Your Success Set Point and Journey to the Underworld
Laura Shaw
Recently a client asked me why she has absolutely no motivation despite all her free time and resources to do nearly anything she could imagine. I said, “That’s really healing” and she replied, “What the heck are you talking about, I’m miserable!”
How many times have we longed for more time and freedom? If only I had the time to exercise, to cook nutritious meals, to spend time with my kids, to rest, to organize my space, to finish my book... Now we have the time and we can’t handle it.
Here’s how it works. Everyone has a certain set point for how much success they can tolerate. By success I mean time, money, intimacy, happiness… anything that we desire. When our set point starts to change and be challenged such as with having more time, then we offset it with mental anguish, fear, getting sick, getting busy with new things, or panicking about money, thus arriving at the same set point.
What has been interesting to notice about the pandemic is how people have unconsciously adapted their set point to their shelter in place. Stress that would have been experienced at a job, for example, now becomes stress in the relationship. Or, in my client’s case, the stress of “should.” People who are always Very Busy are still somehow Very Busy.
Working on the set point is where you get Real Results. We want to increase our tolerance to having more time, money, intimacy, and happiness. The ego’s job is to maintain the set point. So we have to figure out how to gently work with the ego at the edge of our tolerance, or set point, in order to be able to tolerate more.
Some of the most effective ways to change your set point in order to allow yourself to have a better life are: meditation, creative projects, some types of therapy, and certain types of breath and body work. The common ingredient in these approaches that work is being fully present in the moment.
Being present with whatever you are experiencing is the answer to most problems. The problem with that answer is it sounds pretty lame. I know this because I used to hate all the “woo woo” stuff. It can also be confusing because how exactly do you be present? However, it was the only thing that ultimately worked for me in my life, so I started paying attention and looking more into it.
The need to feel productive and like we are Doing Something useful, valuable or important with our time is common and part of how we got into this mess in the first place. The problem is that we are addicted to doing, to improving, to making things happen. We are also addicted to approval and acknowledgement. Without the feedback loop of approval, we can find that we lack intrinsic motivation.
This is a major problem with our school system and where a lot of us learned the habit of seeking approval from authority. In school, we are motivated to get good grades and score well on tests. We are primed to regurgitate information in order to please the authorities instead of learning for its own sake or doing work for the personal satisfaction of a job well done. This makes it much harder later to figure who we are and what we are truly interested in because the ability to hear and be motivated from our deepest selves has atrophied and been replaced with outwardly-directed achievement and approval seeking behavior.
You may be tired and sleeping more right now, but then beating yourself up for it. The truth is, you are tired. You have likely been running and producing and so very busy and important that you are exhausted and many have residual exhaustion. Most people need rest. In fact, rest is one of the best healers that there is because it allows your body the time and resources it needs to repair itself. On a global level, Earth needs to rest and repair itself. Our bodies are no different. Sleep is doing something. Sleep is also a feminine aspect of consciousness and places us in touch with our unconscious, with our shadow and with our dreams. We need this balance in order to be healthy.
Masculine energy is productive and gets things done. However, when it is out of balance, we have problems such as an inability to sleep, to allow, to play, to create, or even to destroy, all of which are feminine aspects of existence. Our culture in general has been out of balance for a long time and the pandemic seeks to re-balance us each individually, but also collectively. The extent to which we surrender to this transformation will dictate how much we end up suffering from it. The suffering comes from attachment to our habitual ways of relating to life.
The motivation my client previously had was an ego-based false motivation. We can want money for a sense of security, success for approval from others, and a relationship for comfort. However, those motivations are all based on our ego wanting to feel better and to protect itself from deep existential questions about the true nature of wealth, sense of purpose, intimacy and interdependence.
The shelter in place orders have forced us all to go into a retreat we didn't choose. Much like taking monastic vows, we’ve had to give up many of our ego’s habitual reference points. We’ve given up many of our favorite “escapes” such as shopping, eating certain foods, working, and social interactions. One of the main purposes of monastic vows is to create guidelines to facilitate a stronger connection to the true nature of your existence; to take away the noise and distractions.
My client’s truth is that she is miserable. She has probably been miserable for a long time underneath all of her distractions, but now she is having an opportunity to feel it and to heal it. She is at her ground zero of her existence. She is asking herself the question, if I’m not busy, not productive, not improving, then what good am I? Almost every major problem at its root comes down to an existential issue. We are usually too distracted to get to the root cause of our suffering.
