Personality Conflicts. Untying family/ancestral energetics
As consciousness projects itself into a form, now energetics of this projected plane start to take place, where human mind get’s a center stage. It get’s conditioned by the certain environment it interacts with, and the particular orientation of the human life is formed out of this interaction. Researchers of consciousness field, like Stanislav Grof, whom I met at Esalen Institute, spent over 60 years in the field of psychiatry/psychoanalysis and studies of altered states of consciousness, talks that mind hold impressions, what we call mind conditioning, even before childhood, at birth, and even before the birth. This conditioning that already present in a brain at birth, bring together all the necessary events, circumstances and people to confirm and reinforce itself through the lifetime. This default conditioning that creates certain direction in life may be called life scenario, and based on it the decisions will be made in life, the directions of actions will be chosen. Just like in a movie the character acts and behaves in accordance with the storyline of the movie.
In a very early childhood we are constantly adjust in a circumstances to ease our discomfort. In a life of a little baby, going through the birth process, or a child in the early years of life discomfort of the spirit means contraction of it in some form of unconscious belief that will take over for the rest of our life. If at the moment of discomfort the little one found a solution, to hide under the table, for example, and we felt relief, we felt a little bit more safe, immediately certain neurological passages were created in the brain matter. This complex matrix of neurological responses that is set for life will be activated in a brain in all similar circumstances, the neurons will fire in the same grooves that were cut in a brain an early years, playing the same scenario over and over again.
People change, circumstances, events are different, but if we look closer, we might notice the same theme, same scenario plays out. Even though people are completely different, but we find ourselves behave and react in a similar manner with them. We change jobs and partners only to find ourselves again and again in a similar relational dynamics in a similar mind state.
Executing the same old conditioned response unconsciously done by our brain, as if a developer would create a computer program to perform some task, and computer will just run the program, reading from the same code every time this program is called by the computer system. If the program said: “Close all applications, if the application X is running”, as soon as computer execute application X, it also will close all open applications that were running previously. Computer simply execute the program written by developer. I presented this example just to show how simple the programing is, and how not easy to really see it when one’s own life is involved. Programs are firing in the brain in a high complexity, and we sort of doomed by living it in an unconscious way. Basically we become a matrix of these conditioned responses from the depth of the very early childhood contractions in the mind, or even ancestral contractions inherited through the genes.
It was believed that neurological passages developed in an early childhood made for a lifetime, we all heard saying “You can’t teach an old dog a new trick”, but research in the brain science field in the last decade confirmed what meditative practices knew long ago, that brain change absolutely possible in any stage of life. We know now that it is possible for neurons create new passages, abandon an old ones, and start firing through the new grooves. This is called neuroplasticity of the brain, the possibility of change of the old behaviors, old conditioning, and corresponding life scenarios. The science now agree with spiritual methods of un-doing mind programming which based primarily on awareness, mindfulness practices.
Awakening to pure awareness usually does not magically fix interpersonal relationships and certain dynamics, but it can clearly point to the faulty mind conditioning, and with time and intention of full liberation we might clear these default unconscious believes. This is why awakening is only a beginning of a very complex un-doing of the mind’s conditioning. The first years of this process often very intense and involve a lot of life circumstances and living structures changes. As the programs are seen one by one as an automatic response to something that is not even exist in the present moment, they let go of it’s grip.
And for some of us years after awakening we may encounter a wave of what mystics called the dark night of the soul: as closer we get to the depth of the spirit, the truth of being, the more discomfort we might feel. This discomfort arise out of the conflict between who we are as limitless pure awareness and the programing that runs the show as us which is extremely limited, executing the same life scenario. Feeling of the great discomfort is not in any way a regression! This is a new spiral in shedding all that does not belong to the being we are.
Awakening is a catalyst in this journey of a human spirit to come back to it’s original rest. This process invites us to open the heart fully and develop deep compassion to ourselves and our fellow brothers and sisters. Great discomfort brings us to our knees, and therefore strips us from any idea of control, even very subtle. We are humbled by the majesty of life itself, we become truly a courageous and transparent instrument of life, as we are not blinded by ideas and any images of ourselves, and silenced by fears. We become a wave, a constant movement that is not bound by previous experiences, previous beliefs, but a fresh movement at this very moment.
