If you have not yet read the brief introduction to the metaphor of the heart wounds, I recommend that you do so first.
The dying heart
The primary essential awareness that Eights have fallen out of touch with is of the pure life energy, the force of sheer aliveness. There is an undefined feeling of longing for this power, but the best that the ego can do to emulate it is doing life. Exerting power, turning over energy in an attempt to escape this feeling of lifelessness nipping at my heels.
In Russ’ own words: “When we leave our presence as we must do in the process of developing our egoic life, [we leave our innate aliveness], and the result is the feeling of inner deadness, a kind of numbness. It actually feels like dying, like we’re going dead, lifeless, flat, and we perceive it not just in ourselves but reality starts to feel fake, two-dimensional, lifeless. Indeed, from the ego’s point of view, the world is two-dimensional and flat and lifeless compared to what it is when we’re actually in our living presence, when we’re connected with the energy of our bodies. It’s radically different. But you see, something in my Eightness remembers that so I am feeling the deadness of ego life which is horrible and terrifying. That is what produces the lustfulness. I’m trying to fight against that deadness. But in a sense one has to be willing to be awake to the deadness, to that sense of like being I’ve been turned to stone.”
The irony is that the root of this suffering is the resistance to my own heart — its innocence and vulnerability. To exert power (or so the ego would have us believe) we have to be strong and tough. To be strong and tough, the Eight has to deny and bury softness, sensitivity and vulnerability. And when Eights do that, the heart turns into stone, furthering the feeling of deadness and the perceived need to keep forcing life to happen. Soon, I have forgotten even the merest hint of the feeling of the actual, essential life force and am more likely to perceive that, if and when it approaches me, as less real and “lively” than the cruder, clumsier ego-created version.
As for all the types, how this is expressed depends largely on instinctual preferences and level of inner balance. But most Eights will do whatever they do in an attempt to remedy this (often unconscious) feeling of lifelessness and ramp up the feeling of aliveness, oomph and life force.
Invitation for reflection:
Eights especially, of course — do you see this dynamic in yourself? Have you for a long time, or is this a new perspective? My suggestion is enter this territory gently, but do enter it. Resting in the heart, there is peace — regardless of how broken or wounded we perceive it to be. And this peace is the path back to ourselves, and to healing ❤️
If you have loved ones or other people in your life that you know or suspect are Eights, does this explain something about them that you didn’t previously understand?