You Draw the Good to Yourself

You naturally draw the good to yourself. Good thoughts, feelings, and good happenings can come your way as crystal-clear water flows unimpeded through a mountain stream. Like stream water, it depends on there being no impediments. In daily life, there are obstacles because we live in an imperfect world. The psychologist Donald Winnicott wrote in his book Playing and Reality that our objective in a healthy life is to achieve what is good enough. 

To this, we would add that things needn’t be perfect, unimpeded, or without obstacles all of the time. There are and will be problems; there is no escaping that human fact. However, as gravity pulls water downstream once obstacles are removed, the dissolution of pathological negativism and destructive attitudes and relationships frees us to feel all that is good in life. In fact, the bad stuff, problems, and mistakes often have the most to teach. We stay open, learn, and grow from the good and the bad.

In weekly study groups, Dr. Michael Eigen, a long-time eighty-seven-year-old colleague living in New York, teaching at NYU, and having written more books than Freud, affirms that as healthy humans, we are opening, constantly opening, and changing. It keeps us on our psychic toes so that we don’t rest on our emotional rear end, drop to the ground, and refuse to go on when disappointment strikes. By staying with it through thick and thin, terrible happenings and wonderful inspiration have time to marinate, and voila! Something is created; the good things we draw to ourselves by staying open and seeing things through.

Another important psychic fact is that the difficult, the bad, and the worst are compostable. Tough stuff, trying circumstances, and troublesome relationships are there to teach us something. They’re compost in the heap of things, people, and situations that haven’t worked for us and even been traumatizing. The composting process breaks down the hurt, self-doubt, and horrid memories so that we feel what we need to feel and learn what we need to know.

By letting go and allowing the unconscious to compost bad and traumatizing experiences, healing and helpful mind/body memories can surface and establish themselves. They keep us from what hasn’t worked so we don’t make the same old mistakes. We have room to grow into what is new, even new mistakes! Remember, there’s stuff to learn even from fumbles and stumbles, sometimes especially from them. What matters is that we have the wherewithal to always keep moving on. As I tell my patients, the healthy psyche is a forward-moving and future-oriented psyche, moving toward and drawing to itself what is good and whole.

*Winnicott, D. (2005). Playing and Reality. Routledge.

There Is a Power for Good

We are creators, soul creators! It is from within us that our outer world is shaped and comes into being. Jesus wisely taught that the kingdom of heaven lies within. All energy, dark and light, lay in psychic utero, awaiting our readiness to birth what is most natural and authentic for us in our lives..

A patient told me, "You know, after working out and through my trauma, it's the good that's the real challenge. It's there. I can feel it. But it takes work to birth it. It's easy to go and stay dark and negative. It takes energy to sit with and birth the good." I added, "The thing is, after getting through all the bad stuff, we've come to see that we are soul creators. So it's in our best interest and that of the world to yield to and work with our power and the world's power for good."

There is a world soul. Plato wrote about what he called the single-world soul. In the Timaeus, Plato describes a pre-cosmic state of chaos, much like what sufferers of mental pain undergo before and during their journey toward wholeness. He further explains that in this state, there is discord and disorder. However, a Demiurge, an invisible force of benevolence, within and without, is at work to transform chaos, discord, and disorder into the good.

Admittedly, this is hard to believe amid painful times and overwhelming situations. However, despite belief or disbelief, the world soul, Demiurge, or what old religions have called God, is at work. One yogi told me that God is a mantra for all that is loving, light, and creative. It resonated. We needn't get hung up on words or descriptors; the critical reality is that there is an invisible force at work in all of us and life itself that constantly and forever is in motion toward all that is loving, light, and creative.

Therapy Talk Helps You Heal

It helps to talk. I don't mean just any talk. There's jibber-jabbering talk about trivial stuff that means nothing to anybody. It's jaw-flapping, a waste of time and energy. It goes nowhere and has no positive effect. And then there's another talking. It's heartfelt and meaningful. It comes out of concern, anxiety, and often much pain. It can also come from simply wanting to relate, speak, listen, and connect with another human being.

Genuine connection with people and self matters. Few are those who get there. After forty years of doing depth psychotherapy, treating the root of the problem and not just the symptom, I've seen that many folks do not truly connect with others. Symptoms of anxiety and depression, by and large, stem from people problems. Damaged bonds from childhood can disable our bonding ability with others and self. We can't connect in satisfying ways with others or be content with self. The answer to many of our psychic issues is discovering lasting connections.

Therapy talk helps you feel connected with self and others and satisfied with who you are and how you live. It happens when you go to a professional therapist and strike chords of sincerity and truthfulness. Therapy comes from the Greek word therapeia. It means healing. There's healing because things are honest, in the moment, and heart-to-heart. It's real talk. It can be soft or intense. It can be tender or firm. What matters is that it's two people emotionally touching. There are moments of clarity, emotional getting it, and relief in that psychological closeness. It's a healing and satisfying experience.

The article “Going Beneath the Surface: What People Want from Therapy” in the journal Psychoanalytic Inquiry states that people do not want quick-fix answers for psychological pain. Instead, they are willing to work hard over time to unearth the root of the problem. The article explores how therapy is a worthwhile investment in one's life and worth making. I would also add it is not only professional therapy that helps people root things out. When we hang in with relationships through thick and thin, as long as each person is working hard and is honest and engaged, there is hope for healing and growth. A colleague, still doing therapy after fifty years, once remarked, "If we just stick with it, change happens."

