Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime
by Marcia Anastasia Rosen-Jones, unpublished manuscript, copyright Random House, 1998.
Introduction
Are you someone who:
1. believes yourself to be worthwhile;
2. is committed to treating others with caring and compassion;
3. is willing to examine and learn from mistakes;
4. invests in truth and seeks out the higher levels of consciousness;
5. has the commitment to set achievable goals and the energy to carry them out;
6. believes yourself to have an integral place in the universal order;
7. has faith and trust in a Higher Power?
Or, are you someone who:
8. hides your true identity;
9. believes others are enemies or that some people are okay and others are not;
10. blames, criticizes or judges others and/or yourself and/or is an elitist;
11. isolates yourself and/or limits your potential;
12. is controlling, resistant and/or defensive to feedback from others;
13. discounts the opinions and emotions of others;
14. leaves relationships when conflict arises?
Each of us comes into life biologically equipped to fight or flee in order to survive, a capability of the primitive or lower brain carried forth from our prehistoric ancestry. As we grow from birth to adulthood, we learn by virtue of our human or higher brain to temper this primitive animal nature that reacts instinctively to threat.
Through the advanced capabilities of the human brain/mind, social learning and the wisdom gained as we grow, we develop civilized, highly sophisticated modes of responding. Nonetheless, throughout this process, our basest survival urges remain, barely evolved, yet typically disguised by the socially appropriate masks we have devised in order to make our way in the world.
Behind our disguises an inner warrior lurks, bred of our archaic instinct to fight or flee. Constantly on guard and intent on protecting us from threat and harm, our primitive animal nature operates dominantly in one of two basic modes within the personality. Which profile fits you in your day-to-day life, that of the Compassionate Warrior (items 1 - 7) or the Dark Side Warrior (8 - 14)? Or, are you somewhere in between?
The Compassionate Warrior, drawing on humanity’s greatest wisdom, has learned to: 1. Transcend primitive impulses to fight or flee (i.e. the stress/survival reaction); 2. Use underlying psychological survival issues that have fueled destructive warrior activities as the impetus to develop wisdom that enhances life; and 3. Honor the Essence within the self and in all other living things. This way of being involves the developing of mastery in the mysterious art of synergizing the various human energy systems: intellect, emotions, the body and spirit. Its ways are extraordinary, exemplified by an open-heart and faith in oneself and/or the Divine. The attributes of items 1 - 7 are among its typical manifestations.
The Dark Side Warrior, on the other hand, is dominated by the baser instincts. Its ways are aggressive and self-protective, driven by survival imperatives that are not necessarily reality-based. This inner warrior’s thinking is linked, biologically, to a savage past that depended upon cunning and/or brute force to stay alive. Today this formidable force can still bubble caustically beneath a civilized countenance in each one of us. The characteristics of items 8 - 14 are manifestations of the Dark Side Warrior’s mode.
While often functioning in an outwardly schooled manner, the Dark Side Warrior has not yet learned the art of working with the human energy systems beyond a rudimentary level. This warrior is still inwardly dominated by its primitive urges, albeit unconsciously, exemplified by a rigid holding to outmoded views and archaic habits of behaving that reinforce a closed or shadowed heart and an absence of faith and trust in oneself and/or a Higher Power.
Where you are on your path of self-discovery, according to the warriors’ profiles will give you a starting point for consideration on how this book might benefit you if you wish to develop the profound art of using the energy systems of your body, mind and spirit to reach your highest levels of consciousness, overall health and well-being and, thus, purposefully direct your personal evolutionary process.
You will see as we move through the pages ahead in this text, Exploring Your Dark Side: The Adventure Of A Lifetime, that the Compassionate Warrior uses its primitive might in a fashion that almost inexplicably springs forth from the Essence, that part of us with which we are born that embodies our spirit and purity. Drawing on primeval powers, originating in the Essence to consciously enhance and look out for the Essence, the Compassionate Warrior is intent on following a path that is illuminated by the source of all life, the Divine. Thus the Compassionate Warrior serves the Essence on its way to wholeness and beyond into the transformation to the Higher Self, the entity that represents the various energy systems working together in their purest forms.
The Dark Side Warrior is, conversely, limited by an antiquated resistance that interferes with health as well as the evolution of consciousness. Its ways are unyielding and unimaginative as this warrior still allows primitive animal instincts to rule the personality to its disadvantage and the detriment of others, rather than utilizing its strength to realize the greatness of which humanity is capable. This entity obscures the fundamental goodness and beauty of the Essence. Thus darkness is subsidized with the body, mind and spirit picking up the tab.
The point that marks a shift in intent from Dark Side Warrior to Compassionate Warrior mode is the point at which we consciously decide to take complete responsibility for the manifestations of our inborn primitive nature, recognizing its potential for harm, and learn the most life-affirming ways possible to work with primordial energies, free of their drawbacks.
While the journey ahead on the new path will be fraught with challenge, the reward will be well worth the effort as it leads us to embrace the richness and fullness of life in ways that go beyond our imaginings. This book, therefore, is somewhat of a celebratory piece, offering you an opportunity to explore the nature and behaviors of a primal part of your personality, the inner warrior, that is first and foremost responsible for your emotional and psychological survival and which can, by your choice, be a destructive element or the strength behind your passion, creativity and love.
With this book, I invite you to begin the adventure of a lifetime, the adventure of purposefully transforming your primeval nature to its highest potential, a transcendent way of living. Our journey will, thus, provide you the chance to live in a fashion that will allow you to consciously convert any of the aspects of your personality still lingering at the savage level, the level of functioning at which you or parts of you are at odds with the world or some parts of it, into Compassionate Warrior ways that are in harmony with all life through a relatively simple method. Do you accept this invitation?
If so, come with me through the pages ahead to: 1. Transform the destructive forces of your personality; 2. Liberate the buried parts of your Essence; 3. Learn how to provide psychological insurance for your physical health; and 4. Discover the untold meaning and joy of living and sharing with others.
Join me on this journey as we explore the archaic aspects of humanity embodied in these two distinctly diverse inner warrior ways; one that encourages the expansion of the Essence, the Compassionate Warrior, the other that daunts it, the Dark Side Warrior. Together we will explore these aspects of the personality and help you build a solid foundation from which you can learn to manage the enormous force of your innate resources, transforming the destructiveness of your animal nature into an exceptional power that can metaphorically move mountains as we work through the lessons on the pages ahead.
“… whoever is not aware of this force in his personality has lost control of it. He has not confronted himself and cannot know where he is headed.”