By Kenneth Sorensen, April 30, 2017
When I woke up this morning I was more tired than usual, it wasn’t just a physical tiredness, but more of an emotional tiredness. There was a compressed mood, not a depressed mood, but as if I was deep under water and experiencing the pressure of the water.
The compressed mood is not an unknown phenomenon, it has often given me a inhibited expression of emotion as if I were to move around in life like a deep-sea diver with full diving equipment. A large part of the emotional surplus is inhibited on these days by having to carry the mood around, and it makes me emotionally introverted. On these days I can’t bear small talk and other excessive exchanges, but reserve the emotional energy for where I need it.
If that were the only psychological atmosphere I lived in, I would probably have dragged myself through life without much creative energy. But no matter how heavy I may be on certain days, I always have access to a positive and bright frame of mind – a mind that wants to accomplish something. It is a sense of will and an effortless access to look at life from an overview of meaning. It is a clear energy that pushes me to get through with everything I want to create.
It is clear to me that in these situations there is a polarity between my emotional life and my intellectual life. The emotional life is often introverted and seeks to create more space and movement in the heavy atmosphere. The intellectual life, on the other hand, is extroverted, demanding and disciplining and does not want to waste the day without getting something done.
In other words, there are two great forces pulling in different directions, and I have gradually learned that neither of these forces is an expression of who I really am.
The almost 30 years I have had a daily meditation practice of an hour or more, has created a clear inner center from which I can observe all the different forces that arise in my psychic life. Finding one’s center of pure consciousness, as Roberto Assagioli would have called it, is one of the first and most important elements of meditation.
When we have found ourselves as the observer, the observer or the loving witness of our psychological life, we have found the inner stable place that never disappears. A permanent fixed anchor around which the psychological life arises. It is like the eye of the hurricane or like the quiet hub around which the whirling wheel turns. From that place there is a kind of freedom, a freedom to observe what is happening inside without being under the illusion that it is me who is “pressed” or insistent. There is a clear difference between me who experiences and what is experienced. I know that I am not my body, my feelings or my thoughts, but rather the inner consciousness that expresses itself through these psychological forces.
It is from this place – the observer – that I can begin to do something about my atmosphere. After all, there is not much freedom in being able to watch passively while the forces of personality control life. I discover that I also have a will, a will to choose. The will to choose is closely linked to the observer, for by taking a mental step back I am given the opportunity to choose which energies I wish to identify with and express in my personality.
When we strengthen the observer, and especially the loving observer, that is, the ability to look at all our psychological forces with an accepting and accommodating gaze, it becomes possible to intervene in the inner play of energies. In other words, we cannot work with what we do not accept because it often disappears below the surface in the unconscious basement when it is ignored or condemned. But acceptance is not the same as passivity, on the contrary, it is the best position for powerful transformative action.
Meditation is the inner laboratory of consciousness where we can change our psychological powers. When I woke up this morning, I was aware that the depressed mood was once again about to turn. I have experienced it many times and have come to know it. I have looked into it again and again and have learned what it needs.
It needs sun, vitality and light – and that’s exactly what I intend to give it.
The atmosphere is like a dark forest where a heavy, clammy fog rests over the landscape. Why I carry around the dark forest I have no idea – although I have my hypotheses. But the fact is that it is there and has actually done me good. It has forced me to be introverted for periods, forced me to find my center, because otherwise it would have kept me in its dark atmosphere. In other words, it has made me stronger and has sharpened the sword of discernment into an effective tool that can mentally see through the illusions of the foggy landscape.
Apollo pulling the sun across the sky
I currently have a strong meditative practice where I sit with my back to an imaginary giant sun that shines through me and into this misty landscape. I connect with Apollo, the Greek sun god, who spontaneously appeared in my mind a few years ago and has been a strong archetypal source of solar power. These archetypes are incredibly potent forces in the mind. We must remember that millions of people throughout history have had these gods as their fixed point in life. They are therefore charged with a dynamic energy that can be tapped and channeled where needed.
That’s exactly what I do these mornings. Sitting with the Sun and Apollo at my back and letting myself recharge and vitalize, and the effect is clear. The fog gradually dissipates, sometimes almost miraculously, so that the emotional heaviness disappears completely. But more often it is a lift, a noticeably lighter atmosphere that gives me energy for the creative projects I am passionate about. It gives me the strength to carry my burdens like Atlas, not necessarily with a smile, but with a calmness that stays the course.
Miraculous is of course a poetic expression, because it is not a miracle that happens, but rather a perfectly scientific process. Energy follows thought, that is, ‘as a man chooses to think in his heart, so it becomes’.
How to move forward
Here you can receive seven free meditations where you develop different aspects of yourself.
Also read the article Psychosynthesis an Integral Psychology and the biography of Roberto Assagioli
Read the introductory article about energy psychology
Read the introductory article about integral meditation
