PDF Summary:Existential Kink, by Carolyn Elliott

We all have negative patterns we see playing out again and again in our lives—but have you ever thought you might secretly enjoy these patterns? In Existential Kink, writer and teacher Carolyn Elliott argues that the negative patterns in our lives are manifestations of what we unconsciously desire. Embracing and taking emotional and physical pleasure in such desires (practicing existential kink) will help dissolve them. And when we dissolve these desires, they no longer have a hold over us, which frees up our time and energy so we can want and manifest positive things in our lives.

In our guide, we’ll explain existential kink and its roots in Jungian psychology, as well as the seven major principles that comprise it. We’ll also explain how to practice existential kink meditation, plus some additional activities to help you incorporate existential kink into your life. We’ll add psychological and scientific context, as well as ideas and advice from other writers and experts.

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This approach, like Elliott’s, requires you to avoid moral judgments of yourself, but Brach’s approach lacks the focus on taking joy in the bad (described in the last Principle). If you want to achieve greater acceptance but are still struggling to take joy in things that seem overwhelmingly bad, you may try Brach’s approach as an intermediate step and begin by just neutrally accepting the bad.

Instead of taking a moral approach, Elliott recommends looking at your life from an aesthetic perspective, the way you would a great story or work of art. We don’t repress or avoid stories about suffering and hardship. In fact, we seek them out and delight in them. Try doing the same with your life: Don’t see “bad” events or emotions as reflections on you, but instead feel those bad emotions deeply, understand them inside and out, and appreciate them like you would a work of art.

(Shortform note: In Wired for Story, Lisa Cron explains that we’re neurologically programmed to seek out stories that depict suffering and hardship because they help us understand and prepare for such hardships in our own lives. If you struggle with taking aesthetic pleasure in the difficult things in your life, consider viewing them not only as art but also as helpful preparation for more difficult things you may face in the future.)

Principle #5: Denying Your Unconscious Desires Only Makes Them Stronger

People often think that if they ignore the bad things in their lives, they’ll go away, but the principles of existential kink show us that the opposite is true. Pretending we don’t have unconscious desires won’t get rid of them, explains Elliott. The only way to keep them from manifesting as negative patterns is to satisfy them. For example, if you consciously want to succeed in your job, but you’re constantly making avoidable mistakes because you subconsciously enjoy the lack of responsibility, you won’t be able to fulfill your conscious desire to succeed until you acknowledge and enjoy the feeling you get from being irresponsible.

(Shortform note: The phenomenon of thoughts growing stronger when we try to suppress them is known as thought rebound. Research confirms that the harder we try to avoid thinking about something, the more difficult it becomes to not think about it, and often these suppressed thoughts show up in our dreams. But suppression doesn’t just make the thoughts and desires stronger: It also increases the likelihood that you’ll act on those thoughts and desires. Because some of these thoughts are about harmful behaviors like substance abuse or violence, “satisfying” them by engaging in those actions isn’t advisable. Instead, you should reflect on and embrace the feelings underlying these thoughts, as we’ll explain later in this guide.)

Principle #6: Shame Is the Number One Enemy of Existential Kink

Existential kink requires you to unite your conscious and unconscious desires and thereby take control of your life, and according to Elliott, the primary hindrance to this is shame. Shame is a sign that you’re suppressing something, so letting yourself be shameless opens the door to embracing your true self.

(Shortform note: Elliott’s advice on combating shame is limited to the recommendation that you allow yourself to be shameless, but other experts have more concrete recommendations for dissolving shame. In Daring Greatly, Brené Brown suggests that you put distance between your failures and your self-worth so that messing up doesn’t make you feel worthless and ashamed. She argues that guilt can actually be a healthier alternative to shame because it doesn’t create the same association between your behavior and your worth. She also recommends building resilience to shame by practicing mindfulness and seeking help from others when you’re dealing with shame.)

Principle #7: You Experience Physiological Reactions to Personal Truths

As you’re practicing existential kink, when you come upon a true new insight into yourself, you’ll feel something, like a jolt that goes through your body, a feeling of weightlessness, or even sexual pleasure. Elliott explains that these sensations can help you distinguish true from false beliefs about yourself or life, so you should pay close attention to them and the thoughts and feelings that accompany them.

For example, as you’re meditating on a negative pattern in your life, like being unable to hold down a solid job, you may have many ideas about why this is happening: Maybe you secretly want to avoid the accountability that comes with a career, or you enjoy feeling dependent on your friends and family, or deep down you believe that only boring people have real jobs. You’ll have many ideas, but you’ll know you’ve hit upon your true insight into why you can’t stick with a job when you feel some kind of sensation like those listed above in response to one of these thoughts.

