Suspend judgment about yourself and the things you have done. Shift your awareness to the bigger picture and your life in its wholeness, in the context of a journey of learning and growth. When you suspend judgment you let go of the inner critic, the constant judging voice in your ear, and allow something else to enter, perhaps the knowledge that you have done nothing wrong but only lived an aspect of life worth living to the fullest. Everything is part of the journey you are on. Can you accept that? Integrate that? And move on from that? That is how to suspend judgment.
In 1966, Puerto Rican psychiatrist Efren Ramirez, my first therapist and mentor, captured the heart and imagination of New York City when he introduced his singularly unique treatment approach, based on existential principles, as a method to tackle the drug addiction problem ravaging the city.
The fabled success of his addiction treatment programs in Puerto Rico prompted Mayor John Lindsay to offer him carte blanche support to replicate this success in New York. As a result, Therapeutic Community treatment programs (TCs) soon sprang up throughout the five boroughs of New York City.
Efren’s treatment approach, called The Concept, utilized existential encounter to awaken, within the addict, knowledge of the absolute power of their choices in determining their reality.
Rollo May, noted existential psychiatrist and author, pointed out that, for Ramirez, emphasis on diagnosis, etiology and prognosis actually obstructs and weakens the patient’s ability to gain full access to, and assume responsibility for, the central power of choice in determining the outcome of their lives. (Existential Psychology, 1969 edition)
The ability to assume full responsibility for one’s choices requires existential confrontation with one’s behaviors and attitudes, which brings to consciousness the choices one is already making, though largely at an unconscious level.
Through the enlightenment gained by one’s encounter with the feedback received from others, one becomes fully aware of how one blindly exercises one’s free will in one’s attitudes and behaviors. With this heightened awareness, one’s free will can be more judiciously exercised to the benefit of one’s life.
A generation before, from the heart of the holocaust, existential psychiatrist Victor Frankl observed and experienced that the single most important variable that determined whether one would survive or die in a death camp was the attitude one chose to assume while interned in the most terrifying, horrific and dehumanizing conditions imaginable.
The exercise of will to choose a positive attitude in the midst of a death camp could literally save one’s life. Furthermore, no one and nothing could take away an individual’s free exercise of imagination and will.
Carolyn Elliot, in her recent book, Existential Kink, takes one down the rabbit hole of one’s inner shadow to discover, own, and radically accept one’s unconscious yet willful collusion with the consciously rejected behaviors and habits active in the hidden recesses of one’s shadow.
Elliot stresses that “having is wanting” and that one must accept this in order to encourage one’s existential encounter with the many shades of will active in one’s being. This fuller acceptance of the polarities within the self frees the will to make choices that accommodate the wholeness of self.
The shamans of ancient Mexico sought to galvanize the will to be fully, mindfully present each day by shocking the ego with an existential encounter with death as an advisor.
Stating, each morning, “I am a being who is going to die” awakens the will to a heightened level of unified presence in each moment, as it chooses its attitudes and behaviors throughout the day. This intent of the will treats each moment with an equanimity that is fully prepared to seamlessly transition from this life in full consciousness as well.
Will is the creator of personal reality. Existential encounter with the fullness of self frees the will to responsibly exercise its power from the vantage point of total presence in the current moment. The intent of the will is then materialized through the suggestions one delivers to the subconscious mind.
The subconscious mind is the Mother of creation.
The subconscious mind stores the journey of the soul through all of its history.
The subconscious mind has total control over the functioning, sensations and health of the body.
The subconscious mind is the home of the instincts.
The subconscious mind has the knowhow and materials to manifest anything suggested to it.
As powerful as the subconscious is, it is still pure Yin. Yin is completely receptive, the feminine principle/anima, and capable of creating anything, but requires a suggestion to begin operations. Yang, her partner, the masculine principle/animus, is the Will.
Will is the active side of infinity, whose task it is to activate his partner’s creative process via suggestion. With their creative energies in sync, anything is possible. Every one of us is a combination of this divine couple and have the ability to both activate and create.
With consciousness raised through existential encounter, the will is freed to truly transcend the self-deceptive suggestions often made to the subconscious mind that keep one frozen in habitual disappointment.
Will, freed to suggest to the subconscious full healing of self and world, is indeed the necessary and adventurous order of our day.
Change is not elusive; it is happening all the time. But change within the self can feel like it never happens, or only happens very slowly, but that is an illusion. For, indeed, even within the stubborn self change is continually taking place. It is, however, intention that gets the change moving at a faster pace and intention that will get the job of change done. Become aware of how you can contribute to your own plans for change and set something new in motion with a new intention today.
Ground yourself in knowing that you are attending the exclusive Earth School, home to some of the best, as well as some of the worst, and that during your time there you are tasked with certain things, to not only be productive and purposeful but to find meaning in everyday life so that your spirit may grow, flourish, and evolve. Each day turn your attention to the question: How might I grow today? Say it upon waking and let it settle into your mind: How might I grow today?
As Kahlil Gibran taught us, the child’s soul dwells in the house of tomorrow, which we cannot visit, not even in our dreams.
The child within us is our evolutionary spirit, which is childlike in its innocence, yet ventures beyond the known, fully adult self.
The notion of an inner child who never grows up, requiring the enduring parenting of the adult ego, is a recipe for stunted growth and entitlement. The ultimate goal of all parenting is to launch the child into their own house of tomorrow, as we obey the rite of passage to release their arrow.
The inner child’s role in the adult personality is to follow its bliss with curiosity and innocence. These are the treasures mirrored by young children at play, fully alive to the creative imagination, open to interaction with the subtle energies present in the world, unsullied by the constricting veils of the real world.
Of course, there is the work of resolving traumatic psychological complexes, unprocessed fragments of self that split off in childhood, that require the adult ego to discover and reintegrate into the wholeness of the adult personality.
Ultimately, this inner work restores true innocence to the adult self, the work that Jesus Christ suggested was essential to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
In psychological terms, one must fully recapitulate all of one’s life experiences to achieve full individuation, the wholeness and fulfillment of one’s life.
Fragments of experience that remain triggers, or unneutralized emotional experiences overshadow the open road of innocence and instead become one’s fate, or necessary next stop in this life.
Of course, all children require the support and boundaries of adults on their road to maturity. But the goal is always to prepare them for their independent launch, not to keep them forever children, however well adjusted. So is it with working with our inner child.
The inner child’s gift to adulthood is its insistence on taking the road less travelled, because Spirit is intent upon infinite exploration beyond the nursery.
Let’s not confuse the childlike behaviors, or excesses, we engage in with the inner child. The ego must assume responsibility for all its choices, whatever their etiology.
For the ego to mature into its own innocence, it must be willing to take the hero’s journey to retrieve its soul, all of its parts that were lost in its trials of Earthly life.
A journey of recapitulation transmutes one’s life energy into that of a magical being, fully alive, fully in awe, ever-loving, ever-venturing. That’s the true role of the inner child in the human personality: innocence restored.
