Posted by Steve Wolf.
“But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”’
by Bob Dylan
When I was 25 years old, working toward completing my final year of classes for a PhD in Psychology, I had a bushy beard, smoked a pipe, wore three-piece tweed suits and fancied myself to be a young Sigmund Freud, our grand patriarch of Psychotherapy. I believed I’d be a great therapist because I believed I was really good at figuring out people. I trusted that I really knew what was going on with people beneath the surface of how they presented themselves.
Then I found out that my (first) wife was cheating on me and It rocked me to my core. Here I was, believing I was a young Sigmund Freud, who acted like he knew what was going on with people; yet, I didn’t know that my most intimate companion, lover and best friend had been having an affair for six months. I was so out of touch that I had no idea that she was living a lie. So, in addition to being overwhelmed by the emotional chaos of waves of anguish, grief and rage from betrayal and abandonment, I was even more disturbed by the fact that I could no longer believe my own mind. I was smart enough to recognize that I certainly could no longer trust my judgment when it came to “knowing” or understanding what was going on with other people, if I didn’t know what was going on in my own relationship. So I initiated what was to become a three-year process of Jungian Psychoanalysis.
I discovered what I have come to recognize as the voice of the higher self, which I now refer to as the voice of the King or Queen. It’s like an internal guidance system, a voice of “Right Action” that comes from an intuitive place. Sometimes it’s a thought. Sometimes it’s a feeling. Sometimes it’s a “knowing” that is neither thought nor feeling, but simply an awareness that comes to my attention. Over the years, I have come to trust and rely on this “Voice of the King” to guide me through the thousands of choices and decisions that I make each year. I have also come to rely on this same voice that Psychoanalyst Otto Reich referred to as “listening with the third ear” or “psychoanalytic listening” to guide me in my work as a therapist. (https://www.academia.edu/3606729/Reiks_Theory_of_Psychoanalytic_Listening)
I believe we all have access to this voice. In the 12 Step community it is referred to as one’s “Higher Power”. Others refer to it as the voice of Consciousness itself. Regardless of what you call it, I believe this “Voice” knows what choices to make. Sometimes we may be really clear what choice to make. Sometimes we hear it and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we listen to it and sometimes we do not. In my work as a therapist I attempt to guide clients to identify and follow through on the voice of their Queen or King to support them to choreograph the choices they must make.
A first challenge is to differentiate the Voice of the Queen or King from the voices of other internal “characters” who have attitudes, desires and points of view which may not be alignment with the Voice of the Queen. One way to accomplish that is by identifying particular thoughts, feelings and body sensations as NOT being that intuitive voice we are listening for. Once we’ve identified a voice as the voice of a character we utilize a Mindfullness, breathing practice to center ourselves to assist us in making the choice that most represents who we are.
For further info, questions or comments contact me at steve@shrinkdifferentradio.com