Happiness Is A Cultivated Ability...

C.G. Jung wrote, “…the world is empty only to him who does not know how to direct his libido toward things and people and to render them alive and beautiful.” (CW vol. 5:253). Happiness interests me because it can be so lacking. People seek depth therapy, the treatment of the unconscious mind, in order to heal. However down deep, they want to be happy. You want happiness, I want happiness, and happiness lies in potential within each of us.

As Jung noted, happiness is a cultivated ability. We have to set our heart on it and work toward it. It doesn’t just materialize out of thin air one day after a lifetime of sick living, thinking, and feeling. As we set our minds on well being, we can find our way to the treasure of great price, happiness and well being.

 Happiness is an attitude. It begins with knowing it’s there and is accessible. Soon it moves from attitude to feeling and then living. What we have on the inside eventually makes its way  to the outside.

 Pete, a solitary man, consulted with me in depth psychotherapy due to persistent anxiety. It disabled him at times and was of mild to moderate clinical proportions, lingering in his life like a “bag of rocks I carry around on my back.” He couldn’t eradicate it no matter what type of meditation, exercise, or self-help programs he attended.

 Pete’s dream life was active enough that a number of nightmares finally propelled him to find professional intervention. He knew I worked with dreams, called me, and we scheduled an initial consultation. When we first met, I liked him immediately. His manner was straightforward and sincere. I thought we might be a good match as therapist and patient.

 He entered my consultation office from the reception area and immediately commented on a large painting. It is of two eagles in flight, one older, the other learning to fly. He commented, “Ah…doctor, I see what we might be about here.” Needless to say, he impressed with his potential for self reflection and insight. Simply shaking his head without commenting further, he sat down and began to tell me about his suffering and his life.

 After over a year of working through emotional and spiritual conflict, he began to experience a measure of happiness he had never before experienced. But, it didn’t last. Repeatedly he sabotaged his well being. “I go from doing one thing after another to get myself miserable. I’m used to misery and go back to it like steel to a magnet.”

I had to agree with him. He seemed, as are many individuals familiar with being unhappy, to return to his old state. This happened time and time again. As a psychotherapist this was one of my many ways of learning that the past calls us back over and over again because we are familiar with it. It is home and we want to go back.

 Pete finally grew to the point of being able to insightfully admit, “I’m addicted to misery. I need to break the habit. It’s going to take time and patience. I hope you can stick with me. I’m determined to do my work and kick the misery habit.”

 Patients and I do dream work together. Pete was, by this point in his therapy, having regular dreams. He dreamt of a little boy crying when suddenly someone presented him with a basket of jellybeans. This stopped his tears and he was happy. To this he associated the psychic fact that he believed suffering and happiness were entwined. He had to suffer before he could earn happiness; so, once he was happy he then, as an adult, had to generate misery so he could once again be worthy of happiness.

After a long while longer in depth treatment he dreamt that he lived with two men inside of him. One was well, the other had an illness but it was in remission. They both were there to stay. We understood this as meaning that his past could not be eradicated. He had to live with it. But, it need not be inflamed. It was in remission and would stay that way as long as he did not return to old ways of relating to self or others.

 There was a sense of having coming to terms with himself with this insight. He knew that he was no longer disabled by his illness. Also, he wasn’t a “picture of health and perfection” either. He was a man, a mixed bag of emotions who needn’t be perfect to cultivate happiness. He could keep growing and changing, using depth therapy to help him, knowing that happiness is a cultivated ability.

A Practical Soul...

"I really need practical changes from my therapy," a new patient asserted. I affirmed that practical changes within depth therapy are inevitable. "We face what's dark, we face what's bad, then come to terms with what's healing and good. Practical change happens."

For the next three years he faced trauma demons from the past. He'd been badly abused as a child. The fact was that he'd also replicated this abuse in present day life. All this needed to be dealt with, worked through. Changes in relationships proved inevitable. Life changes happened. They were hard, painful but necessary. He commented, "I didn't count on so much change. But, it's all been helpful and good. I'm better."

We are practical souls. We desire creative change. Sometimes, our proverbial prayers are answered in abundance. We can get more change than we bargained for as we tend our inner life. 

