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We spend part of our life energy on keeping some experiences in the unconscious zone. It is in our power to regain this energy and restore our integrity. What steps will lead to this?
Often we accept some parts of our personality and reject others. For example, we accept kindness and reject anger. Or vice versa, we consider ourselves a businesslike and purposeful person, displacing our sensitivity, vulnerability, tenderness from consciousness.
This prevents us from fully using our energy, since we spend a significant part of it on isolating unwanted feelings or qualities. However, it is in our power to restore integrity and release our energy.
Natalie Rogers, daughter of humanistic psychotherapy founder Carl Rogers and author of her own method, Expressive Arts Therapy, offers several exercises to help us become familiar with the content of our unconscious and achieve greater wholeness and awareness.
“Awareness is the first movement in accepting every aspect of yourself as it is”
“In order for us to become whole, fully actualized and fulfilled, our journey must include an exploration of the unconscious, discovering those aspects of our self that have been discarded or hidden by us, ignored or suppressed,” she writes in the book “Creative Connection. The healing power of the expressive arts.
The first step is always awareness. Without this, we have no opportunity. Awareness of fear, shame, guilt, anger, pain, light, sensitivity, or creativity is the first move towards accepting every aspect of yourself for who it is.
Personal integration is part of a natural development through the use of symbolic and expressive means. As soon as we discover the unknown, the process then launched creates an opportunity for each of these parts to find its rightful place in our psyche.
Be sure to allow time for rest after exercise.
These exercises can be done with a friend or girlfriend who shares your interest in self-discovery and inspires confidence in you. But you can explore the contents of your unconscious and alone.
It is helpful to write down and post in a prominent place a plan that you can follow. The entire sequence of steps takes 2-3 hours to complete.
Be sure to allow time for rest at the end of the exercises so that the return to your normal daily activities is as smooth and gradual as possible. Ideally, these exercises are done on a free day when your work or household chores are reduced to a minimum.
Prepare a room where you can move freely and sound freely. Turn off the means of external communication so that nothing distracts you.
1. List
Make a list of opposites you know, such as:
- love and hatred;
- fear and self-confidence;
- passivity and aggression;
- playfulness and seriousness;
- joy and sadness;
- attraction and rejection.
Continue the list on your own for 10-15 minutes.
2. Meditation
Sit in silence for a few minutes with your eyes closed. Breathe deeply and let all these words float in your mind. Then determine which pair of opposites is now attracting your attention. It will be a topic for further research.
3. Picture
Take a large sheet of paper (for example, A2 drawing paper). Listen to yourself: do you want to depict each of the pair of opposites on one page or on different ones? If different, prepare a second sheet.
Get your paints or pencils ready. Use your non-dominant hand (left for right-handers, right for left-handers) when choosing colors and while drawing. Depict each opposite by expressing your feelings. Don’t worry about how the drawing looks. While drawing, try to close your eyes.
4. Offers
Write on each part of your drawing (or on each of two drawings) five sentences that begin with the word “I”.
5. Movement and sound
Look at the first drawing and at the same time let your body move in time with the lines, rhythms and colors you see. Allow yourself to make a variety of sounds that express your feelings as you move. In doing so, remember that you have space above and below, a wide space and a narrow space.
You can move slowly or quickly. Your movements may be angular or fluid. Experiment with sounds as you move. Continue until you feel that you have fully expressed the content of the drawing through movement and sound. Take a break and do the same, looking at the second drawing.
6. Free writing
For 10 minutes, write down everything that comes to your mind and everything that your hand wants to write. Don’t censor yourself, don’t stop. You can write a dialogue between two poles of opposites.
7. Picture
Now quickly draw the third drawing. Use both hands at the same time. Let everything happen. What words come to mind when you look at this picture?
8. Meditation
Consider what you have done. Close your eyes, breathe deeply. Release everything. What do you feel now? What do you understand about yourself and your internal conflicts?
Trust your intuition, which will tell you which direction to go next.
The result of this exercise is the acquisition of greater integrity, the feeling that you are getting closer to yourself, to your own essence. It may not occur immediately, so do not worry if you do not come to clear conclusions immediately after completing the exercise, or if you have a question: “What should I do with all this now?”
Spend a few days watching the changes taking place in you, listening to your feelings. Trust your intuition, which will be able to tell you which direction to move on.