About Greg

Over many years as both client and therapist I have watched many people express great darkness and immediately shine with an equally intense inner light. The darkness could be an intense hatred, a murderous rage, a powerless collapse or a spiteful superiority and yet following this they glow with a pure inner light.

This has seemed paradoxical to me, for when a thug bashes someone on the street it seems to feed the darkness not the light. What then happens in therapy that allows the light to shine forth?

Core Energetics claims it "Transforms darkness into light." But does the darkness actually change or is some other mechanism at work?

I am gradually evolving a theory that is beginning to satisfy both my intellect and heart.

I am slowly starting to believe that we can only choose the light when we act consciously. If we choose a path that hurts ourselves or others it is because we are acting from an unconscious belief. This unconscious belief will have been installed as a result of past hurts, probably at quite a young age.

Take stealing as an example. When we steal we have a belief that justifies it. There could be many reasons, examples could be that we believe, we are more entitled to something than its owner or because we need it to survive. Both these beliefs would usually stem from a childhood where we did not get our needs met (usually a need for love) and this led to us believe that there is not enough. There could be many other reasons but the end result is we feel the theft is quite justified.

When we bring such beliefs to consciousness and challenge the "there is not enough" belief with the evidence of an abundant universe we find it very difficult to justify stealing and I believe that unless we have an inner justification we will not act.

This would mean that in therapy when we express the darkness, we are not only acting out the darkness but also bringing to consciousness the belief we use to justify our actions. And once conscious we can then choose to act differently.

When we have conscious choice we no longer need to use our energy to suppress the unconscious darkness. It is the liberation of this energy that manifests as an inner radiance that shines from us after we reveal our shadow.

Once something becomes conscious it can never become unconscious again, we have truly changed.

It all seems so simple when viewed this way and yet we know it is not easy to do. To give some idea of the complexities involved take the example of the extremely wealthy and famous movie star who steals. Are they fundamentally "evil"? Or are they too acting from an unconscious belief. I choose to believe that none of us are "evil" at heart. We are just doing the best we can with what we've got.

My journey through therapy has taken time and considerable effort, but now I assume the best of someone rather than the worst, this makes it all worth while. The other benefit is the privilege of helping others find their inner truth and shine as we were all intended to.