To Feel . . .

Much of psychological healing is devoted to healing the capacity to feel. Rilke, in his Elegy to Marina Tsvetayeva-Efron, writes of the “curious power that transforms us from living beings into survivors.” We do this by learning to feel and respecting feeling in others and ourselves.

We survive by feeling and continuing to feel. Dream images and symbols sharpen our capacity to touch vital emotions that may otherwise remain denied or repressed. To get through daily life, we often put instincts to the side, lay emotions off in a corner. We do this so we can move on through the course of the day without being troubled, often to our detriment.

“I end up going home and overeating,” one person told a friend. They were talking about how food numbs them to stress. They spoke while eating a big hot fudge Sunday. I tried not to listen in from a neighboring restaurant booth, but the inner therapist and writer couldn’t help picking up on valuable information. Even as they conversed, they were numbing, on some level aware of what they were doing, moving the reality to a dark corner, and proceeding with their sugar drug fest.

Of course, we all can do this in an assortment of ways. The call in life, the soul’s beckoning to us as seekers of wholeness and well-being, is to feel and not escape feeling. In his writing On the Nature of the Psyche (1947/1954, CW 8, 414), C.G. Jung cautions us against taking ourselves into “. . . . blank unconsciousness, or worse still, to some kind of intellectual substitute for instinct."

To feel is to be true to self. It is pristine instinct to survive and thrive in a life filled with tendencies to numb, deny, repress, or sink into blank unconsciousness. Best to daily take steps forward in living, surviving, and feeling thoroughly and well.

From Your Abundance Something Overflows...

The old wise man wrote, "If you fulfill the pattern that is peculiar to yourself, you have loved yourself, you have accumulated and have abundance; you bestow virtue then because you have luster. You radiate; from your abundance something overflows." Nietezche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934 - 1939, Vol. II (29 Janurary 1936), p. 801.

Abundance comes from truth to self. If we water ourselves down, who we are and what we think, then we lose hold of our life and our very sense of self. It may happen sooner or later, but we will feel depleted, down, and lost once we've veered from truth to self.  Abundance, having sufficient  energy for living well and fully,  trickles and then gushes with cultivated truth to self.

"I felt so much energy after session yesterday. The dream that I had set me free. It got me back on my path." This patient's remark echoes an experience many of us may have had. Dreams, deep feeling states, bring insight and draw us back to the way that is ours to walk. We feel better, energized. In the words of the sage, we "fulfill the pattern that is peculiar" to ourselves and therein discover energy, overflowing abundance.

Individual Experience as Truth...

People struggle to trust their own feelings. Depth therapy facilitates the healing of the soul so that a person can listen, trust, and follow through with critical feeling states. When we do otherwise, we end up anxious, neurotic, and generally unhappy. Trusting feelings is a key component of mental health.

C.G. Jung wrote, "...the individual experience, by its very poverty, is immediate life, the warm and red blood pulsating today. It is more convincing to a seeker after truth than the best tradition." (Psychology and Religion 1938/1940, CW 11, 88.)

A person admitted, "Staying with what I feel and not being talked out of my feelings strengthens me. I had to leave one organization after another because they all wanted me to tow the party line, to get in step with what they believed and leave the way I felt. There was nothing but misery for me in listening to voices outside of myself."

When we go deep and listen to lingering feeling states, dreams that we remember after a night's sleep, and intuitions that come to us spontaneously, we often discover the fresh face of truth. It's a welcome relief to know and accept our experience that truth lies on the inside. We need look no further than our own soul for a feelings and experiences, dreams and intuitions, that keep us on our path and maintain the inner flow of immediate, warm, and pulsating life.

Jung, Yoga, and Wholeness...

A master yogi sought out depth therapy, entered my consultation office, and immediately related, "Last night I dreamt that my shushumna was burnt to a crisp. I was horrified and knew that I had to address this today." The shushumna symbolized the central life channel that flows with energy, both masculine and feminine. Over the course of his work, we explored how he had lost balance, burned too hot with too much masculine energy. The nightmare symbolized irritability and his sense of being out of sorts for many months. Wholeness had been damaged.

