NIGHTMARES: How do I stop awful dreams?
This Jungian Life
"The monsters that chase you in dreams are not trying to hurt you. They just want to reunite with their creator………...… that's you, dummy." (Quoted from an unnamed Jungian analyst overheard at a cocktail party.) Today, we analyze four nightmares submitted by listeners: BBQ Cats, Blood Red Sky, Tsunami, and Malevolent Presence. Our dreams are always trying to correct our waking personality. They are a kind of psychospiritual medicine tailored just for us. When we avoid healing advice from the dream maker, pressure builds in our unconscious. Gentle suggestions...
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DO WE INHERIT OUR PARENT’S FEARS?
This Jungian Life
What wisdom do fairy tales hold about childrearing in our modern world? Briar Rose is the foundation for the familiar fairytale Sleeping Beauty. It addresses the complicated consequences of unconscious parenting. While it is understandable we wish to protect our children from harsh realities, too much shielding can hobble them later in life. We may hide our shadow from ourselves and our children, but it will irrupt uninvited one day, casting the family into chaos. Instinctive reactions often hold us in suspended animation, but they may also offer a way toward healing. “Parents...
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DUMBO'S FEATHER: Are there hidden messages in Disney cartoons?
This Jungian Life
What hidden messages make Disney cartoons so impactful and enduring? Disney cartoons were groundbreaking. They introduced synchronized soundtracks in 1928, and today, they create extravaganzas that sweep audiences into tears and laughter, offering role models of virtue. Archetypal themes, often drawn from fairytales, thrum through the storylines appealing to the archaic levels of our psyche. Prepare to discover where Hermes is hidden in one of the characters, how childhood trauma activates archetypal helpers, whether Dumbo is a symbol of hope or a defense against maturation, how separation of...
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Aaron Balick – Why does social media weaponize our reactions?
This Jungian Life
Aaron Balick is a psychotherapist, speaker, consultant, educator, and author of The Psychodynamics of Social Networking. Social media invites snap emotional reactions, muddling clear thinking and escalating global tensions. It feeds on our anger, oversimplifying complex problems which blocks our ability to empathize. Nuanced explanations are demonized as if seeking to understand was an affront. If we learn to pause and reflect, we can overcome social media's divisive influence and discover middle-ground solutions in both personal and world affairs. Prepare to discover where emotional...
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FAME: Why Do We Create Icons Then Destroy Them?
This Jungian Life
Today's technology allows us to be seduced by the possibility of fame and celebrity tempting the ego to claim what does not belong to it. In earlier times, fame was garnered slowly through work in the arts, scholarship, religion, and the military. Today, unprecedented, almost instantaneous communication has made fame a commodity in itself. Novelty performers, entertainers, influencers, and sports stars—especially if young and glamorous—can become the victim of "audience capture." Fame tempts the ego to claim what does not belong to it, and the person may become identified with...
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JUNG'S PARANORMAL ENCOUNTERS: Why did strange events follow him?
This Jungian Life
If we lean into strange experiences with gentle curiosity, we may discover a level of psyche that acts directly on objects. Many of us have uncanny coincidences like thinking of a friend at the exact moment they ring us on the phone, but what about physical things breaking apart for no reason or luminous apparitions at our bedside? We often explain them away to reduce our anxiety, but Jung found them fascinating. He maintained a scientific attitude while accepting strange phenomena he could not explain. Eventually, he created a psychology of radical acceptance that creates space for the...
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LOW ENERGY: Where can we source the drive to take action?
This Jungian Life
Lisa, Deb, and Joe, Jungian analysts and co-creators of This Jungian Life podcast, have introduced thousands of clients to an inner world with unexpected resources. Many people just can’t rally to do what’s necessary and improve their lives. Is it possible they just don’t carry much vitality, or is some inner conflict blocking their access? We share personal stories of ‘energy loss’ and offer insights into purposelessness. Jung tells us inner energy flows according to its own laws, but if we can’t harness it? Prepare to discover why some people are naturally low-energy,...
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REUNIONS: Is there value in remembering our younger selves?
This Jungian Life
Deb and Joe are Jungian Analysts, authors, training analysts, and co-creators of This Jungian Life Podcast. [Lisa was away lecturing this week.] Most of us feel anxious at the thought of reliving the complicated and often painful experiences of our youth. When we receive a school reunion notice, we might be tempted to ignore it. Yet, on an archetypal level, we are drawn to re-unifying our current and past identities. If we accept the invitation, we may find unexpected joy and forgotten memories that restore something inside us. Prepare to discover why we plan and attend reunions, whether...
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Donald Kalsched – Can running our minds like a democracy save us?
This Jungian Life
Don Kalsched is a Jungian Analyst, an expert on treating trauma, author of two books, The Inner World of Trauma and Trauma and the Soul. Jung discovered our inner world is populated by various imaginal figures representing powerful psychological forces. If we treat our minds as democratic spaces, it can safeguard us from internal and external authoritarian influences. Prepare to discover the parallels between a balanced mind and a healthy society, whether viewing internal conflicts through a democratic lens is healing, which insights foster harmony, why democratic philosophy is transformative,...
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Why Do We Push People Away? Understanding our Defenses
This Jungian Life
Defense mechanisms function as unconscious psychological strategies we deploy to navigate reality and sustain a consistent self-image. They act as a shield, guarding against feelings of anxiety, shame, and vulnerability. They are feeling states that prompt us to avoid contact and trick us into thinking they protect us against emotional harm. Ancient philosophers recognized the human tendency to evade uncomfortable truths. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, he vividly depicts individuals shackled in a cave, seeing only shadows and illusions. Upon being freed and confronted with the light...
info_outlineWe define dating as the quest for serious partnership or ongoing companionship. Today’s dating world is radically different from that of even a generation ago, and is light years away from previous generations. Dating apps and social media expedite and expand the range the search for a suitable other - and often turns dating into an exercise in personal marketing. Dating also now spans an age range from teens to older - even elderly - divorced or widowed adults. If today’s dating culture provides individuals with autonomy and choice, it also denies them the safeguards provided by family, religious, and cultural norms. The online persona may be very different from the actual person, from age and appearance to character misrepresentation. Lacking social context and mutually understood social norms, individuals are required to be more aware of what they seek in another. They also need to be more aware of the projections and relational complexes to which they are susceptible.
Dream
I was in a big Catholic cathedral; maybe in Spain or Italy. A mass was about to start. A usually generous friend of mine pushed passed me and took the last seat with a good view, one-in from the end of a row. Then I was standing near what seemed to be the tower of an Anglican church, which stood inside the Catholic cathedral. The doors of the tower flew open and a 2 metre tall black plinth on wheels was pushed out. On the plinth was a devilish/trickster character in a black Renaissance costume, making a scary face like Hannibal Lecter. I felt some fear but also the thrill of the theatrical spectacle.