Psychological Problems and Their Big Deceptions. David W. Shave
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for us that are much different from what hail, or frost, can produce, and those problems can be very different from the great diversity of problems that snow in its many different forms can produce. Ice in our outside faucets can produce a problem for us that’s entirely different from the problem that ice forming on the wings of our airplane could produce. Yet all these very contrasting problems, which can be most severe, if not fatal for us, arise from the very same entity. Freezing water, and the greatly contrasting problems that can arise from the different manifestations possible that can be produced by doing so, is analogous to our repressing anger. When we repress anger, we also dramatically change it. It too becomes something entirely different with its own distinctive characteristics, properties, forms, and effects on us, that are decidedly different from how anger affects us. This entity, in its many different forms, can produce very contrasting problems for us, as different from each other as the problems of ice, hail, sleet, frost, and snow produce. But like ice in a relaxing drink, a small amount of this unconscious entity can be most beneficial to us. In small amounts, this unconscious entity, like ice, can help us to live more comfortably in reality. Just as ice in our picnic cooler can keep our food from spoiling and prevent us from becoming sick, our unconscious entity can likewise be beneficial to us. But like unrecognized ice on a highway, too much of this unrecognized unconscious entity can be a major hazard to us on the road of life. It can be a hidden cause of worry, a reason to be depressed, and an always unrecognized component of our emotional problems whatever they might be. Unbeknown to us, it can drastically limit what we can do. When increased enough, it can ruin our lives, kill us, or cause the death of others. Like ice, it can cause Titanic-size disasters. Just as ice in its different forms, is able to revert to the water from which it was made, this unconscious entity can also revert to the anger from which it was derived. Until it does so, it’s how we store our anger within our unconscious. When we talked about our “stored anger,” in the previous chapters, we were referring to our unconscious entity. Our unconscious entity is repressed anger that is stored in our unconscious.
This unconscious entity is an entity that can manifest itself as any feeling unwanted by us. It’s not at all limited to any one unwanted feeling for it is characteristically kaleidoscopic in the unlimited possible ways it can show itself. It can show itself as one unwanted feeling at one time, and as an entirely different unwanted feeling at another time, where both unwanted feelings could be equally problematic if the same amount of unconscious entity is involved. Just as frozen water can appear in a multiplicity of greatly contrasting unwanted presentations, some more problematic than others, unconscious entity also has a multiplicity of greatly contrasting unwanted presentations that it too can make. Like a slight turn of a kaleidoscope can completely change what is seen, from what was previously seen, and where there might deceptively appear to be nothing at all in common in what is displayed at one time, to what is displayed at another time, so it is with this unconscious entity. It can produce any feeling implying a flaw, an imperfection, a deficiency, a dissatisfaction, or any feeling whatsoever we especially don’t want. Possible unwanted feelings that it can produce are feelings that are the very opposite to those feelings that can be produced by meeting well our basic emotional need. It can produce feelings of being “unacceptable,” or “inadequate,” or “inferior,” or “worthless.” It can show itself as a feeling of “guilt,” or “failure,” or being “wrong,” or being “incomplete,” or being “unclean,” “impure,” or “contaminated.” It can show itself as a feeling of being “out of place,” “misaligned,” “unworthy,” “out of control,” or as a feeling of “impending personal disaster.” It can show itself as predominantly a single feeling, or as a combination of several of these unwanted feelings.
All these unwanted feelings are feelings that are “self-felt,” meaning that we experience them as associated with ourselves, which is how we might experience the opposite of each one of these feelings if our basic emotional need was being well met. For instance, where my unconscious entity might cause me to feel very much unacceptable about myself, and cause me to have very unfavorable expectations for myself, meeting well my basic emotional need can make me feel very much acceptable about myself and cause me to have very favorable expectations for myself. All the possible self-felt unwanted feelings come from a form of our unconscious entity that is the self-felt form. We shall later see that this entity has two other forms that can produce the same unwanted feelings but with very contrasting orientations and characteristics. These two other forms do not produce self-felt feelings.
The self-felt feelings that can arise from our unconscious entity that are each the very opposite of what meeting well our basic emotional need could produce, we can call our “primary feelings.” These primary feelings will find a reality focus on something associated with us, and then can secondarily lead to other feelings that will have the same focus. We can call these our “secondary feelings.” A secondary self-felt feeling of the unconscious entity comes about as a result of a primary self-felt feeling. For instance, I could feel, as a sole result of my unconscious entity that my work is in some way inadequate. I could feel this way even if my work actually was more than adequate. If it was, the feeling of inadequacy that I might have about my work would be a self-felt primary feeling that would be unrecognizably arising solely from my unconscious entity and was finding a focus on my work. With enough of my unconscious entity focused this way, that primary feeling of inadequacy it’s producing could make me feel my work is inadequate regardless of the reality of my work. That primary feeling of inadequacy that is arising, not from my reality, but from my increased unconscious entity, may then have a resulting secondary feeling that would come from that primary feeling with its focus on my work. The secondary feeling might be, “I feel I have to work harder and longer.” If my work really was inadequate, my reality could be producing the same feelings, and if so, these primary and secondary feelings, arising from my unconscious, are added to those experienced feelings that are arising from my reality. These added feelings from my unconscious would intensify the feelings that come from my reality, making me feel proportionately more emotionally uncomfortable about my work. To me, my inadequate work is my emotional problem, and that emotional problem will worsen and become a bigger emotional problem to me from that which is being unrecognizably contributed from my unconscious. I’ll erroneously believe that it’s only the reality of my work, and that alone, that is worsening my emotional problem, when it might be my increasing unconscious entity in my unconscious that’s producing intensifying primary and secondary feelings, that is much more the cause of my being so emotionally uncomfortable about my work.
The primary feelings of this unconscious entity may go by a host of possible synonyms rather than the names of the unwanted feelings we listed. For instance, the primary feeling of being “unacceptable” might be expressed by some people as a “fat feeling” where they might tell themselves or others, “I feel fat.” This too can duplicate feelings that might also be arising from reality where these people actually are obese. The unwanted feeling of being unacceptable, that’s expressed as a “feeling of being fat,” that is arising from someone’s increasing unconscious entity may be the predominant origin of that feeling. It could be the only origin. For instance, it might show itself in a college woman who might appear as having an “eating disorder” where she is obviously underweight, but still “feels fat.” Her reality is not producing the “fat feeling” at all. Her secondary feeling from her unconscious entity might be, “I feel I have to eat less.” If the primary feeling of “feeling unacceptably fat” increases further, from an increasing amount of her unconscious entity, she might look like she was just released from the WW2 Auschwitz concentration camp, but be still complaining of “feeling fat,” and intensely feeling that she has to eat less. No one would be able to talk her into eating more, unless that hidden unconscious entity was first decreased. A decrease would make those primary and secondary feelings be experienced as less intense. Or rather than decrease, the unconscious entity could focus instead on something other than her appearance with some other primary feeling which would then result in a different secondary feeling. This would produce a different emotional problem, and, with the same amount of unconscious entity, she could be, but not necessarily, as we’ll soon learn, just as emotionally uncomfortable. As another primary feeling going by a synonym, a feeling of “guilt” may appear as a feeling of being “sinful” in people who are trying to avoid feeling “sinful,” which is an example of how the unconscious entity produces unwanted feelings