In the case of people, both sides have them. Feeling is intrinsic to a biological body, but can be voluntarily silenced or sidelined when we’re undergoing micro stresses to macro traumas. Many of us are running from one thing to the next and feeling overrun – so whether we voluntarily or habitually sideline feelings – we’re often out of alignment here. Lack of embodiment in the layers of history is a big topic, layers I can’t go into depth on here. In short, we tend to over-identify with our feelings or numb out. Over-identifying may present as “feeling too much,” though what we’re feeling is often not the feeling itself, but rather our stories about the feeling. As a Buddhist teacher said, this tendency is also known as, “rolling in our feelings.” Whether we shove aside or indulge, the result is the same, we’re at a distance to our bodies and moreover, to experience itself. For example, rather than embodiment being a thing that one is, we turn it into a concept, something to tell stories about. This causes all kinds of problems.

The I in all those instances, is the I of the ego – rooted in what Process Workers call the primary process. The primary process is the set of experiences and presentations that we most identify with, any aspect of identity that is claimed, ie: I’m a woman, I’m a patient person. Material below the waterline is secondary because it is less known. This “below the waterline”is what psychologists call the subconscious – synonymous to unconscious – mind. Process Work builds on the early developments of the unconscious and develops. Mindell named his contribution secondary process. Like the unconscious, secondary process is always happening but we are mostly unconscious of it. 

If primary process is like the ego and secondary process is like the unconscious – why make the distinction? Recalling the first essay in this series, conscious and unconscious are nouns. Primary process and secondary processes indicate worlds. They frame experiences moment to moment and can serve as a snapshot in time. They operationalize – making useful – the storehouse and phenomenology of experience credited to the unconscious expression in 24-hour life. You feel? This is you knowing you, knowing the world through being you. 

Let’s have an experience of the phenomenology of experience now. You can read below, there’s an audio too.

Since what is secondary is largely unknown and what is primary is known and claimed, we often view what is secondary as “not me.” But in between “me” and “not me” is a zone. Depending on the context and the person, this zone could be a line – as in the waterline metaphor – or it could be a wide margin, a landscape of nebulous terrain, land mines, patterns and unclaimed ghosts. We call this zone of separation the edge. It’s a demarcation zone between what we are aware of and cozy with (our primary process) and what is marginalized, emerging or unconscious (secondary process). This material often comes through in body symptoms, involuntary movement, art, altered states, marginalized states, disturbances, flirts, attractors, or in unintended or double signals. It contains the Jungian archetype of the shadow, but it’s also the light, that which we’re unaware of that attracts us. It’s generous, ample and consistent and what I like most of all is, at it’s essence it’s unknowable. Mystery is built in. I digress. Like edges and ecotones in nature where two or more ecological systems come together – as in the boundary between a forest and a river – both in nature and in mentation, edges are highly diverse, productive landscapes. It’s where we grow into and grow out of. It’s where triggers and knee-jerk reactions come from. A place we go dark, get confused, distracted or dissociated and many other behaviors. In any given moment, there could be a lifelong edge and another edge that is fleeting. Typically, I’m against what I don’t know. I have an edge between “me” and “that.” Can you see how conflict comes into play? 

An example: if we build on my primary process above, I had said “I’m a patient person…” Now, what if I find myself in a classroom full of misbehaving nine year olds? Oh no! I’m starting to lose my patience!! Wait!! Now I’m in conflict with myself because I said I was a patient person, but I don’t feel patient in this setting!!! I’m feeling dissonance. In my case, “I don’t want to be an impatient person.” In general, we want to integrate the edge and have an experience over the edge, to claim what is secondary and grow. But that’s oversimplifying it. If I unfold my symptom of impatience, I’ll start to describe the wild students. How one of them in particular is acting out and throwing the rest of the class out of balance. He seems to be diverting the class for his own amusement, he’s asking “stupid questions,” goofing off. OK, let me unfold that. The impatience, it’s like I’ve got an anger in me, I feel defensive of a boundary, I feel injustice, I’m against it. OK – here, I’ve reached what’s secondary. I’m “against this injustice.” In this example, integrating what’s secondary is simple. I’m angry at having to have clear boundaries. I need clear boundaries. My body is telling me to put him in his place.  

Developing relationality at the edge is at the heart of transformation and growth and goes beyond managing conflict. PW offers us a language to that relationality. It may be universal, but it’s for each of us to discover.