Depressurising the Psyche

When I was born, I was wide open to the world - trusting, and ready to love and be loved.  (So were you.) 

As flowers turn towards the sun, human infants open themselves to their carers. 

What we need, to feel at home in the world, is love.  Love, to an infant, is not an abstract or spiritual idea.  It means being held, nourished, responded to appropriately; it means lots of eye contact, being talked to, played with, sung to, told stories - all the things that parents and children can enjoy.

When parents are unhappy or shut down emotionally, children pick up on this, however hard the grown ups try - and even when the adults are unaware of their unhappiness.  Babies are feeling-sponges, tuned in to atmospheres.  When there is fear or tension, or absence of affection, this has an impact on the development of the infant psyche.

If children are regularly beset by feelings of abandonment and distress in response to what's going on around them, these feelings may threaten to engulf them.  So they they learn to dissociate from them - to disown and repress them.  They learn to pretend their painful feelings don't exist, and start on a lifetime of denial.

This self-protective inner action happens in the private of the psyche, where no-one else can see what is going on.  It may be a conscious decision (to become unconscious) - if the child is old enough - or it may be an infant reflex, but whether conscious or not, it is secret buried deep in the mind, a hidden transaction between me and myself, and a question of survival. 

And this is why it is so hard to undo, so difficult to dismantle the strategy of denial, once it has been set up - precisely because it is unconscious.

In this blook, I am using the term 'Ego' to refer to all the complicated, denial-based nonsense human beings get up to, because of such early-established defence strategies.  Ego is not a being, and has no consciousness, no life of its own.  Within my psyche, ego owes its existence to my unwillingness to acknowledge feelings that once upon a time, in the past, felt unbearable to my infant heart.

As a shorthand, and as an imaginative device - but not literally - in this writing, I attribute agency to 'Ego' - as in the statement:  Ego is quick to take advantage, when children dissociate from situations they can't bear to feel.

I have found it helpful, in dealing with my own ego, to regard it as an interloper with its own agenda - which, while purporting to be my pal, actually runs counter to my happiness and flourishing.

It felt like a breakthrough when I began to learn to spot ego activity in my own mind. Before this time, I had felt pressured to accept unworthy, fear-based slanders and suggestions as coming from my heart, and being true to my feelings. 

I can still be taken in by such stuff, for a day or two!  But I have learned, slowly, that ego's interventions are unnecessary and destructive, and to be resisted.  I call standing up to my own ego 'inner assertiveness'.

So, in this spirit of imagining ego to be a focus of agency:  Ego whispers in my ear it will 'see me right', 'take care of things' for me, 'get me a good deal', see off my opponents, impress my friends - it is full of promises and fake guarantees. 

But in fact, ego's existence in my mind depends on keeping up the pressure, in my psyche and in my life, and all its noise and fury are futile. 

Ego can't protect us from our own buried feelings.

The psyche formed under pressure is like an armoured tank – shock, trauma, repressed memories, coping strategies – are encrusted around the heart.

The voice may be tight and Dalek-like, the behaviour, conversation, mannerisms are likely to include vacuous silence-fillers, compulsive tics, repetitive patterns.

Everything is the opposite of relaxed and easy.

Let me be honest here: I have been, and sometimes still am, this ego-harried person. How else could I have learned about this stuff?  Why else would I have needed to?

As my adult life got under way, in the 1970s, the consequences of living with my armoured heart started to take their toll on my relationships, to such an extent that I began to notice a pattern.  (For others it can be their health that gives them the signal that all is not well.)

At this point - or rather, these points, since they just keep occurring! - there are choices to be made.

Either I can take the opportunity to reflect on what might be wrong, and consider the possibility that the problems may lie within my own mind - and this, I believe, is a big part of what living is about; or I can shy away from self-awareness, panic, get trapped in blame and self-pity, and probably go another round of the same self-destructive game – anything rather than sit still.

I know by now that if I plump for avoidance, I will find myself cramming my life with unnecessary tasks and obligations, distractions and activities, to fill the space whose emptiness I dread.

Being over-busy is often a sign of evasion.

If, in some awkward-feeling situation, I want to take on board what life is trying to tell me, I need to be willing to acknowledge what is happening, and to accept my feelings about it, painful or embarrassing as these may be.

When I remember to ask for help, I find myself once again on the long, spiral path of inner exploration and discovery, which leads me both onwards and in the way.

drawing by Adrienne Kalisch

As each new tricky situation brings me face to face with my inner uncertainty and disorientation (my fears), and as I learn to accept and honour my feelings, and let go of the false beliefs, self-images and unhelpful strategies I’ve relied on - the armouring of my heart - I am experiencing a gradual lowering of inner pressure, and expansion of my inner room to manoeuvre.

Willingness creates capacity.

It often feels like two steps forward, one unmeasured slide back - but when things come right again, they feel more right than ever.

The process of disarmament and opening up has to be gradual, as psychotherapists are aware – we can only handle a little liberation at a time. The way I understand this is that each step towards freedom provokes an ego-backlash, which has to be withstood, for the onward momentum to be maintained.

It does take courage and consistency to stay on the path, to keep liberating ourselves from our false friends (ego scripts), who are quick to resort to bullying, when their bluff is called.

Fear, faced honestly, abates. By 'facing my fear', I don't mean listening to its scripts, but rather recognising it for what it is – my own - nobody else's - fear.

When my fears are aroused, I have to let them come, and let them go. I have to remember not to get caught up in them, distracted or diverted from my path, and not to let ego steer me into reactive mode, so I feel trapped, and can be bullied or enticed off course.

I need to remember what I have learned - especially when I feel unheard, helpless, even under attack.

Ignatius (founder of the Jesuits) devised many helpful “Spiritual Exercises”, and knew a thing or two about the psyche. He advised: in a time of desolation, never go back on a decision made in a time of consolation. This is sound and practical wisdom, a good saying to remember, when life feels hard.

In times of ‘desolation’, when I feel jostled off centre, oppressed by the ‘blue meanies’ – I may have symptoms of panic or dread, I may experience darkness, fear of losing myself, of being abandoned and excluded – and there will be other variations, based on people's different experiences and internalised scripts.

These are the times when we need to practise our freedom, by being true to ourselves and to what we have learned, and by not accepting the counsels of fear.

I have slowly found my own inner freedom by practising it.  Just as I have found my unexpected path through life by walking it, step by step, in no-one else’s footsteps. 

The wonderful, mysterious thing about going my own way, and along this way becoming more truly (and true to) myself, is that as I have done it, I have found myself helped on all sides, and not at all isolated or abandoned, as fear would have had me believe.

N.B. the clip ends suddenly!

updated 5/1/12