the most important parts of our nature are never seen or experienced.

Igniting Growth

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consciousness

The Buddha

Clearing Toxicity

If we do not clear our toxicity we cannot expand our consciousness. Our toxicity and lack of consciousness will prevent our soul from taking its rightful position of influence within our psyche, and our evolution will be unconscious and minimal at best. It is difficult to grow when we are not consciously involved with our consciousness. Growth that is forced to proceed along strictly unconscious lines is growth that advances at a glacial pace.

We ignite our growth toward more consciousness when we choose to participate in it. The difference between unconscious and conscious growth is the difference between riding on a donkey and flying in a jet. There is no real comparison.

Consciousness vs Desire

Consciousness and desire then, are different poles of experience. Consciousness is the positive pole. It quickens the pace of our struggle for more internal light and a deeper connection with our soul. It forces us to face the unhealed parts of our nature and then liberates us from our toxicity so we may find ourselves.

Desire is the negative pole of experience. It keeps us churning in the machinations of the negative ego. As long as we are stirred up and involved in one drama after another, we will not find peace, establish a connection to our soul, or go forward in our march toward greater consciousness. Drama keeps us involved and preoccupied with the objects of our desire so that we are unaware of our emptiness and our loss of our real self.

The Negative Ego

The covert purpose of the negative ego is to keep the soul from entering the psyche and short circuit our potential for more consciousness.  If it succeeds in that purpose, it will remain in control of the psyche and will not have to endure its own transformation into a healthy ego. Desire and the negative ego are the great antagonists to wholeness, completion and consciousness. That is their role in the great play of human evolution. They are not our friends. To defeat them, we must develop our inner light, integrate the two sides of our system, and reclaim our ability to love unconditionally. When we are able to do that we increase our consciousness exponentially. As we become more integrated,  we will be able to turn away from the path of most resistance with little further resistance.