It’s been about six years since the experience I call my “awakening”.  I’m not sure what Carl Jung would have called it, but I do know that he would have called what I’ve gone through since then, the process of “individuation”: the act of discovering one’s true Self absent of externally imposed conditioned behaviors and thought patterns.

Despite reading some of Dr. Jung’s works, I was unaware that this was what I was going through until I read a book specifically about spiritual awakenings that talked about twelve distinct layers of conditioning a person undergoing an awakening will have to deal with.  I was rather astonished as I read through them and thought to myself, “wow, this is spot on,” as these were the precise issues I was dealing with.

The average person isn’t even aware of operating under the influence of these layers of conditioning, not until they’re pointed out, at which point it’s obvious.  A good example is family conditioning, probably the kind of conditioning we’re the most vulnerable to and therefore the least aware of.  Then something happens and a good friend or a therapist explains and points out some things and it all becomes clear.

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do this on my own since I’m psychologically minded and think rather Socratically on a constant basis.  I’m always asking myself “why?” and “what is the source of this?”  In the process, I’ve discovered so many layers of conditioning that it’s been shocking and even frightening, to the extent I’ve occasionally wondered if there’s really any “me” in here in the absence of all of this conditioning.  There is, thank the Goddess, and I’m slowly chipping away and peeling off that conditioning so that I can see Myself and let her shine.

In the process, I’ve discovered that the one thing that makes conditioning cling to us, or us to cling to it, is judgment.  We get conditioned to think, feel, and behave in certain ways because the lessons that teach that conditioning are delivered judgmentally in such a way as to load the lesson with guilt and shame, two emotions most people will assiduously avoid at almost any cost.  Conditioning is how the various institutions in our lives exert control over us, from families to jobs to schools to governments to cultures to religions to social circles and everything in between, and that control is exerted with judgment.

This is why conditioning institutions generally do not encourage the asking of questions, at least not of how the institution does things.  Asking questions threatens the status quo, which threatens the power of those exerting the judgmental control.  Historically speaking, institutions that exert a lot of judgmental control over their subjects aren’t very interested in them discovering their true Selves and becoming real individuals.  They want people who will submit, be quiet, and do what they’re told without asking questions.

Individuation is all about asking questions, though.  Deep questions about oneself and one’s relationship to the other people and entities in one’s life.  Whether the process of individuation is willfully instigated or externally imposed by Universal forces doesn’t matter: once it’s going, it won’t stop, not without doing serious damage to the psyche.

I find myself going through the process of individuation at the same time I’m going through the process of menopause, which is its own female-specific transformation all women must go through at some point, usually sometime between 45 and 55.  This seems appropriate to me, as though the person I was for the first 50 years of my life wasn’t really me at all and now I’m getting the chance to really be Myself.  Girls and women in our society typically aren’t allowed to define themselves, at least not while I was growing up.  Women’s autonomy was given lip service in many ways while they still labored under the shackles of the patriarchy.

Imagery plays a very important part in my inner analytical processes.  Between the willful visualizations and the spontaneous visions, I essentially engage in waking dream analysis for symbolic meaning within the images.  In the case of my conditioning, it has appeared to me like thick layers of wool blankets stacked over me so deeply that my body can no longer be distinguished or move, and within this vision it is difficult to breathe.  At least, that’s how it first appeared.

Assiduous personal work in deprogramming myself of my conditioning has resulted in a change in the imagery.  There are still blankets covering me, but not nearly as many, and the outline of my body is apparent.  It is also easier to breathe and move now.  Instead of laying down, weighed down by the blankets, I am sitting up, though my head is still covered.  A faint light can be seen from beneath the edges of the remaining blankets.

I imagine that these are the deepest and oldest layers of conditioning that I have, probably laid down in childhood and repeatedly reinforced over the decades.  They may as well be embedded in my skin.  I know they can be removed, though, by doing the same internal work that removed the previous layers, some of which were also entrenched very deeply.

Now the imagery in my mind shifts to running water, one of the most powerful forces on Earth.  I see a river in a very deep channel, the course of which is slowly shifting as one tendril of the river snakes off on its own after another.  They are joining together to create a new channel, slowly eroding away the rocks and silt.  More and more water flows from the old channel into the new each day, the death of the old river inevitable even as it lives on in the new.

