How much choice do we have at any given moment to feel good or okay instead of miserable? Quite a lot, it turns out, when we understand the nature of inner conflict.
Most of us believe we’re basically good and decent. Yet often we can’t feel such attributes as a reassuring sense of self or as a source of pleasure. Even when we want what’s best for self and others, the emotional benefits of this decency can elude us, washed away in waves of guilt, shame, anxiety, regret, loneliness, and a sense of unworthiness.
Inner conflict is the culprit. Sad to say, most people are not conscious of the dynamics of this conflict. We oppress and punish ourself with inner divisiveness—and then we inflict the misery upon one another at family, community, and national levels. This makes us inept at emotional self-regulation.
Inner conflict is usually experienced as an impenetrable, often painful, hodge-podge of thoughts and feelings. This elusive content, often processed through futile overthinking, churns relentlessly inside us. (A sampling of the prevalence and perversity of inner conflict is found here.) We often attribute the unpleasant symptoms that arise from this conflict to the insensitivity or malice of others or to cruel fate. Or we blame ourself with unwarranted, punishing insinuations.
Inner conflict can sometimes be experienced semi-consciously along these lines: I deserve it—no, I don’t; I look okay, no, I don’t; I’m smart—no, I’m not; or, I’m trying my best—no, I’m not. Sometimes we sense a third-person voice: I deserve it—no, you don’t; I look okay, no, you don’t; I’m smart—no, you’re not; I’m trying my best—no, you’re not. The unpleasant symptoms of such conflict can persist for a lifetime, sometimes becoming increasingly painful.
In large measure, this conflict involves the clash between an aggressive drive and a passive defensiveness. We harbor in our psyche a primitive inner drive, the inner critic or superego, that regularly attacks our integrity and undermines our capacity to connect emotionally with a pleasing sense of goodness. The inner critic is a primitive, instinctive force or drive—a derivative of biological, instinctive aggression—that attacks us at our weakest point. This weak point is inner passivity, the unevolved intelligence that rules the no-man’s-land of the unconscious ego. Our consciousness has not claimed, on our behalf, this back country of the psyche.
In the compulsive defensiveness that arises from inner passivity, we generate lame excuses, irrational fears, and tall tales of victimization. We also experience, as symptoms of both inner passivity and inner conflict, reactive aggression, flailing indecision, and dispiriting procrastination. As mentioned, such behaviors and experiences are often accompanied by unproductive overthinking, which is itself a passivity loop through which we unwittingly generate a helpless sense of self.
Inner passivity is largely an emotional residue of childhood. Young children are inherently passive and fearful; as adults, we haven’t entirely freed ourselves from these old emotional associations. Freud spoke of “the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood” and of adult fear of the authority of the superego. Typically, we process the superego’s aggression and irrationality through the unconscious ego. Yet the unconscious ego is also irrational. Its fear and passivity make it a feeble stand-in for our better self. The defensive, unconscious ego acts as an enabler of the superego, and it partners with the superego in generating inner conflict.
Inner conflict is often experienced and processed through psychological defenses, and the unconscious ego is the mastermind of these defenses. Through these defenses, the unconscious ego protects the conscious ego’s determination to pose as the pillar of our identity, the decider of our sense of self. Our superego, meanwhile, covertly assumes the inner throne, acting as an overlord, while our best self languishes off in the wings.
Lacking sufficient awareness of this inner governance, people are more likely to be tainted by narcissism, thereby defensive, easily offended, self-centered, self-righteous, petty, and prone to self-defeat. Narcissism, stubbornness, and self-righteousness—all armors of psychological resistance—are the conscious ego’s added layer of protection against inner truth.
When we recognize inner passivity and its role in inner conflict, our misery and self-defeat start to make sense. A new intelligence fortifies our capacity for emotional self-regulation. Once the dynamics of inner conflict are exposed, we gradually release our identification with both the moody conscious ego and the instinctive unconscious ego. Essentially, we have been allowing our subordinate, unconscious ego to represent us against our inner critic’s irrational and self-abusive allegations. With insight, we flood that inner conflict with intelligence and rationality. Our heightened awareness neutralizes the intrusive inner critic, the emperor of irrationality. We no longer take seriously the inner critic, the illegitimate master of our personality. We no longer assimilate its punishing reproaches and derision. We don’t allow the unconscious ego to represent us against the inner critic. With this wakefulness, we overthrow the inner critic’s tyranny and establish an inner democracy governed by our best self.
Our success on this inner level depends, too, on our capacity to recognize that the passive side of inner conflict has an instinctive interest in remaining weak and subservient to a sadistic inner critic. I’ve written frequently about the compulsivity of emotional suffering. This claim that we’re unwitting participants in suffering and self-defeat insults our ego, producing much of our unconscious resistance to inner truth.
I’ve referred to this vexation as a deadly flaw of human nature, an obstacle to our evolvement. Occasionally, I’ve also referred to it as non-sexual, unconscious masochism, the tip of the iceberg of sexual masochism. Freud believed that we are afflicted in this manner, though humanity, appalled at the possibility, has generally rejected the idea.
