Rediscovering our True Nature

“To be psychologically free is to be confident in our own inner world, responsible for our own strengths and weaknesses, consciously loving ourselves and, therefore, able to love others.” Marion Woodman, The Ravaged Bridegroom, p. 11.

Our true nature has nothing to do with our body, our mind or our personal history with all its conditioning. Our true nature is the spiritual foundation of the soul and underlies our psychic reality. Our true nature, or essence, or Self with a capital S, exists as conscious presence in the now.

Spiritual awakening is the rediscovery of our true nature. Spiritual practice brings us into relationship with the Self. So what are the qualities of our true nature? Truth, joy, compassion, will, strength, peace, wisdom and the impulse to evolve and create, for starters. One of the ways in which we reconnect with our true nature is to practice the qualities inherent in the Self. I call it practicing the future because the evolutionary journey we are all on is to become the living presence of Soul and Spirit. To do this we must go beyond the mind, release our attachment to our life story, liberate ourselves from paradigm conditioning, and become fully present in the moment.

So how do we go about this sacred task? How do we reconnect with our true Self? First we give ourselves a daily “time out” from the mind’s incessant stream of thought which consists mostly of our ego’s recitation of who we are, what we believe, who everybody else is and how the world works. That can be frightening because we believe our security lies in knowing who we are and how to behave in this world. But to discover the true Self, we must be willing to not know, to separate our true identity from our stream of consciousness. We practice this in meditation.

Second, we observe. As we open up space in our minds, we come to recognize the parts of ourselves that are not our true nature. We observe our thoughts, our behaviors, our speech along with the feelings and emotions that accompany them. We become self-aware. We process our experience, meaning that we seek to understand what lies beneath our personality. We look for patterns of behavior.

Our true nature is to be spontaneous and original. Whenever we spot patterns of thought, attitude or behavior we recognize areas in which we are fixed or frozen, where habits keep us locked in reactivity and defensiveness. What are we trying to protect? The ego’s concept of ourselves that is not our true nature, but rather a dysfunctional construct that prevents us from experiencing our essence.

We begin with observation and turn within to trace the origins of these patterns to their source. We question our assumptions, seek out those painful emotions – the shame, humiliation, grief, sense of abandonment and loss, and all the judgments we hold about who we think we are. Why put ourselves through the hell of reliving old wounds? Because we want to liberate ourselves from the false self and reconnect with our true nature. To do that we need to release our misconceptions of who we truly are. We need to heal those wounds that keep us in fear and pain, that stifle our joy and spontaneity, that sap our strength and imprison us in illusion.

Third, we write our observations and insights in a journal. The mind has a tendency toward circular thinking. Coupled with ego defenses, the mind will reinforce the false self and block insight into our true nature. When we commit it to paper, we can spot inconsistencies, irrational thought patterns, dysfunctional defense mechanisms.

We write because it primes the pump of insight and self-discovery. It opens a pathway to the subconscious. Our conceptual mind keeps the  elevator on the same floor, so to speak. Writing allows us to descend into the depths. Writing stimulates the subconscious to release material into consciousness.

We write so that we can chronicle change. We can go back and read our state of mind from a year ago, or a month, and chart our evolution.

We write because the arms are connected to the heart and the heart is the seat of wisdom. It is also the source of compassion which we need not only for each other, but for ourselves as we make this journey. Writing brings in another dimension of consciousness. We cannot think our way to our True Self. We have to experience it.

Writing creates a bridge between the left and right sides of the brain allowing intuition to enrich our insight. This opens up more space and balances our perception between the linear mind and the spatial, between the masculine and the feminine.

Finally, we write in our journal because we can freely express, in safety and privacy, what is really going on inside, how we really feel at the moment. We can express the truth without censorship, fear of judgment, or giving offense. This is a great resource. We can’t, or don’t, fully reveal our deepest secrets even to our partners or best friends. We always hold something back. But the journal will never judge us. We are free to let fly. How much better to put your rage out on paper, than to inflict it on another. And when we can fully express our rage, or our bottomless well of self-pity, or our deepest chagrin, we can release it and be free. And we can harvest the lesson that experience meant to teach us. Slowly, in the pages of our journal, we burn off what isn’t our essential nature. We shed, like a snake skin, the false self, until we once again encounter the essence of who we are – the true, soulful nature we share with all humanity.

There are many roads to explore on this journey to Self. It can be the most exciting passage of our life, rich with discovery and fulfillment as we integrate more truth, experience more joy, free ourselves from the inner judge and bask in the glowing warmth of Soul. I have mentioned working with the inner child, with the ego and with the Shadow. All of these parts of our subconscious self need to be integrated into the wholeness of our true nature.

Two weeks ago I began a 40-day journey into our dual nature represented by the Animus and the Anima – the masculine and feminine principles of our psyche that are meant to work together harmoniously, but most often work against each other leaving us split between two expressions of our true nature. It’s no surprise that our reality reflects this division as the patriarchal need to control the feminine, to discount emotions, to discredit intuition and even resort to violence against women. The Covid shutdown has created a pressure cooker in which frustrated and impotent men are battering and murdering their wives and lovers in record numbers all over the world. Our Supreme Court will shortly revisit a woman’s right to have jurisdiction over her own body. This Battle of the Sexes is a reflection of the dysfunction within our individual psyches, the conflict we all experience between the two equal sides of human nature. One of the ways we can begin to heal the great dualistic rift in our society is to heal the separation within ourselves.

Over the next several weeks I will share my experience, my insights and discoveries and my excitement as I come to understand not only how these two parts of myself function in my life, but how they can begin to work together to strengthen and empower me.

The greatest contribution we can make right now to the healing of collective consciousness is to bring these two sides of our true nature into harmony. There is no doubt that to some extent we are all at war with ourselves. We want conflicting things. One part of us sabotages the efforts of the other. Integrity is not a matter of adhering to moral or civic laws. Integrity is the result of inner balance and peace that occurs when we bring our disparate parts into a harmonious whole.

To start this process, here’s a beginning list of masculine and feminine qualities as they express both in their positive and negative sides. If you are willing to participate, you can begin a self-examination of how these two essential energies function in your psyche. Consider where you got your idea of what it means to be masculine, or feminine. Our society functions as warring factions: black vs white, rich vs poor, one political party vs the other, male vs female. We have some serious choices and decisions to make in the coming month. If we make them at the expense of one half of our citizens, or one half of our psyche, we will prolong the war that is sapping our strength, our resources and the very Soul of our nation.

Get out your journal and go through this list of attributes. There are many more qualities that you can discover on your own, but how many on this list apply to you, both positive and negative? How does the masculine energy express in your life? What about the feminine? Are they in balance or does one side dominate? There is a wealth of self-discovery in this exercise. In just two weeks I have had many revelations that literally have transformed my life. I’ll share them with you next time when we focus on the Animus.