By Hal Stone, Ph.D., and Sidra Stone, Ph.D.. Reproduced with permission.
Hal and Sidra Stone: their work and the complete article library · Further Reading
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1Continuing the Journey (after 9/11)The Second Letterby Sidra Stone, PhD and Hal Stone, PhDThis is the second letter we sent to our mailing list in 2001. In it we shared some thoughts about 9/11and its aftermath. After much consideration, and in response to the urging of others, we are postingthis letter today because we feel that its message is equally applicable to the current terroristsituation. .Dear Friends,First of all, we would like to thank you for your heartfelt response to our first mailing. Your e‐mailsand letters touched us deeply and we really want you to know this. Many of you requestedpermission to send our letters to your own friends and colleagues; this is perfectly acceptable tous.The following letter is quite long. We rarely send out mailings this long, but these are unusualtimes and unusual times call for unusual actions. We feel that all the information is very important.We are offering it to you in a single document for clarity and comprehensive coverage of ourthinking.After we sent out our first mailing, we flew to Calgary, rented a car, and drove along the CanadianRockies as far as Jasper. The airport at San Francisco was a changed airport. There were armedNational Guardsmen (and Guardswomen) and the line of passengers waiting for security clearancewas about a quarter of a mile long. Sidra's nail file was taken from her. Hal had to remove hisshoes so that they could be run through the electronic scanner.Sidra has always been the more adventurous risk‐taker in our travels and she wanted to drivethrough the Canadian Rockies ‐ a trip she remembered vividly from 50 years earlier. Hal wasconcerned about getting trapped in a snowstorm and not being able to get back in time to do ourweekend training in Calgary. It was already Tuesday and the workshop began on Friday night. Tohelp us make our decision about the advisability of this drive, we spoke to the rangers near LakeLouise. They assured us that the highways were open all year and only in January might there be aproblem for a day or two.We made the decision to go, though with some concern, and we had a magnificent trip throughwhat is one of the most beautiful ‐accessible ‐ mountain ranges on the planet. The world may havechanged in these past 50 years, and current events were gathering threatening momentum as wedrove this magical highway, but these mountains ‐ blessedly ‐ had remained the same. Theyprovided us with a deep sense of timelessness, continuity, sacred beauty, and peace.When we hit the turnoff for the Columbia ice fields, it began to rain and there were some lightsnow flurries. We both began to feel what could diagnostically be described as a mild anxiety statebut we continued to drive northward to our destination. As we descended from the summit, therain and snow flurries disappeared. We finally reached Jasper. The next morning we awoke to thefirst snowfall of the year and it was seriously snowing. Our self‐diagnosis shifted from mild to
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2moderate anxiety as we pictured a room full of people waiting for us on Friday night while wewere stranded someplace in the Rockies.We will spare you the details, but our story had a happy ending. By noon, the sun was out and,when we hit the pass at the Columbia ice fields, there was considerable snow on the ground but itwas already melting and the maintenance trucks had already sanded the roads. We arrived at ourdestination safely on late Thursday afternoon. We even avoided a negative bonding pattern whenwe became vulnerable, though it was admittedly a pretty close call.We don't want you to think that we begin all of our writing with a travelogue of our adventures.We share this because it was on this ride to Jasper ‐ and feeling our own vulnerability ‐that webegan to catalogue the various disowned selves that we felt were being carried by the terroristgroups, the fundamentalists, and by the Muslim community. We spent hours looking at these, andthen exploring which contrasting selves were traditional US primary selves.We found our discussion very valuable to us both. Sidra brought up the idea of the strong familyties and communal feeling that are a foundation of many cultures, including the Muslim and theLatin, noting that both those cultures carry a number of the US's disowned selves. In thesecultures, the individual is not seen as existing solo; instead, the individual is always seen in thecontext of the group. Although we value family ties and teamwork here in the US, our primaryselves are more of the independent or individualistic types. We value the Rambos, the LoneRangers, and the John Waynes. As a culture, our heroes are people who proudly operate alonerather than in the context of a family or a larger group. If they do operate within a group, it isusually as the leader.Hal's unconscious had an immediate reaction to this part of the discussion. Hal's primary self hasalways been more introverted and individualistic, and the discussion obviously hit at a ratherdeep level. That night he had the following dream: "I go to the southern border of the U.S. ‐ next toMexico ‐ and there are small houses where many Mexican‐American families live. I enter one ofthe houses and there are many people and families. In the middle of the room is a very large bed.Everyone is sitting on the bed talking and just being together. It is a very good feeling. Then thedream shifts and I am in a larger empty room. With me is a young woman who carries somethingof the spirit of this Mexican community. The room is starting to go down into the earth where wewill be exploring the nature of the communal family spirit."Sidra's unconscious, too, reacted immediately to our discussion. Another disowned self we hadtalked about was the terrorist as a fighter, as someone who knew how to fight effectively. Incontrast, there has been a protected quality to life in the US and most of us, including Sidra, havedisowned our own terrorists, our street fighters who know how to fight. Our primary selves aremore naïve and carry strong injunctions about never hurting others. We have been taught to "usewords rather than fists" and we are accustomed to the protection offered by our most ordinaryeconomic advantages. The 911 attacks took away our customary protections; the old primaryselves no longer work the same way in the new world.That night Sidra had the following dream about incorporating a new set of selves: "I was drivingour Buick through a crowd of ordinary looking people. I have no way of knowing who is safe and
