The Healthy Tension between Ego & Soul

In a culture that itself is working through its own confusion about what healthy growth and maturation through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and elderhood is, we often struggle between knowing what is good healthy fear and what is too much or not enough fear, what is healthy risk and what is too much or not enough risk, what is eustress (healthy stress) and what is distress.

And therefore, we also struggle in seeing and understanding these tensions in others, which influences our ability to mentor/support/advise them well. And it influences our ability to determine if we are being well-mentored, supported, and advised ourselves by those in mentoring/supporting/advising roles.

We are collectively trying to mature within what author Bill Plotkin calls a patho-adolescent (or unhealthy adolescent) culture, and grow and expand our human culture and consciousness in ways that are necessarily increasingly sustainable on this planet.

In his book, Nature and the Human Soul, Plotkin acknowledges that age and maturity are not necessarily related, particularly in this culture, and he outlines two separate stages of adolescence, and their nature and culture tasks, necessary for an individual to mature though, to reach adulthood, and beyond.

The Thespian in the Oasis is what he names the first stage and here we develop a socially acceptable and authentic self. The Wanderer in the Cocoon is what he names the second stage and is where we then leave the "home" of our social and authentic self (ego/personality) and descend into the mysteries of nature and psyche.

Most of the people I know personally (including myself) and work with in my practice, regardless of age, are doing a lot of both of these at the same time.

We are attending to the skills being developed in the first stage of adolescence: developing values and social authenticity, emotional skills, conflict resolution, status assignment (understanding power and how it is organized by roles/race/gender/ethnicity/ability/religion/etc.), sexuality, sustenance (keeping a roof over our head and finding food to eat), human-nature reciprocity (how our lives are interconnected with the more-than-human world), and understanding the survival strategies developed in childhood....and at the same time, developing skills from the second stage...Soulcraft skills... (listed at the bottom of this piece)...both individually, and collectively as a culture.

Sometimes we're in psychotherapy (what Plotkin means as the interpersonal practices aimed at helping the conscious self - ego - improve its adjustment to its social world and its emotional life).

And sometimes we're in what he calls Soulcraft practices (underworld work that prepares the ego to abandon its social stability and psychological composure and become an active, adult agent for soul, as opposed to maintaining its former role as an adolescent agent for itself).

Soulcraft can be countertherapeutic and sometimes damaging/dangerous if our ego is not ready or stable enough (we are in trauma/crisis and/or still working on skills from previous stages) for this descent...or those that are in guiding/mentoring/facilitating roles in these practices are themselves not sufficiently mature enough to lead these practices,..or we're working with a practice that might not be right for us at the time.

And at the same time, psychotherapy without end, or understanding of the next stages of development, could impede the healthy, natural maturation of soul-encounter and the journey...and suffocate soulcraft skill development, eroding our deepening connection to each other, meaning and belonging in the larger cycles of life.

Somewhere along the way, I discovered that much of the body work and energy work skills that I was cultivating in my professional practice were offering Soulcraft-starved-clients entry into a deeper connection with themselves and the world, but required that I also become well-versed in recognizing where other practices were needed... I have needed to understand the difference between where a fragile ego is needing healing, recognition, validation, reassurance, comfort, and support, and where one is looking to expand beyond the limits of comfort and safety.

It's an ongoing practice. And education.

And deep listening. Witnessing. Reflecting. Mirroring. Learning. And a contribution to this massive cultural-renaissance we're in. I am seeing the world of therapeutic practices and practitioners evolving with me too.