What Does It Mean To Unleash The Unexpressed Self?

Hello and welcome to the session,

I invite you to take a seat or lay down and keep yourself comfortable,

You can close down the eyes if you wish and take a deep slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

So this is the first session of the course,

So I figured I would give you a brief rundown of how this will work.

These contemplation sessions will begin with a guided meditation session,

These sessions will be varied,

Covering a variety of different mindfulness,

Visualization,

Introspection,

Meta and other practices that will be related to the contemplation of the week.

So we'll sit,

Practice a little bit of meditation and then I'll introduce you to a question and we'll sit in contemplation of that question for a minute,

Then after that minute we'll dive into the different ramifications and implications and potentials of that question.

With these questions I'll invite you to consider them with an open,

Flexible and supple mind,

To welcome impossibility and potential,

To put down judgements and ideas and expectations and just to welcome what arises,

Because in this way we will be tapping into the deeper more hidden parts of ourselves.

Often when we practice meditation,

Or in this case contemplation,

We subtly put up these walls of what we should and shouldn't be feeling.

So with this course and these contemplations in general,

What I hope to do is to guide you through some meditations and then open your mind up to possibility,

To what lies below the surface,

To the unconscious,

So that you can receive wisdom from the deeper parts of yourself.

Now you might be tapping into parts of yourself,

Parts of your shadow,

And depending on your spirituality you might be leaning into wisdom from a higher source,

But whatever your views on the religious or spiritual nature of what we're doing,

It's undeniable that if we approach the things that arise in our mind from a place of openness,

From a place of acceptance,

From a place of silence,

Accepting whatever arises without judgement and without filter,

More,

Deeper wisdom will flow.

The whole point of this course is to help you to hunt your shadow,

To see the depths of your soul,

To become open to who and what you are,

But the only way we can do that is by pulling back the layers of ourselves,

By detaching,

By seeing our thoughts as a little bit separate from who and what we are,

The thing having them.

So when something arises,

If we judge it,

Aka judge ourselves,

We're blocking any more coming.

It's like as if a delicate seedling is just coming through,

Breaking through the dirt.

We have to foster it,

Nurture it,

Before it can become a tree,

Before it can become strong and stand on its own,

If we expose it to the elements too quickly,

It may break.

It's the same with any sort of creative work,

Or any introspective work in general.

We welcome it in,

We accept it,

Whatever arises,

Because indeed these things that are arising are a part of you.

Your shadow is you,

And it's influencing who and what you are moving forward.

So unless we become aware of our shadows,

We will never be able to take control and integrate them all,

And really that's the whole point of this course,

To open ourselves up to the totality of who and what we are,

Light,

Darkness,

And everything in between.

So with that said,

I would like to welcome you to the course,

And invite you to take another slow,

Calm breath,

In through the nose,

And out through the mouth,

And in a moment I'm going to ask you a question twice,

And like I was saying,

I invite you to sit with that question,

With a free,

And open,

And flexible mind,

To welcome in possibility and potential,

To let what arises,

Arises,

And to accept it without judgement,

And without filter,

And the question is this,

What would it mean to unleash the unexpressed self,

What would it mean to unleash the unexpressed self?

So when we contemplate what it would mean to unleash the unexpressed self,

We're really tapping into a core aspect of ourselves,

And of the shadow,

A lot of the time we repress,

We push back,

We hide,

We stifle things that we're shamed of,

We're embarrassed about,

We're unsure of,

This could be a function of the past,

Of our history,

Of words and actions done to us years ago,

Through school,

Through religion,

Through the home,

Through society in general,

Indeed this isn't necessarily a negative,

In fact to live in a society,

A civilisation,

We need to be well civilised,

It's the job of the societal structures to shape and mould the human animal into one that fits,

But that shaping and moulding doesn't come without pain,

Doesn't come without a consequence,

We have to help our young to better manage their aggression,

Rather than screaming and yelling,

They must negotiate,

Must talk,

Must reason their way through things,

But that aggression,

That anger,

That violence is still there,

And it's innate,

But it's no longer being expressed,

At least not in the way that it initially was,

Or initially could have been,

And you know,

You take every urge,

Every inner instinctual urge,

We as the human animal have,

And civilisation will similarly repress it,

We can't act on our jealousy,

Our sexuality must be expressed consensually,

We need to treat others in the same way we want to be treated,

Indeed by the time someone's an adult,

If they are not acting in a civil manner,

If they've not worked out a way to repress these base urges to such an extent that doesn't get them in trouble,

That doesn't get them noticed,

Doesn't get them in danger,

Society has ways to further manipulate people into conforming,

Fines,

Punishment,

Imprisonment,

Etc,

And it's more subtle than just these base needs or desires or instincts,

It's also socialisation,

What's acceptable to wear,

What's acceptable to do,

Think,

Be,

What music you listen to,

What games you play,

What sort of people you spend time with,

What counts as success and failure,

Indeed you could almost argue that most every aspect of who you are is shaped in some way by the time and place and space of your birth,