CG Jung wrote, "I was walking along a little road through a hilly landscape; the sun was shining and I had a wide view in all directions. Then I came to a small wayside chapel. The door was ajar, and I went in. To my surprise there was no image of the Virgin on the altar, and no crucifix either, but only a wonderful flower arrangement. But then I saw on the floor in front of the altar, facing me, sat a yogi - in lotus posture, in deep meditation. When I looked at him more closely, I realized that he had my face. I started in profound fright, and awoke with the thought: 'Aha, so he is the one who is meditating me. He has a dream and I am it.' I knew that when he awakened I would no longer be . . .  The figure of the yogi, then, would represent my unconscious prenatal wholeness . . . .." (C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, p.229).

Wholeness is native to our nature as humans. In the deep meditation that is daily life lived with awareness, we can rediscover our wholeness. It comes as a sense of well being, sensitivity to self and others, and a natural feeling for spirituality. The master yogi, with time and patience, restored himself to a wholeness that was open to ongoing change. He had become too into himself and his life, losing vital balance. With perspective restored, that quality of valuing self, others, and life then, as he commented, " . . . My peace of mind has returned. I am once again whole."

2016 Full of Medicine...

Medicine for the soul appears at the beginning of each year. In a special way, we receive signs and dreams that uniquely help us. Patients this week have related dreams of what the new year holds in store regarding growth potential, exploring dark areas of mind, and discovering illumination. 

Contemporary Shamanism (FB 1.6.15) offered, "May your year ahead be full of medicine. May your access to the multidimensional worlds be of ease and grace and may all that you need to support you both in spirit and in form be made manifest."

May we open our hearts to the signs and symbols that come our way in daily living and nightly sleep. Listening to the voices, images, and inspirations will help to make our year more easeful. The soul medicine of symbols in life and dreams heals as we pay heed, absorb, and are grateful.

Light in the Midst of Chaos...

In so many ways, Christmas brings the potential for pain and healing. Both coexist. Fevered with excitement, families go crazy. We suffer when we lose groundedness and contentment. Holidays such as Christmas bring opportunity to rest and be grateful, at ease, to express and feel love.

Mythically, Christmas celebrates the birth of the sun, winter solstice a time of new emergence and potential for growth. We can rest, relax, love, and heal during the holidays by returning to nature, our nature. We are creatures of the earth and require settledness so as to witness light coming out of darkness.

No matter what has happened during the past year, no matter the crisis or trauma, there is hope. Light breaks forth from dark places and cold times. Reflecting on the sufferings of the year is not a bad thing. Light rising out of the midst of chaos calls for reflection, seeing into the nature of the year's crises and pain, then allowing our eyes to open to bright rays and the birth of the sun.

As a psychotherapist having engaged in a full year of helping to heal crisis and trauma, I reflect on the words of a fellow depth psychologist who wrote,

"A dream is brought to me with the expectation that I will in turn say something meaningful to the dreamer. It is in the nature of the relationship that I must represent a small light in the midst of chaos -- though I may be equally in the dark. I must therefore choose my words as best I can, and, depending on my sensitivity and skill, communicate one thing and not another.

"What matters is the creative interpretation of what one sees -- to communicate to the suffering person precisely those elements that make it possible for a healing process to start."

~ Excerpt from The Spiral Way: A Woman's Healing Journey by Aldo Carotenuto available in soft copy and ebook Inner City Books

Trauma Drama is a Worry...

Trauma drama can come easy as taking the next breath. When a person’s life has continually been upset by problems and trauma, emotional acting out happens without a thought. Emotional drama becomes a way of life. It’s addictive. There’s a high that that goes with jumping from one adrenaline-pumping situation to another. Health, physical and mental, is compromised due to the high stress that accompanies chronic emotional drama.

