Pathwork teaches us about the 3 parts of each of us. There’s the Higher Self part of us that is a gift from God/Spirit/the Universe (whatever word works for you). We don’t do anything to earn this gift, and it becomes who we are inside. We have different amounts of each of the three gifts: Courage, Love, and Wisdom. These gifts are present to guide us in everything we do including the choices we will make in life.
The second part of us is called the Lower Self. It’s the part of us that holds our negative ways of thinking, believing, and acting. We all have this part. We have taken little pieces of the Higher Self and twisted those pieces into distortion. Courage, for example, gets twisted into negative self-will. Here in the Lower Self, we can use one emotion to deflect us from another emotion or we can withdraw into thinking and reasoning to prevent feeling.
The third part of us is called the mask self. Here we use a way of being that we believe will make us acceptable in the world. Here we cover who we really are because we believe that part of us is not good enough. The Pathwork shows us that there is aggression, submission, and withdrawal—the masks most often used.
In Pathwork we pray for and allow ourselves to drop deeply within into our spiritual selves. In addition, we practice working with the Lower Self energy by facing it and giving it a voice while we hold ourselves with compassion. We can face our negativity and then allow it to dissolve. As we continue to practice being real in our negativity, we are on the way to finding our true Higher Selves. Thus, we can untwist the Lower Self energy allowing it to return to its original Higher Self form. It is a gradual process or a sudden shift depending on what that young part of us needs.
Can you risk letting yourself see the negativity that is in you so that you can begin to heal it? We are working to develop a way to hold ourselves compassionately when we notice that the Lower Self in us has been “triggered.” Perhaps you have notice that you still continue to behave in ways that are less than loving, in ways that are not in the best interest of anyone, or in ways that you regret later even with all this compassion and holding.
At this point, it is time to begin to look at what we feel when we are letting our Lower Selves rule. Is our attention heightened or less aware than usual because we are so busy thinking? Are our muscles demanding that we move? Are we in a peak awareness state? Notice if there is a way that we even like the peak awareness state even though we may or may not like the situation that has caused it. Can we admit to ourselves that we like our negativity? Could it be?
Let me repeat…do we enjoy the results of our negativity? Do we get more adrenaline from it? Do we get a feeling of justification? Do we get to avoid the negative results of our actions or inaction when we are focusing on what others have done, said, are doing? This, in Pathwork, is called negative pleasure. And this negative pleasure is part of the reason we don’t want to change.
Admitting to ourselves that we enjoy the feelings that accompany our negativity is a huge step in the healing process. Can you allow yourself to feel it? Are you willing to risk admitting this to yourself?
Finally, we return to our Higher Selves. We return to that part of us that is always present, always available to us. Can we allow ourselves to sink into this part of us that is who we really are? We are spiritual beings here on Earth in human bodies. Let us live more and more from the spiritual being and less and less from the negative parts of us.
Julia Jensen