Essays ·
The Value of the Difficult Unconscious
Sometimes, the most useful teacher is the difficult unconscious.
When our experience doesn’t match that of others, we often tend to shift blame to ourselves. That doesn’t have to be the case.
When our own mind gives us difficulties, it feels like a hindrance to our personal growth and development.
Even more so in a culture where instant miraculous results and trauma are overplayed and overdramatised.
The truth of the matter is there is treasure in the difficulty, provided we know how to look.
From creativity, neurodivergence, entrepreneurship, chronic conditions, and other singular life experiences, that pattern is the same.
Something is different.
We follow what we’re told, we apply the methods the way they are supposed to be applied, we watch others get results, and yet for us the needle barely moves.
There was a time I wished things were easier, but I’ve come to realise in the face of impossibility lies the wisdom of great creativity.
In the age of AI things get more and more automated. The world moves faster and faster. It’s both amazing and scary.
Yet this tendency for speed and automaticity we have as humans is not new. We always had it. We always wanted it. That’s also why we create all these different innovations.
And when it comes to personal development, this desire is present in many different ways as well.
We not only talk about manifesting, hypnosis, the power of the unconscious mind and energy healing but also how these can bring you automatic, magical and miraculous results. Getting rid of that phobia, that chronic pain, stopping smoking and aligning energy to manifest in simple and easy ways captures our attention.
And here’s the truth.
There are often times when change does work like that. That intense issues and habits, negative mental patterns we’ve held for years, can simply drop like an old cloth we don’t need anymore. There are strategic ways to make it happen. I know because I have successfully applied some of these methods to myself and others.
But here’s another truth.
These approaches, while intriguing, don’t work for every person and every instance.
It’s almost like our own mind says:
“That’s not the way for you to have that yet!”
Not never. Not impossible. Just not this way and not right now.
When we first meet that; That Can Hurt.
It is moments like these we may feel we are failing, or that our own mind can feel like it’s being difficult. And if this happens again and again we may even start thinking we are difficult or resistant.
It can feel like being at a party we can’t escape where our worst music is playing on repeat.
The danger here is not experiencing the difficulty, but letting it translate into the idea we are not capable.
So what do we do when the automations and the magical solutions don’t deliver?
Then we are called towards a different task. We need to look for our own tune.
The question becomes not only how to make things work, but also what the fact that things don’t work is pointing at.
And there is wisdom in that.
My own self growth journey through healing and hypnosis has had plenty of instances like that. Even from the very beginning.
When I learned my first hypnosis techniques I was expecting to get the same awesome results applying them as everyone else. But the first person I used them with showed me that this is not always the case.
Things were difficult. There was eagerness, there was enthusiasm but for reasons back then unknown to me and them, nothing seemed to work. It was very frustrating and felt like a failure. Because I still cared to make it happen.
So I decided to study and look deeper.
Same thing happened when I started helping people heal from chronic pain.
There were people I could help in one session. It was amazing.
And there were other people, myself included, where things had more friction. And if I was expecting quick and easy results it seemed we were not moving forward. There the path was longer. And it required more effort. I learned to appreciate that.
Not surprisingly my own issues with chronic pain had the same character too. The miraculous methods taught to me, which worked so well for my colleagues seemed to not apply to my main issues. I couldn’t join the hype. It made me feel scared, and alone.
Until I realised when that happens there is something else being asked from us.
Back then I didn’t know what that was so I started looking, reading, searching, for something deeper, for the missing piece of the puzzle. From a selfish point of view I was mainly looking to cure my ignorance.
And here is what I discovered.
What is needed is not something with more effort. But a deeper awareness in how things actually work. How the pieces of the puzzle are stitched together in their most fundamental form.
When things are difficult beyond the obvious, the normative and the familiar we are being asked to dive into the process itself.
To look at the small steps.
The fine transitions.
The assumptions one rarely names because in most cases they just hold.
We start noticing things that are usually left unseen.
In the beginning it is infinitely frustrating. It feels like being stuck with something that should be extremely simple.
Yet this is the space where interesting things start to happen. Still unnamed, still elusive, still confusing. Until we start giving them form and shape, smell and texture.
Because when automatic solutions work like magic, that also becomes their weakest spot.
They hide from us the distinctions necessary to discover what lies beyond.
I still remember one of my first realisations when I left Greece to study abroad in the UK, at the University of Cambridge.
In the dining hall, while everyone was chatting, I remember the moment my mind distanced itself from the conversation as clarity descended into it.
It was not about any of my mathematics and physics courses. It was about something more essential, much simpler, almost trivial and yet overlooked.
How assumptions about the best ways of doing things are different among cultures. How what my fellow students from different countries found natural was different from what I had been taught to consider as such and I had never questioned.
And I came to realise that because I sought to be better in physics, not sociology or anthropology.
When everyone around us shakes their heads agreeing about the nature of things it can be difficult to see beyond our bubble.
How can we then really know we have the best solution at hand?
So if you sense you are having difficulty placing yourself, that your own life story and experiences don’t easily match what you observe out there, or if you feel that you can’t move forward while others do, there is a way for that.
In the face of possible despair know this only means there is another path for you to take.
It is not the straight and fast path.
It is not the easy path.
It is often a crooked path.
Sometimes in the beginning a lonely path.
But it is a path where you get to notice and discover things others often don’t.
You start discovering the internal conditions that make things work.
You start understanding why something works for someone, and why it doesn’t for someone else.
That is where the treasures are.
This path forces you into the micro-structure of experience.
Into the fundamental components of change.
When I first came across the typical hypnotic methods not working, I had to look deeper.
Initially I tried to perfect the technique but the improvement was only marginal. So I was led to search inside the mechanism of what actually creates change. Intimately connecting with what actually shifts something inside a person. And how that can be adapted to the person in front of me.
And when today I am able to share this depth with other people, we create priceless moments of sacred appreciation.
Yet here’s the catch. Some of the things you will discover will seem vastly significant to you but others won’t care and may not need them. Some of the things you will discover will only verify what is already known, just with better resolution.
Yet some of your discoveries will really add new ideas and perspectives.
You will find points that are typically overlooked, that challenge assumptions taken for granted.
And that’s where new directions open.
That’s where you start serving the people who are not served.
The difficulty we experience from our unconscious mind is the same difficulty an explorer experiences when they attempt to find a new place not yet on the map. They deal with the unknown not only to them, but also to most.
It’s easy to follow the usual map of the known territory, less easy to move around when the map is unknown but the territory familiar and quite challenging creating the way in territory that may not even exist. Yet once found, there it is.
In such circumstances I’ve found our role goes beyond healing. Our role is to discover.
To see what is not seen. To say what is not said. And offer it back.
Healing, therapy & coaching then becomes a function we perform in the service of our bigger quest.
So if this captures your experience know most people sooner or later find there are two options available.
The first is to continue on the usual path. Repeat the same methods. Assume that more effort, more repetition, more fixing is the answer. And sometimes it is.
But sometimes repetition just deepens the confusion.
Or you can explore.
You can look at what is not working, not as failure, but as information.
You can look at what the process assumes.
You can find where those assumptions don’t hold for you.
And take it from there.
Since once you find it, you can point to it. Name it. And expand it.
To turn it into something that has value not only for you, but for others.
This is the gold.
It is like putting your finger in the stretchy fabric of reality, finding your special spot, and as you press towards it you expand, nucleating a new universe of perception into relevance.
That’s the power of difficulty.
So if you feel you have a difficult unconscious, be good with it.
It may not be the easiest teacher.
But quite often, a very useful one.