Noticing The Unconscious

We can sometimes notice parts of the unconscious, or what it makes us do or feel. We may start feeling sad, scared or angry for no apparent reason, although it does seem to make sense somewhere inside. We may, as adults, sometimes start feeling like a child (and perhaps try to resist that feeling, as we are adults, right?). We may not feel much at all, having the same flat state all the time, while we can remember that this was not the case when we were young children. We may stay occupied with particular thoughts for long periods of time. We may fantasize about situations from the past, or things that might happen in the future. We can stay angry about things way longer than seems reasonable. Even when we realize that this doesn't actually help us in any way, we are not really able to stop doing that. We feel we need to protect or defend ourselves from some kind of emotional hurt quite often. While this need feels quite real, we often cannot quite put our finger on what it is exactly that is happening in us that needs protection. We have pretty standard ways of reacting to situations, that most of us take for granted. It seems that we just are that way, even when we think some of these patterns are not very helpful to living our lives satisfactorily. Some people seem to be able to get us to do things we had no intention of doing. When that isn't by some obvious display of force, we may even have no idea what actually made us change our mind. We are susceptible to manipulation....read more...