Languages of the Unconscious

When we are deceiving ourselves, we hurt other people, because our understanding of right and wrong is based on our distorted story, which is often a long way from reality.
 
Early in life, I was hurt by other people’s self deception, and that lead to betrayal by people I loved who were supposed to care for me and create a safe home, and this is not uncommon, right? Early betrayals are really very traumatic and lead to adult life choices that can take us down an often, dark road. It takes hard work….and great moral effort, courage and self honesty to even consider a different path.
 
Telling the truth is the foundational aspect of therapy or therapeutic work of any kind,  returning to childhood voluntarily with a witness, someone who can guide us out of the unconsciousness to participate in being more conscious, even though this process can be very painful, what’s the alternative?  Well, in my humble experience and from working with others as a facilitator, counsellor, I can tell you the alternative is not a place you want to put effort into developing, and if we for a moment ask the question what is the purpose of this life?  Then getting ourselves straightened out would seem to be the first step to at least finding that purpose, because if we continue to make choices and decisions based on our unconscious mind, the habit mind, this will place us at great risk of never finding this purpose.  So, while the contents of the unconscious - the complexes and archetypal images and instinct groups - can and do disturb consciousness and even in some cases lead to serious chronic mental illnesses, the release of the unconscious through undoing repression can also lead to psychological transformation and the affirmation of life.  I will give you a personal example. 
 
Then we have an entirely different language, the languages of the Unconscious.  This as I have discovered is a key ingredient in really understanding how to decipher seemingly incongruent events in life.  But once we become familiar and comfortable with integrating this language, and we find the courage to follow these prompts from our unconscious, it seems to open different pathways and can bring about more integration and a sense of wholeness.   Carl Jung has contributed much to this and was originally a student of Freud’s until they parted ways based on disagreements regarding in particular the role of religion and views on the unconscious. Our unconscious reveals itself to us through dreams, pains in our body, illnesses and other symbolic messages and visions, like re-occurring signs in our environment.  Let’s look at these a little more closely.
 
The question you might be asking and a very valid one is well how do I identify the contents of my unconscious? How do I recognise that part of myself? The languages of the unconscious comes to us in different ways. Our unconscious reveals itself to us through dreams, pains in our body, illnesses and other symbolic messages and visions, other people, re-occurring events in our environment. When we allow ourselves to daydream, use active imagination, it really helps to awaken these parts of ourselves that are not transparent.  Let’s look at these a little more closely in my next blog.

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