Invite Your Demons to Tea

from Transformation Coaching Magazine February 2022

by Transformation Coaching Magazine

The Route to More Effective Marketing

Invite Your Demons to Tea

A perspective on healing and active imagination.

By Kandace Hawley

I often hear jokes and tropes that our mind is a scary place, full of demons, ghouls, and trolls that are out to get us. These figures are often so terrifying that we resist going down into the basement of our minds to see what lurks there. We all know that the light of consciousness has an equal counterpart, the dark shadowy unconscious. However, I want to reassure you that, just because the unconscious is dark, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. What is dark or hidden simply means that it’s not illuminated by consciousness. The same goes for our inner demons. Many of them are not so bad or evil after all. Rather, they are often just distorted aspects of ourselves in great need of attention. In fact, from my experience, they mostly just want to be invited to tea. So, for the past two years, that’s what I have been doing. I have been inviting my demons to tea, where we air out our grievances with each other, come to a common understanding, and agree on a path forward. I often see my demons transform from grotesque images to luminous figures, simply by offering them the graces of my consciousness. I have been doing this work through Jungian analysis, which, if you are not familiar, is like scuba diving in the subconscious. Unlike hypnosis, the subconscious exploration is fully conscious, through active imagination, a technique invented by Carl Jung. And the reason why I do these deep dive explorations is because they offer immense relief, more than I have ever experienced in my life. In fact, this is the technique that, out of all I have ever explored, has offered the quickest and greatest inner transformations for the better. Allow me to explain by contrasting this technique with yoga. I have been practicing yoga for over a decade, including deep meditation, the asanas, niyamas, and yamas. I am a dedicated yogi, and I truly love the practices—but one thing that yoga has never offered me is a direct encounter with the darker side of my consciousness. For example, for a long time, I have struggled with an annoying self-critical voice that’s constantly telling me that everything I do is not good enough and I shouldn’t even try because everything I do is terrible. My yoga practices taught me that to deal with that voice, I should observe and transcend above it, realizing that this voice, like any other thought or feeling, is essentially not me. It taught me that I am more than my thoughts, and I am separate from them. Overall, yoga philosophy taught me to observe, detach and transcend. And while I think all of this is true—I am not that voice and I am not my thoughts—my yoga practice has never really tackled the core issue, that there’s a crippling, self-critical voice in my head that won’t let up whenever I try to live my life, and it’s sucking my energy. Now this is not to say that yoga techniques are not effective for healing. Quite the contrary, individuals cannot heal if they cannot detach from their thoughts and feelings and observe their own mind. Yoga is immensely helpful at training our minds to perform seemingly magical feats of intention, attention, and observation—but I dare say that meditation alone has its limits. For instance, it never helped me modify my inner world so that it serves me better. The only method I have ever encountered that did this is Jungian therapy. THE PATTERNS OF OUR INNER WORLD

Jungians call these inner demons archetypes and they can manifest in a variety of ways. Sometimes, they can be supportive, while at other times, they can be a total, energy-sucking detriment. Archetypes are primordial patterns, structures, images, and behaviors that we’ve inherited from our ancient ancestors. They exist in the deepest layer of our subconscious that Jungians call the collective unconscious, which is a universal consciousness shared by all humanity. These archetypes express themselves within us in unique ways through our inner complexes. In fact, according to Jungians, these archetypes are really running the show in our lives, and we don’t even know it. And only until we pull open the curtains and look at our puppet masters, they’ll continue to pull the strings. As Jung emphasized: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

In my experience, these archetypes are like characters in my mind. They often have a face, clothing, a gender, and their own consciousness and agenda. So, when I invite them to tea, I learn all about them. I not only see that they exist, I see why they exist. For instance, I invited that inner critic to the table. He (yes, he was a he) was a petty, pathetic and insecure figure. And through my interactions with him, I discovered where he came from and why he was saying such horrible things to me. It turned out that he wasn’t a horrifying demon after all, just a distorted and misguided figure who needed some attention, transformation, and love. After some time, he was able to transform into a supportive inner masculine figure for me, and I am happy to report that I am no longer suffering from a debilitating inner critic. This has freed up so much of my energy and provided me with great relief. However, I want to make clear that not all demons are the same. While many of the inner figures I have encountered are just simply distorted, there are others in the shadows that represent the true, dark side of my nature. These figures are often more difficult to confront as they represent the parts of my personality I wish weren’t there, like my capacity for cruelty, violence, hatred, or manipulation. Jung often suggested that the more we repress and dismiss the dark part of our personalities, the more likely it will persist and manifest in unexpected ways, like in addiction, self-sabotage, or cruelty to others. The key is to confront our darkness and integrate it into our personality. Doing this offers great benefits. For starters, it frees up a lot of energy that is otherwise used to push these parts of our personalities down. Second, it gives us a necessary edge that’s useful for building things like integrity, selfrespect, and boundaries. Those inner monsters can become guardians and protectors that give us the necessary doses of aggression to help us claim our place in this world. Over the years, I have worked with dozens of inner figures, each representing a neurological structure or patterning that usually requires a certain degree of unravelling, reprogramming, acceptance, and/or integration. Some of them are very easy and even pleasant to work with, while others are so terrifying that it’s hard to look at them. But every time, I am always humbled and healed by what I learn from my subconscious mind. I have learned that the light of my consciousness is healing and that many of these characters just want to be seen and heard. They are there for a reason and inviting them to tea is a cathartic experience for the both of us. Overall, this is the path to lasting healing that I have discovered. As Carl Jung said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

USING ACTIVE IMAGINATION

Now at this point, you might be wondering how to do this kind of work. For starters, it’s important to understand that how you approach your demons will be personal and unique to you. That’s the beauty of doing this kind of work. By owning your own path, you discover yourself in the process. You might find that you find a lot of relief working with images. Or perhaps writing works better for you (i.e. writing a letter to your inner demons). Others prefer not to work with images or characters. It’s important to discover your own way. I did this work with a Jungian analyst using active imagination, a process that integrates unconscious contents through some form of self-expression such as visualization, painting or writing. I worked with images, and my analyst has been like my scuba diving guide and teacher throughout this journey. I’d say working one-to-one with a professional is best, but it’s up to you ultimately. Overall, there are many ways to do this work, either with someone else or on your own, and I’ll cover a few of them in my next article. Stay tuned.

Kandace Sheri Hawley is an educator and writer who believes that every individual holds the key to their own truth. Her overall aim is to enable people on their own path to self-realization and discovery. She runs a podcast called “En Soma,” where she combines her academic background in education with her studies in Jungian Theory from GAP, along with her years of experience in analysis to share perspectives on spirituality, philosophy, society, and existence in general. You can find her at http://www.ensomapodcast.com.

We believe that self-employment is the ultimate form of empowerment. Our mission is to bring you guests whose powerful entrepreneurship stories and real-world advice will give you the inspiration and tools to create a business and life that you love.