The Witness, the Ego, and the Shadow Walk into a Bar...

This is a bit personal, but it is actually really really good. I did a little (a lot actually) of introspection starting at around 10:50 PM yesterday and just finished up. It's sort of a dialogue between my normal personality and my more distant Witness. It's an integration (or an attempt at integration) between the Witness, the Ego, and the Shadow. I'm not saying I succeeded in much of anything but I am feeling a lot better now. The Ego and Witness do most of the talking (Witness is always in italics) and the Shadow chimes in some times. It can be a bit hard to follow. This is not as effective as the 3-2-1 technique I've done once before, but at the time I started I didn't really know what was going on.



Thinking Allowed



I was thinking about [Name Withheld] today. I'm dissatisfied with my otherwise boring life. I want one of those crazy drug and party lives.



Why?



Because self-destructive women have crazy drug and party lives.



Why should that matter?



Because I want a self-destructive woman.



Why the hell would you want that?



Because [Name Withheld] was a self-destructive woman and I want her back.



Why?



Because that part of my life, my being with her, if you can call it that, was a failure. She wounded me. I opened myself up to being wounded and I've been trying to remedy that ever since by finding a replacement for her whom I can conquer. I'm looking for a [Name Withheld] substitute because I want her.



I wanted to make her feel special. I wanted to make her feel loved. I wanted to hold her and protect her and just be with her – just the two of us. I'm full and she's empty and I want to empty myself into her.



I understand this is asinine on an intellectual level but it still hurts.



Is that okay?



I actually felt like crying but then I called myself a pussy so I didn't.



Do you really want her back?



What do you mean?



What is it that you really want? I mean, you weren't fulfilled when you were with her, were you?



I guess not.



So what is it that you really want if it's not to be back with her?



I don't know.



Maybe you were wounded before you met her? I'm not saying ending with her wasn't tough, but maybe you wanted someone who was damaged not because you had benevolent intentions, but because you wanted someone to shit on you. Maybe you wanted someone to check your anger. Anger is your sin, is it not? You set out to fail and you succeeded in that because you wanted to be shot down.



Why? Because I was angry with myself? Is that it? I was angry with myself and I wanted someone to tear my heart out?



I think so.



I feel powerless and that makes me angry. I focus my anger inward because I feel I should be more than this. It was different then – the specific conditions that is – but the feeling is still there. The feeling of powerlessness. This world has never made sense to me. It's always felt like exile. I'm here as penance. I left my eternal home, my ultimate freedom, my omnipotence, and I find myself in this tiny, limited, frightened body in this alien world and I don't know why and I want out. I look for what I am missing in myself out there, but I know it's not out there so I look for it in a way that I know I will fail to remind myself that the solution lies within, not without.



There is also the fullness and emptiness thing. I do want to fill what is empty, and empty what is full. I want to be empty. I want to return to emptiness. The ultimate effulgence wants to get out, to spread, to radiate on as many others as possible.



I guess I'm just lonely and I want someone to be lonely with? Is that it? I want to be with someone who is as confused as me, someone who is as lonely as me, as desparate for filling what is empty and emptying what is full as me. On one level I want to expand in love, which is my true nature, and since I can't do that to the fullest extent I get frustrated. On the other my little self wants validation in its state of confusion – in its state of being lost. It is the struggle between self and Self. I guess that doesn't go away.



No, it does not. Ego is always there at some level, and it's not bad either. Ego is just "I". Letting the Ego run around uncontrolled is bad, but when tamed it can be used for good. This is all a normal part of spiritual development.

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I was going to include a KW video on the Ego and the Witness but it seem to have been taken down, so here's something else.