There’s a Zen saying: When walking, walk. When eating, eat.
When meditating silently for a week, meditate silently for a week.
Like you, I don’t have serious mental health issues, but when I sat my (only) 10 day retreat, longstanding ‘trauma’ and negative stories couldn’t stop bubbling up from my subconscious. I understood my one task was to not cling to them. That’s q bloody hard enough a task in itself, I wouldn’t want to tease them apart or spend any more time with them with a therapist.
I think the beauty of a silent retreat is the ridiculous contrast with busy, loud modern life. It’s detonating a depth charge in your psyche and I was then able to spend the rest of the year occasionally talking to a therapist, or noticing and teasing apart my schemas.
We need to keep a regular mediation practice for one reason .. Any time spent ‘on autopilot’ (even if you are enlightened), is going to reinforce bad habits. A small amount of regular meditation helps keep that in check.
A better image for the conscious/unconscious divide is one I heard from Iain McGhilchrist who describes a large stage that is in darkness, and a small spotlight. The spotlight can move about and bring a small portion into light and detail.
This image tells us that it’s all one thing. When we communicate with each other, we may feel like we are two little riders talking to each other, which on one level we are, but of course we are also transferring a lot of information unconsciously.
It’s easy to feel scared and ignore the fact that most of the stage is dark. But I think the correct way to view our riders is as a servant who can do some simple tasks, but should ultimately get out of the way—and never think that they are running the show.