CRUCIAL CONCEPTS

Here are several major psychospiritual concepts you should understand to get the most from the study of psychospiritual values and ethics and a satisfying life, in order to end the neurotic mind games we play to defeat others and ourselves.

THE CREATURE-SELF -- This is our primitive homosapien self that combines the emotionally driven, instinctive aspects of personality that so many use without thinking about them, with the philosophical, self-aware aspects of life that make us fully human. At the deepest level of our souls, we combine the psychological unconscious and the spiritual unconscious into our psychospiritual selves. The creature-self, the homosapien entity, I - Myself Alone, has both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde traits that must be mastered for life to become satisfying.

NARCISSISTIC GREED -- Healers as far apart philosophically as Sigmund Freud and Jesus of Nazareth agreed that each and every person suffers from a major character flaw. It is this -- all persons are programmed by nature to relive the Greek legend of Narcissus who was so enamored with his own beauty and brilliance that he destroyed himself. Each child instinctively wants the biggest piece of the pie -- all adults yearn for power, prestige, pleasure and possessions in order to prove our worth, to flaunt our superiority before others. For example, India's cast system is narcissism woven into the culture. We all protect ourselves, defend against the world, preserve our integrity, satisfy our appetites, venture into society and snare part of it as our own. We do this to win self-esteem and to become heroic. Nevertheless, our narcissistic ruthlessness must be civilized or we crash and burn spiritually.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL UNCONSCIOUS -- Each and every person has a hidden function within his or her mind into which painful events, selfish desires and greedy attitudes are concealed from awareness so they cannot trouble us. The unconscious is a secret vault in which we conceal much evidence that would convict us in the court of our own conscience -- if not always in a court of law. We may not see much direct evidence of our unconscious but it is seldom quiet for long. The unconscious influences our attitudes and activities with often unintended consequences and troubling results. We cannot ignore emotional disorders that inevitably come from a variety of unconscious causes.

THE SPIRITUAL UNCONSCIOUS -- According to Frankl and others, each person has yet another hidden function of the mind that requires more than the physical and emotional rewards that satisfy the lesser animals. As sentient creatures who know that we know, each of us yearns to understand who we are, where we are going, what we are worth and what shall happen to us. Each person needs a spiritual connection with the Creator, by whom we were apparently imprinted during our racial development -- must relate to God through a psychospiritually sound life-style. Our ancestors called our universal yearning for a sense of purpose and permanence, for a home in the Cosmos, the ache for God.

HOMOSAPIEN RAGE -- Every person, whether young or old or male or female, has primitive fear hidden within the psychological unconscious that can flare into devastating aggression when we feel endangered or devalued. This homosapien angst is inherited from our primordial ancestors who were constantly fearful on the African savannah during their racial revolution. It is so common that some anthropologists call humans the killer apes. The Trench Coat Mafia boys of Columbine High School in Colorado were social outcasts many of the academic elite and athletic gifted students despised to bolster their own self-esteem. Even after the Columbine attack, before all the bodies were recovered, one student athlete cried out on television; The geeks were so different -- were such losers, that no one in our group would have anything to do with them. Why did they do this -- what made them hate us so? It simply isn't true that Sticks and stones may break my bones but words shall never hurt me. Cruel gibes hurt terribly and always trigger resentment. His slain friends paid a terrible price for meeting their narcissistic needs at the expense of the alienated, for not understanding that for themselves to enjoy special prestige, they had to create losers to be despised in comparison.

THE ULTIMATE LIE -- The greatest pretense each human uses regularly in our self-serving attitudes, activities and relationships, is that I - Myself Alone, am a rational and objective being who makes the best possible choices for my family, company, community and nation. As Freud told a world which still doesn't believe that psychologists and psychiatrists can see through their shams, that nave assumption is a total illusion. Every person to reach adulthood in the past million or so years grew up subjective. All humans have a hidden aspect to our minds that distorts reality enough to meet our personal needs first of all. We keep these dangerous yearnings hidden from ourselves in order to maintain a modicum of self-respect despite our narcissistic greed and homosapien rage.

Unfortunately, disruptions within our psychological and spiritual unconscious can cause devastating problems. We all give ourselves the benefit of every doubt, take every advantage and resolve every dispute to our own satisfaction, until that is, we liberate our souls and live self-transcending spiritual lives.

