A Soul Connection

Identity Structures and Moving through the Tree of Life
A Continuation from "Exploring a Kabbalistic View of Nothingness"

Scanning what I’d written yesterday, I had two thoughts:

(1) This depiction of the tree reminds me of what appears to be mythically god-like characters (Keter, Chochmah, and Binah or gods of Will, Wisdom, and Understanding) who are dropping down what looks like a double rope. When the rope hits bottom, it begins to reveal itself as the Tree of Life.

(2) I thought the process, as I’d written it yesterday, reminded me of how the IKH process works . . . with a client, we first make the space (TzimTzum) and within this space is a reflective (and often transparent) quality that enables the two of us to do the work. Usually we begin with wherever the client is in the moment: an issue arising, a concern, a curiosity. But there’s an identity that speaks, sometimes more than one. And, when anyone is stuck (fixed) in any one identity (Nega-Gevurah within Hod?), there is little to no movement, change, growth (Nega-Gevurah within Netzach?). The issue (content) reveals the foundation (Yesod), insubstantial as it may be, where one stands. One built that foundation, even when one might think others built it. Yet rather than blaming oneself, hating oneself, one needs to promote the change and growth that one needs to move from the stuckness – to grow up. The alternative is to remain a sprout that doesn’t have the energy to reach for the Sun and to receive the nourishment, the nutrients, necessary for growth.

Until one is aware of the Truth of the situation, the stuckness, the complete and utter imbalance in Life that this identification causes, there is no desire to change, no desire for growth. When this desire to change is accompanied with the awareness of the Truth of ‘what is,’ one stands in the midst of Tiferet. At this point, as one can sense the harmony of Reality Itself AND simultaneously realizes the wanting to become unstuck, one may be inspired to remember, to “check in” with Reality often (directly, in present time) in an effort to stay as awake as possible (conscious) of this point that includes both ‘what is’ AND ‘wanting to unstick’ (relax?).

Now, the harmony of Reality doesn’t need to feel like Heaven, like some might think. Who really even knows what Heaven feels like anyway? Actually, maybe a better way to say it is that one can be in-harmony with Reality. From a place of harmony, there’s no automatic reaction to the experience; there’s clarity; and, ‘right action’ is evident. Right action is crystal clear. Why? Because one is in present time. Automatic reactions come from past time, which is something one has learned from the personal historic past.

Gevurah-like Nature of Identity Structures
All identities are structures in our body/mind/soul. These structures are fixed and constrict by their very nature. Young children, however, play with identities. A young child can expand (1) personal self-boundaries, their sense of self, to include identity structures that they’re curious about exploring. This exploration is relatively easy for young children since their sense of self is tenuous until age six or seven – the structures that comprise the personality/ego is still forming until that age. So, to young children, these structures are as disposable as the cardboard boxes they love to imagine as forts and castles. In play, young children don the garments of an identity that they’re interested in exploring. The garments include not only clothing, like cowboy boots or ballerina tutus, but also the assumed character traits the child imagines might go with the chosen character-identity.

These character-identities created during play come and go easily for the young child, depending on the interest and explorative nature of the child. These identities are imaginary and are chosen by the child. Depending on the depth of imagination available, the identities can be perceived as real ‘temporarily’. In play, the young child temporarily leaves collective reality to enjoy a wonderfully imaginative world that exists in the child’s mind.

As so-called adults, our identities are also donned like garments, yet most of our identities are not chosen consciously, however; and, these identity-structures (fixed-structures) form fixed-personalities. The structure of the fixed-personality thickens and becomes more and more rigid with age. Within this rigid-fixedness, there is no room, no place for growth or for change. And through this fixed-personality lens, one participates in a fixed-reality without dynamism, flow, potentiality – a narrow, lifeless dead-zone. True Nature itself is obscured, hidden from the individual.

The very basis of an identity-structure foundation is formed from a mistaken identity -- “this is who I am.” Some time in the past, the child perceived something to be true based on a mis-perception of the reality of an experience. The child is never taught how to “check out” reality, so the identity becomes a fixed-structure in the personality. This personality retains a fixed-belief about the way reality is and his/her relationship with that reality resulting in the world being created in the image of this belief born from a quite innocent mis-perception.

To be continued . . .


(1) This capability to expand has a Hesedic-quality where there’s more space for creativity and flow.