(Shortform note: It can be particularly difficult for trauma survivors to be sufficiently in touch with their bodies to notice the sensations that accompany certain thoughts. In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk explains that people who’ve experienced trauma often feel disconnected from their bodily sensations, making it difficult for them to identify physical feelings. Additionally, people who have poor interoception (the ability to sense internal physical sensations) or alexithymia (difficulty in feeling, identifying, or expressing emotions) may struggle to identify connections between their thoughts and bodily sensations. Such individuals may benefit from mindfulness practices designed to help with bodily awareness.)

How to Practice Existential Kink

The basic method of employing existential kink is through meditation. Elliott describes a six-step process for an existential kink meditation practice, which we’ve condensed into four steps.

Step 1: Relax and create a comforting space. Since existential kink involves noticing physical sensation in response to your thoughts and feelings, you should be as relaxed as possible before you begin. This will allow you to better tap into your body and mind so you can be more aware of your feelings and sensations. Elliott recommends using incense and a candle, along with a 15-minute timer to keep you centered in the moment and to keep you from losing track of time.

(Shortform note: Experts note that it can be difficult to relax during meditation, especially the first few times you do it. Some ways you can make relaxation easier if you’re struggling with it is to focus on your breathing, repeat a mantra to yourself, read a poem or other short meaningful text, or pray.)

Step 2: Choose a life event or circumstance to reflect upon. This should be something that your conscious mind dislikes, or something that you would typically label “bad.” This works best for recurring patterns. As an example, imagine you find yourself drawn to romantic partners who are distant or unreliable, and even though this frustrates you, it continues to play out in your life.

(Shortform note: To help you identify what you want to reflect on as you meditate, consider combining journaling with your meditative practice. Take a few minutes before you begin, to write down your thoughts and feelings and also to brainstorm what you might choose to meditate on. If you also write down how you’re feeling after the meditation, you can more easily track your progress.)

Step 3: Notice the bodily sensations and emotions that this circumstance evokes in you, and revel in them. Elliott explains that this involves approaching these feelings from a sadomasochistic perspective, allowing yourself to take “kinky” pleasure in these ostensibly negative feelings. This doesn’t mean coming to enjoy the negative situation itself, merely the sensations it evokes in you (which are the sensations your unconscious is seeking). In the case of the distant partner, you probably don’t enjoy rarely seeing your partner, but you might be drawn to the feeling of martyrdom you get when you complain about how unreliable they are.

(Shortform note: This step requires you to tap into both your emotions and your physical sensations. If you have trouble tapping into your emotions, consider some techniques like talking to your emotion as you would to a person or making artistic representations of what you feel. If you’re struggling to tap into your bodily sensations, consider doing a body scan, a meditative practice in which you focus your attention on each part of your body in turn. A body scan may be particularly helpful for existential kink since it can help you home in on your physical sensations. This can help train you to notice not only the good things you’re feeling, but also the uncomfortable or bad sensations, which will make it easier to take pleasure in them.)

It may help to pretend the circumstance you’re reflecting on is going to magically disappear from your life in a month so you can feel more open and honest about it. It can also help to give yourself explicit permission to feel good about these things, or even to talk dirty to yourself about how much you like them. This will culminate in an emotional and physical release not unlike (and possibly including) an orgasm.

(Shortform note: Pretending your situation is about to end can help you gain some distance from it, as can imagining yourself reacting to a situation in the future after it has actually ended, a technique called temporal distancing. However, in creating distance, it’s important to avoid making yourself feel ashamed of how you’re reacting to it in the present by pretending the situation is less important than it really is. This is a tendency called minimizing, in which you downplay the significance of something good or bad in your life. When you minimize, you’re essentially refusing to give yourself permission to feel how you feel, which will interfere with your existential kink practice and your ability to experience the emotional and physical release Elliott describes.)

Step 4: Allow yourself to connect with your unconscious and embrace gratitude for what you’re experiencing and feeling. In the previous step, you allowed yourself to feel joy from the feelings surrounding your “negative” experiences, but in this step you’re identifying and connecting with the part of your unconscious that has these feelings. Here, you’ll move past the feelings and fully embrace and feel gratitude for the negative situations that caused them.

(Shortform note: Gratitude has many benefits for your health, including improved interpersonal relationships, more happiness, better empathy, and better self-esteem. However, it’s often a difficult thing for people to express, even toward themselves. To make it easier to practice gratitude during your existential kink process, consider practicing gratitude through exercises like writing notes of gratitude to loved ones, creating visual representations of things you’re grateful for, and frequently reflecting on what you’re grateful for.)

This is the step when your unconscious and conscious merge, putting you in touch with your whole self as you come to understand that you as a curious human seeking to experience all of life, both the good and the bad. The more you do this, the more uninteresting the “negative” circumstances will become and the more easily you can let them go. Still, your goal in this practice should be to just feel and enjoy, not to get rid of the bad things in your life.

