The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [58]
Darkness: Ask yourself if it’s really you having this impulse, the you whom you see in the mirror every morning.
Darkness is dealt with by bringing in the light. Freud called this replacing Id with Ego, meaning that “It” (the unnamed thing inside us) needs to be gathered back into the realm of “I” (the person you know yourself to be). In simpler terms, awareness needs to go into the place where it has been shut out.
Secrecy: Confide your evil impulse to someone you trust.
Secrecy is dealt with by honestly facing things that seem shameful or guilty. You face any and every feeling head on, without denial.
Danger: Release your anger out loud, staying with it as it decreases. Have the intention that this release is not merely venting, but truly letting go of your rage.
Danger is dealt with by defusing the bomb; that is, you find the explosive anger that lurks inside and you dispel it. Anger is the primal drive of evil impulses. Like all impulses, it comes in varying degrees, and even a towering rage can be deflated until it defuses into controlled rage, then justified anger, and on down to righteous indignation, and finally personal offense. Personal offense is not difficult to dispel, once you manage to release the built-up intensity that turns into uncontrollable rage.
Myth: Name a hero who would deal with your feelings in a different way and still remain heroic. Violence is part of heroism but so are many other positive qualities.
Myth is imaginative and creative. Therefore you can take any myth and mold it along different lines—Satan himself becomes a comic figure in medieval miracle plays, a ploy that leads directly to the comic villains in James Bond films. Myth is nothing but metamorphosis; therefore, this level gives us a powerful way to turn demons into helpers of the gods, or defeated enemies of the angels.
Irrationality: Come up with the best argument for not acting on your rage. Don’t do this emotionally: See yourself as an adult counselor of a wayward teenager about to ruin his life. What would you say to make him see reason?
Irrationality is dealt with by persuasion and logic. Emotions are much more gripping and powerful than reason, but they will not be able to escape their world, where only feelings prevail, until the thinking process gives them a reason to feel differently. On their own, without mind, feelings remain the same and grow more intense over time. (A common example: Imagine yourself enraged because a kid in a red baseball cap keyed your car. He runs away and escapes. The next day you see him and run up, but when he turns around, it’s a different kid. Rage turns into apology because the mind was able to introduce a simple idea: wrong person.)
Primitiveness: Without excuses or rationalizations, express your rage like a beast on a rampage—growling, howling, writhing, letting your body go. Let what’s primitive be primitive, within safe bounds.
Primitive feelings are dealt with at their own level, as holdovers of the lower brain. You remove the disguise of being civilized. This level of awareness runs even deeper than emotion—the very most primitive area, known as the reptilian brain, interprets all stress as a life or death struggle for survival. At this level, your “reasonable” sense of injustice is experienced as blind panic and blind ferocity.
Even though your impulses may never cross the line into violence, ordinary impulses intensify in the shadow, where you can’t see them. Whenever you hear yourself sounding resentful or angry without provocation, whenever you find yourself on the verge of tears for no reason, whenever you cannot explain why you suddenly made a rash decision, you are actually feeling the effects of energy covertly building up in the shadow.
The shadow has grown used to being repressed; therefore, to access this region of the mind doesn’t happen easily. Nor is direct assault effective. The shadow knows how to resist; it can slam the door and hide its dark energy even deeper. If you recall the