So, therapy talk helps you work life stuff through. Honest and sensitive everyday talk with those who matter to us also helps us feel better and heal. In the end, staying with the relationship conflict or personal pain and talking with another person who gets us, who understands, sets relief and healing in motion. All talk is therapeutic if it's based on felt truthfulness and understanding. And professional therapy talk intensifies the working through process. Therapy talk is talk that connects, understands, and heals.

Making Your Way Through Life

How we make our way through this life seems like an age-old question. Yet, if we’re honest, it speaks to an emotional reality that shakes us up. As a psychotherapist of forty years, I've seen it bring tormented souls to their knees, people crumbling into a psychic heap. I feel the weight of their sadness and the swirl of confusion whipping through their minds. It can disorient and alienate them because, before treatment, they've felt alone in their misery. Of crucial importance is we. We are all making our way, and we are not alone. Everyone has a path, and everyone is looking for answers.

A person complained, "Everyone on social media seems so together, their posts all about smiling people with perfect lives." Each time someone expresses feeling so alienated, I've had a mental flash of ailing psyches. We hide our soul ailments behind a façade of having it all together. It’s understandable, a defense against vulnerability. People hurt people and seek a point of vulnerability. So, we guard ourselves. Until we feel safe, there is pretense, even for the sincerest of us. So, there are no perfect people living perfect lives; there are real people staying guarded until they feel safe enough to come out from hiding.

Speaking of social media, this morning I posted, “Last night, I dreamt that at 69, I had officially left middle age and entered old age. Ha! I thought I left it a while back, but I don't argue with my dreams. This morning a news article reminded me of the words from '"Voltaire’s “Candide”: 'Il faut cultiver notre jardin”— “we must cultivate our garden.' The garden may be tiny and perhaps hidden, but it is mine to make of it as I want.' Leaving one time of life, entering another, and knowing what to leave behind and what now lies within our reach is contentment. I think it is good.”

I wrote this post knowing there is both goodness in the garden of my life and tricky spots. Weeds, misunderstandings, hurt, and pain creep into the most well-tended psychological gardens. You are a decent person living a relatively good life, trying your best. Yet, problems strike. A family member or two or three doesn't get you or feels you don't get them. And it's so frustrating! It happens to the best of us. But it's life and how it works, and we do our best to flow with it.

And there’s the snag—the flowing with it. It's not simply the good things but the bad ones too that are in the stream we call life. So often, patients have told me they thought therapy would help even things out. Their life would be put back together, their head straight, and things would be smooth sailing ahead. The fact is that therapy is only life on steroids. It pops things out so we can work with them, learn from them, and then either work them through or learn to adapt and cope with built-ins, the good and bad, the beautiful and painful.

The strange thing is that if we block out the bad and put on a happy face, it'll turn around and bite us on the rear-end. There’s no escaping emotions, they’ll backup and soon we’ll be swamped by too much distress, anger, or love. Denying the painful is obvious, but people also deny love. Then it too turns and demands our attention. Suddenly, we’re experiencing an obsessive crush or too much sexual energy. It’s all about the bad and good, painful and beautiful. So, leaning into the reality of the good and bad is what counts. As long as things stay real and human, we're off and running, flowing with the currents of our life.

Intuition of the Instant

We can receive answers to pressing questions quicker than we think. An open heart and sensitivity to intuition set you up for a miracle in a flash. It is instant insight. French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard, wrote about it in his book, Intuition of the Instant. The key is to listen. Take seriously the far-off idea or little inspiration. This inner urge lingers and doesn’t flit away. It has staying power. It keeps whispering what we need to hear, a message from life itself. It strives to propel us into a new attitude, way of living, and life situation.

For the past forty years, I’ve seen patients four days a week in depth psychotherapy. After clearing through trauma, anger, and fear—often for years—things start coming together. Patients listen to their intuition, a flash of instinct. We call it a gut feeling. They experience positive results more and more as they learn to trust it. And, like a muscle used and exercised regularly, the intuition of the instant grows stronger.

There’s a catch to listening and following the intuition of the instant. It’s that no one else may get it. But you do! You see what you need to see. You gain insight into a problem. You understand what path to take when at a crossroads. Those around might smirk and even scoff because it doesn’t seem to make sense. But after you’ve heard and followed the intuition of the instant, despite the scoffers, and your decisions bear fruit, deriders often pause, shake their heads, and admit you were on to something.

Once you are open to the intuition of instant, then little flashes of insight come. But, insight is like a turtle slowly poking its head out of its shell. It wants to know if you’re safe. Will you take care of it or hurt it by brushing it off? Once it sees the coast is clear, that you’re a safe vessel for wisdom, it will venture forward. Little insights lead to bigger ones as you take the first step to be a safe vessel. You listen, respect, and follow through. It’s a big step to take the first step, but it’s the only way to discover the intuition of instant. It will help you heal and grow stronger as a soulful person who receives answers to pressing questions by listening to the intuition of the instant.

A Radical and Evolving Openness

A hallmark of psychological health is openness, a radical and evolving openness. It’s ongoing. There’s no stopping it. But, if we’re uptight and rigid, we want to stop and quit the growing process. Then things go south.

We’re stuck and unhappy, and then insight may come to us that it just might be time to let go and grow. A patient shared a dream of being cornered, stuck. There was no way out. Fright gripped him to his core. As we talked about the dream, it dawned on him that he was just where he needed to be. It slowed him down, so he’d stop, reflect, and listen to what life was saying.