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3who is not. I try to roll up the windows of the car but I can't because there are no longer anywindow frames. There is no longer a roof either. We are driving our usual car, but we are nolonger protected by it. (A perfect picture of the inadequacy of the old primary selves in the newsituation.) Suddenly, a street fighter, a funny, irreverent young black man who knows how to takecare of himself in this kind of setting, jumps on the front right fender of the car and begins to "rideshotgun". Another friend of his takes up a position at the back of the car. They look at me withamusement; they are laughing at my vulnerability and they want to see what I'll do next. They arenot malevolent, just challenging. They are perfectly comfortable in this situation. I know in thedream that I need their protection and I must figure out how to deal with them and maintaincontrol of my car. I know that they will honor me if I respect them and I retain my own sense ofirreverence and humor when I am with them." Sidra awoke with a grin, knowing that thisirreverent, paradigm‐busting, street‐fighter carries an energy that we will all need in the times tocome.We were both struck by how quickly our unconsciouses had responded to our earlier discussionand how quickly these disowned selves made themselves known to us. Once they were introducedto us through our dreams, we knew that we were already beginning the process of workingcreatively with them. We hope that our discussion of the primary selves of the groups that seem tobe "other" will work for you in the same way.The Disowned SelvesAt a time like this it is important to try to see what it is that we disown and what we have attractedto ourselves in the outside world. Just as in our personal relationships, we need this basicinformation in order to begin the process of separating from primary selves, integrating disownedselves, and started to defuse the bonding patterns.We were fortunate to have people who were born in five different countries in our last traininggroup here at Thera and, together, we all thought about the question of what selves people fromthe US tend to disown. Here are some of the ideas that we came up with: We are strong; wedisown our vulnerability. We preserve life at any cost, and we disown death. We are independent;we disown our need of others. We are the have's; others are the have‐not's. We have been the"good guys," the cowboys in the white hats who rescue others; we disown our instinctual energies,our "bad guys," our terrorists. We are smart, we know all the answers; we don't need others tohelp us figure things out. We are identified with our minds; others are identified with their souls.We are more likely to be identified with our materialism; others with their idealism. We believe inour individual freedom; we disown our fundamentalists who carry the need for outside regulationof our behavior. We are innocent, eternal optimists; we disown our sense of futility. We are youngand self‐impressed as a nation; we do not value the wisdom and experience of other, older nations.We know how to give; we do not know how to receive.We're not going to go into all these selves in detail in this letter. It's long enough as it is, so we'vechosen to speak at greater length about just a few of the opposites we've dealt with mostfrequently during the past years. But we wanted to mention these here because one of them justmight spark your own process.
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4What You Disown, You MarryHistory repeats itself. Those who do not learn from it are doomed to repeat it. This is true ininterpersonal relationships and it is true in the relationships among nations.In our attempts to do what we thought was right ‐ or was in our best interests which, by definition,was something we thought was right ‐ the US has chosen partners who carried our disownedselves. Our nation "married" Pinochet, Noriega, Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, and, to our mostrecent dismay, Osama bin Laden. Let us hope that we exercise a bit more caution with our nextpartners. We are not political experts and we don't know the answers, but we do urge caution inthe new alliances.Let us learn the lessons of history as individuals, and as a nation. Our basic lesson is that we mustlearn to move through life embracing opposites. We must become aware of, and then embrace, ourdisowned selves. And, as in interpersonal relationships, we must remember that just because wedisown a self it doesn't mean that we do not have that self somewhere within us. It just means thatit is operating unconsciously.And so it is that our disowned terrorists and fundamentalists operate beyond the boundaries ofour awareness and beyond our conscious control. We do not know them and we have not acceptedresponsibility for them. They are projected upon the "others". And, more often than not, these arethe "others" that we marry either literally or in political alliances.We must recognize and embrace our own fundamentalists and our own terrorists before we candeal effectively with the fundamentalists and terrorists on the outside. We must clearly recognizeour contribution to the current situation. However, there is a big difference between guilt andresponsibility, and we must not assume total blame for the situation. Just as in relationshipsbetween two people, it is all a dance. Both sides contribute to the overall picture. We cannotcontrol what others do, but we do have the ability to work with ‐ and control ‐ ourselves.We believe that if enough people think, feel, and do their own individual work, this need not go onfor decades and that something will shift in a shorter time span. Each of us can try to do our partto defuse polarization by doing our own personal work.How can we best do this?Projection: What is it and why is it so important?At the present time it seems to us of enormous importance for each of us to discover what we haveprojected onto these "others" and to begin the process of taking back these projections. But, beforewe go any further, we would like to give you a picture of what we mean when we say "projection."Projection is a particular psychological mechanism in which we literally project our disownedselves out into the world around us, just like a movie projector projects an image onto a screen.Only here, instead of a screen, we project our images upon people or objects in our surroundings.Whatever is unconscious is projected. This is perfectly natural; we all do it and we all will continueto do it. But there is much to learn from it.
