Recognizing the Inner Other

There's a valuable notion in Jungian psychology that I resisted for a long time - it's the idea that within each of us there's a fully autonomous Other, with its own awareness and its own agenda (Jung variously called it the anima / animus / Shadow - but in practice they all blend together)...

.... an inner Other with its own agenda that can subtly take possession of our ego without us being fully aware of it, and stir up all kinds of trouble.

While I've worked with integrative processes for a long time, I was so resistant to this idea of relating to a fully autonomous, inner Other. 

Why? I guess because it was scary to admit that it's not just emotions and desires that my ego tries to repress, but a whole Other inner person! 

The most common way people tend to experience the possessing inner Other (especially the masculine animus in women and feminine people) is through an intrusive critical voice that has "sacred convictions" about "the way things should be."

This is so much the case that this inner Other often gets referred to in pop psychology just as "the inner Critic" or "the inner Tyrant." 

As in, we may have the best intentions of being kind to ourselves- but we notice our inner monologue gets downright mean at times, especially when we're extending ourselves creatively or in intimate relationship.

The inner Tyrant's voice is compelling because it always seems to be warning us that our survival or our success is on the line, and only it knows the way to keep us safe by reminding us how we should be in order to be loveable, enough, safe, etc., and how much we are dangerously falling short of being how we should be. 

The fascinating thing about this tyrannical inner Other though - is that it transforms into a helpful magical inner Companion (known as the Self by Jungians, and as the Agatho Daimon, or Holy Guardian Angel, in the Western Esoteric Tradition) when the way our ego relates to it dramatically changes.

So how to dramatically change the way our ego relates to the inner Other?

Through the basic process of alchemy of course - solve et coagula (dissolving and bringing together). 

The solve consists in doing exactly what I resisted doing for so long:

-- Recognizing the Other as a fully autonomous being, and speaking back to it.

So when your inner Tyrant crops up, try saying this to it: 

"Thank you, I know you're criticizing me to keep me safe - and also I would honestly much rather die, suffer, and fail tremendously than listen to this criticism any more, so you can shut it." 

The trick here is that you have to mean it - as in you have to get to a courageous, "not gonna take it anymore" place within yourself wherein calling for (invoking) the transformation of that inner Voice is way more important to you than even surviving or looking good to others or avoiding catastrophe.

Because anything less than that leaves room for the inner Other to continue to harass you with its "shoulds" - which are all about making sure you survive, get approval, and avoid catastrophe. 

The coagula part is quite a bit stranger. The opportunity for it only arises after you've made some genuine progress with the solve. 

The coagula entails allowing for the dawning realization that your ego itself and all its good intentions is also part of the inner Other - like the tyrannical voice, it's also something autonomous that you didn't personally create, but rather that you simply inherited from biology and culture.

As in - your sense of having free will - your ability to think, to decide, to pray, to be courageous, to take a stand - where does that come from? 

Did you wholly manufacture it in your own laboratory? Put it together with some scissors and crayons and airplane glue? Whip it up in your oven?

Of course not - our egos, our thoughts, our desires themselves are all spontaneous gifts given at every moment by the divine - the great Author, Artist, Inventor - the great Poet of us all, the Dreamer who dreams the dream that we are, the Anima Mundi, the soul of the world. 

With this recognition comes the hilarious insight that all along the inner Other only seemed tyrannical because it was mirroring our ego's tyrannical belief in its separation from the Whole. 

So, that's what I learned in eclipse season, and I hope it tickles you as much as it tickles me.