How We are Built
continued.
In
which we define Conscious, Sub-conscious, and Unconscious.
We have a Psyche/Mind
of a particular structure.
Conscious,
sub-conscious and unconscious.
When we discuss the
conscious and unconscious we are talking about those things that we are aware
of, in contrast to the things we are not aware of.
Define Conscious.
This is our light side; it
is available to the light.
“The person I own and
operate; civilized but fragile” LOPKER p.92
These are the things I
think I know about myself, or my concepts/ideas about my self.
I will refer to it as the
‘outer self’ or ‘outself’ for short.
The conscious mind is
actually built to cope with quite limited amounts of data at any one time. 7
plus or minus 2 bits of information. (Notice that there’s plenty of
information/data coming into the unconscious.)
This is not to say that we
do not know more than computer or that there is not great potential within, but
it is to say that it is wise to allow for that. It seems to be part of the
design for being human and it may have to do with de-emphasizing and limiting
the importance of external data to the mind and/or forcing us to narrow our
focus on whatever.
Sub-conscious.
These are the bits of me
I’m vaguely aware of but are just below consciousness. If someone tells me some
information that’s in my sub-conscious, I would say ‘I know that’.
Most people use the word
sub-conscious to refer to the unconscious, but it is only part of the
unconscious and a very small part at that.
Few people like the idea
that they don’t know about what’s ‘in there’, but the unconscious is indeed
unconscious and extremely important and I will be using this term in this
discussion.
Unconscious.
In feeling terms, I’m not
aware of this part of me at all. This part of my self is not available to my
awareness; I don’t know or have forgotten about this bit of me completely. This
part feels like ‘not me’.
“This is the person I
do not know; the person I disown and deny.” LOPKER p.102
The unconscious contains the
…
·
history of our emotional memories.
·
functions that
drive the body and maintain homeostasis.
·
Observations and
information/data received through the body, including eg, all the music we did
and didn’t (jingles) want to remember, that we have learnt on the way.
·
Connection to
all Life, and our concepts of same. All our decisions, values, beliefs and
attitudes.
·
Connection to
our Higher Self, hence God and our comprehension of God.
·
Potential of
the whole Self which is at the centre of all that is encompassed by the conscious
and the unconscious.
·
Anima, animus,
inner child, internalized parents, archetypes, complexes and lots more.
·
Stuff which
we’re afraid to own including our best and our worst (both of which frighten
the socks off us).
Which
is rather a lot, really.
In terms of the amount of
‘stuff’ that it contains, it’s very big; as big as the world ‘out there’.
Psychologists use figures such as 10% for the conscious and 90% for the
unconscious to give us an idea of the difference between the known and the
unknown.
Our emotional memories.
What is stored in
our emotional memories is very important. This is not about remembering the
things you wish to be conscious of, such as a sportsman’s name, or where you
stored the lilo after last year’s trip to the beach. This is about some of what
is actually stored in the unconscious.
These memories are above
all emotional. The things we store in our memories have strong emotional
energy; from positive to negative. We don’t tend to remember the day-to-day; we
remember the feeling or a sensation associated with a memory (the smell of
lily-of-the-valley reminds me of my grandmother).
We store all our important
emotional memories. The good ones are our assets and are resources for us
because they can be used to help us steer our lives in that direction for more
of them. The ‘bad’ ones are also stored. These are extremely important because
they affect our decisions about our lives, which is what we ‘make of’ our
lives; and thus continue to affect our future, no matter what we may think.
(Many psychotherapists speak of them as ‘programs’.) The business of how (and
whether) we clear, resolve, understand, negate or whatever we manage to ‘do’
with these memories is a crucial aspect of this discussion.
We also store memories and
their attending decisions about life from past lives.
Defining the unconscious
is a solid cow, because it extends from our highest potential which is unknown
to us, all the way down to what we consider to be the worst we could possibly
be as well as our worst fears. It is a whopping mix of stuff we wish we knew
(the potential as well as the ‘good’ stuff) mixed up with stuff we really
don’t want to know (our worst memories from all lives including our judgement
of them).