C.G. Jung (CW 8, 262) wrote, "...William James, whose psychological vision and pragmatic philosophy have on more than one occasion been my guides. It was his far-ranging mind which made me realize that the horizons of human psychology widen into the immeasurable." William James, father of American depth psychology, inspires a practical outlook for practical souls-human psychology widening into the immeasurable.

You Can Be Happy...

C.G. Jung wrote, "..the world is empty only to him who does not know how to direct his libido toward things and people and to render them alive and beautiful." (CW vol. 5 253). The capacity to feel happiness is thus a cultivated ability. Shamanic psychology teaches that illness and well being are choices. We direct energy into life and beauty and happiness becomes possible.

Of course, this depends on clearing out emotional debris. We can't put on a happy face and suddenly experience authentic joy. Emotional falsity and superficiality do not create genuine well being. Working through underlying psychic gunk, old pains and resentments, must precede the knowing of joy.

Happiness is the experience of being alive and knowing life to be beautiful. "I feel it in my body," said a trauma survivor. This person had felt the pain of being physically and sexually abused. Their body had gone numb and at times felt dead. "Now, I feel the change of seasons, the shifting light, different scents in the air. I'm alive. I'm happy."

She went on to say, "Happiness is my life process. It's always in the works and I'm always working on it." Dream material showed her, the dreaming ego, as shoveling through the debris of the day and each day discovering a particular luminescent stone. They were natural stones such as lapis, turquoise, agate. Each symbolized a particular understanding of importance to her for that day. Conflicts and contention held potential for meaning and insight. She learned to, in the words of Jung,  "direct libido toward things and people and to render them alive and beautiful."

Creativity and Stilling the Mind...

Stilling mind conjures creative psychic images. Archetypal presences come our way once mind becomes calm, receptive. They speak to us of what furthers growth, prohibits stagnation. They are energies that in old religious language were referred to as angels.

Carl Jung on “Meditation in Alchemy" noted, " ..But the alchemists really try to establish an objective relation to a "second" in their meditation, and this "second" has been regarded since olden times as the so-called "paredros", a spiritual helper, who is present during the work and who gives instructions.There is a text where the "spiritus Mercurii" first appears as a vapour which gradually condenses until it takes on a more or less recognisable human form. "

Thus, spiritual helpers, seen as creative psychic images emerge from the unconscious during times of calm receptivity. They further our psychological, alchemical, work. Simply put, when we are relaxed and open we are better able to access a realm of helpful invisible realities.

An advanced yoga practitioner related, "I was in deep meditation and saw a cup of Black Lightening Coffee. Energy whipped through me. I had been depleted and after asana practice and meditation I received the vision I needed." The vision of the Black Lightening Coffee, a brand she preferred, brought the jolt of energy, consciousness, she has been lacking. A still mind conjured a creative psychic image that furthered growth and present moment energy--Mercurius, he who creates and controls lightening! 

looking for god in all the wrong places...

People are looking to find their way spiritually. I used to believe that religious guilt and fear were the primary culprits in thwarting spiritual growth. Now, as I've treated hundreds of individuals who've freed themselves from oppressive religious pasts, I see that one thing really holds people back from spiritual freedom: inertia.

Religious nightmares bolt a stuck psyche out of inertia. A patient reported, "I've gone to the same old church, listened to the same old dogma, and it's where I've been stuck, stuck in a rut because I've been used to it and didn't know where else to go or what else to do." 

A nightmare bolted her mind out of its religious rut. "I had gone to Church that morning, was wasted afterwards, so I took a nap after and voice from above spoke to me and said, 'The Church is dead.' Well, I'll tell you that hit me hard and knocked me out of my old way of thinking."

She found herself no longer drawn to old religious practices. "Old ways had long lost their meaning. My life is enough. There's plenty to draw on for spiritual sustenance and growth. I listen to my dreams, I meditate, I have good people in my life. This is where god is for me. This is what's real and good for me."

The American depth psychologist William James wrote, "The place of the divine in the world must be more organic and intimate. An external creator and his institution may still be verbally confessed at Church in formulas that linger by their mere inertia, but the life is out of them, we avoid dwelling on them, the sincere heart of us is elsewhere." (Pluralistic Universe p. 24).  The sincere heart of us is in what's real and good for us and this is where we look, listen, and live. 