Finding yourself in the pit of despair with total lack of motivation is a good thing. Here is why:
The pit of despair is a powerful place and should be celebrated, which is, of course, nearly impossible to do when you’re in the pit of despair. You are at the root cause of your problems. If you can stay there and be present with your experience, you can reap profound benefits once you crawl out of the pit.
The problem is we don’t want to be uncomfortable and it seems easier to numb it out. Or, we cover up the root sources of our suffering with other avoidance tactics such a demanding life or job, a crummy relationship, money problems, and so forth. The list is endless and we can be very creative, albeit unconsciously, with our distractions.
As we unconsciously try to avoid the root source of our pain, we can further distract ourselves from healing by trying to “fix” the problem. If we can only find the right supplement, the right mantra, get our hips to release, or think the right thoughts, then we will feel better. And while these approaches are valuable and will be effective at first, there is still a subtle energy of fixing associated with these approaches which is why they ultimately won’t address the problem. The key is to be present instead of running around trying to fix yourself.
What ultimately heals is loving presence. Presence with yourself, presence with your pain. This presence is non-judgemental. There is no story. There is no panel of experts. There is no doing. There is no trying to fix. Loving presence means accepting, and experiencing yourself. When you learn how to be a loving presence for yourself, you will have the antidote to anything that comes your way and also the secret to fulfilling your dreams.
We have to start with the premise that our experience, whatever it is, is somehow perfect for us, and use that as our starting point. So when you are forced to be in your dark place with no escape, this is a good thing because it removes all the false ladders of escaping the pit. There is nowhere to go, no way to get out.
No escape.
You are forced to sit in it.
Forced to be with yourself.
But how to actually be present with our experience? Here are a few tips.
Try to be still. Moving, whether physical or mental tends to distract us from our experience.
Breathe. Simple and foolproof. You can even count your breaths if you’re in a really tough spot. Or you can count to four for the inhale and six for the exhale.
Use your body as a way to stay present. Notice what you experience in your body - is there any tingling, any tightness, anything heavy, any areas that are warmer or colder than others?
Allow yourself to experience the emotions without a cast of characters and major story-line. They are a sign that you are detoxing and letting go of your limitations.
If you start to think about your grocery list, or make up a story about what you are experiencing, just gently bring your mind back to your breath or to what you are experiencing in your body, much like you would a puppy who has strayed off the yard.
Our body and breath are the strongest, most effective tools to help us be present with our experience and they are available to us at all times.
You can’t do it wrong.
Because most of our life is designed to avoid the root causes of suffering at all costs, it can be difficult to get to the pit of despair. Once you are there it is a powerful place for transformation. By the time you are in the pit of despair, you have been stripped of everything on which you normally hang your self-definition and self-worth. All of your normal “fixes” and distractions are gone. Your suffering comes down an existential issue. What is the point of my life? This is the ultimate question that we are all asking all of the time, the problem is that it’s usually covered up and we only have to face it in times of crisis and loss.
The good news is that once we face our deepest fears and questions of worth, then we can live our lives more purposefully, more authentically, with less time and energy wasted on avoidance, distraction, and things that don’t align with who we truly are.
The Descent of Inanna
A helpful story to remember as we are descending into our personal pit of despair, is The Descent of Inanna, an ancient Sumerian myth in which, Inanna, who it the goddess of love, fertility, wisdom and war visits her recently widowed sister, Ereshkigal who is the Queen of the underworld.
In the myth, Ereshkigal forces Inanna to go through seven gates in order to reach her in the underworld. At each gate, Inanna must leave one aspect of her identity - her crown of heaven; her scepter, symbolizing her power and work; her jewels, symbolizing wealth; her clothes, symbolizing her beauty and sexuality; and so forth finally leaving her name at the last gate and arriving completely naked and alone in the underworld. When her sister sees her, instead of being happy to see her, she judges her, kills her and then hangs her on a meat hook. Not quite the reception that Inanna was hoping for.
“The annuna, the judges of the underworld, surrounded her
They passed judgment against her.
Then Ereshkigal fastened on Inanna the eye of death
She spoke against her the word of wrath
She uttered against her the cry of guilt
She struck her.
Inanna was turned into a corpse”
(Wolkstein and Kramer, 60)
While Inanna is rotting on a meat hook in the Underworld, her sister is wailing and rocking in despair over the loss of her beloved husband.
