How To Do Existential Kink – the simple (but not easy) steps of this remarkably effective polarity integration methodology
How to Do Existential Kink Meditation – written by Carolyn Elliott
So there are basically three steps to Existential Kink meditation.
I’ll discuss those in a moment, but first…
–A Note of Caution–
If you’re currently depressed, I do not recommend trying to do Existential Kink meditation, as you might just end up more frustrated.
Why?
Because Existential Kink requires some healthy levels of energy and perspective and humor to work, and those are qualities we lack when we’re depressed.
So if you currently have depression, I would recommend that you first focus on pulling yourself out of that swamp before you embark on this kind of intensive shadow integration work.
Brahmavihara Cultivation is something that can help a great deal with depression.
I’ve also found that it’s best to approach Existential Kink meditation when you’re calm and in a relatively good mood.
So if you’re very upset at a given situation, I recommend that you first use the Consciousness Focusing method described by Ken Keyes Jr. in the Handbook to Higher Consciousness to get centered and to lighten up.
If you’re not super-upset but just a bit resentful or stressed out by a given situation, I heartily recommend that you first use the Work of Byron Katie as a “warm up” for Existential Kink. You can learn all about that at www.thework.com.
When you get very practiced at it, you can apply an Existential Kink attitude on-the-spot in various situations in your life to immediately change your experience of them from pain to pleasure, but as a foundation I suggest that you set aside 30 minutes to practice Existential Kink each day as a meditation.
I usually do Existential Kink work during the late afternoon or evening. It’s a good idea to write in your Magical Diary about any shifts or realizations that you experience during a session of Existential Kink meditation.
The Steps of Existential Kink meditation:
Step One: Identify some situation in your life that your conscious mind, your ego, does not like. For the purpose of your first time through this course, the “don’t like” situation that you identify should be the one that inspired you to choose your goal. So for example, if you’ve chosen “an easy and fun monthly income that’s $5000 more than my expenses” as your aim for this course, then your “don’t like” situation might be being stuck in scarcity or poverty or a not-fun job.
For another example, if you’ve chosen “an increase in my psychic ability that’s reflected by a clairvoyant premonition in my dreams every week” as your aim for this course, then your “don’t like” situation might be feeling psychically dull or ignorant.
For a final example, if you’ve chosen “a wonderful new lover” as your aim for this course, then your “don’t like” situation might be single-hood or a history of attracting lovers who ultimately aren’t right for you. And so on.
So, here I am, I see this situation in my life – I realize that my conscious mind hates it. It’s boring, it’s limiting, it’s ugly, it sucks: I want it to end and go away as fast as possible. I can’t stand it, it’s embarrassing, it’s tiring, I want it to end.
Excellent.
Step Two: Gently allow yourself to get in touch with the shadow part of yourself that actually, passionately wants this situation.
The second step of the Existential Kink meditation process is to sit or lie down somewhere private and take some time to gently, vulnerably allow yourself to get in touch with the previously unconscious part of you that desires this “don’t like” situation.
To increase your self-honesty here, it can help to strongly imagine that the “don’t like” situation will be utterly and completely miraculously removed from your life in just one month from now, as if “by the hand of god” – and since the “don’t like” situation is going to be inevitably, totally removed anyway (you allow yourself to imagine), you can relax, open up, and allow yourself to feel how much a secret part of you enjoys it and cherishes it right now.
Experiment with playfully saying things to yourself like “I’m willing to stop pretending I don’t enjoy this” or “I’m willing to allow myself to know about my secret desire for XYZ” or “I can feel and enjoy my desire for XYZ without having to judge it negatively.”
If after 10 – 15 minutes of humorously, curiously searching you don’t feel like you can get in touch with the shadow desire, that’s ok, you can still move on to the next step.
Some shadow desires require weeks of time and attention before they’re willing to reveal themselves. It’s enough to just spend about fifteen minutes openly inviting your shadow to reveal itself.
If you are able to get in touch with the throb of shadowy desire – great!