Very often un-doing old behaviors happens in the middle of life itself, in a social circumstance, in relations with people. We still secretly wish that spiritual methods that worked before to awake us, will continue to work to ease our discomfort we feel from a conflict of our personality. We might continue to hold on to the methods that helped before, but now they become an obstacle on the way to full liberation. Trungpa Rinpoche, Tibetan master of the mid 20th century, called it “spiritual materialism”, when one tries to escape conflicts of the personality by diving into meditation, energy practices, by using psychedelics, instead of looking into the conflict directly in the eye with bare honesty.
Here is the difficulty. Many teachers do not work with personality conflicts, some of them even deny it completely, as something not existent in the awakening perspective. We all teach from our own experience. Teaching about the truth of being, Dharma, is the same, but filtered through our individual experiences Dharma brought to the world differently. The beauty of life is in the diversity, and in the spiritual guidance we also have limitless diversity. I encourage everyone to use your own judgment what is most helpful for you to look into. Trust your natural curiosity, and explore fully what draws your interest. If you notice that you simply react in the same old way, and you find yourself in the same situations over and over again, maybe you should explore this directly, instead of trying to mask the inner conflict with more meditation, more psychedelics, or continuing discussing consciousness in support groups just to avoid to look into behavioral issues.
Briefly I will tell you an example of the struggle I encountered in my own integration. As deeper I went into the being, the more I felt the discomfort between the knowing of who I am and the situation in life that I was facing. For several years the conflict only escalated. I was living the scenario of suppression, in which in the certain circumstances the brain would run old programming, reinforcing old behavior of conforming to others. I have to honestly say here, I had no idea what was going on, I only knew something was very uncomfortable, and since I am always curious in the mechanisms of mind’s creation, I looked in different ways.
I often say to people that your natural interest, curiosity to how things work, and awareness to discomfort is already enough. The truth may be simple to uncover, or will take some time, but the indication that you are on a right path is your own honesty with yourself, almost as holding a flashlight and lighting your own way. You will encounter many who will try to tell you that you are lost, not awakened, please keep flashlight of inner honesty on and move into direction of your curiosity. Of cause, the path will not be straight, we do not know exactly what it will be, but the orienteer is always the same, it is your own conscience.
As far as I remember my own intention always was authenticity. It is almost as I always felt inauthenticity in my behavior. This kept itself going even after awakening. The grip of scenario that I called: “Don’t be yourself” was very strong. How it was developed in the early childhood, or before, this does not really matter. What matter is that it became absolutely clear to me how this program runs itself now. How mind, executing the old program, would create a role for me to participate in, unconsciously! The role with a package of feelings, sensations and thoughts, the complete holographic character that would take over.
See, for the field of consciousness it is really doesn't matter what life scenario is playing out, just like the screen holds any movie, or a mirror holds any reflections. For pure awareness it doesn't really matter what role to animate. With awakening we expand to this very knowing, we see how mind create these roles and characters that we used to identify with, but now we can participate in them consciously. Mind itself, the tool for creating illusions, can become an ally, a tool in clear seeing, in exploring old mechanisms. As soon as the flashlight of the awareness shines on the mind itself and it’s illusory creations, the old mechanisms and behaviors dissolves in that light.
I was in the middle of the social circumstances when the light of awareness illuminated the mind’s creation, and mind opened all it’s cards right there. I will tell you, it wasn’t pretty, it is usually not. It’s enough embarrassing to see our own inauthentic face when we are alone, but with others around it is absolutely painful and utterly confusing. This is why the mind will fool you with anything possible to keep the old story going. It will explain to you in detail why you should keep the relationship that is not satisfactory, the job that you don’t like, old behaviors and addictions to continue, it will give you any options to put your attention on, and will keep you in line with the same story, scenario.