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5Imagine that you are a woman walking past a shop that sells American Indian artifacts. In thewindow you see a squash blossom necklace. It is obviously very old; you can see the old frayedstring at the top where the clasp is. You look at the necklace and you know you must have it. Itdemands that you buy it. It may be too expensive for you, but this doesn't matter. When you lookat it your heart hums and you just know that you would feel wonderful wearing it.What is it that has happened here? A while earlier you passed a store and saw a diamond necklacebut that did nothing for you. If they had given it to you it would have meant very little other thanwhat it would be worth if you sold it. So what is it that makes the old squash blossom necklaceirresistible and the diamond necklace, which is far more expensive, just another piece of jewelry?In such a situation it is always possible that the necklace has an actual energy connected to it, theenergy of its owners and the rituals they had attended while wearing it. However, the fact is thatthe strong response you feel is the result of some group of feelings, values, energetic systems, andselves that are being projected onto it. It is these projections that make that particular necklaceirresistible. This is how projection works; it operates automatically and quite unconsciously.In a way, projection is like a bridge that gets built between your unconscious psyche and a personor an object on the outside. When, instead of a necklace, you project your unconscious images ontoanother person, your projection acts like a bridge that connects you with that other person. Thisbridge gives people a way to walk across the space between them, so that they can meet eachother. Sometimes these projections are positive ‐ as with the necklace ‐ and sometimes they arenegative ‐ as with the people we judge as bad or "other".Back to the necklace. It may be that you have a disowned or rejected an unconscious spiritual sidethat is projected onto the necklace. This disowned self was suddenly activated when you looked atthe necklace. When we project in this way, we are taken over by the projection and we lose ourability to think objectively about the object. Our projection literally colors how we view the objectand determines the value we place upon it. We may buy the necklace even though we cannotafford it, we might pay much more than it is worth, or even run ourselves into debt, just because it‐ or a similar object ‐ is carrying the magical energy of a disowned self. We do not mean to implythat this projection is negative. It is a perfectly normal and natural psycho‐spiritual process. Butwhen operating completely unconsciously, it can be rather expensive in dollars or in psychic pain.Much of our classic literature and entertainment is based upon the more tragic aspects ofprojection. Think of the classic stories, like the Blue Angel, in which a very proper man becomesobsessed with a sensual, free spirited woman and is ruined by his uncontrollable infatuation forher. He has projected all of his disowned instinctual energies onto her. He cannot resist her. Thenthere is the cheerful good girl, like Cathy in Wuthering Heights, who must have her Heathcliff ‐ theman who carries her brooding introversion, her unsociable nature, and her instinctual energies.Think of the story of Lolita, or the more recent movie, American Beauty, where the young girlcarries the projections of innocence, an uncorrupted, natural, powerful sexuality, and naïvesentimentality for the older man who cannot accept these in himself, but instead projects all ofthese disowned selves upon her.
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6The parts of our psyche that are disowned or unconscious are going to be projected onto someperson, some group, or some object in this way. When we become aware of a disowned self, makeit conscious and honor it, then automatically that part of our psyche is taken away from the otherperson or object and becomes available to us.Following up on our necklace: If you realize that you have disowned your spiritual self and you'reprojecting it onto the necklace and you do the work of claiming this self, then you have real choiceabout whether or not to buy the necklace ‐‐ and how much to pay for it. Looking at the stories ofthe proper man: If he integrates his own instinctual energies, not only is he no longer obsessedwith the more instinctual woman on the outside, but he now has his own instinctual energiesavailable. When we take back a projection in this way, we get the new energy and the new insightsthat are part of the new selves we have just integrated.Equally important is the fact that when we project our disowned selves onto someone, we areliterally feeding that person's primary selves. For example, let us say that you see someone as avery negative person, almost devilish. Your primary self is very caring and loving. You project theunloving side of your personality onto this other person and push him or her more deeply into theunloving, uncaring side. The more "good" you get, the more "bad" he or she becomes; and,conversely, the more "bad" he or she is, the more "good" you become to offset this "badness". Thepolarization between you becomes ever more intense. This is what we mean when we speak offeeding the primary self of the other person with our projections.Again, when a polarization exists, the two people ‐ or two groups of people ‐ involved are carryingeach other's disowned selves. The primary selves of one are the disowned selves of the other andvice versa. Neither is totally right, and neither is totally wrong; each has only a half of the picture.Each has something to teach the other; and each has something to learn from the other.These ideas, and our following thoughts, are based on the Psychology of Selves. If you are notfamiliar with our work, what we are saying may not make much sense to you. Rather than go intodetail here, we will assume that you are familiar with our work. If not, we suggest that you look atsome of the readings on our website or read our basic book, Embracing Our Selves so that whatwe say will be more meaningful.The Primary and Disowned Selves: "Them" vs. "Us"Let us begin by saying that we are not political experts. Neither are we experts on Muslim or Arabculture. The following ideas come from our own personal experiences and those of people weknow. We would like to stimulate your own thinking about the contrasting primary selves that areinvolved in the current challenging times as they are reflected in your life and in the lives of thosearound you.It is our hope that this article will encourage a discussion about these disowned selves that can befruitful to all of us. This integration of the disowned selves is work we can all do. We all know fromlong experience the paradigm shift that occurs when we separate from a primary self and wehonor and embrace the other side. There is a power in this kind of work that can move mountains.
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7We have decided to use the term "them" rather than anything more specific. When we refer to"them" we are talking about several differing groups that seem to be carrying the disowned selvesof the US ‐ the terrorist groups, the fundamentalist groups (not necessarily just Muslim), and thegreater Muslim community. We are, of course, aware that these are not always separate entitiesand that there is much overlap in the current situation. We don't feel that it is appropriate to treatall these groups as a single entity because someone can be a Muslim without being a terrorist, or aterrorist without being a Muslim. Also someone can be a fundamentalist without being either aterrorist or a Muslim.Let's look at some of the disowned selves we have identified and see the lessons we have beenchallenged to learn:Acceptance of Deathvs.Rejection of DeathWe have heard many people ask the question: "How could anyone just want to commit suicide andkill thousands of people in the process?" For the Muslim community there is an afterlife, a life afterdeath. Our understanding of this is that in the afterlife of the Muslim there is heaven and there ishell. By doing good deeds, not only can someone get to Heaven earlier, but that same person has abetter chance of not going to hell. To kill people who are infidels or evil doers is a passport toheaven where good things await.The basic point here is that death is not seen as a negative. It is seen as a part of life ‐ and, in somecircumstances, as a positive. It is even something to celebrate. Sidra remembers visiting Moroccomany years ago and being surprised at the weekend family picnics in the cemeteries. Wholefamilies were there eating and drinking and playing, having a great time and apparently beingtogether with their departed loved ones.The primary selves in the West, generally speaking, have become essentially anti‐death. We fightdeath to the bitter end. We hide from it, we fear it, we avoid direct contact with it wheneverpossible. We rarely celebrate death and it is doubtful that we would ever picnic in a cemetery.Death is often seen as a medical failure. People are kept alive at any cost and without thought ofthe kind of life they are ‐ or are not ‐leading. No wonder death has such power over us.In addition to this, unless they belong to some psycho‐spiritual community or ideology thatbelieves in the continuity of the soul, most Westerners have no concept of a life after death. Theydo not believe in reincarnation. This very short life is all there is and you never get another chance.Without the possibility of a life after death, people are generally much more frightened about theprospect of dying.If death, on the other hand, is merely a doorway into another realm, possibly a better realm, thendeath begins to lose its power to create terror in us. If we in the West would expand our vision ofdeath to include the possibility of an afterlife or the continuity of the soul through many lifetimes,then we could separate from the primary self that must face the prospect of death with fear.