In his case, life had been a series of ups and downs, unceasing twists and turns. They wouldn’t stop. There was no way out. The dream said he was cornered, meaning he needed to stay put and let things play out. Not sure he could trust the wisdom of the dream, he consulted the I Ching, a divinatory book of change. The reading said all things were as they were destined to be. He returned for his next session more willing to be open to higher wisdom and trust.

I remember sitting in our session realizing that it can take cornering us to open us. We’re fenced in by life to help us open up and see, understand what we need to get on in life. Otherwise, we stay stuck, cornered. Life won’t let us off the path of healing and growth.

So, you might say, we’re in it to live it. There’s no out. I think it’s a good thing. My patients, over time, have first-hand experience of the positive effect of always leaning into what life brings. There’s always something vital to learn. As long as we’re open, we’ll see that problems are veiled opportunities to shed an old skin and grow into a new way of living, being, becoming.

I’ll admit this is a radical idea. Mainstream media and thought want us to believe that someone out there has it made. And we too, therefore, can one day have it made. Fact is, we have it made when we’re always making it. It’s the open-ended making of ideas, relationships, inspirations, shifts of perspective.

We’re beings of radical, evolving openness to what is and what we will become. Always being, always becoming—a radical evolving openness. So, thought for the day: a hallmark of psychological health is openness, a radical and evolving openness.

Open Up Your Heart and Dream

Everyone dreams. Open your heart and whisper before going off to sleep land, “I’m open to dreams and whatever they tell me tonight.” This is enough to get the dream juices flowing. Dreams will feel more welcome and speak to you, and the more you listen, the more they will come with vivid and helpful images.

 Opening your heart is easy to say but hard to do. You may think you’ve done it, and then nothing comes. The dream well remains dry. There’s a reason for this. It often lies in a hidden fear of what we will encounter. If this happens to you, meditate on what you might be most afraid of. For many people, it’s the simple act of letting go that makes opening up to dreaming so hard.

 Control is good; too much control is not. You may be the type who holds on tight to your emotions and does not permit a sense of freedom of feeling and expression respectful of self and others. There, there's going to be problems dreaming. The channels are clogged. Too much control, as on patient aptly described, “ . . . means that I’m afraid to let go and grow.”

 So, the question is, how are you afraid of letting go and growing? You might fear facing something about someone you care about or thought you cared about. One person related the following dream, “I was alone in a dense forest. I’d been there. It was deep in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Santa Fe. From a distance, I saw my husband. He was in the everyday world, separate from the forest, a bustling city. Turning a corner, he stepped into a bar, sat at the counter next to a woman. They knew each other—intimately. The dream stopped, I awakened, tears streaming down my cheeks.”

 The meaning of the dream spoke to her marriage and what she feared. Before entering therapy, she had sensed the problem from afar. Intuition had nudged. It told her to listen to her surge of mistrust toward her husband and his frequent business trips. She had dismissed this intuition. For over two years, she ran from what needed attention in her marriage. Finally, anxiety brought her to my office. She hadn't dreamt for two years.

 Dreams stopped because emotions were blocked. Anxiety due to blocking feelings primed the pump for truth-facing. Images surfaced from her unconscious mind and dramatized the truth behind her marriage. It was not the marriage she had painted in her mind; the illusion shattered.

 As fate would have it, the night she was to speak to him of her misgivings, he approached her. Business problems propelled an otherwise faithful husband of twenty years to have a brief affair. He broke off the affair and entered treatment. His own therapist guided him to come clean with his wife. They entered marital therapy and were able to, over time, heal a deep wounding of their relationship.

 Opening your heart to dreams, whisper to your unconscious mind before you go to sleep: "I'm open to dreams and whatever they tell me tonight." Because you're reading this book of practical guidance, your unconscious mind will know to speak practically. Once you've seen what you need to see, things will be set in motion both within and without. All it takes is for you to open your heart and dream.

GEt Well . . . Slowly

Forty years into treating patients in psychotherapy, and I’m still struck by how people want to get well—quickly. Health-minded folks hear the siren call to run to the next “healthy fix.” Going from one health fad to the next inevitably leaves you high on what’s new then ground down by disappointment. Yet another get-well-quick promise dashes you against the rocks.

The inner draw to be well is natural. It’s enchanting, ever-present, and elusive. As one person it, “There’ always been something in me saying I could make it. At some point, I’d find what I’ve been looking for. I’d be well. But, I never reached it.” After time spent soul work, they said, “It’s strange, I’ve found well being but it’s different than I thought—it’s there but always changing, shifting. Always more to grow into.”

So often, I run across those who, as I say, mainline bliss. It’s spiritual bypassing. These folks get a temporary bliss fix. It’s trying to obtain goodness without doing the work. They get blissed out, high on meditation, religion, yoga, and mind-altering substances. These may have a place when appropriately used. At least for a while, they may provide relief from stress and induce calmness. However, there is the inevitable let-down. Turning outside for what can be found only inside leaves us in a spiritual nowhere land.

Sensing the desire for good feelings is a good thing! Now, there’s work to do. Good feelings call to us, then we need to do the work. There are lifestyle issues, emotional and spiritual issues, and relationship issues to sort through. Getting well doesn’t happen without doing work. Facing what we need to face, to stop going so fast and turn within, to slowly do inner work opens us to growth! Paraphrasing my patient, well being is there for you. But it’s different than you thought. And there’s always more to grow into.

