Be aware of negative thinking, how you automatically begin the usual pattern of negative self talk, how you can’t seem to shift away from old thoughts simply because they are so ingrained. Investigate them as they arise. Are they actually true? Sometimes they are just old ideas that no longer have meaning or value. Sometimes they point to some other underlying issue that perhaps once had power but no longer does. Combat negativity with positivity and discover that you have indeed changed. Allow things to shift in a new direction because it’s actually the right thing to do.
Strive to remain upon your path of heart, the path of balance, awareness and compassion that you have worked so hard to maintain. Each day remind yourself that this is your goal. Let each step you take be with awareness. Let each thought be aware. Let each word be spoken with awareness of yourself as part of the greater whole and thus a loving and compassionate being who is aware of the bigger picture. The world may not yet be in step with you, but stay upon the path of heart anyway in hopes that the world will soon catch up.
What have you learned about yourself? Every day is an opportunity to learn something new about the self and to advance a little more along your path to wholeness. And what is wholeness? It is the completion of the journey you set out upon when you decided to enter into life as the person you are. Your decision included many challenges. To complete your life and attain your wholeness is to meet those many challenges and advance yourself on the journey of your greater Soul self, the self that decided to embark upon life and take up those challenges. What challenges do you have before you today? Begin there. Simply be open to accepting what comes. It‘s always a good day to be challenged!
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.
Making a plan and sticking with it is one way to enact change. The other way is to each day notice where things are not quite right, not working well, and changing them as they reveal themselves. Whether you make a plan or wait for signs of what needs to change, it’s always a good idea to go with the flow of life and not be too hard on the self, for life is meant to be enjoyed and lived to the fullest and you can’t do that if you hold yourself back or don’t allow for real growth because you think change has to happen a certain way. Sometimes change will find you all on its own and that’s great too.
