About: Mapping the psyche
Human beings are wonderfully complex. Our inner world is made up of many overlapping layers of consciousness. These aspects of ourselves influence one another, making it difficult to explore them in a neat, linear way.
What follows is a brief introduction to these layers, each of which will be explored in greater depth. Think of them as landmarks on an inner map. They represent different movements of consciousness that we gradually learn to recognize, understand and integrate.
Although they overlap and interact, distinguishing them helps us recognize which part of ourselves is speaking in any given moment.
You can also read a summary of the qualities of the self, as taught by the Pathwork Guide.
The Higher Self
The Higher Self takes practice to connect with, it often communicates without words, and it is full of paradox. It is all things that are good and serve connection with the self, others and all that is. It says, "I am not alone" and aligns with God.
The Lower Self
The Pathwork Guide teaches that any truth can be distorted. The Lower Self is created when our natural pleasure principle becomes distorted into pain. All negativity derives from the cross-over of pleasure into pain.
Because Lower Self contains pleasure, we cannot get rid of it until we find the pleasure in the destruction. Then we can reconvert that distorted energy back into its loving, flowing, positive, constructive form.
To do this, we must also understand and correct the associated misunderstandings—the hidden untruth.
The Little-L Lower Self
Little-L Lower Self is the ignorant, illogical inner child who wants 100% perfect, exclusive love and to always have its way. Neither are possible so it feels rejected and frustrated. Not having these false needs met makes the child feel inferior, so it draws wrong conclusions about its value. It develops other faulty ideas about itself, others and life.
It suffers from being trapped in life-or-death duality, and from feeling scared and rejected. It attempts to block these painful feelings by holding its breath, thereby freezing the energy of these feelings in the body.
Its response to life is "I can't," as in "I can't feel this, or I'll die."
It unconsciously attaches its natural drive for pleasure—which the Guide calls our pleasure principle—to the painful atmosphere it experiences. Later, it will need to re-create this environment to activate its life force.
The Big-L Lower Self
Behind the Little-L Lower Self sits the Big-L Lower Self. It wants to rule.
It demands love but resists giving. Its intention is to stay stuck and stay separate, and to not let the parents off the hook for the pain they caused.
This hidden tyrant is cruel to the self through inner criticism, and to others through bullying, betraying, holding back and seducing/rejecting. It derives pleasure from this destruction. It uses the misconceptions of the child to justify all of this.
The Lower Self routinely builds cases against others and maligns them. It fears the pain of humiliation and sets a negative intention to never give in. Its response to life is "I won't," as in "I won't give and I won't ever give in."
Our defenses, or masks, don't actually work. After all, emotional pain is not a real threat. Feelings will not kill us.
The Mask
Due to our parents' immaturity and their own impossible demand for perfect love, all children feel pain. The child concludes they must be unlovable, which feels shameful. This is one reason we try to hide behind a mask.
Our mask is an ideal version of ourselves that we try to present to the world in hopes of getting love and avoiding pain. Because this "idealized self-image" is not authentic—it is not built on truth—it brings us more pain.
We will also choose a pseudo-solution to incorporate into our mask. We feel safer—less vulnerable—presenting this false version of ourselves to the world.
Shame
When we begin down this path of self-healing, we must start to expose our inner landscape. Shame, then, is the first thing we will run into.
Shame is the feeling that we are exposing something we need to hide. It is the outer layer of our mask. The mask, again, is a strategy intended to get love and defend against pain.
It does neither. And being only a strategy—it does not hold our life force—we could say the mask isn't real.
The mask uses subservience to get its way (submission), or attacks others to manipulate and control them (aggression). Or it detaches and withdraws in false serenity (withdrawal).
It also uses blame, victimhood and judgment to turn the focus away from the self. In the end, when we are in our mask, we are attempting to create a perfect version of our self. But it is fake.
We can never succeed at becoming an illusion.
The Ego
The unhealed ego is immature and wants to reign supreme, saying, "See me, I'm better than you, love me for it." It uses drugs, distractions, avoidance and denial to escape or try to transcend itself.
It competes and believes it can win. It lives in a "me versus you" world and is caught in the illusion of duality.
It needs to become strong enough to make the choice to seek God. It is a necessary servant for the soul to do this work, but it is not the master.
The Objective Observer
The mature adult ego is the compassionate, objective observer that chooses to connect the Higher Self with the inner child. It prays to see the truth, surrenders, and is willing to die many little deaths.
It will eventually dissolve into the Higher Self.
This healthy version of our ego commits, develops self-discipline, wants to see misconceptions, and is willing to pay the price.
The Universal Self
While it is essential to dissolve childhood conflicts, the greater aim of this work is to transition from the isolated, self-centered, dualistic state of the ego to the state of union with all that is—in our divine center.
Our objective must not stop short at the purification of the Lower Self but strive endlessly toward this greater fulfillment in the unitive state of consciousness.
The Story of Two Wolves
A story widely shared in Native American traditions
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego."
He continued, "The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
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Learn more in Bones, Chapter 3: The Higher Self, the Lower Self, and the Mask Self.
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