Learning to Trust One’s Unconscious
by Lillian Moats

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..“For millennia, seekers have been recognizing the unconscious as the wellspring of spiritual knowing, and devising ways to bring it to consciousness,” writes psychiatrist Robert C. Murphy. My life experience has convinced me that trust is the key that gives access to the positive power of the unconscious.

...The unconscious is often characterized as the repository for all of the psychological material that is too threatening for the conscious mind to openly address. While this oversimplified model doubtless conveys some truth, it is no wonder that this characterization can make us squeamish about the contents and negative potential of our unconscious minds.

...In my late twenties, an attack of white-hot guilt, for which I had no explanation, marked the onset of a breakdown that would last five years -- later diagnosed as a “prolonged emotional fragmentation.” Though I could not identify the cause of my guilt, its pervasiveness persuaded me that it could not be baseless. I reasoned that the cause must be buried in unconscious memory or lurking in unconscious desire. The very concept that thoughts and memories could be outside of my control became overwhelmingly frightening. I tried to police my thoughts, spent my days searching not only my mind but my surroundings for “evidence” to convict myself of the most horrific crimes. A deep distrust of my own hands set in -- I came to regard them as either former or future instruments of violence. They seemed ungovernable, as if they had wills of their own.

...Because I had no sympathy for myself, I could approach psycho-therapy only as an intellectual challenge to decode the unconscious symbolism of my symptoms. I never lost the ability to speak rationally about my illness, which led psychiatrist after psychiatrist to praise my analytical skills while they overlooked the relentless agony of my internal life. Finally, a more insightful therapist recognized that none of my intellectual work would pay off until we directly addressed my underlying terror of myself which had grown out of my early childhood. Within weeks, my psychotic symptoms fell away in the atmosphere of trust in me that she conveyed.

...What I had only begun to learn was that to a great extent the unconscious delivers to us what we are seeking. When I was looking for “evidence” to prove my inherent evil, there was no end to the suspicious thoughts and impulses that I felt I needed to patrol. Twenty years later, my own hands -- which I had so distrusted during my illness -- demonstrated to me the positive power we can derive from the unconscious when we approach it in a spirit of deep trust.

...While learning to meditate, I found that my hands would levitate to the height of my shoulders and remain suspended as long as I maintained a light trance. I was afraid at first, again perceiving my hands to be “ungovernable.” But the self-trust I had gained in the years since my illness enabled me to overcome that fear. The ease with which I took to meditation and the propensity of my hands to levitate, I soon realized, were due to the fact that I had fallen into trances as a tiny child, alone at the bedside of my overwrought and ailing mother. These trances, into which I entered while she slept, were my only escape from my terror of losing her and from my overwhelming sense of responsibility for her.

...When I allowed my hands to move during meditation as my unconscious mind now directed them, a language of gesture sprang into being, leading me back to my earliest childhood memories with gentleness, insight and understanding toward both my mother and myself.

...Eventually, I came to understand that this silent, personal hand-language had actually emerged during my childhood trances and was the “escape mechanism” which had relieved my torment. Because I was then at an age at which my verbal skills were limited, this language of pure gesture enabled me to fluidly express my unspoken feelings to myself. It also safeguarded my life-line to my vulnerable mother inasmuch as it saved me from verbalizing any negative emotions towards her. This creative solution to an acute emotional dilemma was, in fact, a marvelous gift from my unconscious.

...For years in meditation, my hands led me back and forth in time. What I perceived during that spiritual journey, was that the primary function of the unconscious is to “save us.” In childhood, feelings and memories that can disrupt our relationship to a parent or caregiver -- on whom our very lives depend -- are often buried. But, in adulthood, we can help to release the unconscious mind from its “duty” to repress our feelings, knowing that such repression often leads to emotional distortion. Capable of parenting ourselves, we no longer need to contain our feelings with the tight grip of a terrified child. In an atmosphere of trust for the intent of the unconscious, we may be the recipients of insights and solutions contrary to our fears and well beyond our hopes.

Lillian Moats is a writer, artist, and filmmaker. Her books include: Speak, Hands (January, 2006), Legacy of Shadows (1999), and The Gate of Dreams (1993, 1996)