The teachings from the Pathwork Guide show us how to take responsibility for our difficulties by unmasking and transforming the energies of the Lower Self. This is a necessary step toward eventually letting go of the ego and learning to live from our Higher Self.
Grasp the concepts
As a Worker begins doing the work, the teachings from the Pathwork Guide are important to understand. For they give the Worker a map of the landscape of the psyche. They help us see the illusion we are living in.
If a Worker only reads the teachings, they may become well-read, but they will not become a good Worker. By the same token, if a Worker does the work but doesn’t understand where it is ultimately leading—toward learning to trust the divine within—they will not discover the truth of who they are.
On this path, we don’t discount the use of our reasoning mind. Genuine self-transformation cannot be accomplished without a disciplined ego. As the ego develops and becomes an objective observer, the Worker can participate more consciously—and therefore more efficiently—in guiding their own work.
When a Worker is ready to start, one of the first tasks for their ego is to understand the nature of a person’s mask. If the Worker does not begin to recognize their defense strategy—their Power Mask, Love Mask or Serenity Mask—they won’t understand how to dismantle it or why they should.
It’s important to help the Worker understand this aspect of the Guide’s teachings, and help them identify how their mask shows up. Otherwise, the Worker may instead lean further into these destructive behaviors.
As the Helper, we should never work harder than the Worker. Our job is to hold the light while they dig.
Face reality
Healing work must align with spiritual laws. For example, it is a spiritual law that there is always a price to pay for having what we want. The price we must pay to have inner peace is the effort we must make to truly unravel our inner distortions.
Instead, a person might lean toward “spiritual bypassing.” Then they will attempt to adopt the “look” of a spiritual person, bypassing the hard work of genuine self-development. In short, they confuse an effect with a cause, and in doing so, set themselves back.
Another spiritual law is that we can’t skip steps. In doing so, we hope to cheat life, and life cannot be cheated. All these behaviors stem from a weak ego which has not developed the discipline needed to do this work.
Watch for any tendency of the Worker to rely on “homegrown spirituality,” living by their own conclusions that may not align with truth. Also notice if the Worker is avoiding the deeper work of fully facing their Lower Self.
They may then spend their time improving their mask—the least real part of themselves—and move further into despair and resignation. Meanwhile, their Lower Self remains untouched.
Discipline, patience, perseverance
The Worker must be capable of showing up in the world and attending to the normal demands of life. As their ego develops more discipline, their lifestyle becomes healthier. They participate in sessions regularly and spend some time each day reviewing their life and their reactions to it.
In other words, if the Worker wants to heal, they will need to do some real work.
As the Helper, we should never work harder than the Worker. Our job is to hold the light while they dig.
Of course, their progress will not follow a straight line upwards. It never does. But their overall intention must be to move in the direction of growth and healing. We may need to offer encouragement, but we don’t chase after them or do their work for them.
A Worker is also likely to have some resistance. A Worker with resistance is not a bad Worker. They’re someone dealing with the human condition. And so we work with it.
In our sessions, we welcome all the parts of the self, including the parts that are in resistance—the parts that don’t want to be there or make an effort. We invite these aspects into the session and we give them our attention.
What are they holding? How does saying no seem to serve them?
Work for the Higher Self, watch for the Lower Self
As we do the work of uncovering and transforming the Lower Self, we must watch for how the Lower Self tries to sabotage the work. And it will. This might include making the person so tired they can’t read the teachings. Or making them miss appointments by “accidentally” forgetting them.
The person may decide the work is too… childish, embarrassing, ineffective. The Lower Self justifies and rationalizes with ease. For as clever as a person’s Higher Self is, that’s how cunning the Lower Self can be.
Since the Worker’s Higher Self hires us to be the Helper, we are accountable to the best part of the Worker. This part expects us to see the games of their Lower Self and call them on it.
We need to watch for the Lower Self’s games and help the Worker learn to identify them. Since we will have done a significant amount of our own work, we will know what to look for. Because we know, in general, how the Lower Self behaves.
If we pay attention, the Worker will tell us, or show us, what we need to know to help them. If we miss the clues, the Worker is likely to become angry with us. It’s not that we have somehow harmed the Worker. This anger arises because some deeper part of them knows we aren’t doing the work we were asked to do.
It’s the Worker’s Higher Self that gets mad.
They depend on us to not let them get away with evasive and destructive behavior. They need to be able to trust us—to know that we have their best interest at heart and that we have the courage needed to take on their Lower Self—just as we have done with our own.
If we miss the work, anger is likely to come out directly into the room—aimed at us. And it will have a lot of Lower Self charge. This is not bad news. Because now the energy of the Lower Self is present in the room with us.
We need to face it, speak directly to it, and work with it. We’ll get to face the bold, destructive cruelty that is normally running the show from behind the curtain. Let it have a voice.
Find out how it justifies itself.
Let the Worker see what’s really going on inside them.
Make it safe to express
As Helpers, we will probably make mistakes. We are only human and there is much to learn about helping to guide another soul. On top of that, the Lower Self is challenging to deal with.
When we stumble, we simply need to own it.
For example, when we suggest a direction to explore that falls flat, we drop it and move on. We keep coming back to what’s happening in the moment.
But generally speaking, when there is moving energy to work with in a session, that is preferable to trying to get stuck energy to budge.
We want to encourage the expression of feelings, but we must be able to handle direct expressions of anger. We’ve prepared ourselves through our own development work and the work we’ve witnessed along the way.
We can also tend to the walls of the container when we pray during the attunement and throughout the work. This strengthens the Worker’s awareness of their Higher Self during the session.
When the Lower Self is ready to show itself, we want there to be a safe place to do so.
Return to Healing the Hurt Contents