You can experiment with saying things to yourself like “I’m totally allowed to have this weird desire for XYZ. I don’t need to shame it, I don’t need to regret it, I don’t need to deny it. I’m allowed to want exactly what I want, even if it’s ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ or ‘destructive.’”
Step Three: Get on the side of your shadow desire and consciously allow yourself to receive, feel big gratitude for, and get off on the situation she so brilliantly created.
This 3rd part of the Existential Kink process is crucial.
Until you deliberately let your shadow desire fully receive and enjoy and delight in the situation she created (however “fucked up” it may be), that situation will just hang around and stay the same, the scarcity / romantic torment / psychic dullness will stay there, because your shadowy desire will keep just keep desiring what she desires.
Why? because you haven’t consciously given her the freedom to shamelessly receive and enjoy the fulfillment of her desire, to receive and enjoy all the bloody, operatic, nasty, spectacular fulfillment of her desires for scarcity / romantic torment / psychic dullness, etc.
Gratitude, deep receiving, orgasmically enjoying the result you’ve already created – that’s what makes the space for your conscious and unconscious minds to sexually (magically) merge, fertilize each other, and eventually give birth to a new upward spiral of positive synchronicity in your life.
Your shadow desire can’t grow and positively evolve as long as you’re shaming and judging what life results the shadow desire has already created.
So decide that for just 15 minutes you’re going to set aside all your negative judgment, you’re going to set aside your shaming and your ego thoughts of “I don’t like this, this shouldn’t be here, I don’t want this to be this way, I want this
to end, this sucks”….
….And instead you’re going to savor and get off on your creation.
You can experiment with saying to yourself: “I’m allowed to enjoy this as much as I do. I embrace and receive these sensations. I’m willing to feel the depth of my love for this. I open up to feeling wild, insane gratitude and excitement about this situation.
This is the “kink” part of Existential Kink.
In kink, you get off on things that you normally don’t like. Pain, flogging, being bossed around. Well, this is the same. Get off on this thing, this situation, this feeling that your ego thinks that you hate. Feel the freedom of that, the liberation of it.
The more you engage in this process of Existential Kink meditation, the more you drop identification with your ego and start to identify with the whole of who you are, with your shadow and with your spirit.
As your identification changes, you get a different perspective of life, and you start to see that you always and without fail create what you most deeply desire…
… It’s just that the unconscious happens to desire things like sickness and scarcity and death and grief and pain and loss and violence and weakness all these fascinating experiences that the conscious mind likes to judge as “wrong” or “bad” somehow.
Well they’re not wrong or bad, they’re part of the panorama of life, and the unconscious wants to experience it all, deeply wants to experience it all. The more you get on the shadow’s side and allow her to enjoy her experience of these darker things, the more joy you have in your life. Your will becomes united in this process, because as you practice receiving the fulfillment of your unconscious desires, you realize your will was never really divided.
Your will only seemed to be divided because of your conscious mind’s aversion to what the whole of you wants at a given time.
NOTE: if you feel like this is all too confusing, try this: just give yourself permission to be wildly, madly, irrationally happy and excited about your current “don’t like” situation for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes, you can go back to hating it like usual.
Within the 15 minute container:
- Let yourself be a bit insanely, perversely delighted that you’re broke.
- Let yourself be weirdly tickled with joy that you feel rejected in your love life.
- Let yourself be stupidly happy that you feel about as psychically powerful as a broken Magic 8-ball.
- Happily, zanily revel – with zero irony or sarcasm – in “what sucks.”
If you’re able to do just this – even if you don’t yet grok all the stuff about how your shadow desires operate – you’ll be introducing a major pattern interrupt into your energetic existence.
So there you have it, that’s the process of Existential Kink in a nutshell, and it is an excellent, fundamental process for creating a united will and taking a massive leap forward in mastering practical magic.
Taken from the writings of Carolyn Elliott. For a copy of the first three chapters of the Existential Kink book go here for the download: http://carolyngraceelliott.com/free