When mind consciously used as a tool to look into the emptiness of it’s own creations and it’s mechanisms, it is absolutely liberating experience. For some short time mind still was trying to explain what happened in a linear manner, just to fool me again, but the clarity that opened up and felt sense of liberty were stronger then the stories that mind kept presenting, at the end it capitulated and relaxed.
With that capitulation the mountain of suppressive behaviors fell off. Scenarios “don’t be yourself”, “be nice”, “don’t rase your head” that were enrolling me in unconsciously, slowed down. Almost like the movie ran out of the tape, and eventually the movie with suppressed character in it stopped. The projector reloaded itself with a new movie. Life continued. The energy that was caught up in the suppression story was freed for creativity, joy, playfulness, even renewed zest for life, vitality. Life freed itself for more creative living.
If you feel any resonance with what was said here, fear not. Yes, you might loose people in your life who won’t be able to accept you without your conforming mask, or any other mask they rather have a relationship with, but not your true authentic face. These relationships are based on projected images of each other, not true intimacy, and as you find your true face, everything not true will be left behind. This will be almost as an indicator of a true relation, based on the intimate relation in the immediacy of the moment, or the relation based on the projected rigid constructed image of oneself and the other - the creation of the conceptual mind. Different roles goes in pairs: domineering character needs conforming character, the victim role need a rescuer role, and vice versa, and there are no real winners in the movie.
How to even recognize that you are living unconscious old programming, certain life scenarios? You can honestly ask yourself these questions:
“Am I happy with myself?”
“Am I happy in my relationship with my partner?”
“ Am I happy with the work I am doing?”
“Am I completely open, true, intimate with:
my partner,
parents,
children,
my close friends?”
“Am I at peace with myself?”
“Do I feel empowered?”
“Do I have any addictions I can’t let go of?”
and any question of this sort that is simply about your life now.
These are simple, but powerful questions. We have a tendency to run away from simple questions about our life, mind will try to hide it’s own creations behind grand spiritual ideas, bigger identities it will re-create for you to believe in, it will hide it’s tricks, like a source code for the computer program is hidden from the user. User clicks on the button, and computer perform many tasks at once that can look like magic. So is with the mind. Mind creates elaborate illusions, and we believe in them, because we do not see the source code, and in the very beginning of each mind’s programs is a creation of the identity, an image of yourself.
If you hold on to any idea of yourself, judgment about someone else, any fear, LOOK at this very fact: to judge ourselves or others we have to first re-create an image of ourselves, recall some previous experiences, then and only then we can have judgment of someone else, or psychological fear of any kind. At this very moment, without yourself as any image, any identity, there is only pure awareness. Pure awareness does not have any judgments to life that is happening. The conceptual mind does.
Please do not be discouraged by conceptual mind. It’s only doing it’s usual responsibilities it knows: it run the programs that was given to it long, long time ago. Can you see how innocent it is? Can you see how innocent you are in any of the roles? Can you see that you do not need to try to be any different then you are? Trying is always mind’s solution that is not liberating in nature, it is always deceiving and in the best, pacifying. It is not the mind which decides to change and shed the programing! It is a human spirit, the flame of recognition of who we are, the awakening to the truth of our being. Being itself will carry liberation forward, not conditioned mind. The limited mind doesn't know what is needed for it’s freedom, the being does. Trust in that. Trust that any circumstance, how small, big, important or unimportant, weird, crazy, ugly, and unexplainable - it is from the being itself. We all know the abilities of the body to heal itself, it’s unmatched wisdom. Can you see that being is in a constant primordial movement of harmonizing, and conceptual mind has very limited view what is needed in each and every moment for the limitless harmony? Mind is an automatic processor that only knows programs it knows, and outside of that limited knowing, it knows nothing more.
