Introduction to Jungian Psychology
Carl Jung said that it is up to us to live our life in line with our true essence, our unique core that continues to unfold as we age. This essence is often experienced as if it is guiding us through life and is aiming at full expression. At times, it can even feel as if we are being used by something larger that wants to engage with the world through our own body and movements. Jung called this process of personal development and unfolding the individuation process.
The Wisdom of The Enneagram
The Enneagram is a dynamic human development system, perhaps the oldest in history, believed to date back to the late 4th century. As the Enneagram suggests, our personality-driven patterns and habits prevent us from contacting a deeper experience of ourselves and others. In developing greater awareness of these patterns, and through the conscious and consistent practice of relaxing our inner resistance, we learn to cultivate a deeper quality of presence.
Exploring the Hidden Stories Within
Humans are storying beings. We think in story, communicate in story, and dream in story. It is one of the primary ways humans communicate, as well as a way to help understand and situate ourselves in the world. It gives us a grasp on the symbols and archetypes in our dreams, and fuels our mythologies. How do we find the hidden stories that lie just under the surface of our consciousness, in the shadows?
Coming Home to Our True Nature
The wisdom inherent in our true nature can be found throughout our lived world. For instance, in heliotropic plants that innately turn to the sun for nourishment. However, while humans do have an innate hard-wired capacity to see into the deeper nature of life, we have to choose the spiritual function for it to have its beneficial effects. We have to nurture the wisdom of our nature.
Leaping With the Fool Archetype
One of the most important tasks of the Fool is to learn to leap. When we look at a tarot deck, we see the Fool standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to leap. Leaping is no small feat. But without learning to leap we become fearful. We stay stuck in situations that we outgrow, stay with people that limit us, and environments that no longer inspire us. Leaping means we stay alive and awake in the journey of becoming.’
Dante’s Divine Comedy
Imagine the poem as a vessel containing the prima materia of soul life. Dante’s poem is an opportunity to allow a deepening into our own story, our own narrative, by the imaginal power of analogy. One writer I read years ago spoke of poetry allowing us to enter our own “spiritual unconscious,” with whatever poem we are reading as our guide.
Sufism and the Way of Blame
The Sufis would actively create circumstances in which they were blamed for not acting piously or ethically. The object was to shatter the false image that they or the society had created for them. In this way a master would show disciples that they had been more devoted to an idol or image they had created in their minds, than to the actual spiritual guide.
The Essence of Your Inner Critic
The Critic evaluates your inner and outer landscapes. It propels you to take action with respect to your body and overall health, money, career, or relationships. Your Critic is very vocal in enforcing the rules of your early institutions, including family, church, and school. It is committed to your success by ensuring that you fit in.
Breaking the Spell of Time
Living myths are always nearby waiting to be rediscovered. They are able to reveal truths that shed light upon the past as well as illuminate the present moment in time. Myths are intended to break the spell of time and release us from the immediate pressures and limitations of daily life.
Walking the Path of Individuation
Jung dedicated his life to understanding the nuances of the psyche, the typical patterns and dynamics that influence each of us on personal, collective and archetypal levels. Like the psychopomps of mythology, Jung’s work guided me deeper to my soul, and I believe he can for others as well.
Reflections on a Worry
Often, we imagine our natures as tainted, and that somewhere lies a norm or ideal, to which we must conform if we wish to be made whole. We can learn the “right choice,” and turn away from the voice of the suffering soul. This turn is however almost invariably outward. Seldom do we consider that the difficulties and struggles that we endure in the process of living and becoming, the wounds that we bear, are a part of the process of life forging a new reality through us.
Why Coaching Requires Continuous Personal Development
Coaching teaches us about true companionship. It asks us to: be present, open and inquisitive, and embody the experience with the client so that the Soul can reveal itself. Tending to this process of personal development—individuation—of the client and the coach is the biggest gift that coaching offers.