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8Let us now look at the lesson to be learned: Most of us are not eager to die unless our lives are toopainful to bear. However, the issue here is not whether or not we want to die, it is our inability, asa culture, to deal with death. How can we make death a more natural part of our lives? How canwe make it just another part of the journey?Fundamentalismvs.Personal Freedom/Free SpiritFundamentalism refers to any group or religious process that operates out of a strict set of rulesabout what is right and what is wrong. These rules govern every aspect of behavior. If you followthem carefully, then you are a good person and you will be rewarded; if you do not, then you are abad person and you will be punished. Your choice is clear; there is only one way to live. This issueof fundamentalism is one that has created a great deal of polarization within the United States.Now it is operating very powerfully on the international scene.For many years now in our workshops and trainings we have been talking about this issue. Wehave described fundamentalism as one of the major disowned selves of the consciousnessmovement. But it is a disowned self of the nation as well. The US ‐ ideologically ‐ is committed topersonal freedom and there is a passionate, often judgmental, defense of civil liberties. Muchpersonal freedom has been gained since the 1960's with much effort. This has been a real advancefor civil liberties. But, much to the distress of fundamentalists everywhere, the outside repressivecontrols have not been replaced by any noticeably effective self‐regulatory behavior.This is not just an issue with Muslim fundamentalism. It is an issue in the United States as well,where many of us completely reject fundamentalist thinking. When we disown ourfundamentalists so completely, we can't even begin to imagine how deeply offended people are byour popular culture. From their standpoint, their hard‐won civil liberties are being abused, andthey are being forced to live in a profligate, undisciplined, "anything goes" culture.As for the consciousness movement, the goal of much psychological work is to achieve personalfreedom. Personal freedom is generally defined as being able to live life on your own terms, asbeing able to do what you want and say what you need to say. Politically, this has played out withparticular intensity in the arena of free speech and freedom of expression. This has also played outpretty intensely in regard to sexual freedom. Personal freedom is often associated with sexualfreedom, because many people are still in a push off from a system of controls that was verysexually repressive and punitive in the past.People who are identified with a primary self of personal freedom disown their innerfundamentalists, the part of them that longs for a particular kind of security, for structure,predictability, group consensus, and containment. This self would be only too happy to be toldexactly what to do ‐ and how to do it. It would be delighted to follow a set of clear, well‐establishedrules that teach the proper way to live. Then it could feel safe. Our experience in working withconsciousness groups of all kinds all over the world is that, as we have mentioned previously, thefundamentalist viewpoint is a classic example of a disowned self in action.
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9These people who are identified with a primary self of personal freedom have often done muchpersonal work and have taken years to separate from a set of internalized rules that were causingthem pain. Their new primary selves of personal freedom (or free spirit) have come atconsiderable cost and these selves think that fundamentalist rules don't belong in the modernworld. The new primary self, the free spirit, sees guilt (particularly sexual guilt) and the need forrules as a disease entity and dismisses this with much judgment.But there is another way of looking at this guilt, a framework that honors the opposites withineach of us. We can see the age‐old conflict between two conflicting ideological systems ‐ doingwhat you want on one side and adhering to the values and rules of the group on the other ‐ playingout within our own psyches. Instead of seeing this within ourselves, we are currently watchingthis conflict being played out bloodily in the world around us.When you are unable to stand between opposites, you are unable to feel the feelings of the otherperson who carries the opposite point of view. It is only by honoring the reality of thefundamentalist psychology in yourself that you can feel the feelings and have compassion for theviewpoint of the fundamentalists in the world around us. For the fundamentalists, it is only bystanding between their fundamentalist ideology on the one hand and finding their free spirit ornew age ideology on the other side that they can have compassion for people who are identifiedwith being a free spirit.In these matters your judgments can be your teachers. Judgment generally comes from theprimary self. If you find yourself judging someone's fundamentalist beliefs then that lets you knowimmediately that those beliefs are a disowned self for you.Now we'll ask the question that always gets raised when we train people in how to work withtheir judgments. The question usually goes something like this: "Do you mean that if I judge theTaliban for their unconscionable patriarchal treatment of women that they are a disowned self forme? A self that I should think of integrating? No way! Never! Never! Never!"But we are not asking you to agree with the Taliban. You may continue to disagree with them andto mobilize your forces against them. What we are saying is: When you have this kind of intenseand ongoing judgmental reaction, it means that you are still being challenged to find your owninner fundamentalist. Judgment carries with it the emotionality of the sympathetic nervoussystem. When you feel judgments you can feel it in your body or in your gut. Judgment has a zapto it!There is a difference between this kind of judgment and making choices with discernment. Theability to discern, to make choices in line with our own beliefs and values is priceless. Butjudgments are different. Judgments are more passionate than discernments; they carry a visceraland physical component. You feel righteous and completely justified. The others are totally wrongand you are totally right. You cannot even begin to imagine the others' point of view or where itcame from and, what's more, you don't even want to. This is the clear sign of a disowned self.When, as in the case of the Taliban, there are behaviors that you find totally unacceptable, then it'sparticularly difficult to step back from your judgment and think in terms of disowned selves. But
