When I went into recovery almost 30 years ago I was amazed how honest most of us were in our inventory of character defects. We were told that we were as sick as our secrets and that if we wanted to be free of the bondage of self and others, we must expose all our misdeeds and shortcomings. What would be revealed through the years was that there was a dirty little secret that most of us would not admit or share with another human being. Time has proven that the last place sober members would want to get well was in their sexuality.
Years before I got sober I studied the works and psychological positions of Dr. Carl Jung, who is the father of the concept of the shadow: within every man is the reflection of a woman and within every female is the nature of the male. No where do I hear this discussed and no au courant schools of psychological therapies dare tap into what can free us and give us a sense of true relationship resolution; i.e. being able to blend with our shadow self in order to be able to have relationships with lovers, husbands, wives, and even how to make a healthier parent to our children. I must say in my experience as a transpersonal counselor that women are much more open to the discovery of their maleness than men are to opening up to the concept of the feminine within them. In counseling both, women seem to want to go anywhere that will lead to getting rid of the mental torture they have experienced through ignorance.
Although I am one who knows that we are right where we are supposed to be, even as a culture, I also support changing the status quo if it is inflicting unbearable pain and confusion, which is how I view the area of sexuality and how to integrate it within one’s self. It is nonsense that we are taught to be “all boy” when we were growing up—thank God for the movie Billy Elliot which dispels that cockamamie notion. I am from the South and to see girly Magnolia Blossoms trained to be compliant daughters and wives is foolish. The route to mental health is to become the woman you always wanted to marry and for women, to become the man you always wanted to be with.
If you want to stay out of the mire and mud of unhealthy sexual conspiracies, resolve to get in touch with your invisible partner, your shadow, in order to be able to have a healthy and workable relationship with the man or woman of your dreams.
QUESTION: Have you taken a hard, cold look at the man or woman you are with to see if you and he or she is mismatched? Explain.
Albert Clayton Gaulden is the founding director of the Sedona Intensive and author of You’re Not Who You Think You Are: A Breakthrough Guide to Discovering the Authentic You. For more information about Albert and Sedona Intensive visit http://www.sedonaintensive.com/.
Purchase You’re Not Who You Think You Are at http://www.yourenotwhoyouthinkyouare.com/