A primitive, gruesome disorder of some kind must be contaminating our psyche. Wouldn’t it take something gross within us to produce the ongoing spectacles of bullying, hatred, greed, corruption, violence, torture, war, and self-destruction? Wouldn’t humanity’s dark side, the inciter of evil and self-destruction, likely have a clinical or psychological identity, an empirical DNA? Isn’t it conceivable this depravity could exist at inner conflict’s main intersection, where the superego’s sadistic aggression encounters the unconscious ego’s masochistic passivity. By itself, masochism is surely too flabby to embody evil’s hideousness. But together, superego versus unconscious ego, a spider-hole of evil capability is glimpsed, a nonsexual sadomasochism, often experienced as the self-abuse of incessant self-criticism, in the murky depths of our psyche.
Certainly, the idea is appalling. Yet consider: Despite the achievements of our species, we remain emotionally bound, through our conflicted psyche, to the animal kingdom’s main primitive dynamics, aggression and passivity, which are primary constituents of sadomasochism. This polarity underlies a primary characteristic of animal nature, the instinct, fate, or choice to dominate or be dominated. History is replete with examples of cults and mass movements where passive, neurotic people have engaged in self-defeating group behavior directed by cruel opportunists and malignant narcissists who are personifications of the superego. Only our species’ refinements, the ground gained by moral heroism, self-discovery, wisdom, and compassion, stand against anarchy and self-damage.
Politically and socially, the best among us still struggle to block the most psychologically unevolved humans from undermining civilization. In our psyche, we also struggle to prevent primitive dynamics from dissolving our emotional and behavioral self-regulation. These inner dynamics have a power of their own. It takes our best astuteness and the conscious humbling of the ego to override the compulsivity of suffering. (The compulsivity can be seen in the self-oppression I write about here.)
Many of us experience stress, anxiety, moodiness, and inner fear because we’re uncertain whether the defensiveness of our passive side will succeed, in its unstable way, in thwarting or neutralizing the scorn, mockery, and self-aggression emanating from our inner critic. The more our psyche’s pockets of inner passivity go undetected and inner conflict remains unconscious, the greater the danger we’ll be beaten down by this primitive self-aggression, becoming mental-health causalities and grist for the world’s unevolved aggressors. The prevalence of this dysfunction sustains the worldwide woe of neurosis.
How can we feel our goodness when we allow our inner critic, agent of our dark side, to attack our integrity and debase our character? How can we feel our essence when we allow inner passivity, a knock-kneed stand-in for our better self, to represent us on this crucial inner level while, symptomatically, we fail to stand up to worldly bullies. How can we protect each other when we aren’t protecting ourself from primitive self-aggression and our identification with inner passivity? Our worst impulses and behaviors are often reactive aggressions, malice directed at each other, that serve unconsciously as psychological defenses that deny and cover up our passive side.
Often, people can’t feel their intrinsic value and the pleasure it yields because they’re undermined by self-aggression and their appetite for self-punishment. The inner critic attacks us with irrational allegations and with claims that our human imperfections deserve self-punishment. Through inner passivity, we not only fail to protect ourselves from this self-abuse but we also lap it up as guilt, shame, moodiness, and depression.
Competence at emotional self-regulation is also undermined by lingering sensitivities to the first hurts of childhood: deprivation, refusal, helplessness, control, rejection, criticism, abandonment, and betrayal. Our unconscious willingness to recycle and replay these first hurts constitute emotional attachments that are, by and large, addictions to suffering. The first hurts usually arise from highly subjective infantile impressions of mistreatment, from the child’s inexperience and instinct to take personally perceived or actual slights or unkindness. Parents are not usually the cause of their children’s inner conflict. Unresolved first hurts can haunt adults in their encounters with daily life. Our lingering sensitivity to one or more of these negative emotions drags us toward the dark side, obstructing connection to our better self and clouding our life with impressions of injustice and oppression.
How can we feel pleasure when we’re especially sensitive to feeling criticized, rejected, and abandoned? How can we feel strong when we’re so ready to feel controlled or helpless? How can we feel good about ourself when we’re “into” feeling deprived, refused, and helpless?
Inner passivity, the inner critic, and psychological defenses are the main ingredients through which we experience and act out the first hurts. These hurts provide the “home field” on which to play the “game” of inner conflict, the game that generates negative emotions and self-defeating behaviors. This unconscious game stands between us and the pleasurable knowing of our essence and goodness.
There’s a helpful way to see ourself in the light of this knowledge. Become more aware of how, in moments when pleasure ought to be available, you find yourself experiencing displeasure. You might become aware of initiating negative feelings simply through your imagination. You can imagine being bullied, disrespected, rejected, refused, controlled, criticized, or betrayed. Or you repeatedly conjure up memories of such occurrences. Or you use present-moment experiences to stoke up these disagreeable impressions. Or you mine misery from idle speculations on the future. The allure of suffering has sucked you in. Acquire self-knowledge, sharpen your awareness, and stop suffering needlessly.
People often feel that their dark side is stronger than them. No, it’s not, especially when you understand inner conflict’s basic refrain: Are you going to connect on a feeling level with your better self or are you going to passively, masochistically disconnect? Zero in on this moment of inner choice, and take responsibility for what you chose. When you pick up a stray negative thought or feeling, are you going to weakly “entertain” it, follow it down the rabbit hole, or will you resourcefully decline to do so? As you recognize your (and humanity’s) unconscious willingness to go on experiencing inner conflict and weakness, the intelligence that derives from exposing this inner truth begins to liberate you from needless suffering.
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