Decisions make the soul...

 

We can hide from pain. A person told me, "I stayed in a  bad relationship because I could hide there. I didn't have to face what got me into it to begin with. I didn't have to face what kept me in it. I hid out so I didn't have the light I needed to get out and live my life."

CG Jung wrote, "There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." 

Jung's words hit hard if we've taken time to reflect on our lives. When there's been big growth there's always been birth pains.  For the person in a bad relationship, it meant facing this reality and then getting out. For another it might mean taking the chance of entering into relating on an intimate level. 

Decisions make the soul. We decide to hide, to come out and live, to make the soul from deliberate choices. Birth pains, life pains, choice pains make us who we are. We are in the making process, unless we choke it off from fear, don't live, don't make the choices that need to be made. Decisions make the soul.

You Must Turn Back To The Simple Things...

 

February 10, 2015  /  Paul DeBlassie III

How we complicate life. We razzle and dazzle others and ourselves and try to make thing harder and more complicated. Fact is, that life can be remarkably straight forward. There is that which nourishes and that which diminishes and destroys. We cultivate  one and let go of the other.

Trick is to find out which is which. A sincere soul commented, "Before getting into depth therapy I dreamed I was walking along a busy avenue with a hyper amount of foot street traffic. This guy came out of nowhere and tripped me. I went blind. He held the salve that would cure me. But, I needed to find my way to him as he spoke to me, listen, and slowly reach out toward him so he could apply the ointment."

"Making my way to soul work in therapy was my salve. It opened my eyes. I was going too fast, my mind cluttered. There were things I needed to see and feel but couldn't because my life was cluttered. I slowed down, dreamed and healed. It was slow and that was good because things were complicated and fast before and that got me in trouble."

There's more to us...

Life seems at an end. We're going to give up, thrown in the towel, we say. There's nothing more for me, we  go on. Lights out, a voice inside echoes.  When emotions are troubled to the point of despair, things are stirring in the mind. Something's cooking in life.

There's no way around the lights going out. It's going to happen. When it does, it's time to go still. A patient said, "When I began therapy I was suicidal. Everything was gone. There was no hope. It's taken time, but I learned to see in the dark. Those dark places held secrets. I needed to hear them. I needed to let myself hear and be willing to be quiet and see into the dark. I learned that there's more  to me than I thought. That was the beginning of letting go and moving on."

William James, father of American depth psychology, wrote, "Every bit of us at every moment is part and parcel of a wider self, it quivers along various radii like the wind-rose on a compass, and the actual in it is continuously one with possibles not yet in our present sight."

Where we are  now is where we are now. Our challenge is to see into dark places. There, we just may discover, are possibilities "not yet in our present sight."

You Cannot Have Both Church And Freedom

C.G. Jung wrote "You cannot have both, Church and freedom, and if you want both undiminished, no Solomon will be found to pronounce judgement." (C.G. Jung to Pastor H. Wegmann, November 20, 1945) Patients often struggle with the issue of feeling bound to church. They crave a freedom of spirituality. Dogmas bind them to one way of seeing and experiencing the spiritual world.

A patient recently told me of how they came to grips with this during the holiday season: "Christmas for me isn't about religion. It's about goodwill. I take stock of my life and the reality that I do wish well being for all individuals and that I do my part to help to make this happen in the small ways that I can." When I think of religion, I'm immediately bogged down. With Christmas, the holidays, about well being I can relax and replenish. I feel free."

Psychological consciousness offers us the potential for increased spiritual freedom throughout life. The end of the year signals a time to be grateful and, in the words of my patient, offer well being to others. I noticed, as I meditated on this insight, a freedom within that was brought to light and nurtured. We cannot have both church and freedom, but we can have both goodwill toward others and a free soul!

God as Intimate Soul (cont. III)

The dark, destructive, side of religion intrudes on the natural psychic disposition toward intimacy with soul. Patients suffer the cruelty of religious impositions based on psychic manipulation. Archetypal energies turn destructive as survivors defensively cope with symptoms of anxiety, depression, suicidality, and psychosis. In the words of one ardent spiritual seeker and survivor of religious abuse, “When the priest got to me, it was God who got to me and nearly did me in.”