REPRESSION -- We all stuff painful events into our unconscious; we repress from easy awareness many attitudes and relationships that devalue us. We forget an appointment with an angry boss who has battered our self-esteem in the past -- which then causes even more pain when he attacks again. Repressing something painful isn't simply hiding it and forgetting what we hid and where. Repressing something wastes emotional energy to keep the pressure on and control our anxieties; energy needed to live wisely and well. A student of mine at Westminster College would set three alarm clocks on test days and still sleep through an exam that threatened him. Even Freud admitted he always forgot he owed creditors money much sooner than he forgot the money patients owed him.

NEUROTICISM -- Carl Jung wrote with great wisdom that persons with neurotic traits are those unfortunates who have failed to find meaning in their lives. I see neuroticism as including the continued use of childish tactics to satisfy one's desires in adulthood when they no longer create a sense of purpose. While a child can win a raise in her allowance with a temper tantrum, that seldom works at 3M or General Motors. Unfortunately, a person who has fixated on neurotic traits has trouble maturing beyond them. In fact, the less well a self-defeating activity works, the more an anxious person uses it he or she simply hasn't grown into a mature mode of interacting, has fixated on compulsions, is self-programmed to use self-defeating tactics over and over because he or she knows no better way.

PSYCHOSIS - This is neuroticism taken to the limit, pushed into serious mental illness where the sufferer is unable to cope with life in a variety of ways. This form of distress may include psychopathic ailments but I generally think of psychotic reactions in two ways. First is schizophrenia in which the person is detached from reality. One feels free of his or her physical limitations. Alternately, clinical or psychotic depression occurs when the sufferer is overwhelmed by life's many requirements. I especially understand that a person who suffers from mental illness needs spiritual as well as emotional healing.

NIHILISM -- This philosophy of meaninglessness, a belief in disbelief, is Western Civilization's most devastating secular assumption about persons and their relationships to one another. Nihilism came from several proto-Nazi philosophers when German egoism was triggering five murderous wars against humanity plus the Holocaust in less than a century. The central theme is that the Cosmos is a pointless accident and humans are pond scum despoiling the surface of one meaningless planet circling an insignificant star. Might makes right, control of a society comes from the muzzle of a gun and individuals are expendable in some aristocracy's manipulation of persons for power, prestige, possessions and pleasure. Nihilism or opportunism has become to some degree, the operative philosophy of virtually every business, government, military force, research university and professional association in the world today. Global capitalism is the ultimate example of nihilism at work in our civilization.

EXISTENTIAL FRUSTRATION -- We of western civilization have developed a narcissistic and nihilistic life-style that consistently frustrates humans, that causes the mass neurosis of 20th century life. We who yearn for stability and security have used our creativity to develop a society that changes around us with the speed of a video tape set on fast forward, that goes against the grain of human nature. We no sooner get comfortable with life as it is than it shifts into a new and discomforting mode that leaves us confused and frustrated. That constant change, combined with several instincts from our primordial homosapien past, keeps us off balance emotionally and spiritually. Then, because unrelieved frustration leads to aggression or to apathy, it cripples persons who fail to successfully cope with change.

THE DEATH DREAD -- From the time our primordial ancestors spent countless ages being hunted by the great carnivores on the African savannah, the birthplace of our race, they struggled desperately for survival. During this long period of time they became anxious and developed an instinctive fear of death that lingers with us. This most serious human anxiety still comes at the most inappropriate times and places, disrupting many of our activities and relationships. It seems to be locked in our very genes, for through psychoanalysis or hypnotherapy it can be found in everyone. The only reason we do not fear the death-dread continually, except in our dark nights of the soul, is because we repress those anxieties.

FREE-FLOATING ANXIETY -- This occurs as the result of a person's inability to deal with the pressures and problems discussed in this section. One's life feels off balance, out of sync with society, filled with potential dangers that may cause problems and worried from the death dread. As Mark Twain said; I have spent my entire life worrying about problems -- most of which never happened! The person with free-floating anxiety cannot put his or her finger on the cause of any day's dread, or perhaps he or she like Twain invents something to account for the unhappy feelings, but it remains part and parcel of life day after day -- because his or her soul remains in psychospiritual bondage.

MATURITY/AUTHENTICITY/CONGRUENCE -- Each person can learn how narcissism, nihilism, the unconscious functions of the mind, the repression of painful memories and events and the problems of a secular life-style can be managed. We must become emotionally honest, liberated souls who make congruent choices that keep us from experiencing mental turmoil or emotional confusion. Whomever wisdom has enlightened through spiritual virtues, positive attitudes, high expectations, mature beliefs and responsible choices, is free indeed. As we develop into real-persons who live wisely, enlightened disciples the church calls its maturing members, we can live as truly liberated souls.

These are the basic concepts found in many of our articles and in the materials that can be perused in our website -- http://www.fulfillmentforum.com