(Shortform note: As you engage more with both the positive and negative in life, you may experience hedonic adaptation, finding that the joy you once got from your negative patterns becomes weaker over time. This means you won’t be less happy after you break these negative patterns that bring you joy, as hedonic adaptation results in a return to baseline happiness after a joyful experience has lost its appeal.)

Returning to our example, in this step you would acknowledge that your unconscious wants these feelings of independence and has created this situation (the pattern of seeking distant partners) in order to achieve those feelings. Instead of feeling bad or resentful for this, you give thanks to your unconscious for the relationships in your life that it created.

Elliott gives some caveats about existential kink. She explains that it’s not a good idea to attempt this meditation when you’re feeling depressed or dealing with a recent trauma, as it can cause you to ruminate on your negative feelings and make you feel worse. Additionally, you shouldn’t use this process if you’re currently grieving, as you’ll need some distance from the situation to view it with gratitude. Finally, reflecting on childhood trauma during this process can also cause you to feel worse, because we have very little control over the things that happen to us as children, and existential kink is most useful when we reflect on things we choose or have control over.

(Shortform note: The above issues will require a different type of healing that existential kink can’t offer. Consider finding someone you can talk to about your experience and feelings, such as a trusted confidante or a therapist. You may specifically want to seek out practitioners trained in trauma-informed therapy to get the best possible care for your needs.)

Additional Practices

While you can study and perform the principles and meditation described above, these are conscious efforts that you have to think about and put energy toward. In order to fully incorporate the process and attitude of existential kink into your life so it happens effortlessly, like magic, Elliott recommends several other practices. Though these will take conscious effort at first, as well, over time they’ll become second nature so you no longer have to think about them.

Identify Your Fears

One exercise Elliott suggests is to take stock of your deepest fears. Fear is often what stops us from receiving the “positive” patterns we think we want. In fact, Elliott explains, fear and desire always coexist: Everything we desire is something we fear to some degree, and everything we fear is something we desire in some way. For example, you may tell yourself you want to achieve better health, but deep down there’s something about improving your health that you fear, and this fear is why you keep manifesting the opposite. This process is about acknowledging that it’s not because of bad luck or the cruelty of the universe that you don’t have what you want: It’s because you’re afraid of it.

To confront your fears, identify something you think you consciously want but can’t seem to achieve, and then write at the top of a sheet of paper that you hate or refuse to have that thing. Below that, list 20 fears you associate with it. For example, if you want to get your graduate degree, you might write that you refuse to pursue a graduate degree, and list fears such as “I’m afraid I won’t get good grades,” “I’m afraid of the high costs, and I’m unwilling to feel the responsibility of making it worth the money,” or “I’m afraid of what I might discover about myself.” This puts you face-to-face with the internal sensations that are preventing you from achieving what you want.

After listing your fears, include a statement at the bottom asking the universe to remove your fears. Read the whole thing to another person, then tear it up and throw it away. This way you acknowledge the negative emotions associated with this thing you think you want, and then you release them into the universe. The more you do this, the less power your fears will have over you, and the more control you’ll have over your life and self.

The Link Between Fear and Desire

While we may think of fear and desire as opposites of each other, experts suggest that they’re closely linked. While Elliott suggests that fear is what stands in the way of achieving your desire, some experts argue that fear is not an obstacle but rather the natural result of unexpressed desire, meaning that as we disconnect from and forget our desires, they’re replaced by fears. For example, you may have once desired companionship, but if you detach from or give up on this desire, it may be replaced with a fear of loneliness.

They recommend using your fears to identify what you truly want: On a two-columned sheet of paper, try writing down a fear in the first column, then following that up with what would happen if that fear were fulfilled, and what would happen as a result of that, and so on until you get to the worst case scenario (“I’ll lose my job and all my friends,” for instance).

Then in the second column, write down the desire that corresponds to each fear. This will help you see how your fears and desires are linked, and it can also make it easier to record your fears for the purpose of your existential kink practice. This exercise is the inverse of Elliott’s exercise to take stock of your fears, as you’re using your fears to identify your desires rather than the other way around.

You may choose to tear up this paper after completing the exercise, just as you would with Elliott’s practice, as a symbolic way of destroying both your fears’ and your desires’ power over you. Alternatively, you could burn, cut, or recycle it.

Add Some Levity to Your Perspective

Elliott also recommends an exercise to help you take everything in your life (including yourself) less seriously. This is important for existential kink because, for one thing, many of our negative feelings come from an overly serious perception of ourselves. For another thing, the process of existential kink can feel silly, so you have to be able to approach it with a sense of humor and lack of judgment. She suggests that anytime you feel bad as you go about your day, imagine you have a group of cheerleaders rooting for you, dancing and chanting about the “negatives” in your life. This will help you associate those “negatives” with fun and goofiness, taking away their sting and making it easier for you to take pleasure in them.

