Scary monster, curious toddler, gushing mountain waterfall – when we close our eyes our Type will present itself as one or a few images. Often times these images are closely connected to body sensations, and together they most accurately depict our survival mechanism. In my work, ‘Dialogue with The Dream’, all three centers – mind, […]
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The Bunker and the Flowering Valley – the Transformation of Type 9
Scary monster, curious toddler, gushing mountain waterfall – when we close our eyes our Type will present itself as one or a few images. Often times these images are closely connected to body sensations, and together they most accurately depict our survival mechanism.
In my work, ‘Dialogue with The Dream’, all three centers – mind, heart and body – collaborate in resolving and transforming difficulties in our system. The goal is bringing awareness to inner aspects of ourselves we have not yet come in touch with. Mostly our mind functions independently and doesn’t listen to the heart, the heart doesn’t pay attention to the body, and the body bypasses the logic of the mind. When the three centers are brought in direct contact with each other, transformation happens as if by magic. The mind typically uses words and concepts, while the other centers ‘speak’ in feelings, images and sensations. Also, for most of us, our common conscious awareness is mainly familiar with communication through words, and less so through images and sensations. The very interaction between these three languages and the inner aspects they represent creates change.
So, how does it work?
How can we disentangle our Type mechanism from within?
The following case description is an example of such work, done with the mechanism of Type 9.A crisis in her relationship with her daughter brought G back to a second round of therapy with me. “I feel at a loss with my daughter,” she reported, “It used to flow between us before and now she hardly shares anything with me. Her relationship with her boyfriend dissolved and I feel helpless as if it were my own life. I constantly worry for her, obsessively thinking about the worst scenarios.” It became clear to her that the crisis had happened because she was symbiotic with her daughter and now she needed to free both of them from an unhealthy bond.
G is a highly evolved woman, who has done a great deal of work with herself, including therapy and many years of meditation and yoga. A confident woman highly qualified as a coach, who has a coaching school of her own and has helped many through their difficulties, now found herself at a major crossroad. Life broke through what seemed stable, tranquil, and smoothly flowing. She desperately wanted to resolve her relationship with her daughter, but already, when stating her goals at the first meeting, I had a clear sense of something greater than that.
She declared “I want to…
• face my daughter’s anger without fear,
• be strong enough to tell her she’s too much for me, when she is,
• avoid drowning in her drama,
• stay present and not lose myself when it’s difficult for her.”What G sensed as a problem – her symbiotic connection with her daughter – was resolved in the first couple of sessions. Now she exposed her main difficulty, as Type 9 – facing varying degrees of discomfort in situations of tension and conflict. As it turned out, her daughter who is Type 8 has quite a few conflicts with her father who is a Type 1, and my peace-loving client finds herself in the midst of an unsolicited battlefield. Of course, this happens with others as well, but to a lesser degree. The conflicts at home between loved ones are the triggers for her to wake up and see her Type 9 mechanism in action. She feels she cannot deal with the pain caused by conflicts.
Images of fog and dissolution are first to appear. Her mechanism shows itself as “grey clouds covering the sky and parts of me disappear.” She senses the clouds in her chest and belly. Her gentle exploration of the clouds and willingness to see what they cover, reveals what lies under them – “… there’s a part of me that doesn’t like unpleasant feelings. It wants them to go away and is afraid to honestly tell what I truly feel.”
Further on, she deals with her feelings of helplessness, her body’s inability to move. She says it is a “temporary death that actually feels good,” because there are no bad sensations. Her whole body feels heavy and she feels comfortable. The image she sees is a mollusk and then as a jellyfish lying on the sand, waiting for the waves to bring it back to the sea. This image brings deeper understanding. The mollusk/jellyfish is in danger while lying on the beach as it can easily dry up if G doesn’t change her attitude. She struggles between a strong tendency to let it be and the realization that it’s wrong for her. So, in the next sessions she’s actively working with the jellyfish. A struggle starts within – her conscious mind wants change but the mechanism doesn’t give up easily: it is evasive and plays an endless ping-pong game with her. The jellyfish stays fresh, but G is exhausted. It seems futile; she’s fighting herself to no avail. Exploring the image from the perspective of her higher self she ‘sees’ a little girl dancing happily. She likes the child, but it also evokes fear and the effect on the body is dizziness (mainly in her head) and fatigue (all over). But these very sensations cause the necessary change in her. By her very willingness to stay with this discomfort, she is ready for an important insight – she realizes that something in her fears ‘intense vitality’ coupled with the unknown, and therefore becomes sluggish and foggy. Now she understands something major about her mechanism – it is made to avoid the fear of life itself. It prefers being safe and peaceful to being vibrantly alive.