Many old religions depict an outer god inflicting judgment and wrath on the vulnerable soul. Inevitably, this construct is internalized and generates a psychic terrain replete with demons of guilt and fear, the dark side of archetypal numinosity unleashed. Oppressive and damaging demonic assaults charged with religious meaning hit the psyche at full speed for the sufferer of religious abuse. Onslaughts of self-loathing and shame cripple the psyche. As one psychoanalyst colleague remarked, “When our god is a tyrant we need another god.”

From the perspective of American depth psychology, vis- à-vis William James, a transformative spirituality cultivates intimacy with an inner sense of the sacred, numinous aspects of psyche. James (2006, p.25) noted, “The inner life of things must be substantially akin anyhow to the tenderer parts of man’s nature.” One of my most tender dreams ushered me to an inner sanctum, an angelic presence speaking, “Freud touched the face of God.” Upon awakening deeply moved, I felt touched by the sacred, intimate soul. As the result, I discovered that I, as Freud encouraged, was better attuned to painful feelings and memories of patients. Together, we more sensitively plumbed unconscious depths to healing, perhaps, touching the face of God.

Michael Eigen (1998 p. 71, 72) stated that “the soul keeps opening . . . no end to opening. . . . It explodes downward (into knowledge, understanding, feeling . . . ).” Such a depth psychology encourages a downward nourishing of intimacy with soul. I remember a dream in which I could ascend to the heavens and there encounter God. A group of men and I were in the desert, a great expanse of earth before us and the blue sky overhead. Just as I looked heavenward and prepared to jettison upward, an old holy man, a desert prophet, appeared and pointed downward. Where the holy man pointed was a fathomlessly dark and deep hole at least five or six feet in circumference that led to the center of the earth. He and his followers, the men who were with me in the dream, made the descent into the abyss, something at once mystifying and terrifying. I followed despite feeling overwhelmed by wonder and trepidation.

The desert holy man as symbol of the wise-old numinous self led the way into realms of mystery and transformation, intimate soul. Terror felt by my dreaming ego was a normal response of the conscious mind to the unknown, to intimate soul. I made my way to the opening in the earth, smelled the rich, loamy soil. As I entered this moist and earthy realm, the past space of the old and dry earth and distant sky faded into a vague and far off memory.

William James (2006, p. 136) referred to this depth of being, as “a great reservoir in which the memories of earth’s inhabitants are pooled and preserved, and from which, when the threshold lowers or the valve opens, information ordinarily shut out leaks into the mind.” Intimate soul draws us into a grounded and deepening relationship to self and life. Patricia Berry (2008, p.12) in depicting a vital aspect of psychic evolution and movement wrote,

Earth became a divinity . . . she was no longer ‘nothing-but’ a physical ground, a neutral ground without quality; because she was experienced as a divinity, she was experienced psychically so that her matter mattered to and in the psyche.

“In the midst of crisis,” one person confided, “I was terrified yet I knew I had to enter into a cave in the earth. There a dark goddess appeared. I was abandoned by my birth mother. The dark goddess deep within the earth helped me to heal. She has been there for me ever since.”

The human psyche nourishes itself on intimate truths. We see through a dark light as the scriptural author refers to seeing through a glass darkly. The psyche births mystery, causing deific presences of intimate soul to appear leading to transformation. James(2006, p. 138) referred to entering into this downward knowledge as a calling for “possibilities that take our breath away, of another kind of happiness and power, based on giving up our own will” to god as intimate soul.

- See more at: http://www.depthinsights.com/Depth-Insights-scholarly-ezine/god-as-intimate-soul-by-paul-deblassie-iii-ph-d/#sthash.NaKbKisS.dW0T3Y1q.dpuf

God as Intimate Soul (cont. II)

In my psychotherapeutic specialty in the depth treatment of religiously abused patients I have found that damaging the god image traumatizes the soul. Ardent Buddhist devotees have been seduced by ostensibly sincere roshis. Stories of Catholic children quietly ushered into a priest’s dimly lit quarters and sexually exploited run rampant in the media. Yogis cultivated followers and then plundered emotionally and physically those who seriously sought their wisdom and guidance. In instances such as these, the god image within the self is traumatized, often to the point of fracture and collapse. When the inner sanctum of soul holds trauma, intimacy with it, with god, becomes overwhelming and frightening.

