Beyond Repression – Making Space for Your Irrational Beauty

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Today, as I continue from last week’s post taking apart the Jekyll & Hyde image of self-discipline, I want to talk about the remarkable parts of you that are trying to get your attention and move you toward a more beautiful wholeness.

Classic “Jekyll & Hyde” self-discipline is about constant repression of your fullest Self

When Theodore Bryant and others tell us that our resistance is like Mr. Hyde and our conscious intentions are like Dr. Jekyll, they’re advocating a lifetime of constant work to keep “Hyde” under wraps so we can get where our “mind” wants us to go.

But, in my opinion, there are a boat load of problems with this prescription:

• it’s going to take a huge amount of energy to keep that part of you repressed for the rest of your life
• it sets up the need for constant vigilance and control of all your inner parts and impulses, which is exhausting and stressful
• it gives your controlling ego the final say in what gets to be expressed in you or not
• it completely denies that there might be wisdom, beauty and richness in the parts of you that you’ve buried and that are trying so hard to emerge.

Jekkyl & Hyde is a warning for us, not a map to follow

I, along with psychologists like Barbara Hannah, see the story of Jekyll and Hyde as more of a cautionary tale than anything else.

It was written in late Victorian England, a time when many of the middle class were desperate social climbers and when being “appropriate” and high brow meant stifling all of their baser impulses and the vices that were the hallmarks of the lower class – basically that time’s equivalent of sex, drugs & rock’n'roll.

The author, Robert Louis Stevenson, was himself the child of very serious and strict parents, with a father who was a staunch member of the Scottish church (an extremely serious bunch themselves) and a mother who was the daughter of a preacher.

Late in the story, as the strange tale unravels, Mr. Jekyll admits that the split in him that created Mr. Hyde happened because of his impossibly high standards and the desire to be taken seriously.

He says that he sought to suppress a certain natural “gaiety” in himself as a young man in order to appear “uncommonly grave before the public”.

He had been taught by his parents and society how he “should” appear and he had learned to judge anything else as “inappropriate”.

That’s a training that we all receive.

Dr. Jekyll’s natural impulse, if honoured, could have greatly enriched his life

His natural “gaiety”, if he had only been able to find a constructive and appropriate outlet for it, say in music for example, would have been a wonderful antidote to the  excessively “grave” quality of his character.

It was only when it was completely repressed that it became twisted into the depraved character that we came to know as Mr. Hyde.

Mr. Jekyll, with his overly serious way of being, was in desperate need of the balance that some wildness and spontaneity would bring. But neither his society nor his upbringing would allow it.

So the only way left for his very natural, but censored qualities to emerge was for them to take over entirely, behaving like a completely different person.

This is just how parts of us can behave when they’ve been judged and buried and not allowed to “integrate” into the whole of our personality.

Our own natural implulses are trying to bring balance not wreak havoc

In the book “Unintentional Music”, Lane Arye says:

“The unintentional appears at moments when some hidden part of us, something beyond our usual awareness, suddenly tries to express itself. If we start paying attention to what is trying to happen rather than to what we think “should” happen, we open the door to self-discovery. Sometimes what we regard as mistakes in self-expression are in fact treasures.”

This is why I find working with your resistance to your goals to be a brilliant doorway into your beautiful, but hidden, qualities and a truer and more whole self.

Inner resistance, by it’s very nature, is irrational and seems to be something you can’t control. It happens despite your best efforts and tends to get worse when you try harder to stop it. (All the qualities of Mr. Hyde.)

The fact is, your “rational mind” is only a small part of you and only has the illusion of being in control of you and your life. But your mind and your rational self are also what tend to feel like your “identity”.

So, whenever something “irrational” surfaces, that’s a clue that something beyond your mind and larger than your small “s” self is at play.

And it’s often your soul calling.

Your Resistance can be the doorway to your irrational beauty

When your mind says “that’s where I want to go” and then, in trying to go there, you discover that a part of you has other ideas, it’s time to pay attention – because something really astounding is trying to emerge.

Classic self-discpline arguments, like Bryant’s, would tell you, “Oh that’s just Hyde. Just keep repressing him and you’ll be fine”.

But you’d miss out on the profound opportunity to welcome home a beautiful and natural part of you with a wisdom all its own.

What do you think about this idea of repression and the irrational beauty that’s been hidden? I’d really love to hear about it in the comments below.

This is the second post in a series debunking classic “self-discipline” thinking and the Jekyll & Hyde metaphor for resistance. If you’d like to get the rest of the series by email, just Sign-Up Here.

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