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10you may be sure of one thing. For the majority of people in the US, and especially those involved inthe psycho‐spiritual movement, the Taliban and its fundamentalist approach to life is, in fact, adisowned self.We have our own particular definition of personal freedom. For us, personal freedom is not doingwhat you want because always doing what you want is just as one‐sided as never doing what youwant. For us, personal freedom means having real choice. It means standing between themultitude of opposites that live within each of us and having the ability to choose between theseopposites.This is one of the sets of opposites. On one side of us is the free spirit that wants to live life on itsown terms, free to do whatever it wants, however and whenever it wants to. On the other side isthe inner fundamentalist that has a clear set of rules and values that must be followed regardlessof our personal needs and preferences. Without access to both of these points of view, there is noreal choice and there is no real freedom.We have already made this lesson completely clear. Our violent judgments about the Taliban are afoolproof way of discovering that we are identified with the personal freedom or free spirit selfand we are being challenged to integrate our own inner fundamentalists.Disowned Instinctual Energiesvs..Love, Love, LoveFor those of us who have never experienced pure hatred and violence firsthand, the World TradeCenter bombing was incomprehensible. How could someone even conceive of such a thing? Howcould anyone want to destroy other human beings?Most of us grow up in family systems and a cultural nexus that makes it difficult for us to remainconnected to our instinctual energies. We are far away from our indigenous heritage and most ofus have no access to the "street smarts" that people who are less privileged must develop. So thefact is, our instinctual energies are one of the major systems of selves that get disowned.Disowning our instinctual energies has a number of consequences. First of all, the naturalaggression that ought properly to be protecting us by moving forcefully outward into the world isno longer available to us. Instead, what often happens is that this kind of instinctual energy shiftstrack. Instead of providing us with an inner warrior that will defend us, it ends up as an ally of theinner critic and attacks us. This is one of the reasons that the inner critic is such a powerful self inour culture. For some people, this warrior energy can take the form of a cruel judge direct itsattacks or judgments against others.Even more important, however, is the fact we develop a primary self that is very positive, verycaring, very loving, and very spiritual. This primary self enters into a push off on the moreaggressive instinctual energies and we become nicer and nicer. The disowned instinctual energiesbecome increasingly "bad" and, at some point, we refer to these buried energies as demonicenergies. Demonic energies are simply disowned instinctual energies that have been held down
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11for so long that they have grown in intensity and have become quite destructive. When thishappens, they can break out and cause us to behave in ways that might be very dangerous.In one of our books we gave an example of a minister in one of our groups who dreamed that "hewas trying to wrestle a drunk penis into a cold shower." The penis was obviously not drunk tobegin with. It got drunk ‐ or increasingly out of control ‐ in relationship to years of living with aprimary self that negated his sexuality. His sexual impulses, which were natural to begin with,became unnatural because of their imprisonment. Now they were strong enough to break throughthe primary self and they threatened to affect his life in a way that could be very dangerous to him.We believe it is very important to understand how we who are in the consciousness movementcontribute to this problem. What is it that the spiritual community is identified with as a set ofprimary selves that feeds the disowned instinctual energies and keeps them unconscious? We feelthat this is the need to try to be loving and compassionate at all times. What exactly do we meanby this? Who can argue with the need for love and compassion in the world? The problem withthese ideas, as is always the case when one works with the Psychology of Selves, is which part ofyou is doing the loving and which part of you is being compassionate?The problem develops because if you are taught as a spiritual truth that you should be loving andcompassionate then that is what you try to do. When you try to be loving or try to becompassionate, something very negative begins to happen. From your primary selves of spiritualseeker and knower, you begin to stuff your negativity into a box where ‐ just like the minister'ssexual impulses ‐ it grows and festers and begins to do its mischief to you and through you.The spiritual self labels your anger, your aggression, your judgments, your jealousy, yourarrogance, and your selfishness as something negative, something to be gotten rid of. We do learnto get rid of them. We gradually learn how to stuff all of this into the "disowned self box" wheregradually the snake of our instinctual energies grows larger and larger and takes more and moreenergy to keep locked up. This takes a huge toll on our bodies and our lives.We are definitely in favor of using appropriate nutrients to support our immune systems. If youwant a different look at the immune system, imagine what happens to each of us as this snake getslarger and larger and we have to use more and more of our strength to keep the lid on the box thatcontains it. We exhaust ourselves, usually without realizing what we are doing, as we continue topush down the lid of this “disowned self box”. It is not just the snake of the instinctual energiesthat keeps growing. It is all of the disowned selves that keep growing.In addition to that, we project these disowned instinctual energies ‐ which by now may well havebecome demonic ‐ onto other people, countries, and groups, and so create an increasing number ofenemies outside of ourselves who become locked into the cement of this system of disownedselves.Many people in this time of crisis have split over the issue of whether or not the U.S. should usemilitary force of any kind. It is easy to jump on one side or the other. What we would ask you to dois to allow your loving, compassionate, peace voice to speak and when that side is throughspeaking to allow the warrior side to speak and give its viewpoint. What is necessary in these
