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

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If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, 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.

Polyamory: Navigating the Complexities of the Heart Jan 30, 2020

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Polyamory, a current phenomenon, endorses open relationships with multiple lovers. The term means many loves, and polyamory strives to legitimize the benefits of non-monogamous romance and sexuality among adults. Jung engaged in an open, extramarital relationship with Toni Wolff. Does polyamory represent an overthrow of outdated cultural mores in an age when sex can be safe? Or is committed, often sanctified bonding a deeply rooted part of human nature and development? There are parallels in the development of a relationship between two people and the relationship of ego to the unconscious. Jung discovered that the alchemical images in The Rosarium Philosophorum, depicting stages of relationship for a couple, illustrated the individuation process. Is polyamory a way of rationalizing ego gratification and avoiding monogamous commitment? Or is polyamory a call to forgo outmoded cultural restrictions and experience connections with others that can facilitate inner growth?

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TRIGGERED: Understanding & Transforming Complexes Jan 23, 2020

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠When we speak of being triggered, what exactly is it that sends us into a familiar arc of feeling and behavior we may later regret? That mysterious force seems external and can elude our ability to locate it within. Jung called these autonomous and unconscious incursions complexes, and he discovered them through his Word Association Test. A subject’s delayed or inappropriate reaction to a stimulus word such as tree or house indicated an unconscious disturbance that could then yield to understanding. Complexes are a fundamental part of our inner landscape: our experiences cluster around innate human patterns, emotions, bodily sensations, and personal memories. We are complexed when we are automatically, emotionally and physiologically aroused, often in ways that are out of proportion to the situation. We begin to transform a complex by noticing, naming, and claiming it as our own. Then we can catch it before we react—and instead, respond. Complexes are constellated, clustered together like stars—and they can shine their light on our unconscious patterns.

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Finding Resilience as We Face New Disasters Jan 16, 2020

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Although there have been a number of recent destructive environmental events, the duration and devastation of the fires in Australia have made a powerful impact on the collective psyche. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, although disastrous to humans, seem acausal aspects of Nature. Other environmental damage, such as Amazon fires, is caused by human behavior. Australia’s plight, however, calls into blazing question mankind’s relationship with the Great Mother herself. Like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or The Flood, we may wonder about archetypal retribution for man’s environmental sins. Just as ego may be called through crisis into right relationship with soul, perhaps the heartbreak of this current psychic scorching will open new consciousness and caring.

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Dynamics of Change & Renewal Jan 09, 2020

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠A new year often symbolizes a new beginning, with resolutions to make specific lifestyle changes related to self-improvement. Research indicates, however, that up to 88% of these resolutions fail. If changes—no matter how worthy--are imposed by ego alone, the unconscious is likely to have its say by rebelling. Meaningful change requires the willingness to sit at the crossroads of inner conflict, steep in its mystery, and honor the opportunity for relationship rather than repression. Contemplation before action includes inner assessment of readiness, resources, and response-ability. Sacrifice is required, external programs or people may provide support, and the goal must be aligned with purpose inspired by the Self. Jung stated that we don’t solve our problems, we grow bigger than our problems. Meaningful change and renewal occurs when we have engaged an inner conflict and thereby become more whole.

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

If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, 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.

Trickster Jan 02, 2020

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠The archetype of the trickster shows up in ambiguity, duplicity, contradiction and paradox. Usually depicted as masculine, trickster has been featured in tales worldwide through history. We see him as a boundary crosser, shape-shifting imitator, versatile adapter, and disrupter of norms whose deceptions often backfire on him. Our inner trickster causes ego’s intentions to go haywire, and shows up as slips of the tongue, forgetting something important, or dream behavior that jolts the waking mind. Trickster’s disregard for rationality and rules disrupts stasis and rigidity, paradoxically helping to establish standards and create culture. Trickster lies at the heart of art and story, enlarging our world by imaging and voicing psychic truths. Trickster confronts us with our limitations, and can be counted on to teach us flexibility and humility with irreverent humor.

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Secrets Dec 26, 2019

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Although a secret is usually considered information deliberately kept from others, we also keep secrets from ourselves. Internal secrets consist of emotionally laden knowledge that consciousness represses; the price of such secrets may be a complex or neurosis. Secrets can alienate us from ourselves as well as others, and are often fueled by shame, guilt and fear. Family secrets can be especially burdensome, even toxic. However, secrets can also serve positive purposes. Sharing a secret can strengthen friendship through a special bond of trust. Secrets help social life run smoothly; initiatory rites may be secret to enhance the significance of a life passage; secrets can help children and teens realize their unique and separate selves; and secrets can protect others from harm. Secrets are also essential to psychoanalysis: secrets can be safely discovered and will be well contained in the temenos of the consulting room.

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Scrooge on the Couch: How the Numinous Transforms Dec 19, 2019

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⁠DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Something's going on in Scrooges soul...and it's tired of waiting for an invitation. Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol, vividly portrays the journey to healing and transcendence. It was written in a fever, released on December 19, 1843, and sold out before Christmas. Ebenezer Scrooge’s visitations by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come are vivid depictions of the path from trauma to transformation. As in psychotherapy, Scrooge revisits his past; by reclaiming the feelings he exiled as a child, Scrooge discovers compassion and connection. The visitation to the present shows Scrooge familial abundance of spirit despite material poverty and possible death for Tiny Tim (also a representation of Scrooge’s own emotionally crippled inner child). The last scene, like the lysis of a dream, shows Scrooge the bleak future to which his miserly ways lead. Scrooge’s encounters with transpersonal power break through his defenses and transform him into a man of joyful and generous heart. Scrooge has learned from his former partner’s ghost that:

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

And so, as Tiny Tim declared, "God bless Us, Every One!”

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Sibling Complexes Dec 12, 2019

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⁠DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Siblings are embedded in the human psyche as they are in life. Even if one lacks siblings, there is ready access to them through friends, fairy tales, myths, and scripture. All feature multiple experiences and examples of sibling solidarity and siblings as shadow carriers. Birth order, sex, temperament, and the quality of parental presence play a part in constellating the intense polarities of sibling relationships: competition and cooperation, admiration and envy, hierarchy and partnership, aggression and intimacy. We often carry the dynamics of early sibling relationships into adult life and project them onto individuals, work teams or social groups. Jung used the alchemical image of the soror mystica and the adept to represent a relational ideal, whether externally between self and other or internally between ego and unconscious. Each must have a respectful and equal say, from collaboration to confrontation.

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Partings & Farewells Dec 05, 2019

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⁠DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Partings connote a finality of farewell that signifies completion of a relationship. We may part from a stage of life, depart from home or college, or say farewell to a person, process or project. Partings signify the end of a story that has been told and reached conclusion. The Japanese tale of Princess Moonbeam illustrates the importance of accepting a necessary ending: those who could not do so were turned into statues, fixed in eternal stasis. The refusal to part or devaluing its importance may indicate a lack of the selfhood necessary to suffer a loss and move into a new, even uncertain, future. Conscious parting honors meaning and connection. It allows us to honor the spring and summer of growth, celebrate autumn’s harvest, and accept the quietude of winter. Ideally, we can embrace the depth of feeling in a farewell and fall upon it willingly and with grace.

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