This Jungian Life Podcast &#8211; Joseph Lee, Deborah Stewart, Lisa Marchiano

⁠⁠⁠WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠We’d like to take a crack at interpreting your dream.⁠⁠⁠

If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock yourdreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.

Adaptation: Meeting Life’s Demands Oct 15, 2020

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠The world is the canvas on which we paint our lives. Through this lifelong work, we express personal vision, develop skills, and come to terms with the realities of our outer and inner worlds. The first major stage of adaptation, the transition from child to adult, requires readiness to separate from protective life structures in pursuit of outer world goals. It entails developing a strong, flexible ego devoid of overly negative or idealistic beliefs about self and world, a progressive orientation, and ability to cope with disappointment.

In the second half of life, the adaptive task is introverted, and consists of relating to and integrating contents of the unconscious. While most of us come to recognize and adapt to ego’s limited control over external-world actualities, realizing the autonomy of the inner world is less universal. Jung described this process in his memoir, Memories, Dreams, Reflections as his confrontation with the unconscious. This process of adaptation led him--and can lead us--to living in relationship to something larger, the Self.

LOOK & GROW

⁠⁠⁠WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠We’d like to take a crack at interpreting your dream.⁠⁠⁠

Neurosis: Befriending Our Broken Places Oct 08, 2020

Show notes

⁠⁠DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Although neurosis is no longer a clinical diagnosis, it is often used to describe anxious attitudes and behaviors that are maladaptive to life situations. Neurosis often entails a capacity to function well despite feeling bad; emotional suffering leeches ease and pleasure from life. A neurotic symptom—a phobia, compulsion, or addictive tendency—is no different from a dream.

It is important to hear the unconscious story ego has disallowed, welcome fantasies, fears, and instinctual life, and understand their symbolic meaning. Symptoms ask us to know ourselves as we really are so that we can live the life we are meant to be living. Jung says neurosis “must be understood, ultimately, as the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning.” The purpose of neurosis is to help us discover our purpose.

LOOK & GROW

⁠⁠⁠WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠We’d like to take a crack at interpreting your dream.⁠⁠⁠

Curiosity: The Inner Engine of Change Oct 01, 2020

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠We celebrate curiosity’s role in discovery, and regret its potential for damage. Mature curiosity demands that we embrace the confusion, doubt and anxiety inherent in engaging new ideas and complex problems. Social curiosity requires discernment: are we genuinely and empathically interested in others, or simply indulging voyeurism via social media?

Curiosity can lead us into thrill seeking, but lack of it dulls our libido for life. Is it grandiosity, ambition, or impulsive desire that is tweaking our interest—or is curiosity leading us into purpose, service and the numinous? We need to be curious about curiosity: what are we enacting--and why? In the unrestrained theater of our dreams even the most disallowed outer-world scenarios are played out. Dreams can do much to satiate and integrate the shadowy curiosities of the inner world if we remember, record, and reflect on them.

LOOK & GROW

⁠⁠⁠WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠We’d like to take a crack at interpreting your dream.⁠⁠⁠

Sacred Symptoms: How the Numinous Heals Sep 24, 2020

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jung states “the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neurosis but rather with the approach to the numinous…the real therapy. In as much as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology.” Jung defines numinous as “a dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will” that conveys a mysterious yet deeply meaningful message.

Numinous experiences happen to us, yet we can approach the numinous by engaging in practices like active imagination, recording dreams, or religious and esoteric modalities. Wisdom traditions—and Jung—have marked the trails. Life crisis and trauma can also open us to the numinous: fairy tales, myths, and religious texts relate happenings of help when all seemed lost. Whether sought or suffered, something greater appears when ego yields. We can act on the guidance that is given, and may attain the healing gifted by experience of the numinous.

LOOK & GROW

⁠⁠⁠WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠We’d like to take a crack at interpreting your dream.⁠⁠⁠

At Home in Our Bodies: Incarnation & Individuation Sep 17, 2020

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Jung teaches that soul and spirit have a home in a living body, the font of psyche’s images and means of their incarnation in the world. Embodiment is the ground of being, and engaging the tension between instinct and archetype shapes consciousness and character. Jung identified five instincts: creativity, movement, sexuality/eros, hunger in its many manifestations, and the ability to reflect and make meaning.

If Pinocchio’s task was to humanize his instincts, much of modern man’s mission may be to re-establish vibrant connection with instinctual life. Jung says, “The archetype as an image of instinct is a spiritual goal toward which the whole nature of man strives; it is the sea to which all rivers wend their way, the prize which the hero wrests from the fight with the dragon.” The rigorous refining of instinct through embodied, conscious action is the path toward wholeness.

LOOK & GROW

⁠⁠⁠WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠We’d like to take a crack at interpreting your dream.⁠⁠⁠

Intuition: Non-Rational Knowing Sep 10, 2020

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠We all have intuitive experiences, from an occasional hunch to powerful gut feelings. Unconscious intelligence is a storehouse of instincts and wisdoms humankind has accumulated over millennia. We would be lost without intuition and give importance to warnings and inspirations that saved or made the day.

We are also skeptical of intuition, which tends to become infused with emotion, superstition, and cultural bias. Altogether, intuition is about the future, from promising possibilities to potential pitfalls. To apply inner perception in meaningful ways we need to balance it with conscious considerations around values, objective assessment, and meaningful action. Intuition can then provide a glimpse of a higher level of reality that can anchor us to purpose.

LOOK & GROW

⁠⁠⁠WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠We’d like to take a crack at interpreting your dream.⁠⁠⁠

Seeking Certainty: The Seduction of Conspiracy Theories Sep 03, 2020

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠In times of uncertainty truth is hard to discern, collective cohesion frays, and social factions become embattled. Unmediated shadow then seeks expression through the archetypal realm and takes on extra-ordinary attributes. Persecutory mythologies arise, for big psychic situations need big stories to compensate for big feelings of anxiety, powerlessness, and marginalization.

Insecurities are projected onto the outer-world as clandestine enemies of mythic proportions: alien rulers, government cabals, and other images of secret domination. Understanding conspiracy theories as symbolic expressions of unconscious contents can allow us to take them seriously without taking them literally. We may then respond with consciousness and empathy instead of judgment--and begin to shift the collective psychic field toward wholeness.

LOOK & GROW

⁠⁠⁠WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