Depth psychologist, Donald Kalsched, in Trauma and the Soul, writes of trauma as “. . . unbearable pain—in other words, affect that cannot be metabolized by the psyche’s normal symbolic process.” When pain from past or present cannot be or is not dealt with, metabolized, it is acted out. Pain can be so intense that we can’t bear it.  It is traumatic and cannot be processed in a normal manner by the psyche. Then, we may compulsively, and unconsciously, generate problems so as to release this psychic tension by acting out.

Trauma drama is a worry because it destroys life. It sets us up and takes us down. There is no way out of dealing with inner darkness and outer dysfunction. We either act it out or work it out. Trauma drama needs to be dealt with or it deals with us. Psychic breakdowns happen when there’s too much on the inside pressing for attention, the delicate strands that hold mind and life together threatened. Outer emotional drama then breaks out and speaks to us, says pay attention, take stock, deal with things because they’re already dealing with you.  

Dreams, Symbols, and Soulful Solutions...

"How do dreams work? Can they heal me?" These questions were asked by a student interested in the healing potential of dreams. I answered, "They can help you to heal. There are things inside that we all need to face, things we'd rather not. Dreams help us to face them. They give us symbols that bridge the gap between the conscious and unconscious mind. Symbols carry a natural energy that pulls us together, makes us whole." 

C.G. Jung wrote, "Insofar as analytical treatment makes the "shadow" conscious, it causes a cleavage and a tension of the opposites which in their turn seek compensation in unity. The adjustment is achieved through symbols . . . If all goes well, the solution, seemingly of its own accord, appears out of nature." (Memories, Dreams, Reflections 1962, p. 335.)

The student went on to ask, "So it's organic, like natural?" I replied, "It's as natural as natural is. Dream symbols come from within you and help the fractured parts of your mind come together, heal, naturally." He shook his head, quizzically, but satisfied. 

Dreams are an avenue of natural healing. They offer solutions that take time, sometimes a lifetime, but time well spent and hopeful. There is a vast reservoir within us of nightly visitations from nature--dreams, symbols, and soulful solutions.

Archetypal Figures as Ghosts...

There is a spirit world. In psychology we refer to it as the collective unconscious, a realm inhabited by archetypal energies. Essentially, they are spirits, and sometimes appear as ghosts. C.G. commented, " . . . I know however that certain archetypal figures of the unconscious literally appear as ghostly controls with materialistic mediums. I can't deny the possibility that certain figures that might appear in our dreams could materialize just as well as ghosts . . . " )C.G. Jung to Dr. L.M. Boyers.)

People are often afraid to admit their experiences of ghosts. We're taught to hold the supernatural at arms length, be critical rather than open. Patients can qualify their experience by saying, "I don't know if I should tell you, but....." They go on to detail hair-raising encounters with ghosts in dreams, sometimes made visible in daily life. Such encounters always carry a message that help a person come to terms with aspects of self and life.

I once was in house said to be haunted. It was a few hundred years old. Not feeling anything particularly supernatural about the place, I turned a corner and saw an old mirror. I told myself that if there were a haunting spirit it probably lived within this ancient glass. I went on with the tour, left the house and didn't think much more about it.

That night while dreaming I found myself back in the house. Nightmarishly dark winds blew along the surrounding countryside. Out from the mirror popped the haunting spirit of the place, completely scaring the wits out of me. She was the ghost, an archetypal figure, of things past, family complexes and a culture oppressed. 

I awoke and realized that I had indeed been correct about the haunting spirit abiding in the mirror. As a therapist and writer, I not only author professional blogs, essays, and research articles, but am a novelist of supernatural fiction. The nightmare helped to guide the next step in the novel I am in the midst of completing. It heightened my sensitivity to the reality of the supernatural and how archetypal figures can often appear as ghosts.

Talking as Curative...

"No one has ever listened to me. Really listened and given me time to tell my story." These are the words of a young man who had been contemplating suicide. Prior to entering depth treatment he felt isolated and expressed this isolation by his statement that no one listened, heard, understood him. No one had ever taken the time.