This is a turning point. Her dizziness stops at the insight.
Meanwhile, her relationship with her daughter starts to change. Her fear when hearing about her daughter’s difficulties diminishes. She feels her daughter can contain her own problems by herself. G is much calmer.
Still, she does panic at times, when she senses her daughter hides things from her, and this triggers a deeper search into herself and her mechanism. A new image presents itself – a bunker with an iron door on the top, “just like a tornado shelter in the United States.” When a tornado approaches, one can open the door and go down. The door on the top shuts and locks until the storm is over. But what is a ‘tornado’ for a Type 9? Something that Type 8 or 1 would hardly notice… the smallest perceived tension can cause the door to lock. G senses this ‘concrete bunker’ of hers in her chest and belly, where she can also feel and see armor. In the next sessions, she conducts a brave and determined research of every little detail of the bunker mechanism. Pretty soon she realizes the bunker is located in a blooming valley, which symbolizes her ‘authentic self’. This is a calm, secure and happy part, stretching over most of her body, in complete opposition to the tight ‘bunker’ in her belly and chest. Of course, this mechanism is quite sophisticated. It has an ‘intelligence unit’ which scans the environment for possible ‘tornados’ – any conflict. It has elaborate sensors to do the job. When tension shows up, the sensors trigger an alarm and the bunker door shuts and locks. She then ‘disappears’ inside. Slowly she realizes the mechanism shuts her down, but it actually keeps her feeling like she’s in a full-blown emergency, even after the ‘tornado’ is gone. She’s helpless and cannot open the door to the bunker by herself. Only the ‘intelligence unit’ with its ‘sensors’ can decide when and how the door to the bunker will be unlocked.
In between sessions she learns more about her Type. She finds two ways she’s dealing with tension – constant activity to take her mind off the tension, and sleepiness. She rather be active than fall asleep and disappear, but she also understands it won’t solve her problem, because as soon as the activity stops she needs to deal with tension again. This very insight she reports, created a crack between her and her mechanism. She understood that no matter what, deep inside she was always alert to the slightest tension.
During the sessions the bunker holds power over G and doesn’t succumb easily. At some point she finds the ‘architect’, and learns that the bunker was designed by a chain of ‘architects’ from her own past (for example, a holocaust survivor mother) and other members of the family in previous generations, many of whom were hurt in one way or another. Numbing the pain was a convenient way of dealing with the insufferable. As our work goes on she starts sensing the futility of the mechanism. She sees it is not as helpful as it may seem because it constantly weakens her in situations where she needs her strength. In working with the images, she dialogues with the bunker: she wants it “to let go of its sovereignty and let the blooming valley take over”.
At the very moment she says that, a gentle quiver is sensed at the foundation of the bunker. This started the ‘deterioration’ of the bunker. Still struggling to survive – one moment it tilted over and at the next it stood up again, but it was clearly doomed. That was the beginning of the end, as the blooming valley gained power over the bunker. Its walls started to disintegrate as weeds grow around and inside. In her life my client started feeling and understanding the gifts of Type 9 at its best. She started seeing the difference between avoidance and relaxation. When she was relaxed she could accept life as it is with joy and no fear. She could also sense the sweetness, calmness, and harmony she so naturally brings to people’s life, and how very important it is. At the end the bunker turns into a charming ruin in the midst of the blooming valley, with weeds and flowers growing all over. G had a most stress-less, harmonious time during the month of the Jewish high holidays… She was more present than ever, she did not over extend herself, and expressed herself directly when needed. She said it was the first holiday without any “explosions”, and even if there were one, she wouldn’t have been afraid of it anymore. Of course she knows the mechanism still exists, but now she feels she is the one in charge.