A Sustained Will to Live

In the midst of stress and chaos, we can be sane. We can find our way. But it helps if we have someone to turn talk with, understand what we experience and suffer. I’ve been seeing psychotherapy patients for forty years, listening to feelings, memories, and dreams. There’s been much healing and progress for many. For others, they’ve got a little of what they needed and then move on. And, you and I meet up on this blog post. It’s our way of talking. Each page has one insight for reflection, a little something gained from years as a therapist and human being attempting his best to understand self and others.

 In stressful moments, I find that staying true to what we are feeling, in a non-hurtful way, helps. There’s no lashing out at others or self-recrimination. We let the emotion run its course and eventually speak to us. There’s something to learn from vital feelings. If we don’t act out, instead settle ourselves and, if possible, talk, listen more, reach an understanding, then clarity comes. It usually is in the form of an Ah-Ha! Moment. The clarity is striking, however subtle or obvious. Your head clears, and the relationship begins to heal.

 Right now is a lovely time to be alive because, at this moment, we’re engaged with one another. I’m passing on my inspiration. There’s a reaching out that I feel, an empathic stretch your way. Maybe, just maybe, I’m touching on something meaningful for you. I hope so. You know, chaos and stress will always be here. There’s no way out of people problems, no way out of the pull toward negativism in our head. But, we can resist the pull, resist the downward tug, resist despair. And as William James, father of American psychology, noted in The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is the virtue of hope that offers the sustained will to live in a stressful world.

Where There's Symptoms, There's Meaning

Don’t Ignore Your Symptoms

in depth psychology, the realm of emotion and spirit, we listen to our personal and societal symptoms. When there's trouble, there's meaning - something to learn. In the words of James Hillman, founder of archetypal metapsychology we read, " . . . not to ignore our symptoms and pathologies, nor to take them literally and act from them. He asked us to listen to them, as mysterious messengers, who might have something important to tell us. Until we can do so, as individuals and as a nation, things will continue to fall apart, and we will continue to destroy whatever elements of an imagined past greatness still remain.”

What the old psychologist spoke of here was the importance of listening and learning to what ails us. Symptoms are the messengers of the soul. A patient told me that for years they suffered chronic lower backache near their rump. Dream images repeatedly suggested they were hard on themselves. One, in particular, showed them carrying a load of rocks on their back up a mountain. They expected themselves to do this arduous and meaningless act. In a session, they stated, “I see how I’ve been expecting too much of myself. I’ve been my own pain in the a**!” Meaning struck home, resonated within, and helped them to ease up in life.

Soul Messengers

Sometimes meaning comes when an unexpected person comes our way. They speak to the problem weighing us down. Their words stay with us. People can be soul messengers. So, it’s best to approach each relationship with an open heart and a willingness to learn. You may be entertaining an angel unawares.

For me, people messages are as moving as dream insights and intuitive flashes. People can hurt us and people can help us heal. We know the ones to listen to and how to absorb what they have to share. There’s a sense of trust in a trustworthy person. These types of people are soul messenger.

Life Gives Symptoms and Meaning

There’s healing, true healing once we discover meaning in the symptoms we suffer. Without understanding the emotional and spiritual message behind the pain, we’re only receiving a topical aid. It won’t go far. Symptoms will return in another form. Healing comes and stays when meaning is unearthed.

Be open to the meaning behind the symptom you’re suffering. Don’t be afraid to turn within and consider that you may be responsible for generating your own troubles. Sure, others may be involved. A situation may be horrid. But, you’re the one opting to participate. Figure out what’s going on behind the symptom and meaning will take root in your heart and stir you to change.

Where There's Pain There's Cure

Pain Carries the Seed of Cure

More than we think, we as adults generate our psychic sufferings. We don’t think we do, but we do. We’re immensely biased to believe our problems come from outside of us. Often, they come from the inside. Of course, external childhood and adulthood traumas are real and take root in the psyche. They dig in and can cause an endless cycle of problems and illnesses. But one day, we realize that what came from the outside is now inside and needs attention. Otherwise, everything is projected outward and becomes traumatic, emotional drama after drama playing out in our life like an onstage play. Fortunately, psychic pain always carries the seed of its own cure. 

We Have a Choice

Patients in depth psychotherapy are caught in a whirlwind of relational pain and hoped-for cure. Life hangs in the balance. Over time, individuals learn to turn within and reflect on themselves and their life. Insights often unearth dark energies that have stirred up life troubles and uncannily drawn bad situations and dysfunctional people their way. It seems like bad things just happen out of the blue. But, when we take time to learn from our feelings and dreams, we come to see that there’s a reason for them. Then, we’re ready to understand that we can do something about our predicament.

 Humanistic and phenomenological depth psychology teaches about the reality of self-empowerment. Even in horrid predicaments, we have a choice. In an online professional listserv with other psychologists today, we talked about the ability to choose. I related a saying that we have a good dog and a bad dog in us. Which one lives depends on which one we feed. We keep feeding the emotional drama by blaming others rather than stopping and looking closely at ourselves and our life.

 Begin Your Healing Process

Our ability to choose empowers us to begin our own healing and growth process. People look for a different locale or a partner to change things up for them—make them happier. It doesn’t work. Outer changes don’t automatically translate to inner changes. We have to start with coming to terms with the dark emotions and dreams on the inside, then we stand a good chance of changing the outside for the good.

