This is a season for a different kind of intelligence. The more I think about it, it is during the winter holidays (at least in the northern hemisphere) when the Unconscious seems to have more say over our lives and insists on sharing its wisdom. It’s a different kind of intelligence, though, as Carl Jung and many others have noticed. It’s an intelligence that communicates through myth, image, religious story, ritual and emotion, and it is much bigger than any one of us.
If we want, we can give this season of the larger Unconscious more authority for guiding and teaching us.
That’s so much easier said than done, though. Because for many, this season is unbearably painful, a time of
- remembering losses and things not accomplished;
- being once again drawn into the circle of family in ways that aren’t as nurturing as we instinctively know they ought to be;
- struggling with Seasonal Affective Disorder and Vitamin D deficiency;
- being immersed in a crass consumerism that upends the deeper meaning of gift-giving and enjoying material pleasures.
Do any of these sound familiar? What would it mean if these maladies and distresses were themselves signs of unconscious intelligence erupting into our ordinary, conscious lives? What if each one of these “problems” was a sign of positive wisdom, coming through in our bodies, emotions, family dramas, and practices (lovely and unlovely) of this season?
One of the presuppositions of both NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and Family Constellations is that everyone is motivated and powered by Love. We are delighted when that Love shows up congruently in happy family gatherings, delightful religious services, and just the right gift discovered, given and received. But the instinct to Love, when disrupted by pain and other threats to survival, can start to show up incongruently, in suffering, emotional unkindnesses, compulsive and mob-like behaviors, and empty practices and rituals. This is a human tragedy. But it matters to still see it as powered by the desire for and instinct to Love.
That Love, even when incongruent, can be seen and celebrated when we become sensitive to the movements of unconscious intelligence. This season, it begins to share more space with conscious intelligence, perhaps in response to the darkening, perhaps in response to our collective call to it to come help us through.
In NLP and Family Constellations we partner with the Unconscious, see it as a friend and collaborator in the work of Love and Sanity and deep Wellness. We recognize it is always, year round, the more powerful actor in the search for happiness and goodness. This season, see how your own unconscious—and the greater Unconscious Spirit beyond you—through myth, ritual, song, dance, emotion and family, is wanting to tell you your true story of Joy.
If that seems impossible to see in the problems of the season, I invite you to try a session or a constellation to gain access to the Intelligent Goodness at the heart of these problems—it is always there, waiting to be seen and celebrated.
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