Internally, some part of
the unconscious feels like a child; it is the part of us that is afraid, slow,
inept, weak, unsure, and it does lots of hiding, especially when it does not
trust our own attitude to it. If you tend to ‘bash yourself up’, you are indeed
bashing this part of you. It feels like the klutz and the ‘idiot’. Hence it is
often referred to as our inner child. This inner child is also the source of
our emotions, creation, recreation, spontaneity and intimacy. The more apart we
are from our inner child the less internally satisfied and happy we will be.
The more we hate the slow inept klutzy bits of ourselves, the less we will be
able to relate to our inner child and thus to others as well, particularly our
own children.
There is much to be gained
by treating our unconscious as an inner child if we are able to care
about it as we hopefully would be able to nurture and care about our own child.
This is a very valuable exercise that can bring great delight.
However our inner child is
not the only part of the unconscious. There are quite a lot of other parts of
us or ‘members’. Our feminine (anima) and masculine (animus) also live in here.
In fact there’s ‘a world of people’ in here. As we re-member these parts we
come to feel more resilient/complete.
There is also our concept
of and direct connection to God and to Life. The connection to God is
through our Higher Self which feels very large and quite remote and is probably
the part of us that we must face up to in the end, which is not easy at all.
Most of us dodge off till next time… It is the part that knows what we were
wanting to achieve in this lifetime. This would be the source of our dreams.
[Any well-interpreted dream gives the feeling of someone ‘out there’ (ie not
me) who knows more about me than I do myself, and that person is trying to tell
me something that I need to know. ]
The other point to
understand here is that our own conception of God is God as far
as we’re concerned. We can’t conceive of God any other way than what is inside
us. It can be modified and changed etc, but our little bit stays just that; our
little bit; big enough for us but without the comprehension of the whole, which
would be just too much. Similarly with our ‘scoping’ of Life; and all Life is
God. Thus for us, our unconscious is
God and Life and this inner self.
I will refer to this part
of ourselves as the ‘inner self’ because it is inside us, and I will use InSelf
for short. I am using ‘In’ for Inner and Self with a big ‘S’ because it is
actually bigger than our known or conscious self, and because it is our direct
connection with God/Life/Self.
From this connection then,
we can start to face the concept that God, Life, and our Inner Self are the same
thing within our own comprehension; (ie. InSelf = GLS).
There really are a lot of
‘selves’ in this discussion and I have mentioned a Self a few times as well.
Jung used Self as “the whole Self at the centre of all that is encompassed
by the conscious and the unconscious”.
A lot of the problem with
trying to define names is that this stuff is dynamic, as in, it changes over
time within any person as we realize more about ourselves, and it is basically
unmeasurable by us or others. The upshot leaves us trying to get a handle on a
basic set of ‘selves’ which together can make a whole or a unity. I will use
Self (’big S’) for the United or Whole Self. Learning to know InSelf and
learning to love this ‘other’ is the path to the Self, and thus to
partnership with God.
However much we have difficulty
defining the unconscious and however much we don’t know who is ‘in here’; it is
still an extremely important part of us, because…
·
The unconscious is emanating or broadcasting
your vibrations to Life. This is what Life is Mirroring back to you.
·
It comes out in
our behaviour, as in, what we do. It is our actual truth about ourselves
whether we like it or not, and other people can see/feel/sense it even if we
cannot.
·
It drives the
show. It is the part that is actually in charge here, not the conscious part.
It is thus more powerful than ‘you’ ie, your outself or your ‘me’.
So,
if your life is not doing what you think it should be doing, then basically it’s a good idea to make friends with your unconscious
and start talking to it. ‘How’ is further down in this discussion.
The upshot of all this
business about conscious and unconscious is that we might as well consider
ourselves as 2 people; one we know about and are quite sure about who is here,
(’That’s the way I am’.) and the other we do not know about at all. This
internal ‘other’ is as unknown to us as anyone else out there with no
relevance or relationship to us, and the grand question is ‘Who is this
internal other? Who is actually there?’ Hence ‘Know Thyself’.
Now I wish to discuss the
relationship between your 2 internal ‘people’.
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