When You Don't Control Your Inner Experience, What Happens?

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. There's no coming to consciousness without pain. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

- Carl Jung

How not controlling my inner experience (and allowing the stuck energy to flow) has caused very specific and painful areas of my life to change dramatically.

Since I have learned to recognize when I am trying to control my inner experience and to allow feelings to loosen up and become unstuck - even if that means I have to stop what I’m doing to go to a quiet place to have a big cry for no apparent reason - there are some massive changes in my life that I’ve noticed. These aspects of life that have clearly changed in very positive ways show me that the very foundation of erroneous, unconscious patterns of thinking must have dissolved - without effort, but with allowance.

The unconscious mind is getting cleaned up, as seen through the content of my dreams. I have always had a very vivid dream life. Especially in the first few decades, dreams were always seemingly conveying messages to me that I wasn’t always able to pick up in the waking state. It was common to get messages that I’d say were from a Divine state, reminder from God. While others showed me the shadows that were hiding within, the feelings I wasn’t ready or able to bring into the Light of day. There was a particular recurring dream that I had all through my childhood and well into my adulthood. I don’t remember the last time I had it, but it was years ago at this point. However, in the past, it was on my regular playlist of dreams. The details were somewhat different each time, but it was virtually the same exact dream in its essence.

I was always in a large house or building, often a huge meandering hotel, with many rooms, levels, hallways, nooks and crannies. I always just found myself in these buildings, walking through, trying to figure out where I was, why I was there and what I was supposed to be doing. I felt lost in ever way. And at some point in the dream, I would always find myself coming to a door, closet or some deep, hidden room. Behind the door or hidden in the dark of that room, I knew that there was something so scary, that it invoked absolute TERROR in me. The most utterly scary, demonic feeling that can ever be felt. That is what I felt hiding behind the door of this room. Most often it was a remote room in the lowest level of the building, in a dungeon-like space, with a long walkway to get the door, everything looking ugly, cold, worn out and very unappealing. I would usually wake at this point, full of the feeling of terror, and that terror would take some time to dissipate, as I woke suddenly. And this dream happened innumerable times over my lifetime.

Another recurring dream that I had very regularly was one in which I was running away from people who were chasing me and trying to catch me. I knew that something bad would happen if they caught me, so I just ran. Actually, I usually always flew away from them. I could fly and others in the dream couldn't. While I was appreciative of being able to fly and get away from the people trying to harm me, the feeling of always being chased and in danger was not a good feeling. Obviously, there was fear involved. This dream and the terror dream were my most recurring dreams throughout my life for at least three decades. I would wake up feeling the residue of the fear or terror.

Not only have I not had these particular fear-based dreams in many years, my dreams these days are all surprising pleasant. I dream of things like living through an enormous tsunami, but I have no fear and I am totally surrendered to whatever might happen - even if it could be very painful or could mean my death. It is a wonderful surprise to have my dream-time change in this way, without any effort or expectation.

This is one of the noticeable changes...I'll talk about other changes in future posts.