The dark, destructive, side of religion intrudes on the natural psychic disposition toward intimacy with soul. Patients suffer the cruelty of religious impositions based on psychic manipulation. Archetypal energies turn destructive as survivors defensively cope with symptoms of anxiety, depression, suicidality, and psychosis. In the words of one ardent spiritual seeker and survivor of religious abuse, “When the priest got to me, it was God who got to me and nearly did me in.”

Many old religions depict an outer god inflicting judgment and wrath on the vulnerable soul. Inevitably, this construct is internalized and generates a psychic terrain replete with demons of guilt and fear, the dark side of archetypal numinosity unleashed. Oppressive and damaging demonic assaults charged with religious meaning hit the psyche at full speed for the sufferer of religious abuse. Onslaughts of self-loathing and shame cripple the psyche. As one psychoanalyst colleague remarked, “When our god is a tyrant we need another god.”

From the perspective of American depth psychology, vis- à-vis William James, a transformative spirituality cultivates intimacy with an inner sense of the sacred, numinous aspects of psyche. James (2006, p.25) noted, “The inner life of things must be substantially akin anyhow to the tenderer parts of man’s nature.” One of my most tender dreams ushered me to an inner sanctum, an angelic presence speaking, “Freud touched the face of God.” Upon awakening deeply moved, I felt touched by the sacred, intimate soul. As the result, I discovered that I, as Freud encouraged, was better attuned to painful feelings and memories of patients. Together, we more sensitively plumbed unconscious depths to healing, perhaps, touching the face of God.

- See more at: http://www.depthinsights.com/Depth-Insights-scholarly-ezine/god-as-intimate-soul-by-paul-deblassie-iii-ph-d/#sthash.NaKbKisS.bkd4wcdR.dpuf

God as Intimate Soul (I)...

The idea of practical spirituality emerged out of an alchemical mix of William James and Carl Jung, and their respective psychic perspectives on the soul. As a clinical psychologist in private practice for the past 30 years specializing in depth psychology and psychology and spirituality, I have treated scores of individuals in the midst of making their way across the dark and troubled waters of the unconscious mind. Serving as therapist and guide, a Hermetic dynamic at work within the treatment relationship, we frequently witness the emergence of a natural and immensely practical spirituality that nourishes the soul. It is of course, a vital relationship with the Self that supplants old, outer, religiosity.

In developing this relationship, William James (2006, p. 24) hit upon a revolutionary idea: God as intimate soul. Transformative numinous experience is nourished as we cultivate intimacies with soul. Sensitive listening to emotions, dreams, synchronous life events, and nuances within daily relationships actuates connection with intimate soul. As a colleague told me yesterday over a cup of afternoon tea, “I really need my daily times for reading, meditation, thinking, and good talking time with my partner. They take me into myself. There I find what the ancients called god.” God is intimate soul.

- See more at: http://www.depthinsights.com/Depth-Insights-scholarly-ezine/god-as-intimate-soul-by-paul-deblassie-iii-ph-d/#sthash.8h5xFTV4.dpuf

Winning Your Battle...

In a letter dated June 12, 1933 C.G. Jung wrote, "You have a mind just as well as any other human being and you can use it if you only know how to apply it. Any of my pupils could give you much insight and understanding that you could treat yourself if you don't succumb to the prejudice that you receive healing through others. In the last resort every individual alone has to win his battle, nobody else can do it for him."

No one else can win our battles. We alone have to face the monsters and beasts within our psychic dungeons. They lurk during waking hours in the forms of other people and troubling attitudes that challenge us and our conscious way of thinking, seeing, feeling. At night they emerge as dreams or nightmares that frighten, even terrorize.

A woman confided, "A hideous man, a monster really, appeared in my dream. I was in a nightmare. But, he turned into a shaman, touched me on the forehead and I entered into a sacred cave where I was to dwell." 

Her parents were demanding that she enter medical school. Her heartfelt desire had always been to become a depth psychotherapist. She commented, "By going into my own depth therapy and becoming this sort of healer, I feel like I'm entering a sacred cave. This is my life and my life's work." The nightmares subsided with this insight. She applied to and  entered depth psychotherapeutic training. 

