When we are “betrayed” by those who seek to assist us and bring us gifts and services for the wrong reasons, then . . . .we [often] feel hopeless, confused and yearning for peace. Often times, this leads to a partial death. The hopelessness resides in our sense of the betrayal. Who can be trusted? This is especially poignant if we are not feeling confident about our own resources. We look outward for help and find ourselves vulnerable and subject to manipulation. The confusion resides in our inability to figure out what has actually occurred: it seemed like a good idea in turning to this other person for assistance and there did seem to be this reciprocal attraction (perhaps a bit of the limbic attunement we described in the previous chapter).
We are left with not just the failure to be cured, but also the failure to pick the right person for assistance. Ah yes, the yearning for peace. This is perhaps the most troubling outcome of our failure(s): even if we can’t be healed, we hope to be at least a little less confused. Instead, we are left with the opposite: an intra-psychic war that pits our sense of self-confidence and psychic strength against our sense of personal ineptitude and vulnerability. There is no peace and the search for peace seems to be in vain. We wear the vestments of despair and death rather than those of purple. Autumn is truly a bleak season leading to winter and stagnation. . . . Maybe listening to ones’ own voices (that speak to one’s own needs) requires more courage that listening to voices from outside.
Tim had been hearing voices for almost twenty years and they often caused him frustration and poor sleep. One particularly haunting voice was elicited by his prescription sleeping medication. This voice was threatening to kill him if he continued to take the medication. Tim went with a knife to his medical consultation. He felt a need to protect himself from the voice. “Is this voice saying something you wish to tell yourself? Tim was asked. “Well, I don’t wish to take these medications. They make my mind unclear.” This voice, on behalf of his own welfare, was only able to gain Tim’s attention when threatening harm. Were Tim’s auditory hallucinations a projection of his own voice, meant for himself. It was perhaps really tough for him to hear his own self. So, the voice had to appear as a threatening source coming from outside his own psyche—a voice from another psychic space that was there to help (not harm) Tim.
Tim’s voice might be not only teaching him, but also teaching all of us about those sources inside ourselves that are helpful and healing—and that we often ignore. When we consider these voices, an important question arises from our three narratives. Are we healed and do we escape from despair and stagnation by looking outside our self for assistance? In searching for someone with no anger and hatred, should we look no further than our own home – our own self? Are there elements of our self that can provide at least some of the cure? In our soulful journey, do we always need someone other than our self? . . . Throughout this book, we are seeking to find both the external sources of help and hope and the internal sources. In this chapter, we look specifically at parts of our self (our psychic “rooms”) that have long been partitioned off from other psychic rooms. The voices that emanate from these room inside our self might provide the “arms and eyes to cure [us].”
Old Voices in New Settings
. . . .The way out of hopelessness and confusion and the path to peace might reside within each of us. We have the capacity for distracting and destructive temptations—and the capacity for self-nurturance and self-healing.
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