The Caves Within
Mapping the hidden terrain of emotion
Professional cave explorers, spelunkers, will tell you the deepest caves rarely advertise their entrances. You can walk right past them without ever noticing they’re there.
Personal growth feels a lot like spelunking. A deliberate descent into dark places underground.
I spent the entire first half of my life doing exactly that, walking right past the entrances to the deepest parts of myself.
I didn’t even know those caves existed.
Much of our lives are driven by emotional patterns buried beneath the surface of the mind. Systems formed long ago that quietly shape our behavior beyond our awareness.
For the past few years I’ve been donning a metaphorical hard hat, a bright light fixed to the front, and heading underground, mapping the terrain of my inner world.
The most useful map I’ve found for navigating that terrain is the Enneagram. I first took the assessment six years ago and was floored by how accurately it seemed to reveal me.
I score highly as a Type 7: “The Enthusiast.” Energetic. Optimistic. Adventurous.
Hardly a news flash.
More revealing was the emotional pattern beneath it. Sevens prioritize joy, quick thinking, and silver linings. Rationalization helps us avoid deep negativity or restriction.
We’re a lot of fun!
Beneath that lightheartedness and optimism lives a deeper fear: deprivation, limitation, emotional discomfort.
The deep caves of the hard emotions.
Nothing in our culture suggests men should go looking for those entrances.
My coach first helped me find my way in.
After wandering around inside for a while, I eventually came to a yawning black chasm. When I called into it, echoes of old emotional pain reverberated somewhere far below.
I walked nervously around the perimeter for quite a while.
Until one day I wrapped a rope around my waist and lowered myself in. I didn’t have to descend far to find sadness. There were many layers of it.
Over time I’ve become familiar with that terrain. I’ve mapped it pretty extensively.
Tears come easily now. Releasing that emotion is deeply healing.
My ego felt pretty good about this. “Nothing more to see here!”
But beyond that cave of sadness, there was more to explore.
Recently I met some extreme adventurers in the Conscious Leadership Group. On a retreat they pointed me toward another entrance underground.
It caught me off guard.I thought I had already done my “hard emotion” work. What’s this new hole over here?
Holy shit.
It seemed bottomless.
Fear instinctively arose. I sensed something that had never been welcomed.
Anger.
I didn’t know this cave existed.
Anger at my parents’ divorce.
Anger at losing my neighborhood football games when we moved in first grade.
Anger at leaving those friends behind and starting over at new schools.
Anger at not having money for the things other kids had.
Anger at being teased in middle school.
Anger at having to look out for my little brother when I was still trying to figure out my own way forward.
Anger at my mom for not allowing anger to be expressed.
Anger at my dad for moving to Arizona.
Anger at my dad saying he’d move back to Ohio—and then disappearing for nearly twenty years.
Most buried of all—anger that my nine-month-old son began having seizures and I was powerless to help him.
So much anger. I never named it.
Instead I reframed it. Like a good enthusiast does so instinctively. Put on a happy face and made the best of things.
“At least I have a role model for how not to be a dad.”
True.
“Adversity is a gift.”
Also true.
But the anger stayed buried. Pushed deeper and deeper down until I completely forgot it was there.
Suppressed emotions always find a way to surface in ways you can’t control. Over time, they begin to control you.
So I was excited to find this entrance. New territory to map.
I thought anger would be terrifying.
Under the light of awareness, it isn’t.
Like sadness, it’s cathartic. As it releases, I expand.
On a recent run something deep inside me began to rise. It was anger. I could see it now. I started howling—loud, guttural, primal.
Again and again as I ran I screamed into the cold air.
Then tears came. And I sobbed.
And it passed.
Light began to seep in from above.
And deep in that darkest cave within, colors have begun to appear on walls I never knew existed.
-Coach Kris
P.S. If you’re feeling adventurous, the Enneagram test linked here, will reveal the entrance to your caves within. A wonderful fable about the potential of this work is below.
The Fable of the Lock Maker
A skilled lock maker was unjustly imprisoned. His wife, a talented weaver, came to visit him. He begged her to help him escape, but she was powerless against the guards. Instead, she brought him a specially designed rug to sit on while he prayed.
For years, the lock maker lived in the narrow, dark cell, praying daily on the rug. One day, he noticed something in the intricate pattern of the rug. As he looked closer, he recognized that his wife had woven the exact design of the complicated lock on his prison cell door into the rug.
He realized she hadn’t brought him a tool; she had brought him the information he needed to free himself.
Understanding the design, he began to make friends with the guards, persuading them to bring him metal to create tools. He used the tools to craft a key to his cell, finally allowing him to escape the prison of his own making.
The moral of the story is that we are not helpless; we already possess the information needed to unlock our own potential and freedom, if only we take the time to “read the pattern of the rug”