Over time she learned to treat herself, to listen to dreams and spontaneous images that would arise in her mind throughout the day. Personal psychotherapy helped to set her on this path. To this day, she continues to do what only she can do for herself, in the words of Jung, to alone win her battle. 

Neurosis: Daily Catastrophe Ready for Use...

"Doubt is creative if it is answered by deeds, and so is neurosis if it exonerates itself as having been a phase-a crisis which is pathological only when chronic. Neurosis is a protracted crisis degenerated into a habit, the daily catastrophe ready for use." ( C.G. Jung Letter to Arnold Kunzli March 16, 1943)

Daily catastrophe ready for use is an alarming term. Yet, we are confronted by situations each day that threaten us with anxiety, the hallmark of neurosis. If we go rigid and don't respond creatively, productively, illness sets in. We become a chronic case of malaise, everyday misery.

Jim,  a colleague and seasoned practitioner in depth psychology, had been suffering from a stiff neck, a painful condition for over three months. He had a dream in which the world was ending. He had a choice of what to do. He could go with it and move into another dimension outside of space and time; instead, he shifted into a huge boulder and refused to change. The boulder immediately crumbled, turned to dust. He awakened in a cold sweat.

The next day he decided to retire from professional practice within the year. From the dream he knew his professional world  was at an end. It had been on his mind, the wrestling with it a constant source of depletion. He struggled against making the decision, a stiff neck, rigidity ensuing. "Best not to stay rigid and turn to dust," he commented.

The following night he dreamed of a luminescent orb that "pulsated with well being." He had made the right decision. Dreams guided him out of the neurosis, rigidity toward self and life. A crisis, a daily catastrophe, an ongoing stiff neck,, was what he was able to use to propel him into a new life that pulsated with well being.

Dreams and Special Feelings of Happiness...

In a letter of Jolande Jacobi (October 27, 1936) C.G. Jung commented, "...a dream has always to be understood under two aspects. On the one hand the historical root,  on the other the freshness of the tree. The tree is what grows in time....a look behind the scenes into the age-old processes of the human mind, which might explain your special feeling of happiness."

I recently became a grandfather. Memories of dreams for the past two years told of my transition into this stage of life. A new birth signaled change, possibilities, and potential for the future. Dream after dream portended this inevitability. 

As I held my granddaughter I was overwhelmed with intense love and joy, dreams of months past rushing to mind. There was a sense of time stopping. Space seemed to open up with her in my arms. Love and the world of dreams and dreaming quickened into a special feeling of happiness.

Shadow Times and Self Acceptance

Contemporary Shamanism (10.9.2014)  wrote,

"Its important to accept and nourish yourself in the shadow times.... as it is in the lighter times.

The shadow times are profound teachers.

In the shadow times there is opportunity to learn, dig deeper, purge the negative lies, gain insight and speak with kindness to yourself and your inner child as much as you are able.

Take comfort in your spirit kin and in the simple ways of nourishing your spirit.

The shadow is as important as the light."

Shadows in life as important as light and inspiration draws us into the deeper aspects of our life as it unfolds in ways unexpected and full of nuance and changes that sometimes we see coming and sometimes we don't.

https://www.facebook.com/292935910722027/photos/a.305775686104716.95647.292935910722027/961120960570182/?type=1 

Dreams: A Nightly Gift...

Each night that we dream, we're gifted. Actually, we dream multiple times nightly but only remember a few. I'm never troubled by, and encourage patients to not be worried about not recalling every specific dream. It's impossible and unnecessary.

After over thirty years of doing dreamwork I'm convinced that dreams that are meant for us to remember, we remember. The rest do their work within like psychic housekeepers that come in after hours and take care of things without being noticed. Often, it's those that aren't remembered that can impart a profound gift: we awake refreshed without retaining a long dream narrative or a particular image.

Cherishing sleep as a time to receive the gift of dreaming and dreams is a sign of respect. We respect what we value. A senior Chicago colleague over thirty-five years ago, trained by C.G. Jung, told me, "I rarely watch television anymore. Sometimes it interferes with my dreams. I go to sleep now ready to dream. Dreams really are a gift, you know. A nightly gift." 

