["Boredom is a nearly infallible signal of the Censor's presence. For the Censor's realm is gray and dull. When we are possessed, we do not necessarily feel great pain or shame or guilt. We become numb. Numbness may be preferable to great pain, and the dullness of not feeling may be the benefit we obtain by obedience to the Censor's strictures. But, of course, when we deny our pain we also lose the potential for changing the conditions that are hurting us.
The Censor appears in the inner landscape as fog, dullness, the blankness of nothingness, of shutting down. Elisabeth went through a series of trance journeys in which a recurring theme was the arising of fog that would inevitably block or dissipate whatever power she had gathered.
She goes to the forest, in the west, where nothing grows on a plowed field, and the air seems misty, chilly. She has a hard time seeing clearly, as if a film keeps her one step removed. It makes her angry.
She breathes her anger up. "I want to rip open whatever's between me and the forest." She makes sounds, screams, then stops.
"I'm tiring. There's no resistance, nothing to push against. I keep forgetting I'm angry. I'm floating, I forget that I'm on the edge of the forest. I have to pull back, be aware of whatever's blocking my sight."
"I have an image of a lion prowling, pacing, at the edge of the barrier, clawing, tearing, bellowing… it's a part of me, a powerful uncontrolled part…. it feels like it's gathering energy, pacing back and forth— it's a big lion…" Then silence.
The Censor's fog can take hold of a group, a relationship, a life, as a feeling of deadness, weariness, boredom. The Censor's presence is felt as an absence—of feeling, passion, energy. At other times the room may echo as screaming, but nothing is really moving. We can easily mistake noise for emotion, creating dramas that function like the illusionist's mirrors, distracting the eye from what is really going on.
When I was practicing as a therapist, my dog Arnold always lay on the rug in my office. Half Australian sheepdog, half husky, he appeared with his mottled coat and differently-colored eyes to be a six-year-old cubist's idea of a wolf, but he was infallibly empathetic and not easily fooled. Clients could dramatize their emotions, could scream, yell, and throw things, and he would lie quietly at my feet. But whenever someone was in real distress, whether they were crying aloud or sitting absolutely silent, he would jump up, nuzzle them, and try to comfort them by licking their faces. He would do the same for me whenever I was upset, comforting me when I was pretending to myself that everything was fine.
We can't all have Arnold to help us. We can, however, learn to be aware of our own inner response to the Censor's presence. When someone is emoting, and we find ourselves feeling bored, some truth is not being said. We may be censoring our own pain, tension, or anger. Or the real issue causing pain may still be hidden.
What is helpful at such times is to stop and ask, what is going on here? What are we not saying? Why do I feel confused? Why am I not reacting in the way I think I should? Opening the process up to mutual questioning, admitting the fuzziness and unclarity of our feelings, undermines the Censor's grip. Beware, however, of jumping into the role of the Judge, telling other people what they are really feeling.
Asking questions is a useful tool, but the Censor can turn our tools into new strictures and forms of control. Many excellent group processes and aids to expression of emotion have been developed by feminists, the radical psychiatry movement, the reevaluation co-counseling movement, and others. But when the tools become formulas, they reinforce the Censor's underlying message that feelings are not okay in their raw state. For example, I-messages can be helpful when expressing anger. Saying, "I feel angry when you forget to do your dishes," will cause less hurt than saying, "You asshole! How many of your goddamned cups do I have to wash?" But when a family, a group, or a couple has a spoken or unspoken rule that the only acceptable way to express annoyance is with I-messages, they have reinstalled the Censor in a new form. Now the person who is mad becomes "bad" for being angry improperly— but anger's very essence is that its energy moves beyond what is "proper" or permitted. The more jargon we must use to confront each other or express ourselves, the more formal our processes for "feeling-sharing," the less we can simply and clearly say what we mean.
In a group a family, or a relationship, we can, however, expect people to take responsibility for what they do say, to stand behind their words and work through any hurt or misunderstanding they cause. If you call someone an asshole, you'd better be willing to stand there and finish the argument, not run off to your room and sulk. If you are trying to work with people who are different from you in their culture or history, who may have different associations with words or tones of expression, you might choose your words carefully. If you consistently hear from others that the way you express yourself hurts others, consider changing. For the power we reclaim from the Censor is also the power to contain our feelings, and the clarity to know when to speak and when we might be wiser to keep silent. When we know what we are feeling, we have a choice.
The only rule I would propose for groups is, Say anything you want, in any way you want, but take responsibility for it. Consider the impact that what you say and how you say it have on others, and then tell the truth.
When we risk expressing our feelings, and take responsibility for our actions, we can also see clearly what we are not responsible for. The fog rolls away. We can know how we have been hurt and know that we do not cause our own victimization by protesting it or by expressing our pain. We can take action to hold accountable those who have and do hurt us.
We can also assess the situation we find ourselves in and predict possible consequences. For the power to keep silent is one of the traditional four powers of the magician. (The others are to know, to will, and to dare.) Openly expressing our feelings does make us vulnerable— and being vulnerable is not always a good idea. Where power is unequal, the person with less power who expresses vulnerability risks getting eliminated. When we don't have to conceal our own feelings and perceptions from ourselves, we can make decisions about what to say and whom to trust.
Not everyone is trustworthy. Just as the Defender prevents us from seeing who our real enemies are by painting everyone as a threat to be conquered, the Censor prevents us from seeing who we can or cannot trust with our feelings. Without the possibility of silence there can be no true intimacy or trust. We need to know that confidence can be kept, that our secrets can be respected, that we, not someone else, will choose to whom our story is revealed.
Each of us has something unique to bring into the world. Powers exist that only you can bring to life; a perspective exists in you that is yours alone. No one else can speak your truth for you or give birth to your vision.
When we reclaim our responsibility for our own gift, our own truth, we also reclaim the ability to connect. For the acceptance that comes when we share our true selves, the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, becomes the real love that can warm and shelter us."]
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