In the early days of modern psychology, Assagioli, learned that although people can “hide” difficult experience from themselves, these hidden aspects continue to shape and influence our understanding and responses. Equally, although we benefit from moments of heightened insight and understanding, he noticed that we can also hold these out of our awareness.

Whilst acknowledging the short-term psychological wisdom of limiting ourselves in certain ways, he championed the value of building our capacity to tolerate not only the initial discomfort of some of our more fundamental drives and hurts, but also to embrace the sometimes challenging implications of our higher callings and insights.

Assagioli considered that both the powerful basic drives and the compelling higher callings are equally experiences of what he called Will, an inevitable and essential life force - “Will is always present”. He saw how our immediate experience of the world comes through our senses and feelings, shaped and filtered through personal situation and history.

This filtering and shaping process can happen with or without our direct attention – just as when driving a car, for example, we make many micro-decisions without really noticing. Directing awareness to these drives and callings strengthens our capacity to be able to bring our repertoire of responses into the moment, and to choose how we engage the world in order to be more true to the outcomes we desire.

Such participation allows us to experience ourselves as a central point of awareness - Personal Centre of Identity - within a field of Consciousness, and of Will: increasingly, we notice our experiences and direct our responses, becoming less attached to our psychological habits or defenses, and more aware and responsive to the wider system of which we are both “part and parcel”.   The world itself becomes both our guide and affirmation, inviting us into an ever more enriching and enriched communion with all that expresses and enables Life.