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Episode 095- TRIGGERED: Understanding & Transforming Complexes

This Jungian Life

Release Date: 01/23/2020

SELKIE FOLKLORE: Should we force soul to serve us? show art SELKIE FOLKLORE: Should we force soul to serve us?

This Jungian Life

The Selkie swims ashore at night, sheds her seal skin, hides it, and delights in her human form. In Celtic lore, she is the wild feminine soul, a creature of land and sea, innocent and beautiful, who cannot thrive in domesticity. In folklore, the seal-folk are discovered by humans. Their natural, joyous spirit, grace, and affection invite contact. Humans are drawn to them, but if they touch, parting is unbearable. Many a young man, desperate to maintain the life-giving embrace of nature, steals a Selkie’s seal skin, locking her into a human form. Helpless, she is led into domesticity and...

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INITIATIONS: universal processes that spark transformation show art INITIATIONS: universal processes that spark transformation

This Jungian Life

The archetype of Initiation is primordial, and its force guides our transformative transitions. For Jung, this change reshapes spiritual, emotional, intellectual, behavioral, and social dynamics. Rooted in his anthropological studies, Jung emphasized the vital role of formal ceremonies in fostering separation from parental influences and facilitating integration into adult communities. These ceremonies marked a clear transition from childhood and established an essential connection with the adult community, promoting the collaborative culture by containing unconscious forces. Derived from...

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The Barbie Movie: Can it Dismantle an American Myth? show art The Barbie Movie: Can it Dismantle an American Myth?

This Jungian Life

[Spoiler Alert.] In the opening scene of the Barbie movie, listless little girls dressed as drab Dust Bowl mothers play at ironing as they tend plastic babies until a gigantic cosmic Barbie appears on the landscape in a vogue pose. Her presence inspires the girls to smash their dolls and cast off their pretend chores in a whirl of rageful frustration. While this scene spoofs 2001: A Space Odyssey, it unknowingly dramatizes an archetypal event in the collective American psyche. In 1959, the Barbie doll hit the market and created a stir. American mothers objected to her sensuous form, so...

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From SHAMANISM to JUNG: Understanding 'Loss of Soul' show art From SHAMANISM to JUNG: Understanding 'Loss of Soul'

This Jungian Life

As Jung’s anthropological studies expanded and his international travel exposed him to new cultures and ideas, he was taken by the concept of ‘loss of soul.’  A collapse of energy, a strange sudden alteration of personality, or episodes of blinding rage could signify a loss of soul from a shamanic perspective. The soul carries the animating and regulating forces as well as memory. In most traditions, it was expected to fly away upon death, much like the Egyptian Ba, depicted as a bird with a human head. Because the soul had an independent life, it might flee suddenly, leaving a...

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HAGITUDE: Sharon Blackie on the power of aging show art HAGITUDE: Sharon Blackie on the power of aging

This Jungian Life

Sharon Blackie calls us to the ancient archetype of the Hag as a figure of unapologetic emergence from cultural pressures that lock us into outworn roles and limiting beliefs.  Drawing upon her transformative experiences in menopause Blackie grounds the mythic figure of the old woman who fashioned the world in her fierce determination to dissolve and reconfigure her professional and personal life. Identifying and rejecting cultural pressures to look and act a certain way as she ages, she claims the second half of her life for a post-heroic journey of intense creativity and unapologetic...

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THREE VOICES, ONE SONG: Lessons in Friendship show art THREE VOICES, ONE SONG: Lessons in Friendship

This Jungian Life

The essence of friendship is visible in its linguistic root: ‘to love.’ Cicero wrote, “Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief." In modern times the art of friending seems lost. We have replaced shared experiences with Facebook posts and quell our loneliness by scrolling.  With high spirits, we three revisit our first meeting and reflect on the discovery of kinship between us. Our experiences of trust, reciprocity, and shared hardship marked by endless conversations and abundant laughter forged our bond during...