Did you ever hear “Go into directions of your fears?” Did you ever thought about it, why it is even suggested? I bet you did, and me too. Fears are like indicators where our mind doesn't want to go, because long ago it already made all the neurological passages necessary to run itself smoothly in the same illusory scenario. So what is happening when psychological fear comes, the one that says: “Do not speak up. It is better to avoid. It is dangerous. Let me give you some excuse that will comfort you”? You suck on that excuse like on a pacifier for a baby, and neurons keep firing in the old grooves of avoidance. The danger is gone, you feel better, the scenario got another shot of reinforcement. The character in the scenario got affirmed one more time. This is an addiction to be someone, addiction to the created old image, and we all know how strong addictions are. Many of us struggle with various addiction through life, but the addiction to one’s own constantly created self image is the strongest of all, it is a true reason for any other addictions. Our inability to clearly see this addiction, and therefore identify with the product of programming of our mind, is a source of suffering.
Fears point to an unchartered territory, the space that is not classified by mind as safe. The real dangers are very rare in the world now, but mind still gives us warnings if we only about to attempt to do something that is outside of the current programming. This is why it is absolutely beneficial to turn our curiosity to fears. They are like a light in a dark tunnel we got in unconsciously, and made it our home.
We can live all life with strongest personal conflicts, and not know it. We identify with the mind’s programmed character as us. We never really look that it’s not really one character, but hundreds of them, not one I, but many different kinds. We change them seamlessly, like clothes, and get used to this constant change. What make us notice this inauthenticity is an experience of complete authenticity. Awakening, getting in touch with the being itself, pure awareness, is the beginning of uncovering our authentic face.
“Am I at peace with myself?”
“Do I feel empowered?”
“Do I have any addictions I can’t let go of?”
and any question of this sort that is simply about your life now.
These are simple, but powerful questions. We have a tendency to run away from simple questions about our life, mind will try to hide it’s own creations behind grand spiritual ideas, bigger identities it will re-create for you to believe in, it will hide it’s tricks, like a source code for the computer program is hidden from the user. User clicks on the button, and computer perform many tasks at once that can look like magic. So is with the mind. Mind creates elaborate illusions, and we believe in them, because we do not see the source code, and in the very beginning of each mind’s programs is a creation of the identity, an image of yourself.
If you hold on to any idea of yourself, judgment about someone else, any fear, LOOK at this very fact: to judge ourselves or others we have to first re-create an image of ourselves, recall some previous experiences, then and only then we can have judgment of someone else, or psychological fear of any kind. At this very moment, without yourself as any image, any identity, there is only pure awareness. Pure awareness does not have any judgments to life that is happening. The conceptual mind does.
Please do not be discouraged by conceptual mind. It’s only doing it’s usual responsibilities it knows: it run the programs that was given to it long, long time ago. Can you see how innocent it is? Can you see how innocent you are in any of the roles? Can you see that you do not need to try to be any different then you are? Trying is always mind’s solution that is not liberating in nature, it is always deceiving and in the best, pacifying. It is not the mind which decides to change and shed the programing! It is a human spirit, the flame of recognition of who we are, the awakening to the truth of our being. Being itself will carry liberation forward, not conditioned mind. The limited mind doesn't know what is needed for it’s freedom, the being does. Trust in that. Trust that any circumstance, how small, big, important or unimportant, weird, crazy, ugly, and unexplainable - it is from the being itself. We all know the abilities of the body to heal itself, it’s unmatched wisdom. Can you see that being is in a constant primordial movement of harmonizing, and conceptual mind has very limited view what is needed in each and every moment for the limitless harmony? Mind is an automatic processor that only knows programs it knows, and outside of that limited knowing, it knows nothing more.
Did you ever hear “Go into directions of your fears?” Did you ever thought about it, why it is even suggested? I bet you did, and me too. Fears are like indicators where our mind doesn't want to go, because long ago it already made all the neurological passages necessary to run itself smoothly in the same illusory scenario. So what is happening when psychological fear comes, the one that says: “Do not speak up. It is better to avoid. It is dangerous. Let me give you some excuse that will comfort you”? You suck on that excuse like on a pacifier for a baby, and neurons keep firing in the old grooves of avoidance. The danger is gone, you feel better, the scenario got another shot of reinforcement. The character in the scenario got affirmed one more time. This is an addiction to be someone, addiction to the created old image, and we all know how strong addictions are. Many of us struggle with various addiction through life, but the addiction to one’s own constantly created self image is the strongest of all, it is a true reason for any other addictions. Our inability to clearly see this addiction, and therefore identify with the product of programming of our mind, is a source of suffering.