Depth psychologist, Christopher Bollas, in his book When the Sun Bursts writes, "We all know the wisdom of talking. In trouble, we turn to another person. Being listened to inevitably generates new perspective, and the help we get lies not only in what is said but also in that human connection of talking that promotes unconscious thinking...Talking to an empathic other is curative. We all know that. We all do it. We do not need “outcome studies” to prove to us that it works." 

Patients in depth therapy talk about feelings, memories, and dreams. They explore and work through conflict, discover hidden potential. In the midst of daily life, we can speak of such intimate areas of soul with trusted others. We can share feelings and dreams with appropriate others and find supportive care and, perhaps, empathic insight. 

Talking and listening is part of healthy life and soulful relating. Gifted with personal or therapeutic relationships that can empathically listen and support, we find our way to healing and growth. Talking can be helpful, and talking and being sensitively understood is curative.

The Dark Night of the Soul...

The passing of old relationships, situations, values can usher us into a sense of darkness within. Ancient mystic traditions have described this as the dark night of the soul. Depth therapy facilitates movement into darkness so as to discover meaning, a new sense of value, and, ultimately a transformed vision of soul.
 

When darkness descends we feel lost, overwhelmed, and utterly at wits' end. There seems to be no way out of the dilemma we face. To stay stuck, leaves us feeling meaningless. To let go is utterly frightening. Yet, soul, that inspired tugging within us, bids us to move on in life, to let go and grow.

A colleague wrote, "The dark night is often painful and frightening because it involves the death of that which was familiar and directly pertains to the transformation of personal awareness so as to prepare it for crossing the abyss separating it from its own true nature. Psychologically this is difficult because previously held patterns of belief and old definitions of self that once brought comfort are lost. This experience can be likened to hatching from an egg whose familiar walls of self-recognition are collapsed, leaving one's sense of reality to assume a completely different apperception. Once the limiting factors of fear dissipate, deeper currents of self-awareness awaken leading ultimately to the emergence of a newly forming vision. ..Remember the HeartCenter as many times a day as is necessary"-W.Brugh Joy, MD

The above is an excerpted piece from a larger offering called:
Archetype of the High Priestess

Listening as Medicine...

Life and death depend on listening. All we need in life is one person who gets us, who understands and wants to keep understanding. This is food for the soul, nutrition for the mind, and sustenance for life.

A young man made his way into depth therapy. Through the years he made significant progress, healed deep pain from hidden trauma. One session he told me, "If I wouldn't have gotten here all those years back, I wouldn't be alive right now. You took me where I was, understood me when I felt like my back was against the wall and had no where to go. It kept me alive and still keeps me alive. You get me."

That's all I needed to here to keep me plugged into the vital importance of our relationship. Each session I remembered the words of depth psychologist, Wilfred Bion, "The purest form of listening is listening without memory or desire." When I listen to patients I don't want to have an agenda. I want to listen in the moment to their pain in the moment so that we discover the medicine, understanding, for the moment. 

Listening is medicine. It keeps us going when we know we are heard and that at least one other person in our life understands. There's something vital and healing to the simple truth that listening is medicine.

Trusting the Vibes...

A patient left depth therapy one day and, as they did,  stated, "I've learned to trust the vibes I pick up from people. They're as real as the time of day or temperature." I like the way they described energy, vibes, the sense we get from others or situations. 

This person suffered from a background of childhood trauma. They learned to cope by making everything "nice." By so doing, a young child could feel safe in what would otherwise appear as a hostile world. But, as an adult, the defense of making everything and everyone nice no longer worked. It left them unable to appropriately deal with real life. 

Dreams opened up to help. Symbols aplenty referred to a person lost, searching for self, wandering through forests and deserts trying to find something. They were trying to find their way out of niceness and back to self. to soul.  

Depth psychologist, Dr. Ursula Wirtz,  in her book Trauma and Beyond, writes, "Trauma victims often experience their trauma as a loss of soul and even conceive of the soul being murdered, as a spiritual stagnation and death....the restoration of what has been lost, and the reintegrating of split-off parts lie at the core of trauma therapy."

