Facing our Inner Demons: The shadow of our heart

“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.”

― Anne Frank

I think that it is safe to say that our deepest drive in life is not to receive flowers but to love and be loved. If that is the case, then what are we most likely going to provoke regret for? I think we all feel in our hearts that if we want to influence someone for good, that the actions that could produce gratitude are better than the ones that produce regret, but what if that doesn’t work? If a situation could deteriorate quickly do we have time to sow seeds of altruism that could bear the fruit of gratitude if an action couldn’t be altruistic if it has any controlling or manipulating motive attached?

                Love is creating a space for someone big enough for even the parts of them that they don’t understand or like. This means there is no control in love.   If there is not control in love, and we want someone to enter into love, we would have to step out of the bounds of love to try and pull them in…

                It’s a paradox, because could it be love if we can sit there and see someone outside of love? Or could it be love if we would leave the bounds of love in order to love?

                It’s no wonder many religions have both a story of creation and a story of the fall of man. We have disconnected thinking and feeling, and since logically regret is a stronger behavior modifier than gratitude, when our mind is used alone, we will rely on influencing through producing regret. It’s also no wonder that the idea of believing that we have the ability to label things as good or evil, love or unlove was the forbidden fruit. The paradox to love is that if we actually had found a pure love ourselves, the impulse to control others would be gone. Much easier said than done, right?

                I am writing this out not because I have figured it out, but because I know if I do that the inconsistencies will be easier to see for myself. I feel like I am in a junkyard and I know that all the parts I need to build a car are there, but I have to gather them and put it together. One important piece I am sure of is that there are parts of our mind that are conscious and parts of our mind that are unconscious. The unconscious parts are associated with feelings and pertain mostly to love, and then conscious parts are associated with thinking and pertain mostly to logic. If I am in that junkyard and there are pieces I don’t need attached to something I do need, I will remove them and throw them aside, and how I remove them doesn’t matter, because I don’t plan on needing or wanting them—this is hostility. If there is a piece I want to use but it is not exactly the right shape or size, I will manipulate it to be—this is vindictiveness.

                When through logic we have consciously come to the conclusion we don’t want something we are hostility. Despite this conclusion sometimes coming rapidly, hostility is something we can consciously see and change in ourselves. When through feeling we have come to the unconscious conclusion that we want something but we want it to change, we are vindictive. This means that vindictiveness is a function of the unconscious and something we cannot be aware of.

To admit there is anything but love operating deep inside us is very difficult to stomach, and so I will start with an example of how much can happen through our unconscious mind without us being aware of it. There was a psychology experiment of delayed gratification where small children we sat at a table by themselves with a marshmallow and told that if they didn’t eat the marshmallow for a certain amount of time that they would be given a second marshmallow. A particular little boy about four or five starred at the marshmallow, and then touched it, because he knew touching it wasn’t against the rules. He poked at it for a while and then picked it up and smelled it, again staying within the rules. He then proceeded to rub the marshmallow on his face, which still was definitely not against the rules. The marshmallow crosses his lips, he tastes the sweetness of the sugar and smiles, and then continues rubbing it on his face. He takes small nibbles periodically when the marshmallow crosses his lips.

Eventually the little boy has eaten the whole marshmallow and smiles content. Then he looks down at his plate and sees the marshmallow gone, and looks genuinely confused where it went. He looks on the floor and around to see if someone came in the room and took it. The only way we can know if vindictiveness is operating in us, is if we feel irritated and have a solution is mind that would get the job done but that we consciously don’t want to do. It looks something like, “Why did she leave the party?” “I don’t know, all I asked is whether she was having a good time, and then she just left… To be honest though, I’m not super sad she is gone.”

Since vindictiveness comes from the heart, the heart intimately and intuitively knows what works, and so the actions it does are maximally efficient and effective, a simple smirk or scoff could do more than anything else, and timed with are best rationalizations how our actions could help them more in the long run, we can be completely unaware of it… to the point where if someone pointed it out to us that we would have nothing but maybe a vague sense of uneasiness pointing to that it was true, our whole conscious record will be conveniently absent of any mal-intentioned actions.  This is not just the mind trying to protect itself from some awful reality, it really believes that whatever the logical cost, the action was good. The reality is that our heart would not let us do something unless it thought it was good, the problem is not our heart but the assumptions that we have accepted that are operating there.

What kind of assumptions can be floating around in our heart? Probably the biggest false assumption is that we need something to be lovable… hence why we are trying to step outside of the bounds of love to bring someone else in. That impulse if we look at it says, “you are not lovable the way you are but if I help you change then you are.” I am currently just starring at my computer wondering while I didn’t realize this before but also just as panicked that though both my heart and mind agree it is meaningful and true, that I still can’t imagine myself not slipping up. In C.S. Lewis’s book The Silver Chair, the main character was under a spell of illusion in the dark caverns of the underworld and was only lucid for one hour a day. In this my lucid hour, I can say that I know that we are all lovable, that we all have infinite potential and that two hearts together are always better than one. If my actions don’t lineup with this, it is because I am not operating at my best and need some help. I give express permission to remind me of what in my best moments I know to be true however you want.

Our sense of self-worth goes up and down, and it’s hard in the bottom of that trough to not reflexively react. I think that we are scared to go to the center of ourselves and face our demons, but the reality is, if we are scared to think there are demons, could that really be what was at our core? If our core was really some devilish desire, wouldn’t it want us to embrace our wicked nature instead of resist it?

I think when we use the moments when we get triggered to trace our assumptions back to their source, we can bring light to our unconscious and dissipate the shadows. I think once we get to the darkest corner of our mind and shine the light there what we find is not a demon, but an assumption about our lovability written on the wall. Attention, appreciation and influence are not measurements of love, love cannot be measured. It’s hard not to measure those things because we were born into a world that ingrains it into us, but as long as we are focused on those things, then we are attaching strings to our love making it less than love it could be. I have a knew resolve after writing this and putting it out there for people to hold me accountable to it, to not do things to get or lose heart when I don’t feel like I am getting attention, appreciation or influence. I believe that love is hoping the best by inspiring, enabling and supporting the best in people.