Human psychology is one of the most fascinating areas of human research. This is due to the fact that it is your very psychology that determines the nature of your everyday experiences as well as the way in which others respond to you. Philosophy is an endeavor of human curiosity, the attempt to gain awareness of the unknown. So philology can be defined as the attempt to gain awareness of the self.
It is through becoming aware of your own psychology that you are able to better understand your temporary ego self and it is through deep philosophical pursuits that you become aware of you absolute or spiritual Self. The combination of the two is what I have deemed philology.
Human psychology runs deep. There are many aspects of yourself which are unconscious, hidden from your conscious awareness. This concept was first introduced by Carl Jung which he deemed the human “shadow”. Through cultivating inner awareness you bring more and more of this shadow into the light until the shadow is completely dissolved and you are no longer controlled by unconscious patterns.
It is important to not personalize your own psychology. It is not personal at all, but rather an aspect of environmental conditioning. You grew up with certain parents who had certain beliefs and behavior patterns and specific psychological conditioning which was then imparted onto you.
As a child, you are a sponge that soaks up the energy of your environment. You do not have enough awareness to direct your focus in a way that totally benefits you. Of course, you do your best to optimize fun and positive experiences, but you inevitably experience trauma as a result of growing up in a largely unconscious world. This trauma becomes a part of your unconscious or “shadow” self.
This shadow self then goes on to create stumbling blocks on your journey through life. It may prevent you from being successful and cultivating abundance, it may sabotage every potential intimate relationship that comes your way, it may even cause you to have sudden anxiety and panic attacks.
The extent of negative psychological conditioning varies in everyone, but you can rest assured that it exists in all cases. The are some who have burned away most of the darkness through cultivating awareness and others who remain trapped in the dysfunction of the unconscious patterns.
There is hope, however, of liberating yourself from this dysfunction. That hope rests in awareness. The more you can cultivate an inner awareness of your internal workings, the more you can shine a light on the shadow. You can then process these deeply buried feelings by allowing them to resurface and integrating them into your conscious mind. This requires courage and a willingness to face the darkest aspects of yourself.
This will not be pleasant, but through remaining a detached observer of your feelings, no matter how uncomfortable they may be, you will have a perspective that anchors you in a deep foundation of peace. Like a deep ocean, the surface may be stormy and rough, yet in the absolute depth there is perfect calm, perfect stillness. Anchor yourself in this stillness and then face the shadow self.
Your conscious psychology is another area of importance. This consists of your conscious focus and thought patterns that occur on a daily basis. It is these two aspects, the conscious and unconscious, that make up your own personal psychology.
To optimize your conscious experience, you must focus on that which is desired, that which causes positive feeling and emotion. You must focus your awareness in a deliberate way so as to accomplish whatever it is that you set out to do. By dissolving the shadow, you will remove any unnecessary obstacles from your path and will cease to unknowingly self-sabotage. Then through deliberate focus of your conscious awareness, you can achieve absolutely anything. Whatever you desire can come to be.
The key is to set your intention on feeling as though what you desire is already a reality for you. This can be done simply and gradually, by taking steps in the best feeling direction.
The accomplishment of your desires is much easier than most people realize. Most people, however, are too complacent, too stuck in their ways to get anything meaningful done. They’re too unconscious and their awareness is marred by dysfunction. But rest assured, you can accomplish anything by refusing to follow the herd of dazed sheep and through cultivating a deep understanding of the nature of reality.
Let’s say you want to achieve a state of optimal health and physical fitness. You know that this will require proper diet, sleep, exercise, and thinking patterns. So you begin the process by eating a healthy salad and going for a jog. The nutrients and feel-good endorphins naturally uplift you, and you find yourself thinking more positively. You have a deep restful sleep that night.
Perhaps the next day you wake up and your friend brings a box of donuts over. You know that eating them would be a poor choice, yet you feel an overwhelming desire to devour them. Instead of taking action on this urge, you instead bring your awareness deeply into the feeling. What is this feeling trying to tell me? How am I unconsciously blocking myself from achieving my goal?
Perhaps you remember yourself as a young child being told by your obese father that you will always be fat just like him. He buys a box of donuts and you eat them together as he feels sorry for himself and consumes the sugary crack-like concoction in an unconscious attempt to feel better and sedate himself from the negative emotions stemming from his own shadow. You realize he passed this dysfunction onto you but you now have the awareness that he lacked so you are able to fully process the feeling.
