Allow me 2 minutes to inspire you to do deep tough emotional work (or why opening up your unconscious can be good for you)

What's the point of looking deeper into your fears, your sadness, or your anger? Your life is full enough with work, relationships, responsibilities, kids, etc. that it sure appears there just isn't time to indulge your emotions, particularly the annoying ones we just don't want to deal with in the first place. So why do it? Why should you do deep tough emotional work?

Just as you have an automatic nervous system, or an automatic respiratory system, you also have an unconscious psychological system working hard inside of you. This system has tons of rules, self-beliefs, world views, and everyday strategies making meaning of your daily life and dictating your daily responses and actions. It's running 24/7 and has an imprint on every moment of every day.

This system has been built by parental influence, how your needs were met or not met particularly in childhood, by difficult experiences throughout your life, and by your own internal make-up. It's malleable but  becomes fairly concrete as it grows unconsciously. It tells you how you feel in general, how you feel about yourself, and how you feel about people and the world around you.

Unfortunately, this mighty system has a major flaw. Imagine being a hammer. It's a great identity when you are dealing with nails but when the world turns to screws and you keep hammering, what do you think happens? What about if there is a fire, what are you going to do then? That's our unconscious psychological system and it got designed by and for a specific circumstance. On its own, it is not very good at being flexible. Left to its own devices, it can be fairly rigid.

Why am I talking about your unconscious psychological system when the title of this blog was inspiring you to do tough emotional work? Through my experience, it is our emotional experiences that lead us to be able to see the wiring of our psychological system. And once we see our wiring, we can rewire ourselves. We can heal. We can change. We can have agency and choice about who we want to be and how we want to see the world. We can learn to be a screwdriver, a bucket of water, or any other tool needed.

But we have to do deep tough emotional work to get there.

Here's where I try to inspire you. On the other side are so so so many wonderful things: greater freewill; greater ability to enjoy; more choice; more agency; greater capacity to truly live in the present; greater ability to get your needs met; greater ability to live your true and full potential; and greater ability to adapt to different circumstances.

And here's my pep talk. You can do this. You can have the life you truly desire. It's there for the taking... you just need to look inward, feel deeply, and brave the unknown. There is so much worth waiting on the other side for you. Do not fear your tough emotions, they are here for a reason. They don't want to make your life worse, they want to guide you towards yourself. They want to help you see your unconscious psychological system. They want to empower you. Do the deep tough emotional work, you won't regret it.