All of this when taken in totality leads to an unexpressed self,

Parts of you that are stifled,

Now when I say what would it mean to unleash the unexpressed self,

I'm in no way saying that we need to be violent or any of these things,

But I'm asking you to consider what it would mean,

What would it mean for you to feel and express and be more true to your truth,

Who and what you are,

If you could strip away some of that socialising and uncover who you are at your core,

Remember this is a thought experiment,

So we're playing in the realm of possibility here,

Just in our minds,

I can see logically why society is set up the way it's set up and how we sort of got here,

But it doesn't mean that that process doesn't leave us in some way conflicted or internally jaded or jealous or confused,

You know it's easy to sit here and speak to this microphone in a house with my laptop with lights and all of the other norms of modern western culture and sit here in gratefulness that we have all of this,

You know modern healthcare and medicine and technology and all of these wonderful things,

But a part of me wonders if all of it's worth the exchange from the life that the human animal evolved to exist in,

This is not normal,

You know historically,

Evolutionarily,

This state that we find ourselves in with mega cities and mega societies of millions and billions of people all interconnected digitally,

That's just a modern phenomenon,

One in which we are woefully,

Inadequately prepared for internally,

Modern psychology has only existed for a hundred or so years,

We barely understand who and what we are,

We've barely scratched the surface,

Spirituality,

Religion,

These sort of internal practices do provide some sort of aid,

But once again,

Even they only really sort of came to prominence,

Or at least the ones we know about,

Within you know a few thousand years at most,

It's hard to even conceptualize a world in which we would be living a quote-unquote evolutionary or traditional life,

Would we even have language,

Words,

What would thinking even be like without words to peg our thoughts to,

Words themselves are a code to turn,

You know a complicated matter of brain chemicals and electromagnetic pulses that produce emotions,

Moods,

Memories,

Thoughts,

Visions,

Into a syntax that we communicate across a medium and then it's reinterpreted by the receiver into those very same things,

The reason I'm going down these pathways is to really drive into this question,

What would it mean to unleash the unexpressed self,

The surface level is,

What would it mean to unleash your rage and anger,

You know go into the forest and scream sort of thing,

That's one way you could approach this and indeed,

You know I encourage everyone,

If they've got these sort of feelings or urges or desires or needs to find a way to healthily and you know legally express them,

If you want to fight,

Join a martial arts gym,

If you want to scream go to the forest,

If you want to do something risky sort of like an initiation kind of deal,

Find something that suits who and what you are and what you believe,

Be safe,

But if you can tap into and connect with who and what you are,

Not necessarily even express it,

But just accept that at your core,

You are not just who you are relative to the society,

This time,

This place,

You are the human animal,

You are a being of instincts,

In the same way a cat is distinct from a frog,

Which is distinct from a bird,

Which is distinct from an ant,

So too are you distinct and unique,

So too are you an animal and all these judgments about what is right and what is wrong,

About anger,

About sexuality,

About right and morals and all of these things,

Most everything that you can place a peg towards has been instilled upon us by society externally,

What would it mean to unleash the unexpressed self,

What would it mean to even just accept the unexpressed self,

To turn the lens of awareness in and just see those aspects for yourself,

We're hunting our own shadow here,

We're not turning away from darkness that lies beneath,

You may find that part of you holds anger,

Aggression,

Rage,

Desire,

Pain,

Ambition,

These things are normal and whilst you may not see the need to and in some cases perhaps shouldn't express them externally,

Accepting them as part of you is vital for integration and growth,

If I don't accept that I have anger,

That dark thoughts arise,

I am not whole and if those dark thoughts do arise and I just run away from them,

I'm repressing a part of myself,

An aspect of myself that is true and real and rather than running from it,

What I hope to do is accept it and embrace it and where appropriate,

Unleash it in a way that suits my civilised higher values,

There are times indeed when aggression is needed,

When expressed desire is poetry,

When we need to be selfish to survive but in general,

Becoming aware of the depths of ourselves,

The unexpressed selves and accepting it,

That is one of the first steps towards total and true integration with the shadow and with ourselves,

So I ask you,

What would it mean to unleash the unexpressed self,

What would it mean to unleash the unexpressed self?

This brings us to the end of the session,

At the bottom of your screen you'll see the option to view the classroom or to ask a question and before moving on,

I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights,

To read the answers from the other students and to hear my replies,

This is an opportunity for deep learning,

Further introspection and insight,

So please don't miss out,

I look forward to seeing you in the next session,

Thank you.

This track was taken from the course Hunt Your Own Shadow,

It's out now and available through my InsightTimer profile,

I invite you to check it out and I'll see you there.