A LIFETIME OF PROMISE
– The Seven Step Journey –

Following the preceding seven steps softens our ego’s stance toward complexes without weakening the ego at all.  In fact, it will become stronger as its boundaries soften and relax.  In this process we are combining eros: the feminine approach to consciousness, reflection, accepting and relating to, with the masculine approach: logos, which is separating, differentiating and bringing into the light.

Eros is neither embracing nor welcoming.  It is a shift in attitude that begins with acceptance, even if our complex and its emotions look like a deformed dwarf or a hideous witch.  Acceptance allows separation to begin and that can be followed by relating to, rather that fighting against.  Eros needs the help of logos because relating to requires separation and differentiation in order to take place.  We cannot relate to either a person or a complex that we are fused with or possessed by.  This act in itself, the act of separation, helps put us in the position of being able to become more objective and less driven by the obsessive and compulsive nature of the complex.

Bringing the complex, its emotions and how it affects us into the light of consciousness is also logos. This means that understanding the complex and our feelings brings the energy of the complex into our ego, our conscious personality.  When complexes become appropriately assimilated and integrated into our ego a new openness in our personality develops both toward our inner life and our outer world.

The dynamics of these seven steps begin with acceptance which leads to separation and proceeds to “relating to” eros and “learning from” logos. Relating and learning become the path of understanding that leads to knowledge and then to wisdom.  Wisdom opens us to a greater experience of life as it informs how we live.