 Slowly and painfully, patients listen to vital feeling states and dreams. Emotions and dream symbols open up vistas of experience that lead to a greater understanding of self and others. Off in the distance, a light starts to faintly glow at the end of a dark emotional and spiritual tunnel. Along the way, step by step, we deal with buried feelings, set our attitudes on course, and let go of dead-end relationships. Dream images guide us along the way, inch by inch through the dark tunnel. Then, the light at the end of the tunnel grows brighter. Light dawns only after sensitive and patient turning within, soul tending.

 Pain is There—Cure is There

A person I knew socially complained about not sleeping. He asked me what I thought. I remarked that sometimes we don’t sleep because we fear our dreams. We run from going down deep into the unconscious mind, the realm of sleeping and dreaming. He resisted going to bed, nervous behaviors keeping him up till all hours. Headaches developed. Other physical symptoms followed. Some weeks later, he said that what I told him kept coming back to him. Our meeting again was a sign, he said, that he needed to take my words to heart. I encouraged him once again to allow extra time for sleep and rest.

 The pain was there, so I knew the cure was also there. Resistance to inner truth generates physical and psychic pain. He finally succumbed to sleeping more regularly. Dreams followed. They detailed relationship conflicts he had refused to face, decisions needing to be made and followed through with.

 I’m not sure how things went for this man since I haven’t seen him for some time. But I do know that once dark realities are brought to light, the potential to heal is set in motion. Once we see what’s wrong, we can find some clarity about what we can do to set things right. It’s never easy, but the tough going of following through with necessary life changes is a hundred times better than the misery of staying stuck. We initiate our cure by understanding that psychic pain always carries the seed of its own cure.

Feel the Hope

As a psychologist in training, I remember a deeply nourishing exchange with a supervisor that kindled my understanding of hope and healing. “Healing calls for hope. As a therapist, you’ve got to feel it for the patient. If you don’t, it would be best to refer them to someone you feel might be better for them. Maybe they simply would benefit from medication or need a neurological workup. Not everyone is ready for or needs therapy. But, if they come your way, check in with your feeling of hope. Is it there? Do you feel it for them? If so, then there’s potential for healing. Move forward and do your best, and they’re likely to find healing.”

 William James, father of American depth psychology, wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience “let . . . hope be the atmosphere which man breathes in . . . and his days pass by with zest.” There are those who shield themselves from hope. It takes exertion of self to hope. You put yourself into it, the vital emotion of it requiring energy, an investment of self. People are afraid. I understand, but I also get it that to retreat into negativism, cynicism, and despair ends up at the end of a very dark and go-no-where back alley. It helps nothing and no one.

 But when hope is the real deal, you feel it from your core. It’s not concocted. It’s not a fly-by feeling—a wisp of sentiment or superficial thought. No, genuine hope comes from the gut, it grabs hold and digs in then looks to you to give it expression. When we take the step to feel the hope, then it blooms. It provides energy, gray and black clouds lift. We can do things and move ahead.

 A patient walked into my office, their countenance dark, and their attitude dismal. They were in the grip of despair. They reported this dream: “I was at the edge of a cliff, a black abyss down below. Instead of stepping back, which I should have done, I stepped off and went down. When I woke up I felt depressed.” We explored the power of the symbolism. They were at the edge and the dream said they had a choice—to step off or not. Off they went. “It’s always been easier to go down the tube for me. I just let go and don’t try. I step off the cliff instead of taking the energy to move back and away.”

 What a compelling psychic scenario this dream painted. The patient was more empowered than they had admitted to themselves. They became conscious of their ability to exercise greater control over attitude and self-empowerment. Generative feeling states can be nurtured. Again, they’re not whipped up, they’re not inflated self-talk that comes from baseless notions. No, they spring from genuine inspiration. The soul whispers, You can deal with this. Move on it!

 I noticed when that patient stepped into the consultation office, my hope did not waver. I knew and felt to my core that despite how bad they looked, hope and the potential for healing was present. I felt it deep inside. By the session’s end, the clouds had lifted, their mood lighter. They left feeling self-empowered and that they could fix what they had messed up. So, word for the day is—keep the hope, nourish the hope, and the hope will heal and transform your life and your soul.

What It Takes to Change

Change takes time, months, and years or can happen instantly. It depends on where we are in life. Everyone says they want to heal and change, but the real thing, the stuff of true wholeness, requires a deep breath and a plunge. So, it’s frightening—easy to say, mind-shattering to engage.

A patient reported the following dream. “I was standing on the edge of a cliff. It was a drop down to the ocean. I wasn’t afraid. But I was. The roar of the ocean, winds sweeping across my body, and I teetered. I had to let go, drop. There was no way out. I woke up and decided I needed to get into therapy, do dreamwork, and see what was going on with me.”

Inevitably, today there will be a crisis. It could come in the form of a dream, or relationship conflict, or a sudden turn of events that smack you right where it counts. The original Greek meaning of the word crisis is turning point, a crossroads where we have to make a decision about which way to go. We will have choices today that will determine the course of the morning, afternoon, and evening. These are micro-crises, little decisions, turning points.

For the patient I mentioned, they never dropped into the ocean. In the dream, they stood frightened and paralyzed but did choose to enter depth psychotherapy. Then, they dreamt again, and they dropped down and down and down. It’s where they needed to go—into the vast ocean of soul. Over time dream images spoke to them about hidden things, mysteries that couldn’t be fathomed without dropping down and under. Inevitably, they led to a vast overall of perspective, relationships, and life itself.

