My first session as a student at the Assisi Institute was eye opening in many ways. A great deal of material was covered in a very short amount of time. This session’s topic was unconscious communication. Most of the examples were from a therapeutic environment, but the applicability across disciplines was also discussed.
In a nutshell, we humans can be thought to have two brains – a new brain and an old brain, left and right hemisphere respectively. Our left/new brain uses words and numbers, and exists in linear time. Our right/old brain speaks in symbols, colors, images, and emotions and exists in non-linear time. They speak of the old brain as a two million year old person living in our psyche. This old brain sounds a lot like what many of us pagans call our younger-self to me.Note 1
Our right brain communicates to us primarily in dreams and physical symptoms. The other way our right brain communicates is by subtly selecting the stories the left sphere uses to express itself. So if you want to hear the old brain one needs to listen carefully for unconscious truths emanating from the stories that a person speaks out loud.
Without knowing it, we often obscure our true feeling but our old brain sneaks in the truths in the midst of our conversations. How often has a plumber mentioned some other guy that will cheat you while handing you his own bill? Have you ever heard a merchant mention substandard work elsewhere while showing her wares? How many friends and lovers mention the pending breakup of a couple days or months before severing their relationship with you?
An example:
Person 1: I am worried about J, I haven’t heard from him in a long time. I wonder if he is sick or maybe he is mad at me.
Person 2: Oh, I hadn’t heard anything about J. Maybe I should call him.
Person 2 is not responding to the unconscious communication from Person 1. S/he has not heard the truth underling the statement from Person 1. Person 1 is not so much talking about J so much as Person 2’s relationship with Person 1.
A further example:
Person 1: I am worried about J, I haven’t heard from him in a long time. I wonder if he is sick or maybe he is mad at me.
Person 2: I don’t know about J. But I am sorry I haven’t called in awhile. I am fine but I had to be on call for a family emergency. How are you doing?
Person 2 is now responding to the unconscious communication from Person 1.
Now I am hearing unconscious truths everywhere around me. It is blaring from the TV, snippets float up from sidewalk conversations, and I even hear my own stories through a new filter.
There is a lot more to this area, but this portion was enough to convince me that I am in right place for my education.
I will share more of this topic as I begin my homework.
--
Note 1: H. Buchy (Chemalfait) reminded me that younger self is actually "the oldest part of us". And I have to agree with him on this note. In many traditions that have the concept of the triple soul, the younger self, "fetch, unihipili or nephesh" is thought to be associated with the right side of the brain.
Now I knew this of course, but in my delirium I oringinally referenced the divine or god soul. I can always rely on my readers to bring me back to some semblance of sanity. Good catch, Henry!
Posted in
- katrina's blog
- Add new comment
- 603 reads
Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha
Lovely azaleas!
[cough][gag][snort][sneeze]
Just lovely...
I know what you mean.
I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".