Rediscovering soul, listening to feelings, sharpens our ability to trust the vibes. Vibes are real and speak to us about life, situations, and people. Becoming spiritually alive, rediscovering soul,  ushers us into a new realm of psychic sensitivity where energies abound and vibes are real, and to be trusted.

Dreams Unclog The Mind...

When we feel foggy, we're clogged. There's too much that has come our way. We have trouble processing everything mentally. Too much stimulation equals fog. Effectively, we shut down when our mind can't take in even one bit more.

Dreams, that wondrous state in which our conscious ego recedes and our deeper self comes to the fore, help to sort through the clogs. A depth psychologist, Dr. Antonino Ferro, wrote in his book, In The Analyst's Consulting Room, depth therapists dream of their patients so a to work through clogs, emotions that get in the way of therapeutic understanding.

Dreams get us through clogs that get in the way of understanding ourselves and others. Someone told me that they dreamt of a close friend who reached out a hand, asked for help. The next day they received a call from this very person. Because of the dream they set aside their many duties, concerns and fretting that could clog life energy, and reached out to a friend.

Dreams unclog the mind so we can reach out when appropriate and reach in to self where deep waters run clear and, in the words of Dr. Antonino Ferro, "we are struck by the sense of well-being that follows such dreams, to the point of waiting and hoping for them to come..."

Healing Takes A Good Long Time..

A psychoanalytic colleague shared an NPR interview with Oliver Sacks in which he talked a bit about having been in therapy practically throughout adulthood, its relevance, and meaning: "Dr. Sacks you've been in psychoanalysis for 46 years with the same analyst. Do you think this has anything to do with your seemingly healthy mental well-being? Dr. Sacks replied: 'I think my analyst knows me very well and I think he likes me, which helps me like myself, and that's something that has not always been easy for me to do.' "

I remember a voice in dream telling me, "Healing takes a good long time." This transformative message came from the unconscious many years ago when I first began treating trauma survivors. Pressure was being exerted within psychology to treat people quicker, get them stable and feeling better, then discharge them from care. The unconscious was clear, via this dream, that quick and out  therapy is simply not the way of soul and that I am not to practice anything other than soulful psychology. 

A psychodynamic colleague and scholar at NYU shared with me his soon to be published paper on psychological companioning. Some patients have the need to be seen through in their healing process for a long time, a very long time, some for lifetime. As noted with Oliver Sacks, there is relevance and meaning to engaging our healing process and realizing that it is a life long process that may benefit from a lifetime of care.

The Art of Being Wise...

"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook," wrote the father of American depth psychology, William James. Not everything needs to be covered, looked at, explored. Dream symbols speak to us naturally. They do not need to be minutely dissected to gain sustenance from them. Gently, they offer guidance, meaning, soul food.

A survivor of religious trauma shared, "My dream showed us looking at a radioactive waste pit. We were to know it was there, but not approach. It was cordoned off." In depth therapy we had done what needed to  be done, faced gruesome realities. The rest were to be acknowledged, but not approached. 

We don't need to directly deal with everything from our past or within our dreams.  After a certain point, symbols can be left within dreams to mysteriously do their work without conscious interpretation or knowing. 

Wisdom bids us to acknowledge and know when to move on. To overlook, in this context, refers to moving past and not lingering on what does not continue to require our attention. Not everything has to continue to be addressed to be at a good place for us.

Expand Your Sense of Now...

There comes a time when we sense things aren't working. The old ways don't cut it. We feel wobbly and like the world isn't what we thought. It's time to consider a different perspective.

William James, father of American Depth Psychology, wrote, "The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds."

Patients dream  of the world coming to an end. They panic until they see that it's about a new order dawning, emergent consciousness replacing what no longer works. "I felt like my whole world was at an end. And now I see that it was, but not like I thought. I needed to let go of how things were for how things are and can be."