(Shortform note: Experts note that self-criticism is not an effective motivator, so the serious inner critic you’re constantly hearing is not helping you be better in any way. Taking it less seriously can both improve your mood and help you stay focused on your goals. If Elliott’s cheerleader suggestion doesn’t work for you, you may try thinking of your negative thoughts like spam calls—meaningless distractions that don’t have to impact you at all. You could also imagine what you would say if you were talking to a friend and say those supportive and encouraging things to yourself instead.)

Dealing With Pain and Discomfort With Your Body

Elliott also offers advice for those who suffer from chronic pain or discomfort with their bodies. She explains that at every moment, others are experiencing pain and discomfort just as you are.

This knowledge is not meant to make you feel bad about yourself, but rather to help you take the pain impersonally. Taking pain personally makes you feel like you’ve done something to deserve it as an individual, but understanding that it’s universal helps you realize you’re not uniquely bad, and this in turn helps you fully and joyfully embrace the feeling of pain—since, as with every other sensation, you must be able to embrace pain in order to practice existential kink. She recommends practicing Tonglen meditation to reframe how you think of your pain.

(Shortform note: Other experts recommend viewing pain from a more inclusive perspective as well, one that removes the emphasis on your individual pain. Specifically, they suggest taking direction from how animals deal with pain. Because humans can express pain verbally, we often make judgments about it by saying things like “I shouldn’t feel like this,” but these judgments only increase our anxiety and sadness, which in turn can further increase pain. Animals, on the other hand, simply deal with pain as it is, adapting to it rather than trying to rationalize it as some kind of punishment. Similarly, we can accept and adapt to pain rather than judging ourselves for it or obsessing over how to fix it, viewing it not just impersonally, but animalistically.)

Tonglen Meditation: Taking on the World’s Pain

Tonglen meditation is a Buddhist practice for cultivating compassion that involves connecting with the whole of humanity and the suffering they’re experiencing.

To do this, imagine all the other people in the world who are dealing with the affliction that’s currently bothering you. Take all their suffering upon yourself. Breathe in deeply, and imagine you’re inhaling a cold smoke that embodies that suffering. Hold your breath and imagine that smoke breaking through a shell that encases your heart. As you exhale, visualize a light spreading out from your heart to the rest of the world, healing everyone it touches. Breathe normally for a moment, then repeat the process. While this light doesn’t literally heal other people, this practice helps to heal you, which in turn will help heal the people you interact with.

(Shortform note: If imagining all the people in the world feeling pain seems overwhelming, you can start by imagining one person you love who’s experiencing pain and then moving up to consider humanity as a whole. People who engage in Tonglen report deeper levels of compassion for others and for themselves and a greater ability to detach from their personal struggles. Other benefits vary from person to person: Some people find it relaxing while others find it energizing, for example. However, Tonglen is an advanced form of meditation and is generally recommended only for people who already practice meditation regularly.)

We’re All Sadists: Seek Power Through Compassion

Connecting with others compassionately can also help you come to terms with your unconscious sadistic tendencies. As Elliott explains, some of our “negative” behaviors are driven by sadism, and while this can be a startling and even repulsive notion, understanding and embracing it helps you dissolve those tendencies. She explains that behavior that negatively impacts other people—such as passive aggressiveness, controlling behavior, or frequently inconveniencing others—is a manifestation of the unconscious desire for power.

(Shortform note: Research suggests that the desire for power actually stems from the psychological need for autonomy, which may mean that the behaviors Elliott describes are not motivated by a desire to see others suffer but rather a desire to be independent. Other experts suggest that such behaviors aren’t expressions of a desire for power but of a desire to feel valued. If you find yourself engaging in such behaviors, you might consider whether the desire for independence, the desire for power, or the desire to feel valued is one of your repressed desires as you go about your existential kink practice.)

It’s uncomfortable to acknowledge, but everyone in the world has a desire for power. Some people express this desire through behaviors that cause great harm, such as committing violence against other people. The way to channel this desire productively is to reflect on it, embrace and revel in it, and then identify what feeling you truly want to inflict on others in order to feel powerful and important. Rather than making someone hurt, you might actually want to impress them with your intellect or talent. In fact, Elliott explains, artists in particular are expert at channeling their desire for power into ways to positively impact others, by inflicting aesthetic “pain” via their art.

(Shortform note: To identify the best way to wield your power productively, try to identify your calling. In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield argues that you can do this by noticing what activities make you feel self-doubt or inner conflict, as such feelings indicate these activities are meaningful to you and tap into your inner genius (which means they’re likely to be meaningful to others as well.) Look for pursuits in your life that induce emotions like doubt, love, and fear, and consider how you can use these to influence others, thus satisfying your desire for power in a way that enriches the world.)