Fears point to an unchartered territory, the space that is not classified by mind as safe. The real dangers are very rare in the world now, but mind still gives us warnings if we only about to attempt to do something that is outside of the current programming. This is why it is absolutely beneficial to turn our curiosity to fears. They are like a light in a dark tunnel we got in unconsciously, and made it our home.
We can live all life with strongest personal conflicts, and not know it. We identify with the mind’s programmed character as us. We never really look that it’s not really one character, but hundreds of them, not one I, but many different kinds. We change them seamlessly, like clothes, and get used to this constant change. What make us notice this inauthenticity is an experience of complete authenticity. Awakening, getting in touch with the being itself, pure awareness, is the beginning of uncovering our authentic face.
If before we unconsciously and innocently assumed a certain role, a mask, after stepping into full authenticity of being, even once, we feel great discomfort in a role we used to wear without a problem. At first we might not understand where this discomfort comes from. This happened to me for several years. Great discomfort and no clarity. I tried to compensate for it in different ways, and surely these were the ways mind knew: retreat even more, learn even more. I immersed myself in studies of behavioral psychology, ancestral and family constellations, human design, and etc. only to come to realization of continuos compensation of conforming personality that was taking the main stage. I had to shed my own blinders, basically clearly see my life scenario that still was playing out the suppression that was formed in a very early childhood in an unsafe environment. Everyone has their own programming, and you will have your own way of recovering your authenticity, and certainly it is not express overnight delivery.
As consciousness projects different forms to interact with each other, it is a divine play, and every encounter, every circumstance is a right one at this very moment, the right one for all involved in this encounter. The weaving of white, red and blue yarn creates a certain pattern where each of the yarn’s color is absolutely essential. Same with circumstances. Every detail in it is essential, every detail in it rightfully beneficial for everyone involved. Every circumstance in our life is a projection of the mind state. Can you see that by not caring around an image of yourself, and not re-creating it right now, you can see the circumstance as impartial? Can you see that any judgment of the previous relational experience can only arise if we got an image of ourselves with all it’s attributes and memories re-created in the conceptual mind along with the resistance to the re-created image of the other? We therefore missing this very moment of life where no judgments belong, only pure perception and responding to life from immediacy of the moment. This is where true relation happens.
As consciousness projects different forms to interact with each other, it is a divine play, and every encounter, every circumstance is a right one at this very moment, the right one for all involved in this encounter. The weaving of white, red and blue yarn creates a certain pattern where each of the yarn’s color is absolutely essential. Same with circumstances. Every detail in it is essential, every detail in it rightfully beneficial for everyone involved. Every circumstance in our life is a projection of the mind state. Can you see that by not caring around an image of yourself, and not re-creating it right now, you can see the circumstance as impartial? Can you see that any judgment of the previous relational experience can only arise if we got an image of ourselves with all it’s attributes and memories re-created in the conceptual mind along with the resistance to the re-created image of the other? We therefore missing this very moment of life where no judgments belong, only pure perception and responding to life from immediacy of the moment. This is where true relation happens.
Mind becomes a very useful tool when it looks at itself. In the middle of a situation the mind which would usually create a self image, suddenly would look at itself, the very image it created. This moment, the very moment of mind uncovering it’s own truth of illusory creation, is a liberating moment. Awakening the mind to it’s own creations is a very deep inner work that is done by Being itself. These life-changing insights take birth in the love for truth and authenticity and can’t be fabricated or calculated by the mind. Trust life and continue it’s own inquiries as they present themselves. Use growth of compassion and humbleness and dissipation of life scenarios as a yardstick that you are walking the right path. Have a wondrous attitude toward life, find your most authentic way of living and facilitate the same for others.