Meanwhile, in the upper world, Inanna’s trusted servant and advisor, Ninshubur notices that she’s been gone for three days and three nights and sends for help. Most of the other gods and goddesses won’t mess with the underworld, but finally Enki, the god of water, creation, and mischief, agrees to help and the way that he helps is key to how we can help ourselves when we find ourselves in the pit of despair. Enki helps by scraping some gunk out from under his fingernails and fashioning it into two androgynous beings called, galla. The galla are able to enter the underworld undetected and quickly find Ereshkigal and Inanna.
Ereshkigal is a mess, as anyone who has gone through a major loss and grieving process understands.
“No linen was spread over her body
Her breasts were uncovered
Her hair swirled around her head like leeks”
(Wolkstein and Kramer, 63-66)
Ereshkigal is moaning and crying and rocking back and forth and the two galla mirror her sounds and movement. She rocks and cries, they rock and cry. This goes on for a bit until Ereshkigal stops and becomes aware of her surroundings. She finally feels heard and seen and met in her suffering by these amorphous, innocuous beings.
In her gratitude for their sympathy, she offers them a gift. They choose Inanna who is taken off the meat hook and given the food and water of life which revives her. She then returns to the land of the living after reversing the process of the seven gates, re-choosing her name, her clothing, her beauty, her wealth, her power and so forth.
No one gets out of the underworld without paying a price, and, much like the Demeter/Persephone myth, someone has to take her place in the underworld. Since her sons and faithful servants were wearing sackcloth and grieving appropriately when she returns, none of them were chosen. However, her consort, Dumuzi didn’t even notice that she was gone and was galavanting about ancient Mesopotamia “dressed in his shining…garments…on his magnificent throne”. She orders the demons to seize him and take him to the underworld in her stead. He tries to escape by turning into a snake, but they get him anyway. His sister, Geshtinanna, offers to take his place for half of the year, and hence we have the seasons.
As you can imagine, the Jungian analysts have a field day with The Descent of Inanna because it is so rich with symbolism. They view Inanna and Ereshkigal as unhealed parts of the same person and also as Every Person and the journey that we all must go through in order to become whole, complete and healthy psychologically.
Inanna represents our externalized self and our roles in the upper world. Ereshkigal is the shadow self of Inanna, representing everything that is unresolved, un-felt, and unconscious. It is only through Inanna becoming vulnerable and open to meeting and integrating her suffering that she is made whole and allowed to be reborn.
The keys here for us are: firstly, that the underworld is a powerful (and dangerous place) for healing and transformation. You might feel like you’re dying and parts of who you thought you were probably will die in the process.
A second key is in Ereshkigal’s reception of Inanna. After all the trouble that Inanna goes through to visit her and attend her brother-in-law’s funeral rites, Ereshkigal is not happy to see Inanna. Quite the opposite. She judges and condemns her based on the rules of the underworld. This represents how the shadow part of ourselves - our unfelt emotions, our unrealized dreams, our wounded inner child and other disowned and unconscious parts of ourselves can feel so hurt and neglected that our responses don't make sense and we can’t even perceive love and support.
A third key is that the way out is the compassion and empathy that the galla show Ereshkigal. The galla are able to get close to her because they have no ego, no story, no agenda. They don’t try to fix her or placate her with platitudes such as, “this too shall pass” or distract her with pinot noir and Ben and Jerry’s. The galla are simply a neutral, safe, loving presence, much like a good friend or therapist can be. It is when Ereshkigal feels heard and seen that she is able to respond to her situation and incorporate the parts of herself that Inanna represents.
It is interesting to note that Innana sees her partner, Dumuzi, in a totally different light once she comes out of the underworld. This is common when one person does their deep dive and inner work and their significant other or close friends aren't in tune with their process. It can become a problem and some relationships fall off because they no longer fit or have been outgrown.
A final key takeaway is the symbolic shedding at each of the seven gates to the underworld of all of our sources of self-definition and self-worth. We have to shed our labels, attachments, identity and be stripped from everything that ties us to our perceived self in order to rebuild ourselves in a new, authentic way that comes from choice. When Inanna comes back out of the underworld, she consciously chooses each of her definitions of herself, now knowing full well that they do not define her at the deepest level.
This story can be helpful to keep in mind when we are in the midst of a healing crisis or feeling like nothing is working. It is a reminder that we might need to descend to our own depths and sit there rotting on a symbolic meat hook until we can be lovingly present with ourselves and our suffering in the way that the galla were present with Ereshkigal in her suffering.
In this way, we can be glad to be so miserable because we know that we are at the root cause of our problems and lack of fulfillment. We can find some small comfort and the strength to persevere in knowing that we are truly healing and transforming at a deep level, and that there is nothing else to do but to be present in the moment with our experience.