A patient related, "I recall a horrifying dream. The Holy Mother of Heaven crashed down on me. She was a white plastered inert sculpture and dropped out of the sky. Dead and lifeless.  From deep within the bowels of the earth there arose a dark goddess. She was fecund, life giving, radiant with energy. I knew my past religious life was over. It was frightening. A new way of depth was emerging. It was terrifying, but I needed to go with it, to expand and grow."

An expanded sense of now dropped down from the sky and rose from deep within this sincere seeker and dreamer. It required months and years to adjust to a new outlook spiritually. At first, it terrified him; then, "the past feels like it's  slipped away." An expanded sense of now dissolved fear and birthed a new belief system and willingness to continue growing and changing, experiencing life in the present moment of continual transformation. 

A Steady Focus...

It can be so difficult to focus. Our minds race this way and that. Often, there is anxiety under the surface that calls out for attention. I've heard well meaning spiritual teachers, tell others to simply let the anxiety go and return to meditation. Trouble is, there's a message in the anxiety.

In depth therapy, we listen to the inner symbols and symptoms. Anxiety can be one. As we listen to what it has to tell us, there can be healing and growth. The anxiety then often abates. In the words of Mary Shelley, "Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose--a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye."

"I can do my spiritual practice," one patient related, "because I've learned that listening to my feelings and dreams, sometimes nightmares, is part of my practice. Once I've looked within and understood the meaning behind the feelings or images, meditation is easier. I am calmer."

Standing Alone...

Soul and aloneness are as a dolphin swimming in deep ocean waters. Discovering soul,  we experience an enhanced sense of connection with others and a remarkably cohesive sense of self. Yet, there remains an essential aloneness. It is not loneliness, which often betrays disconnection from self and intimate others; rather, it is a sense of inner wholeness, completion within oneself. 

C.G. Jung wrote, "I had to understand that I was unable to make the people see what I am after. I am practically alone.  There are a few who understand this and that, but almost nobody sees the whole....I have failed in my foremost task: to open people’s eyes to the fact that man has a soul and there is a buried treasure in the field and that our religion and philosophy are in a lamentable state."  (Psychological Perspectives 6/1 (Spring 1975), p. 14). 

Jung, for me, has been both an inspiration and a cautionary tale. His words intone a desperation to "open people's eyes." My first depth psychotherapist, an east Indian trained at Zurich during Jung's tenure, often related that Jung struck him as "such a mixed bag." He fashioned himself an avatar of consciousness, surrounding himself with followers, in this  a certain sadness borne of an unrelenting desire to be noted,  understood, and perhaps to not have to bear the tension of standing so alone . 

A patient remarked, "I'm the odd man out in my family. I need to leave it that way, because when I press it and try to get through then I lose my peace. I become unhappy." 

There is wisdom in standing alone, and letting things be. We needn't try and get through to others. However, it requires bearing the tension of desiring understanding yet maintaining the willingness to rest content with soul, the treasure once buried now unearthed . 

Faith At The Center of the Self...

This morning after I completed my yoga practice I opened an ancient mystical text and read the faith is at the center of the self. Yogic philosophy teaches that life is a meditation on the self. We contemplate truth to self the entirety of our life and look to live in accord with our nature. Then we have lived life well.

A colleague wrote, "...our unconscious hopes and dreams, our goals and ends, pull us toward our transformation from fatedness to destiny" (Psychoanalytic Dialogues 25.3 p. 309). Faith pulls us forward into what is meant for us in life. We tap into meaningfulness, the lived reality of the deep self.

We thrive when we live in accord with self. When we are at odds with self then disharmony affects all aspects of life. We can cease to feel well and prosper. "But, all this requires faith," one person confided. "And, that's hard, because my trust levels were shattered as a kid. Those I needed to trust in betrayed me. My healing path calls me to learn about faith, faith in my instincts, feelings, dreams. It's a new way. I like it, but it is challenging."

He went on, "I remembered a dream from five years ago. It showed me in my present office in the type of business I've always wanted. I'd forgotten about it until now. But, it didn't just happen. It took hard inner work to get here, and plenty of faith."