As the riverbed migrates, the landscape inevitably changes.  Trees die in one place only to resprout in another in new grove patterns.  Plants and animals shift to adapt to the changing position of the river.  Anything that does not fit within the new local paradigm fades away or is transformed to adapt to the new reality.  New life grows to fill the niches that appear in the newly transformed environment.

All this requires is patience, the patience of water.  The water does not get angry at the boulder, it simply goes around and keeps pushing on it until it moves or dissolves, without care of how much time it takes.  Ultimately, nothing can stop the water.  It always finds a way to the ocean.

And the ocean is where I’m going in this vision.  The ocean represents the whole of the psyche to me, with the different layers of the ocean representing the different major parts of the psyche (conscious, subconscious, unconscious, ego, shadow, etc.).  Only by plumbing the depths of this ocean can I reveal my True Self, the goal of removing all of those blanket layers of conditioning that permeate all those different parts of my psyche.

I have deprogrammed so much conditioning that I wonder how there could possibly be any left, but there is.  It’s shocking, the thousands of tiny little ways that judgment is exerted against us in our society and in the world in general.  We don’t even notice it most of the time unless we are openly judged to our face.  Most judgments are unconscious or subconscious.  We learn the judgmental rules of the controlling entities in our lives subconsciously as children, when our brains act like sponges in our environments.  They are consciously reinforced with judgment and shame as we grow by the people around us when we break a conditioned rule.

Breaking free of internalized judgment and the shame that comes with it is critical to the process of individuation.  It is impossible to become one’s True Self while under the constant barrage of internalized criticism and judgment.  This is also a reason why people often do not willingly undertake the process of seeking their True Self: because they may find themselves the subject of external criticism and judgment from others in their lives.  Our culture praises the notion of individuality, but only if it conforms to a very narrow definition of “normal”.  Stray from this definition even a little and one is likely to find themselves regarded with fear and suspicion, and certainly mocked.

Fortunately, the closer one gets to one’s True Self, the less the opinion of others matters.  Quality over quantity becomes much more important, as does how one spends one’s time and who with.  The process is empowering, and one finds oneself able to do things one wasn’t capable of before, such as stepping away from oppressive, unsupportive people, even if they’re family.  The healthy risk of engaging in empowering activities builds confidence, which leads to engaging in more empowering activities, leading to a positive feedback loop that can become self-sustaining.

I can tell I’ve reached a level of self-sustainability in the imagery of the Icebound Heart.  When I last checked on my thawing heart, it was still cold and beating slowly and irregularly, but speeding up and stabilizing.  Now it has warmed up considerably, but is still not normal temperature, and is beating much closer to normal speed without a hitch.  I imagine this correlates with the recent “cracking” sensation in my chest, accompanied by a wave of understanding and compassion for myself after examining my life in a unique way in My Internal Family.

In real life, this translates to feeling more open emotionally, but not entirely open.  I am still guarded in some ways, ways that are no doubt related to the remaining blanket layers of conditioning I have yet to disengage.  Some of this conditioning is extremely sensitive and related to both sexuality and childhood abuse issues.  I have to proceed extremely carefully in order to not retraumatize myself about these matters.  I’m trying to heal myself, after all, not do further damage.

I didn’t exactly enjoy the process of individuation at first, but I engaged with it because I knew it was necessary.  I was channeling the spirit of Ananke, the Greek goddess of Necessity.  There was a lot of work that I did without immediate reward and only kept at it because of some inner faith that the reward would eventually come.  At last, the process is becoming rewarding.  Like I’ve been going through physical therapy after a nasty accident and am finally seeing some gains in strength and flexibility, allowing myself to see that the work is worth the effort.  It’s encouraging and makes me want to work more.

This means I must, however reluctantly, admit that I like the image of Myself that is beginning to emerge.  This is in conflict with my feelings about my Old Self, whom I despised.  So much so that I let her “die” and changed my name.  I’ve come to take a much more compassionate view of my Old Self, though, knowing why she was that way.  

This is the channel that the water is carving into the landscape of my psyche, away from the Path of Old Me and into the Path of New Me.  The water is still in both places as yet, though.  I am still leaving behind self-judgment and self-loathing and transforming them into self-compassion and self-love, the latter of which I still do not feel.  But as the water flows, the layers of blankets will fall away, and eventually the new landscape of my psyche will emerge from beneath them.  I look forward to becoming Myself.