Crisis is the time for change. Crisis signals a turning point. Crisis times/changing times can be moment to moment, in a single day, or at intervals in the life span. Babies are in crisis at birth, the mother in crisis, crisis hitting in adolescence, adulthood constant shattering old ways. Ahhh….soul evolution is a crisis!

We try to shield ourselves from soul crisis/change. Overly used life stuff — toomuchitis — numbs the pain that could clear the mind and propel the change. Instead, we eat too much, drink too much, exercise too much, do too much and discover a state of no more feelings. Then, emotions return and turn sideways and can go dark and destructive with a vengeance. It’s the psychological day after syndrome, the emotional hangover, from dipping into toxic unfeeling, not feeling, no feeling.

Toxic mind is irritable, negative, depressed and cranky, has no joy in anyone or anything. Thank goodness, we can steady ourselves and listen to that state of mind. It too is a crisis. It too speaks of change. It too has in it the capacity to turn our life around. A change of attitude, a reckoning with a conflicted relationship, a setting about a task we’ve tried to wiggle out of, is a beginning.

What it takes to change is a willingness to open up and begin. Stopping where we are right now, taking stock of the crisis we’re in, and deciding to do something about our life gets the wheels of change going. Listen to the pain, it speaks to you. Trust the pain, it has a message. Take the good but challenging step that pops into mind and forever transform your life.

That’s what it takes to change.

The Challenge of Bliss

Bliss and Years End

The transition from years end to a new beginning is challenging, even when things are going well. When the going is bad, we want to let go of the worst and ready ourselves to embrace the better and best. But, as we've all noticed, things can follow us. No matter the time, place, people, or space, things follow us. Stability, well being, and bliss is a challenge.

I like bliss. It's not some mind-popping state. In actuality, mystics of old and seasoned depth psychologists would describe it as subtle energy. Gaston Bachelard, French philosopher and psychologist of archetypal realms, wrote of the Platonic ideal of bliss: ". . . to stand over every single thing as its own heaven, as its round roof, its azure bell, and eternal security." We soon discover that such a perspective and experience comes with a price.

Bliss as State of Mind

Bliss is a challenge because it requires we move out so we can move on. The end of a year and transition into a new year calls us to take stock, let go of what no longer is meaningful and embrace the unknown. It's filled with potential. Inevitably, there will be ups and downs, dark matters to go through, and, hopefully, light at the end of dark tunnels.

Bliss is a state of mind, one we can lean into and trust. It can be with us, in the background, during trying moments. It's consciously experienced when things go well. However, we realize it's always there once awareness is raised, appreciation for self and others discovered, and we immerse ourselves in each moment of life.

Bliss as Moving Out and On

Treating patients all year in depth psychotherapy, has brought to mind gratitude for the human capacity to move out so we can move on. As long as we're willing to make the sacrifice, pay the price, the bliss of knowing and feeling ongoing growth and change will be sensed. It's subtle. Patients report, and I, from experience, confirm, it's like a butterfly landing on your shoulder or a snowflake on the palm of your hand. It's there, comes and goes, and leaves the sense of it behind, the wonder of nature at work. Patients move out of what no longer works and into what does, butterflies and snowflakes and inspiration and insight alighting then departing, internalized as soulful nourishment.

Bliss as Subtle Current

So, moving out of one year and toward and into the next means letting go. It means embracing. Then, the subtle current of bliss arrives with surety as a genuine sense we are growing and going on. To be stuck leaves us unhappy, perhaps emotionally and spiritually unstable. As we sort through how we're stuck, then working on letting go and moving on opens us to the subtle current of bliss that is the nature of a soul always growing and moving on.

Curing the Disease of More

 We crave to know more, do more, have it all. First, you have to admit to yourself what I just wrote. Yup – if you don’t fess up and come clean about the disease of more, then there’s no helping you. Okay, right now your mental clock ticks through the microseconds as you decide.

Bam…you’ve made it to this sentence. That means you’re in. For sure, if you’ve made it this far, you’re willing to concede that you’ve victimized yourself. You’ve made yourself vulnerable to and nurtured the disease of more. You’re reading, your mind, deep inside, intrigued. It doesn’t want to stay infected with the insatiable hunger for more.

As a depth psychologist of forty years, I’ve treated the unconscious mind of hundreds of patients. The disease of more, if you open your heart and let yourself see, is there. It lurks like an alleyway predator whispering, Psssst, buddy have I got a deal for you. It lures then hooks. The disease of more is an unconscious dynamic that generates pure misery. Fortunately, misery doesn’t square with one’s deeper and authentic self.

Inevitably, if we succumb to the disease of more, there’s trouble. It may give us what we want up front – that rush of the impossible becoming possible – but then time to pay up. The first to go are relationships. They’re hurt. Fracturing starts, maybe split-ups. Then productivity gets a jolt because what goes up must come down. Last of all, we figure out we’ve gone the wrong way. We’ve expected too much and gone too high. Down in the dumps and sobbing bad tears happen sure as summer monsoons.

Good news is, we can learn from experience. That way we don’t keep doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a payoff when all there’s been are dead ends. We stop, reflect, turn within. Deep feeling states, dreams, those who care about us can help us listen and learn. Curing the disease of more is inevitable if we listen and learn from our missteps, and do it for life.

