Existential Kink: Unmask Your Shadow and Embrace Your Power (A method for getting what you want by getting off on what you don't)

by Carolyn Elliott

every unpleasant feeling we have has an unconscious motivation. Some part of us believes that by feeling the yucky feeling, we'll “get” something that will enhance our survival. This part of us who believes in the survival value of yucky feelings was generally correct in childhood, and there it got a lot of validation for its theories (people came and took care of you when you cried!), but the theories of this part of us are generally incorrect in adulthood, where feeling bad just drains your energy instead of winning the help of caretakers. So feeling bad/guilty/wrong as an adult doesn't actually improve your odds of physical survival, but it does, however, guarantee the survival of “you as you currently know yourself to be.” In other words, if you lost your ability to feel bad, you might hardly recognize yourself. You'd be stepping into an unknown horizon. You might risk offending people in your life who expect you to feel bad and who believe that certain situations require feeling bad. None of this would actually kill you, but it would kill your old idea of who you are. You'd experience a major ego death and transformation.