In the field of social relations, we’ve had two competing paradigms. And society goes back and forth with them, again in a movement like the sacred spiral.
One paradigm prevailed in the late Nineteenth Century and has come to be called “creative repression.” According to its tenets, one grew by denying oneself.
The body had a fixed amount of energy. If one wasted it through hysterical outbursts, for instance, one would faint. That’s why so many people … OK, women … are depicted fainting in 19th-Cen. novels. They “became emotional.”
That was a pretty confining point of view. It was used to control people.
There are modern versions of it that are not quite so far-reaching but still base themselves on growth through denying ourselves – vows of celibacy and poverty, for instance.
The second view is that we grow by expressing ourselves. That’s the basis of what I think of as the path of self-expression. I think of followers of that path as “communicators.”
Usually people who are on the path of full self-expression have felt themselves suppressed as children. That becomes their core issue or vasana. You’ve heard my story many times.
Although we tend to externalize our inner struggles, communicators “struggle” against an inner suppression and are really breaking free from their own chains. Well, at least I am.
They’ve lived lives of suppression and are stepping out of the ways they hold themselves back.
Therefore when it looks like another is suppressing them, ultimately they “break free.” Breaking free becomes their life story, their drama, their purpose in life. (1)
Very few people today practice self-expression. Perhaps it’s the state of the economy, the difficulty of finding satisfying work, or some other factor. We seem to want to play it safe. We don’t often take the risk of revealing ourselves or sharing our withholds about another.
But I want to express myself. I want to be transparent. My whole life revolves around that desire.
I want to share my withholds and try on the withholds of others to see if they fit me. That’s how I grow.
I want to call myself on my numbers, before others have to call me. Doing this accelerates my growth.
I know there are lines not to cross, but by the same token I’ve taken my stand against suppression. If I’m seen as crossing lines when I say no to suppression, I prefer to say no.
In the 1960s and 70s it was our orthodoxy to let it all hang out. We told it like it was. And the pendulum swung way out in that direction in the course of breaking free from a repressive culture.
Then the growth movement re-emphasized personal responsibility in self-expression and the model came back to the middle and had more balance again.
Now, as the Arcturians made plain, a third paradigm is being presented to us, which looks suspiciously like creative repression:
“You will be called upon to master EVERY thought and feeling.” (2)
“You have to be the master of your consciousness at all times.” (3)
But it’s not. That in actuality is the destination of full self-expression too, when the reactivity is stripped away: Self-mastery through communication on subjects like our vasanas, our withholds, our modus operandi, our deepest desires is what results.
People on the mythical planet I hale from want to stand forth. We want to emerge. Those who speak our language of self-expression reach a place of deep intimacy with each other. It’s not unlike going through a war together.
The occupational hazards of the self-expression path are the risk of offending the other, the risk of overloading the other, etc.
Those who communicate this way don’t have that problem among themselves; they only risk it with those who choose not to communicate. Group participants quickly learn to try feedback on, test it out, and see if it fits. If it does, they own it. It’s a different way of life and it’s one that I love and thrive in.
I don’t know how we’ll get to our destination from here. But for me, I trust that it’ll unfold for me through self-expression (4) and not along a path of suppression – even creative suppression or repression – in this phase of things.
Footnotes
(1) I recently found myself in a legal wrangle where someone was trying to suppress me and I rebelled. Independence and freedom of expression are major vasanas with me.
(2) The Arcturians in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Suzanne Lie, Nov. 8, 2013.
(3) Ibid., July 22, 2014.
(4) I’ve been in the space of being fully-self-expressed once before in my life. In it I shone like a lightbulb.
It was at an est Communications Workshop in perhaps 1980. We were divided into groups and each group had to appoint one member to deliver a nonsense message to another group. But the communicator had to deliver it in the space of presence.
We did the exercise twice. The first time I wanted to be the one to deliver the message, but I was afraid to speak up. The second time I erupted with eagerness. I broke through my suppression and was shining like a light bulb. I delivered the nonsense message that sex is communication below the belt.
The receiving group’s instructions were to not turn around unless they felt really moved to do so. Every single person in that group turned around when they heard my voice delivering the message.
This fully-self-expressed state is the one I choose. And it’s like living on a different planet from those who choose to remain hidden.