Spectacular Light

The thing about living is light. It surrounds us, breathes through us – not in us but through us. The force of it is subtle as the New Mexico breeze I hardly notice under the hot summer desert sun then suddenly become acutely grateful for when under the shade of a hundred-year-old cottonwood tree.

Light informs my psychotherapeutic work with patients who’ve suffered from complex childhood trauma, a terrible pain stemming from years of chronic abuse. There are horrid memories deposited in mind and body. Stepping out the door of my home each morning to go to my office, early before the sun rises over the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, I anticipate, hope for the light. Yes, there is hope because there is no guarantee that light, insight, will come and help the suffering to see and be a little freer.

Light, the way my patients and I experience it while sitting doing depth psychotherapy in my wood-paneled consultation office, is a subtle movement of energy. They sometimes comment, “The light in here has shifted. Have you noticed? It’s different, not brighter but clearer.” I often smile silently, acknowledging the reality of what I realize as numinous.

In depth psychology, soul-work therapy, numinous refers to spiritual awakening, an energetic force that awakens consciousness. It happens when we have a “big dream,” one that shakes us to the core and leaves a lingering sensation of mystery. Numinous and luminous are partners in life healing and transformation. It’s subtle, a shift we hardly notice, at times absolutely see, but always feel in our muscles, ligaments, and bones. Light, insight into self and others, awakens psychic truth and a sensation that the very luminosity of the room we are in and the world in which we live has shifted, transformed, for the better.

I call the numinous/luminous encounter spectacular because there is an instant, a millisecond even, when my breath stops, heart quickens, and my mind expands. Patients experience it, tears, sighs, and relief palpable. Spectacular light comes in moments of heart-to-heart conversation, a kindling of human understanding. It is subtle, meaningful, and spectacular.

It’s A Good Day

Every day we have choices to make. Our outlook determines our mood, energy, and relationships. I was struck today at the wonder of the day, looking outside at the New Mexico rain, a sorely needed respite to dry days and hot months. Today I thought and said to myself, It’s a good day.

 When good feelings, positive energy and states of mind, arise spontaneously they speak of sincere and enlivening feeling. It’s important not to take them for granted. Patients suffering from emotional and spiritual burdens often lose good energy and positive emotions. Having a good day is as far away as north from south. Authentic well being happens as the source of bad feelings is discovered and worked through and out of. Then, suffering yields to nourishing emotions that lift the veil from psychic eyes so that once again we see and feel that it’s a good day.

 When negative emotions and spiritual states interfere with well being, they can be dramatized in dreams. Dreams help us to see what we don’t understand consciously. They pop out and clarify what is murky to our conscious mind. This gets the psychic ball rolling, helps us stop and take stock of how we are living.

 A person, tormented by years of depression, reported the following dream: “I was lost in a maze. Round and round I went. It was dark outside. A cold wind was blowing. I didn’t know how I got in there nor did I know how to get out. All was lost until a voice spoke and said this way. A hand with an outstretched finger like Michelangelo’s Creation of David painting appeared. It hovered in the dark sky then came close. I then had enough light to see that the maze was a cornfield. The finger had the power to part the stalks so I could find my way out. At the exit was a house, the family home in which I had been raised.”

 This was the first session of our psychotherapeutic work together. It spoke of light coming to darkness. Luminous spiritual energy guided the way to the source of confusion, chaos and crisis. Family issues had to be addressed before the person could heal. There was no way they could authentically feel the goodness of any day before facing the truth of darkness within.

 It’s important to see the goodness in each day and be grateful. We can honestly feel it and sense an emotional appreciation for the sun, the rain, the wind and the stillness only when the stalks of emotional defenses part. We need emotional and spiritual help to do this. This comes in dreams when we’re most in crisis, dreams playing out healing truths.

 Gratitude for each day may be a genuine state of mind, heart and soul for you right now; or it may require some soul work to discover. If your heart is open, spiritual and emotional forces can come when you’re most in need. Wherever you’re at, remember there’s a good day out there ready to be discovered.

Breaking Free

You want to break free. It’s what led you to read this blog. I’m writing about the things that hold us back and down. We’ve all experienced them in one way or another. Treating patients in depth psychotherapy for the past forty years, I’ve witnessed the emotional and spiritual ravages that come from not dealing with hangups. It’s time to face what we need to face, get through it, and break free of hangups.

Holding ourselves back and down results from hangups in the psychological closet. They are things, attitude and behaviors, that are inevitably destructive to self and others. Things like chronic negativism, addictive behaviors, and engagement in dysfunctional relationships keep us back from entering into who we are. The self is clogged and thwarted by such lack of care; conversely, the self thrives with sensitivity and nourishment via positive actions, generative relationships, and healthy minded attitudes.

Healthy mindedness, of course, is a tall order. William James, father of American psychology, essentially referred to it via his philosophy of pragmatism. He contrasted healthy mindedness with the sick soul consumed by its own negativism. With healthy mindedness, we nourish health of mind and soul. We nourish a good life, one marked by generative attitudes and feelings toward self and others.

Some have criticized breaking free as self centered. It is anything but that. True breaking free keeps in mind the practical needs of others as well as the self. What is good for self is also good for others. They may not understand it as such since preformed ideas about what constitutes love or goodness can overshadow what is practical and sound. In essence, breaking free allows us to be free and permits others to live life according to their own light as well.