How You Feel Around People...

I pay attention to how I feel around people. Sometime's there's a sense of well being, peace. Other times, there's confusion, chaos. People bring energy with them. As we are conscious, we can feel the energy within and surrounding others.

I came across the following quote by the American poet Charles Bukowski: "The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them." 

When I enter my consultation office I clear my mind. I pay attention to thoughts, images, feelings regarding my patient. I listen to the energy coming from them and in the therapeutic relationship. 

I remember last week a vivid image struck me as I entered into psychotherapeutic consultation with a depressed person. I saw a black bird with golden flecks and streaks of golden feathers suddenly fly by on the white screen of my mind. I wondered what this was about and how it would inform the session. The patient said, "I dreamt of a large black bird with colorful wings last night. He took me under his wing, sheltered me. I feel much better this morning."

At first, I wasn't sure about what had happened. Black birds can be an omen of death. But, this bird had golden coloring along with the black. Perhaps, the patient was still considering ending their life. But, there was more than black to the image.

I wanted to go slow, make sure we were understanding the message in this image. As we talked, we agreed that there was cause for both concern and relief. The bird was both a messenger of Asclepius, god of healing, bringing relief, and a harbinger of potential problems, the desire to no longer live.

My patient and I felt our way into the meaning of the nighttime dream and waking vision. As long as we sheltered under the wing of the symbol of the black bird, absorbed its meaning and the reality of her suffering, then there was healing, potential for freedom from the albatross of suicidal ideation and intent. 

To listen to feelings around people helps us stay away from or work past oppressive darkness, so that the rarity that is freedom of soul may shelter us under its black and golden wings.

Solitude and Quality of Life...

Solitude and quality of life form a complex matrix of meaning that includes having nourishing relationships and excludes relationships that detract from who we are as individuals, our essential solitude, and who we are as loving beings.

C.G. Jung wrote, "Solitude is for me a font of healing which makes my life worth living." Life being worth the living goes further than doing this or that with these or those people. In fact, too much contact with others, especially in order to while away time with idle socializing, detracts from self and quality of life.

Fear of growth, ongoing consciousness, often stems from a terror of isolation. To distinguish oneself in terms of interests, perspective, and mentality takes us apart from the group. We fear being different from everyone else. Embracing our capacity for solitude takes us into a depth of relationship with self and also, however surprising, into an increased capacity to nourish healthy relationships and personal lovingness.

"My head spins with too much to do and too many people in my life," exclaimed an anxiety-ridden soul. Dreams of fogginess and "people, people everywhere, so that I couldn't breathe. They were sucking up all the air" abounded for this individual. Quality of life had been compromised. Spirit, air, had been siphoned off. A return to the essential solitude of the self, to include nurturing relationships, was needed in order to rediscover a replenishing spirit and quality of life.

Listening to Our Body/Psyche...

Richard Kearney in a recent New York Times post (8.30.2014) wrote, "In perhaps the first great works of human psychology, the “De Anima,” Aristotle pronounced touch the most universal of the senses. Even when we are asleep we are susceptible to changes in temperature and noise. Our bodies are always “on.” And touch is the most intelligent sense, Aristotle explained, because it is the most sensitive. When we touch someone or something we are exposed to what we touch. We are responsive to others because we are constantly in touch with them."

Patients healing from childhood trauma require resensitizing themselves to their bodies. Women and men who suffered at the hands of adults as children, need to listen to their bodies in a new way and not override their feelings. Bodies speak truth and do not lie.

"My mother would hit me so bad, I thought I'd die," a man shared about his childhood. "I grew up being attracted to women who seemed all right from a distance, but as time went on in the relationship, it was obvious that they were abusers. Sex was bad. My body wouldn't work. It was telling me that what I thought was good was bad."

After intensive work on his past, helping his soul to heal, he learned to listen to his body. His mind tried to override his body feelings. It didn't work. The psyche is a body psyche. As we listen to our bodies we grow to be in touch with self and others. We listen to soul in a sensitive and meaningful manner that optimizes health, well being, and the potential to live a life based on listening not overriding our body/psyche.