Being of Two Minds
Some of the best ideas or inventions in history have come unexpectedly from a larger realm of consciousness. It has often been a flash of insight or imagination that has led to discovery or significant change in individuals or society.
We all know something of this expansive experience. You may have been out walking, sitting in the sun, reading a book, watching a movie, listening to music and in that moment, an insight or a solution has emerged. It is if a door in the mind has swung open and a gift is given.
When Ira Progoff spoke of the oak tree being hidden in the acorn, he was speaking metaphorically of our potential and our natural drive to emerge into our true DNA. He was claiming there is a deeper dimension of ourselves that is different from the organising thinking mind that is part of our day-to-day life. It is an intuitive depth that offers direction and wisdom to what is best for us, however it needs to be accessed, there lies the challenge for all of us.
It is often when we are at ease, and able to calm our busy mind that this part of self makes itself known.
However, it is not just ease; the pandemic is another example of this natural emergence. Amid our national disruption many have become aware that they would prefer a different career or lifestyle. This disruption has shifted consciousness which for most may not have happened if life went on as usual. Disruption can often be the catalyst that causes us to question a confined or treadmill existence.
Carl Jung the pioneering Swiss psychiatrist concluded that we have two levels of mind. One is the state of mind that is concerned about the managing day to day demands such as work and financial survival. This is all important, however, much can be lost if we are totally invested in this realm. Progoff describes this experience in his book At a Journal Workshop.
Living in the world, we are all subjected to external pressures and conditionings. We respond to those pressures by allowing habit patterns to form, and these eventually direct our actions for us as though they are independent of us. The result is that we live our lives as though they were being conducted from an outer rim of ourselves. By letting this happen to us, we are able to survive the depersonalizing pressures of society, but we survive at the cost of the private person within us. Our psychological shells and our behaviour habits protect us, but increasingly they usurp the function of the unfolding seed of the self.
The unfolding seed of the self is the larger dimension of mind that Jung pointed to in his work; he claimed that this depth is truly who we are and seeks our attention, especially in the second half of life.
We see evidence of this in the lived experience of mid-life crises and transitions. We can also see changes in seniors where there is a letting go of previous identities and the embracing of vastly new perspectives of self and life. Jung believed that the first half of life is often lived through the expectations of others, whereas the second half is about listening and allowing the larger personality to emerge.
Parker Palmer in his book Let Your Life Speak sums it up so well: “Is the life I am living the same as the life that wants to live in me.”
The truth of the matter is our true self seeks emergence, it brings an underlying wisdom that offers direction towards wholeness and wellbeing.