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...
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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...
info_outlineThe 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 motherhood. Isolated from the sea, in a role alien to her nature, the Selkie diminishes until her seal-skin is reclaimed. Called home to the sea, she leaves all behind and is restored to her authentic being.
Theft of a Selkie’s skin is a kind of archetypal initiation we all may face. Our naive spirits are all too often robbed or captured through lack of foresight. We lose touch with our wild spirit as we accept our assigned social roles, accommodate marital expectations, and forget what we once loved. Drained and disaffected, midlife may cast us into our inner wilderness to renew and restore our original being.
We lose our connection to life-giving instincts slowly. Attending the family alma mater, selecting a sensible career, and sacrificing our wildness to corporate culture can leave our souls withered. Deprived of the water of life, we may abandon everything once we find our true skin and smell the brine carried on the east wind.
In the ancient stories, seal-folk were male and female, and either might find themselves trapped through naïve curiosity. For young men and women, innocence is unrewarded in the adult world and often leads us into harsh agreements that force us to abandon our intuition and accept domestication. We turn from our inner world and stare only at the culture. Deep desire is replaced by snacking on what has been advertised. Our uncouth delight is curated into meticulous etiquette.
When we neglect our animal side, the unconscious howls at us. Injured animals surface in our dreams, along with roaring vague creatures that chase us and savage impulses prompting us to bite and claw. If we linger too long in alien domesticity, emptiness, exhaustion, and neglect may drive us to chew our way out of our current situation. But actions of last resort might be avoided by learning to listen to the wild one within.
Carving out time in nature, setting unyielding boundaries, and questioning societal expectations are vital to protecting our true nature. If we are sons and daughters of the open water, we need time off, solitude, and uninterrupted periods of self-reflection. Art, music, and poetry can call forward our animal nature, granting us deep relief.
Listen to your seal-song and answer it.
A COPY OF THE DREAM IS HERE!
MEET LISA IN COLUMBUS OHIO on October 13 & 14, 2023: The Power of Dreamwork – Friday Night Lecture (October 13 from 7 to 8:30 PM) and Saturday Workshop (October 14 from 9:30 AM to Noon): CLICK HERE.
UNLOCK THE SECRETS OF YOUR DREAMS: Dream School provides a gently paced program with live interactive webinars, an uplifting online community, thought-provoking audio modules, and guided journaling to deepen your experience. Lisa, Deb, and Joe crafted the program with you in mind and companion you through the process. “Step-by-step, we’ll teach you how to interpret your dreams.” Join Dream School and Transform Your Sleep into the Greatest Adventure of Your Life: CLICK HERE