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12harrowing times is to find both sides in yourself. They are both there; we can assure you of that.Then, when you make a choice, it has a chance to come from the Aware Ego Process and not fromone of the opposites.Choices made in this way do not produce the same level of polarization in others. Choice cannotexist without opposites. It takes courage to stand between opposites because when you do, theanswers just don't come as simply and easily as before. It is the opposite of the six‐gun mentalitythat dominates so much decision‐making in the western world.For us, there is no such thing as a bad energy. All energies have a good side and a bad side. If loveis channeled through a controlling mother, then you have a love that controls. If you channel itthrough a spiritual father, then you control in a different way. In both of these examples, the lovegoes into the service of power. If you love through an Aware Ego, then you simply love withoutattachment. If your impulse to kill channels through a power side, then you have a dangerousenergy waiting to explode. If you channel your killer energy through the Aware Ego, then you haveboundaries, the ability to say no and yes with authority, and a warrior that will protect you whenyou need protection.Rather than get rid of a judgment in the service of the spiritual self, why not figure out whichprimary self is making the judgment? The disowned self is what you are judging; there is a lessonto be learned, and a self to integrate. What happens when you do this? Now you have a chance tostand between two opposites. And do you know what happens when you learn how to do this?Ultimately you longer judge the "other" because you have now experienced within yourself thatbehavior ‐ or thought or feeling ‐ that you were judging in the first place.And, lastly, what happens when the judgment dissipates as a result of this kind of work ratherthan a result of trying to do away with the judgment as an unacceptable feeling? We hate to say the"c" word because you might misuse it, but the fact is that you become more compassionate in anatural way. You don't have to force anything and you don't have to get rid of anything. That iswhat we are after. A compassionate and loving primary self that is built upon a garbage dump ofour disowned energies does not do us any good and ‐ in fact ‐ just as any other disowned andprojected self, it merely feeds the demonic energies outside of ourselves that can terrorize us.The lesson here has been made clear. Instead of thinking about spiritual teachings, we suggest thatyou think of psycho‐spiritual teachings. In this way you learn to embrace both sides of yournature; you are constantly moving between the psychological/physical/emotional parts ofyourself and the spiritual/transpersonal realities in yourself and in the people with whom youwork. Interestingly enough, as you learn to embrace the disowned selves that make up yourinstinctual energies, you will find that you are actually carrying out the wishes of your primaryselves in that you are becoming a more compassionate and loving human being as you embrace“all that you are”.Idealism or Life and Meaning Based on Godvs.Materialism or Life and Meaning Based on Technology and Matter
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13We are not well informed on the subject of Islamic thinking and we expect that many of you bringa far greater knowledge and a deeper understanding to this area than we do. However, from ouradmittedly limited perspective, we would like to continue our search for disowned selves. It seemsthat one of the strong primary selves of the Muslims is an idealistic spiritual self that is fullycommitted to God and that God ‐ and the ideals of living a godly life ‐ plays an important part intheir daily lives. Prayers punctuate the day. Because of the extreme nature of Taliban thinking andacting, it is easy to forget how idealistic and God‐oriented the Muslim culture is.For the average Westerner, the connection to divinity and the attention that we pay to divinity isquite the opposite. As a culture we are more secular and materialistic. Our bottom line concern isusually just that ‐ the bottom line. It's not that we lack ethics, it's just that the business of everydaylife and God's eternal kingdom are somehow viewed separately. It is unusual to see a Westernerstopping for prayers in the midst of a workday.An idealistic and God‐based focus in life has been disowned for the majority of people in the USwhere the emphasis is more secular or materialistic. It requires a level of surrender to God. Westrongly suggest that this surrender go hand in hand with a consciousness process. Otherwise, it istoo easy to surrender in an unconscious way and end up doing some very nasty things in the nameof God ‐ thinking that this is what divinity wants. Just as in a marriage there must be love andsurrender to the relationship together with a consciousness process to make it work; so too, withthe surrender to God, there must be love and surrender to God together with a consciousnessprocess to make it work.In the US, as we've suggested, our focus in life is more technological and material. Our focus as anation is the spread of a market economy and democracy all over the world, not an export ofspiritual feelings or religious idealism. Although our ways of going about this have created a fairamount of controversy, we basically want people to be free from want and to have the sameeconomic advantages we have; we leave spiritual concerns to others.Instead of being linked to God on a daily basis, one might say that we are linked to our things. Thishas become ever more evident with the increasing technology available to us. Computers and allthat goes with them, modern communication technology and its faxes, cell phones, and e‐mails,TV's, electronic gadgets of all types, digital cameras, computer games, and much more haveincreasingly drawn us into their web. Many of us spend enormous amounts of time worryingabout our finances, about how best to handle them, and whether or not there will be enoughmoney to take care of us in our old age. We shop; we buy. As a matter of fact, one of our gravestconcerns right now is not with our souls, but with the worsening of the economy.It's interesting to think of bin Laden (as an individual) and his disowned selves in this context. Inthis area, he clearly carries our disowned self, and he's actually told us how we carry his. He was ason of a prosperous Saudi family. He has disowned his economically privileged background andchosen to live a life according to his own beliefs in God's will, rejecting the material goodies for amore ascetic life. We've often joked about the idea that the best thing you can do to help yourprimary self is to kill off your disowned selves; well, it's not so funny when you see it happening.He's gone ahead and begun to actually do it. (And we have responded in kind.)