You can go back to your child-self and fully allow them to feel what they are going through. Allow them to understand that they were not bad, but simply that their father lacked the awareness to treat them properly. He was in his own stage of evolution which you are now moving past.
Lead them through the emotion fully and lovingly. Tell them they are perfect as they are. You will know you are doing this properly because you will feel a sense of relief. Then if you want you can speak with your father and tell him that his behavior was inappropriate. Explain to him how he is passing his own unconscious dysfunction onto his son. Whether he understands this or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that your child-self feels as though you care for them and are willing to stand up for them, willing to love them unconditionally.
When you come back to your present experience, you will know that you have properly integrated this shadow because you will no longer have the desire to eat the donuts. You will easily turn them down. The urge will simply not be there. If there is still some integrating to do, the urge may still be there, but to a far lesser degree. Explain to your friend with honesty and kindness that you are trying to become healthier and that you don’t think donuts will help you to achieve this goal.
If they are a good friend they will understand, but if they keep trying to push the donuts on you that is a violation of your personal boundaries and you should sever ties with this individual. Surround yourself only with those who love and support you, whose qualities you admire and aspire to cultivate within yourself. No matter what, do not surround yourself with people who have no interest in becoming more conscious and realizing their greatest selves. Keep doing this as you progress on your journey to optimal health and you will surely arrive at your goal.
So to further extrapolate on the workings and optimization of the conscious mind, know that the very basis of this aspect of your psychology is your conscious focus in the present moment. Where is your attention in this moment? Is it on the good in your life? The positive in yourself and in the world around you, or the negative and undesired things? Ask yourself this frequently and cultivate the ability to focus in the way that feels best, in a way that is congruent with your desired reality.
If negative feelings come up, do not resist them or try to escape from them. Instead acknowledge them fully. Thank them for being there. Ask them with loving understanding what exactly they are trying to tell you. Then bring your awareness as deeply into the feeling as possible and use the integration process which I described earlier. Cycle between these two methods of conscious and deliberate focus and delving into the shadow using the process of integration. If you do so, you will surely achieve all that you desire in this life. Guaranteed.
You must be willing to sacrifice your individual ego self for the higher purpose that you have come here to serve. This means that NOTHING comes before your purpose. I repeat; NOTHING comes before your purpose!
If something causes a strong reaction within you, that is an indication that there is an unresolved shadow aspect within you that needs healing. Ask yourself why you react in this way. Go deeply into the feeling. What is it that you fear in this situation, this person, this experience that is cause you to react? Go into it deeply. Find the root of the reaction.
Perhaps it is someone’s unconsciousness; their anger, upset, or resentment. Their addictive and compulsive behaviors. Their disapproval or criticism of you. Know that the root of your reaction is an unhealed wound. Perhaps you have a deep fear of and resistance to the unconscious state, which is ultimately the unconsciousness within you. This is your unwillingness to resolve your own shadow. Know that the issue is never about the other people. It is always about you.
If you have a strong reaction because people around you are unconscious drug addicts, perhaps you had an experience as child in which one of your parents abused a substance and then became abusive towards you or you saw their lives being destroyed. This caused an intense fear in you of other drug addicts and of becoming one yourself, so when you see this behavior this intense fear comes to the surface.
Perhaps you have a deep fear of intimacy and of trying to establish an intimate relationship because you are afraid of being rejected, abandoned, and left all alone. This is because as a child, your parent(s) neglected to give you the proper love, affection, and emotional connection that you needed and this causes you to experience intense pain which became part of your shadow. Now when you feel attraction toward someone and the potential for an intimate relationship arises, this intense pain resurfaces and prevents you from ever becoming intimate with anyone.
These two examples are personal experiences I have had. They have been some of the most intense challenges I have ever faced in life. At times I just wanted to give up because it all felt too overwhelming. But ultimately I knew that was not an option and that I must persevere. There is a way to overcome and transcend all challenges. That is the nature of all growth, expansion, and evolution, which is the purpose of this Universe. And the greater the challenge, the greater the evolution of consciousness.
Always be seeking a new perspective. Always push yourself to learn more, to grow more, to become greater in every way imaginable.
