Self-Image

     Perhaps the deepest block to listening and to true love and caring between beings is self-image. The hidden images we hold about ourselves, who we are, about our profession and skills can actually be the greatest stumbling block to meaningful, effective, and authentic communication. And it does not matter whether that communication is taking place in virtual generated mediums or in f2f reality.

     Though we have ears to hear and mouths to speak, (and now hands to type on keyboards and computer monitors to see - mirroring back not only our own words but the words of others) it is a psychological fact that the diameter of our internal communication pipeline gets totally clogged with these secret self-images. When we either transmit or receive communications through any medium there is an internal framework at work controlled by the self-images which act as distortion mechanisms. All the blocks to communication and listening, all our basic assumptions, projections, negative identifications, rationalizations, expectations, judgments, and stereotyping can block and distort both the listening and the transmission end of communication. But behind the scenes our self-images work on the deepest level.

     When we become afraid to express ourselves, our real feelings for fear of rejection it is usually a fear that we will come out looking badly. Our lily-white self-image might become dirty and we will loose face. What professional therapists and academic people do not want to look at in the least is that all the roles we identify with are self-images and that is why over identification with professional anything ends up sabotaging much of the good work that we are attempting. Just to even hint at such things can send many people ballistic for the work of looking at ones self-image is not modeled anywhere in professional circles or in academia. Everyone is going in the direction of building images and protecting professional territory. That is fine but not in professions that depend on communication for their very life blood. The practice of psychology in any framework is totally dependant on the quaility of communication so it is anti theoretical to defend professional image and expect to maintain open channels of heart felt communication with anyone.

     The heart, which is really the greatest instrument for listening, has no self-image. If accessed it is the purer part of ourselves which is more clear and universal in nature. It has the capacity to communicate and listen where as the egomind is more like a dog chasing after its own eternal tail. Its is basically a closed system but its main problem is that it has no idea that this is so. For the egomind it is far too humiliating to realize that it is receiving only a small percentage of what is being communicated. For those who think that they pretty much have the whole communication thing pretty well wrapped up it is absolutely intolerable to begin to study their own internal blocks to authentic communication. The greatest and most negative and dangerous self-image that we as professionals can have is the image of being good communicators. This is rarely accurate.

     It is just a fact that our communication ability and ability to directly perceive reality is directly proportional to the openness of our hearts. It is only after we have penetrated our self-images that we are able to reach the more vulnerable heart that has been laying there all along under wraps, underneath the ego blocks all the time. Our egos want to preserve its ideas of being someone special or professional or whatever, someone unique, and thus fears loss if it does not keep its image intact. The self-image works very subtly within and can shift from one set of internal images to another if it feels threatened in any way. The sages have always said that we must loose ourselves to find our real self and this is what they where talking about obviously. It is the false self, the self-images that have to go. And the self that we need to find is our own true heart nature which lives and breaths beyond the control of egocentric images. Ego images are just to small for the heart.

     The probing of the self-image is the deepest and most threatening psychological work we can do. And it should be obvious to therapists that if they have not done this work on themselves it is pretty much impossible to help anyone else through this level of inner psychological/spiritual work. Yet often this is exactly the type of work a person needs to concentrate on because it is creating most of their conflicts and pain.

     After reading about all the ego blocks to effective listening, communication and love, it should become more obvious that authentic communication between beings is not such a simple thing and is not something that we can assume and just rest on our laurels. The path toward deep communication skills, that can be used in the context of healing and helping relationships, is an endless path of self-insight and the work of learning to communicate in group situations where our skills, or lack of them, become obvious to others. Usually, unless we are confronted by our peers, we make no progress in the directions necessary for the type of inner growth that will be mirrored by increases in our listening and communication skills.

     Robert Hughes opened the door about online training and education in virtual counseling for his students. Though it has never been done, it is possible to train on the deepest levels in virtual groups. Real communication training might be best done in f2f experiences but it is possible that better work can and will be done in cyber space. When we are totally dedicated to probing the deepest levels of communication, by going through and testing the ego blocks that will arise spontaneously in any participant of a group committed to such work, we can train and discipline our consciousness to become effective online therapists and communicators in both group and individual settings. Cyber Light Intensives was designed to do just this work both in the business and private sectors but therapists and students of psychology would be in a position to take it onto much deeper levels because of their special need to penetrate the veils to authentic meaningful communication between hearts and beings. Virtual therapists are more dependant on the raw quality of their ability to communicate in cyber space.

     It would be a great pleasure to do such a group in the future and I have already proposed an international all virtual group that would set up training and standards for the cyber helping professions. Online direct training in group communication and the taking of groups through all the fires of conflicts, that egos always create, will be proven in the future to be the best method of training. Maybe we could call the process Virtual Creative Conflict. Dealing with such issues always involves opening up to the deepest levels of conflict resolution. This is the real work of unblocking the internal pipelines to listening and effective communication. We have to test our abilities and those really only get tested under fire so to speak. In the hotter fires of interpersonal conflict. This kind of work really has the potential to open our hearts to love (communication in my book) and if Scott Peck was listening in he would say it would open up the door to meaningful and effective therapeutic interaction and intervention.

     It should also be noted for potential virtual receipients of virtual counseling and therapy that one of its primary advantages is that it is easier to become vulnerable via virtual communication; easier to let our hair hang down and let go and show and be who we are. It is far easier to dismantle the self-images if we feel that at the other end there will be compassion and understanding. In face to face therapy all to often we do have to deal with the therapists self-image which can be all to apparant and inpenetrable. The payoff for being real is always enormous all though it can also bring much corrective feedback. Self-images are rarely real. Though they can sometimes approximate reality if our real life manifestation matches our internal images, the images themselves are never the reality itself. We are not our self-images, no matter how badly we want to be, though it sure can look and feel that way.

     On the deepest levels self-images can be guides that point us in directions and they can show us our destiny. Images do have their own intelligence and are conveyers of deep and meaningful information. Only the very purest person and the purest heart can live every moment outside the context of any image at all. We could say that this is humility, having no image. It is basically impossible for the mind or egomind to not have an image and really, though some images can be helpful and guiding lights in our life, the happiest person, who is free from the need to be important and special, has the delightful ability to laugh at the images when they come. They can take the meaning out of them but then let them go and go back to the heart center which does not need the support of the image. The pure vulnerable heart stands naked and free of any image and it finds it's real power and strenght and intelligence in something totally beyond anything the egomind can offer. The heart can expand past any limiting self-concept and self-image of self. The ego is after all only the limited self that perceives itself as a separate self or idendity. It is the separate self. The heart pulls us in the opposite direction into the oneness and the wholeness of life. Into the interconnectedness, into the love and intimacy. And into the communion that comes from deep and meaningful listening and communication. That is why when Camille says for us to listen with the heart she rings such a loud bell not only in my ears, but in my heart and soul.