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14But we must remember that bin Laden ‐ as an individual and not necessarily as the representativeof any particular group ‐ is our disowned self in terms of religious surrender and the sacrifice ofmaterial comfort. It would be interesting to see his dreams or hear his daydreams. We suspect thathe would have dreams of his disowned materialist ‐ he'd see himself shopping at Gucci's or goingon all the rides in Disneyland. In contrast, we in the US are dreaming of being chased by the wildanimals of our disowned instinctual nature.Making God an everyday part of life and resting into God is a very powerful idea. Hal does this verywell. When things get particularly hair‐raising and vulnerability is high, he simply says to God:"Look ‐ this is too much for me. You take over my life and become my administrator right now. Youhandle the anxiety and I'll do the work. I'll do whatever is necessary and I'll get done whatever it isthat you want me to get done. In the meantime, you have to handle what is going on. It's a bit muchfor me."This way of relating to divinity is simply one among many different ways of relating to the divineauthority and intelligence of the universe. For Hal, this has always worked and he certainly hashad to call on God’s strength during the current crisis. It is just one example of what a God‐basedfocus in life would look like ‐ a way of living life that the Muslims and many fundamentalists havebeen carrying in their own ways all along. Certainly the current interest in things spiritual and thespread of our psycho‐spiritual communities in the US are a proper movement in this direction.The Taliban and the Patriarchyvs.Democracy and Equal Rights for Everyone (even Women)This is a complicated area, and we want to put it in the simplest terms. We know that we aregeneralizing from the individual to the cultural and this is tricky because even if cultures (whenlooked at collectively) have characteristic primary selves, each person within the culture has hisor her own primary selves. Please keep this in mind.Our primary selves are democratic; we believe in giving everyone the right to contribute todecision‐making. Whether or not this is truly followed may be open to question ‐ but our basicbelief system is that everyone should be able to vote and should have an equal voice, includingwomen. This is true not only politically, but in our personal lives as well. The classic US primaryselves, and those of the consciousness movement, are committed to listening to everyone's inputand to respecting a wide range of opinions before coming up with plans that will affect others'lives. Ideally, this system works from the bottom up. The people who are expected to follow therules, are the ones who have a say in making them.The patriarchal system is diametrically opposed to this. The Taliban is an extreme version of thepatriarchy. It works from the top, down. In this way of thinking, one group ‐ the patriarchy ‐knows best what is good for the entire group and, from above; it makes the decisions that will
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15affect others' lives. The Taliban has raised patriarchal thinking to new heights. They know what isbest for everyone, they make the rules, and others must obey. Or else!The other characteristic of the patriarchy is the systematic oppression of women and thedevaluation of anything traditionally feminine. The Taliban excels at this. However, it is interestingto note that at least one part of the original intent of the Taliban's early control of women wasdesigned to protect them from the prevailing lawlessness by removing them from the rape anduncontrolled violence that was rampant at that time. This is not unlike the beginnings of thepatriarchal system that we inherited. This turned rather quickly into a restrictive set of laws ‐perhaps unparalleled in history ‐ that have effectively enslaved women, deprived them of allrights, and kept them under complete control with the cruelest of punishments.In generalizing the possibility of disowned selves from the individual to the culture, we have to bevery careful and thoughtful. As we said earlier, not everyone in the culture has the same primaryselves. However, we have observed in our clinical work that many women, and men, too, havebecome so identified with the idea of personal freedom and of a cooperative democratic approachto life, that they have totally disowned their own inner patriarchs. They have rejected any rules ofbehavior that could sound patriarchal and, in doing so, have polarized intensely against anythingeven remotely patriarchal.What we need to look at individually in this matter is whether this is indeed true. What do ourown inner patriarchs say? What are the rules or suggestions that they carry regarding ourbehavior? If we don't feel our own patriarchs inside of us, then we can never fully appreciate whatthe Taliban is feeling and we cannot deal as effectively with them as we might wish.We each have in us certain patriarchal ideas. We don't get rid of these ideas by running away fromour particular religious faith or the rules of our fathers (and mothers). All of this continues to liveinside of us and we must discover it ‐ as we must discover our other disowned selves ‐ so that wecan we can deal with this more consciously. There are many pairs of opposites here. Some of themthat occur to us are: patriarch and matriarch; conservative and liberal; autocrat and democrat;fundamentalist and free spirit; and warrior and nurturer.Your enemies become your brothers or sisters once you have embraced in yourself the selves thatyou judge so intensely in them. This is not learning to love out of a spiritual identification. This isthe organic evolution of love and compassion that emerges slowly as we do our psycho‐spiritualwork and learn to stand between the myriad of opposites that live within this vast psyche of ours.Hal likes to call this ability to stand between opposites in this way "the technology of sweat”.Sidra, with her finer sensibilities, prefers the picture of a hummingbird hovering betweenopposites.Honoring Eldersvs.Worshipping YouthWe are a young country in an old world. It is fairly well accepted that we in the US worship youthand have difficulty with aging. We'll do anything to remain young. We'll exercise, use plastic
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16surgery, take the right supplements, do yoga, even become conscious, in order to remain foreveryoung. There are thriving industries based upon this worship of youth. As in any primary self,there's a good side to this as well as a bad side, so don't think we're against remaining youthful.But there needs to be balance; there are opposites that are calling out for attention.As part of this devotion to youth, we have a tendency to disown aging and to devalue our elders.Our emphasis is upon technology and newness ‐ whatever is the newest or the latest is consideredthe best. People and things get outdated quickly. There is little respect for the wisdom of age.Again, as in all selves, there's a good side to this and a bad side to this. This kind of primary selfmeans that we are not bound by the pronouncements of the elders and we can be open to growthand change. It gives us flexibility and permission to innovate.We had a personal experience with a Muslim man, a Pakistani investment advisor. It gave us anamazing experience of this cultural difference in primary selves. Sidra had spoken to him over thephone several times and, when he discovered how old we were, he took us on as a personalproject. We had never before experienced this concern for elders. It was such a sweet feeling to betreated gently and honored for nothing other than our "advanced" age. He explained to us that inhis Muslim culture, age was revered, that the wisdom of the elders was respected, and that allelders were the responsibility of the younger people. And so he was taking care of us.In contrast to this we've noticed that the responsibility here is usually of the old towards theyoung. At our age, we see a great deal of this in terms of the advertising that we receive. Theemphasis is upon protecting our money for our children. We are told to protect our legacies; tocarefully craft our wills and think about our estates. We are offered long‐term care insurance sothat our children may never have the burden of caring for us.Our Muslim friend clearly judged what he saw as the uncaring attitude towards the elders in oursociety and the over‐valuing of the young. This is another lesson for us to learn. We are challengedto separate from our primary selves that worship youth and to integrate the part of us that valuesthe gifts that come only with age.LinkageThere is something new on this planet and it is "energetic linkage". We are linked personally, andwe are linked technologically, by unseen energies that travel through the air and across cables. Allof us were moved by the responses of individuals and nations to the tragedy of September 11thand to our nation's sudden vulnerability. It was not our personal tragedy; it was shared by muchof the world.Indigenous people, mystics and spiritual teachers have always taught that we are one family. Forthe first time in history, the rest of us felt this as a tangible reality. The media and the internetlinked us instantly so that what happened in New York and Washington was felt all over the worldwith an immediacy never before experienced. (Our beloved friend, Lydia, awake at 3 AM inSydney, knew of the World Trade Center disaster before we did and e‐mailed her love to usimmediately.) People were able to contact their loved ones across continents and seas. And theydid.
