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.
Living in Balance with Nature
Humans hold within their hands the ability to insure a flourishing future for all life on Earth. Essential to accomplishing this task is the need to create and implement new technologies and economic systems both locally and globally. However, to achieve this task with minimal shadow effects, we need a transformation of consciousness that enables us to live in true balance with the natural world.
Psychotherapy: Learn What to Expect
When things feel so dark, it’s hard to see our way out from under it all. It’s one thing to know the dangers of getting stuck in that sort of thinking, but it’s quite another to move through it into a transformed state of consciousness, where meaning can be found. Such a journey is a tall order and one that we may not be able to take on our own.
Self Recognition
Our body’s deep sensitivity is calling us home. Yet home is not somewhere, some when, or something other than what is already wholly present now. Our true nature is not some inner state that will be found in the future. It is always here and now, unbounded by space or time. It can never be objectified.
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.
Why Most Dreams End in Obscurity
For decades, I was enamored by dreams and faithfully recorded them, hoping for insight into what they were attempting to tell me. But, most of my dreams remained elusive in meaning.This changed at age 39, long after I had earned my Ph.D. in psychology. I was fortunate to find a gifted dreamworker who opened the astonishing world of dreaming to me. Here I share a few insights that have rescued my dreams from falling into obscurity.
