How do we empower each other but not in a false way?

Having a sense of one’s own inner being and strength undermined can be very hard.. The core wound of a lot of Complex PTSD is that our impulses get very mixed up and this kind of mixing up takes so much work to work through.. The ego of a self is a very precarious thing..The ego Self axis is spoken of a lot in Jungian or analytical therapy in terms of the ego being the boundary of conscious awareness and the larger Self being far more vast.. To be honest I do not even think I could do justice to the complexity of the issue in this blog because there are so many different schools of thought out there in terms not only of emotional and psychological development but of spiritual development and life lessons that the entire field of enquiry of ego, Self (and shadow/unconscious) becomes complex.

Ideally the ego help us to have a balanced and grounded sense of one’s strong and weak parts of our conscious and buried parts. An unhealthily defended ego may have to hide some of its complexities or inherent frailties due to shame.. and it is understood that shame plays a huge part in the development of unhealthy or malignant narcissism (involving emotional barrricading or numbing) and that what we cannot admit to the ego then sometimes get projected or parried in relationship.

According to Jung when we enter into any relationship we are entering into a four way process. We can both relate from the conscious ego, we can project the unconscious on another, we may pick up intuitively on the unconscious of the other and we may relate from the unconscious levels of us both at the same time linking to them through ego conscious conversations were we look beneath the surface.

I was thinking of this in regard to my sister earlier.. I try my best to encourage her but sometimes I wonder if that is overpowering too and when she feels weaker she may take on an opinion of mine that is not right for her, even if I thought I had the best intentions.. That is why lately I try to support in a quieter and more nuanced way, even though the other day when she was immobilised I was honest with her about how stuck I felt her to be and that she was avoiding calls was affecting others who loved her. She told me today she has been catching up and reaching out to all the people she loves and each of them have different traumas. One of her best friend’s partners is battling cancer, another friend recently had to have surgery to put a stint in due to a blocked artery and was lucky to escape a heart attack and another is missing her father who died this year and really feeling the loss as Christmas approaches.

I was so pleased to hear my sister reaching out beyond her own concerns to love and care.. We also spoke of how anxious she feels in terms of having to possibly socialise at the coast house.. The place my Dad and brother built back in the 70s is one of six townhouses and over the years we have formed relationships with the other five owners.. my sister said to me “Deb they are all going to be sharing about their year and what am I going to say, I spent half the year in the psyche facility?’ My heart really went out to her as her concern and anxiety is genuine and I can relate.. I tried to empower her to know its not a weakness to have been suffering in the critical aftermath of so much trauma, as well as the loss of Mum and she had coped so admirably.. That perhaps it may be possible to open up as one of the couples we have become close to over the years also lost a son to an accident many years ago when he was very young and the father who is a doctor was called to the site of the crash not knowing it was his young son who had been killed.

What a different world it might be if we felt we could be open about so many of these hidden pains and sufferings? What a different world if we did not have to fear another’s possible judgment or misunderstanding? Often in life we only show the conscious side or the persona, but everyone also carries an unconscious history as well both personal and collective and this unconscious history may fall into silence but has the power to awaken when those of us who are unearthing this stuff begin to share about it.. At least that has been my experience.. It seems to me that when we cease seeking to shame or bury or judge then we may have the possibility to wonder about the other’s experience as well as what private sorrows may be hidden and could possibly, in being shared enlarge our sense of reverence and compassion as well as empathy for one another.