A patient had a dream that they and their best friend were at a crossroads. It was in an old New Mexican town. They had been friends since childhood. Darkness descended over the desert landscape. No words were spoken, and they both caught glimpses of the sun as it flickered away in the western horizon. We processed the symbolism and saw that the time of the parting had come. The west often speaks to the end of things, the crossroads to a time of decision. The patient admitted that the relationship had run its course and had really long outlived the vital feelings that they had once shared. It was time to move on, break free.

We need to break free so we can have a life; otherwise we remain stuck. Unhappiness breeds unhappiness when we need to move on and don’t. Breaking free sets us free, to live fully, happily and loaded with potential.

Can't Have It Both Ways

The proverbial having our cake and eating it too applies to our psychic life and to the world of dreams. In order to heal and grow, we need to heal and grow. Quite often, I find that people say they want healing when in reality they only want relief. Healing takes seeing our way through tough times with tough messages. They challenge us to look at ourselves, our dreams, and our life situation in new ways that can upset old patterns and perspectives.

I think it makes common sense that we can’t grow and stay the same. Yet, the pull to not make necessary changes in life is strong. The old habits and ways of relating that go counter to well being have to go if we are to get better and stronger. That requires living in a way that is positive and generative and not in ways that are destructive and land us in one dead end after another.

Patients seeking depth psychotherapy frequently struggle to understand that the way they are living affects the way they are feeling. They think bad feelings somehow come out of nowhere and inflict themselves. They think they are the victims of invisible forces that have targeted them and made their life miserable. Over time in dream therapy, we come to understand that it’s not just about what has happened to us in life that shapes us. What also matters is what we have done with what has happened to us. We have a choice to deal consciously with what’s happened to us or to close our eyes and be victims, whining and complaining about our sorry lot in life.

In dream therapy, symbols and images come to the rescue. When we sleep at night, our unconscious mind tries to get through to us. We find ourselves face to face with a dark foe. I love these dreams, the image of the shadowy figure providing just the medicine we need for the illness at hand. Inevitably, it’s the scary dream that gives the most enlightenment. It shakes us to the core with what we need in the way that we need it. In dreams like this, there’s no way out. The terror stalks us, won’t let up, demands recognition and reckoning. It’s the psyche’s way of saying it’s time to take care of emotional and spiritual business.

A person related, “Last night was rough dreaming for me. It was nightmare time. I couldn’t run fast enough from whoever it was that was chasing me. It was the dark of night, and there was nowhere for me to go. Footsteps pounded behind me, caught up with me no matter which way I turned or where I went.” The individual looked up at me and stated, “I don’t know what that dream was about, but here I am and so I thought I’d tell you about it.”

“Do you have any idea what it might mean for you? How it might speak to you?” I asked not really thinking they would be able to pull the image together in a coherent way or with meaning. They seemed overwhelmed by the lingering emotional effects of the dramatic scenario. “The best I can say is that I can’t keep up running from what I need to face. I can’t have it both ways—running and dreams don’t square up.” I replied, “I’m impressed. It’s time to face the feelings and situations you’ve been trying to outrun.” Over the course of many months we explored the life conflicts that propelled him to have this dream and to enter dream therapy.

Dreams speak to stopping, turning around, and facing what we’re running from. We can’t have it both ways, our cake and eat it too. Emotional and spiritual therapy sees us along our way through life’s tough times, dreams leading the way.

Surface or Depth . . .

We often say we want to grow. The question is are we willing to do what it takes. It’s easy to read books or hear talks or read blogs. It’s hard to look within, take stock of ourselves and quietly apply ourselves to genuine soul work. It requires movement away from what we’re used to, surface, and descent into what we are not, depth.

I’m finishing an article about Freud’s interest in the occult. In many ways, he preferred this area of study to psychoanalysis but was afraid to go further for fear of academic rejection. He stayed on one plane, that of the personal unconscious, and refused to deepen into the transpersonal unconscious, the spiritual dimension of life. I believe this may have contributed to what he termed the misery of everyday life. When we stay on the surface, stuck with where we’ve been and not letting go and changing – deepening - then misery results. The mystic balances and heals the mundane just as everyday realities ground the mystic.

And then there’s Jung – what a prophet of the mystic, and what a disappointment! The man who proclaimed the wholeness of the self yielded to the collective pressure to form an institute bearing his name. The one who said, “Thank god I am Jung and not a Jungian” actually agreed with the ordination of followers who are called Jungians. How silly we can be as a species. We know there’s another way, the way of truth to self and depth of experience, and yet yield to superficial ways that bring acclaim – not even a tepid handclap in the thunderous immensity of the transpersonal universe.

And now we come to our daily life. Surface or depth? When we’re in pain, we’re willing to consider what we haven’t. We’re willing to open up and see so that we’ll feel better, so the pain will stop. But, the telling time really comes in the daily living. To be able to choose depth, truth to self no matter what others say or how they pressure us. This is depth. Surface bids us go for the tepid pat on the back, the weak handclap of those who in the light of the transpersonal universe are wisps in a cold ethersphere, passing and then no more.

Waking up on the first day of the new year, I remembered a dream. It spoke of forces from my past, professional groups demanding allegiance, old family dysfunctional relationships demanding allegiance, friends who demanded adherence to their “liberal” liberal way of seeing things. In the dream, I saw from a distance what had once been so up close and personal. A breath from the transpersonal flow of all things swept through me, and I turned and left the scene, ready to move on with my life and new decisions regarding surface or depth.