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You're Not A Fraud: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome show art You're Not A Fraud: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

This Jungian Life

Imposter syndrome constellates the gut-wrenching fear of being exposed as a fraud no matter how much we have learned or the successes we have demonstrated. In 1978 two researchers identified and explored a painful phenomenon among some high-achieving women. Despite their high levels of success, they were convinced they were not as competent, intelligent, or skilled as others might think. Instead of identifying with their capabilities, they often attributed their success to luck, personal persuasion, or an unanticipated burst of energy. Further research revealed this struggle was equally...

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FRIEND or FOE: The AI Debate with Michael L. Littman, PhD show art FRIEND or FOE: The AI Debate with Michael L. Littman, PhD

This Jungian Life

The uses and abuses of ChatGPT artificial intelligence language model have taken the collective imagination by storm. Apocalyptic predictions of the singularity, when technology becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, frighten us as we imagine a future where human intelligence is irrelevant. Prof. Michael Littman joins us to contextualize the advancement of artificial intelligence and debunk the paranoid rhetoric littering the public discourse. Michael has made groundbreaking research contributions enabling machines to learn from their experiences, assess the environment, make decisions,...

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The Conjunction of Art and Life with Peter Kramer show art The Conjunction of Art and Life with Peter Kramer

This Jungian Life

"Death of the Great Man" by Dr. Peter D. Kramer offers a glimpse into the character disordered alpha narcissist. It is more than a satirical political commentary on Donald Trump. It points us to a broader discourse on power dynamics in the collective psyche, the potential for authority to corrupt our humanity and the dangerous ways we escape from freedom by surrendering self-responsibility.   The unique blend of psychiatric insight and literary narrative brings an unusual depth to the work. The narrator, psychiatrist Henry Farber, places the reader at his side, admitting his negative...

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Meeting Shadow on the Spiritual Path with Connie Zweig show art Meeting Shadow on the Spiritual Path with Connie Zweig

This Jungian Life

Award-winning author, depth psychotherapist, and guide Connie Zweig shows us encountering darkness is a necessary part of our spiritual journey. In the first half of life, we disown aspects of ourselves to fit in and navigate our world more smoothly. Over time we realize all aspects of ourselves must be recalled and befriended. Integration of these shadow aspects lays the foundation for spiritual awakening.  Through careful introspection, dreamwork, and self-confrontation, we can see beyond stereotypes and projections, avoiding the pitfalls of black-and-white thinking. Jung reminds us,...

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When we speak of being triggered, what exactly is it that sends us into a familiar  arc of feeling and behavior we may later regret? That mysterious force seems external and can elude our ability to locate it within. Jung called these autonomous and unconscious incursions complexes, and he discovered them through his Word Association Test.

A subject’s delayed or inappropriate reaction to a stimulus word such as tree or house indicated an unconscious disturbance that could then yield to understanding. Complexes are a fundamental part of our inner landscape: our experiences cluster around innate human patterns, emotions, bodily sensations, and personal memories.

We are complexed when we are automatically, emotionally and physiologically aroused, often in ways that are out of proportion to the situation. We begin to transform a complex by noticing, naming, and claiming it as our own. Then we can catch it before we react—and instead, respond. Complexes are constellated, clustered together like stars—and they can shine their light on our unconscious patterns. 

 Dream

"I am going to become the next queen of England. But first, I had to clean a lot of food and trash from an audience seating area (like stands at a sports arena). I asked the Queen if I was making a mistake by becoming the next queen. She said yes, and that I will have no time to give to my own children (once I have them). A young male adviser to the Queen was assisting her and helping to set everything up for the transition. On a break from cleaning, I went down to a craft fair and visited some old ladies and talked to them about the beautiful art they made. My grandmother was there, trying to print a photograph I took of a Legislature building. I returned to my task and at 6:00 PM, I made my way to sit on the right arm of the Queen's chair, ready for the ceremony."