...and the scary part is that you think you are in full control of your thoughts, wants, and feelings.
Really?
Let's run a simple mental exercise — small scale, before we invoke Freud and dark depths.
Simply decide that from today, you're in bed by ten, ten-thirty tops. No melting in front of the screen, no demolishing containers of snacks. And you rise every morning at five-thirty, fresh and vigorous after healthy sleep.
How many times have you tried that — and failed?
Doesn't that strike you as odd?
Because if all our inner processes were conscious and logical, why can't we simply ORDER the mind to do the right thing every night — banking vital hours of sleep and shedding stubborn kilograms?
Because your mind is populated by a herd of unconscious parts. That's why.
This concept — presented to Western culture most famously in 1900 — is hard, hard to digest: something significant steers our fate, we have no idea what it is, and we certainly don't control it.
That's the main nuisance with the unconscious: it isn't conscious.
It is also, in fact, the foundation of every psychological treatment method: what you see is not what it is. The overwhelming majority of therapies assume a person is blind to significant processes that dictate his fate. In other words — one reason you suffer is that you never properly understood who is playing against whom inside your own head.
(It's also why psychologists are considered condescending, with some justice. And it's one reason therapy works: it directs your attention to processes you weren't aware of.)
The unconscious is often treated as a horror concept — a sewer of dark urges that heaven help us if we fail to restrain. Maybe it's time to strip off the gothic aura, bring the idea down to earth, and ask practically: how do you live with an unconscious?
a. First — accept that it exists.
The unconscious is here to stay. Make peace with this: there will be unexplained regions in your life. There will be episodes of self-sabotage. You cannot neutralize them completely. What you CAN do is learn their patterns and correct for them. If you're soft and pleasant as a squirrel, but you wake from every afternoon nap raging like a green giant — notice it, and keep away from humans for fifteen minutes after waking. And if an ugly remark escaped you at the person you love most (courtesy of some repressed childhood grievance, no doubt), summon the conscious, adult parts quickly to clear the rubble the unconscious left behind. In other words: apologize.
b. Talk to yourself with zero nonsense.
I'm not asking you to confess your intimate feelings to every passerby. But at minimum — don't lie to yourself. Honest, brave introspection can open a door to defusing unconscious material. It's fine to criticize the strict boss out loud, as long as you admit within your own four walls that some of the heat she generates in you is not purely professional. And you may of course be polite and kind to the neighbor, while acknowledging deep down that you're soaked in envy of him. (You may even secretly wish for his downfall. No one will hear.)
c. A tip: the less rational a behavior looks, suspect an unconscious driver.
If a person keeps "forgetting" to pay the electricity bill and cheerfully absorbs the double fine; if a capable young man delays submitting simple reports just in time to be embarrassed in front of everyone — suspect that an unconscious element has taken the controls. Maybe it's a symbolic rebellion against authority. Maybe he's re-staging an old feeling that he is a bad child who must be punished. Who knows. The rule stands: illogical behavior, especially the kind that visibly damages a person's own interests, hints at unconscious forces at work.
d. Advanced tip: if you can't decode the motive — look at the RESULT of the behavior.
This is one of the profession's quietly effective secrets. Often a person behaves in a way that simply looks bizarre, and everyone asks: why does he act like this? Since the unconscious operates by winding, costumed routes, the main way to understand what drives the behavior is to look at what it ACHIEVES. Quick example: the colleague who, every lunch break, corners the room with long, tactless stories nobody asked for, ignoring the fact that nobody is listening. Look at the result over time: people keep their distance from him — at lunch and through the workday. Nobody knocks on his door. Unconsciously, that may be exactly what he wanted: to be left alone.
What you see is not what it is. Learn your own patterns — they run you either way. Better to hold the map.