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17The oneness of the planet was an unavoidable truth. The love and support could be felt all over theworld after September 11th. And so could the hatred and the wish to destroy. Much as our sense ofourselves shifted the first time we saw a picture of the Earth taken from space; the sense of ourplanet has shifted once more. We are all one. Now the oneness is not observed from the distance ofouter space, but it is felt within each of our hearts.Again, however, there are the opposites. People felt the closeness and oneness both in their loveand gratitude towards some and in their judgments and fears of others. We can polarize onceagain into opposing sets of disowned selves ‐ or we can do our work, take back our projections,and build proper bridges to one another. This is an unprecedented opportunity for a paradigmshift.The HopeWe are not young and we feel deeply ‐ and gratefully ‐ the richness of our lives and experiences.We remember Pearl Harbor, World War II and the Marshall Plan. And we remember the McCarthyhearings and Viet Nam. We remember Cambodia, Cuba, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua,Algeria, Iraq, Iran, and more. We remember times when we knew we were heroes and that ourcountry could do no wrong and we remember times ‐ later times ‐ when we knew we were villainsand we feared that our country could do no right. These memories ‐ these opposites ‐ are helddeep within each of us.This is a new century and a new millennium. In these past months, those of us here in the US havejoined the rest of humanity. We, too, now know what it feels like to be attacked without warningas we go about our daily lives. These are feelings that are all too familiar elsewhere on this planet.Now we, too, are vulnerable in our homeland. Now we, too, are neither heroes nor villains. Instead,we are a very disparate group of vulnerable human beings. And our nation is no longer special, butan ordinary member of the family of nations. We are no longer the Super Power; we no longerhave all the answers. Let us hope that we move forward with the appropriate humility and awe,and that we continue to look at the current situation from many viewpoints ‐ including those thatdiffer from our dearly held beliefs ‐ because much is at stake and what we do now has graveconsequences.We do not have the answers but the beauty of this time is that no single group can give us all theanswers, just as no primary self can give us all the answers. What we do know is that ‐ just as inour personal lives ‐ the more disparate the selves that are included in any decision, the sounderthat decision will be and the less likely we will be to regret it and the less likely we will be to feelthe slap coming from the other side. Just now, we desperately need our hearts, our minds, and ourspirits united within ourselves, whatever we do. And the more diversity we, as a nation, canaccess, the better.This is no longer a good idea, it is an absolute necessity. We need our spiritual selves and ourpragmatists; our warriors and our peaceniks; our patriots and those who fear the evils of rampantnationalism; our humanitarians and our Machiavelli's; our lovers of civil liberties and those of uswho are willing to sacrifice some portion of these liberties for safety's sake; our planetary citizens
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18with their world views and our isolationists who see no further than our borders; our historianswho remind us what has gone before and our visionaries who can give us pictures of a betterfuture; and more. We need our opposites. What we judge, we have left out of the system. What wehave left out of the system can come back to haunt us.We are basically a nation of optimists. Because we are a young country and have not suffered warwith foreigners invading our homeland, we are like children who never suffered abuse at home;we still have a certain innocence, an attitude that we have resources and that we can do it if wecan only figure out what "it" is. Let us keep this optimism and add to it a humble awareness of thecomplexity and awesome gravity of the current situation.This is a call for each of us to do our own particular work. We see the impact of this inner work astwofold. First, as we do our work and take back our projections, we affect the world around us.The intensity of the polarization between conflicting factions is lessened and the general level ofconsciousness in the collective is enhanced. Second, as we each do our work, our effectiveness inthe world is increased. The more work that we do, the more conscious we are of our ownvulnerability and that of others, and the more opposites that we integrate, the more Aware Egowill be available to us. And, as you know, an Aware Ego is an amazingly powerful asset. Whateverit is that you do, you will have more impact if you are standing between opposites. Polarizationonly alienates and increases conflict. Aware Egos can affect paradigm shifts.As we continue our own journeys of consciousness, let us trust that the intelligence of the universewill work through each of us and guide us to make our own particular contributions. These will beas different as we are different from one another. Some of our contributions will be more obvious,some will be more subtle.For those whose work is internal and not easily measured, you may never be directly aware ofwhat it is you've done or whom you've impacted. You might never know who it was you spoke toand to whom they spoke next. Or who just experienced you and went away with a new idea or anew feeling.Perhaps the most widely read book to come out of World War II was the Diary of Anne Frank.Anne never lived to see that millions of people all over the world were impacted by the years shespent hidden away in an attic in Amsterdam. Yet they were. You may never be aware of theoutcome of your own private evolution and you may never know whose life you have touched, butwe are all connected now more than ever and whatever you put out in the world has itsconsequences.We believe that every bit of consciousness counts. We believe that the impact of an Aware Egoprocess is powerful and that the gifts it brings are priceless. May we all continue to open to all ofour selves, may we savor life each day, and may we keep our songs and our souls alive.We hope that we have given you something to think about and a direction for you to take at thischallenging time. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing many of you in the weeks,months, and years ahead.
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19Again, we are traveling this path together; may all go well with you,Hal and SidraNovember 2001
Original source and copyright: Hal Stone, Ph.D., and Sidra Stone, Ph.D.. Read the original at Voice Dialogue International.