Breaking Identification with Negativity

Suppose what you have seen in yourself is some bad negative emotion, some really evil ill-will. Hitherto you have identified with it and so you have been it and it has been you. You have been for years under its power.

Your task will be to separate yourself internally from it; and not, as it were, touch it internally more than you can help. This will be a personal aim on the side of work upon your Being.

Maurice Nicoll, “Personal Aim" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 173)