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DIVORCE: How can heartbreak lead to transformation? · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. Well,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: in this episode, Joseph and I tackled the topic of divorce.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We talked about the heartbreak of divorce, the different ways
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: that you can experience it if you're the person initiating
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the divorce versus being the person upon whom maybe this
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: was sprung out of the blue. We also talked about
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: some of the potentials in divorce, the way that it
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: can often feel like a relief. It can open us
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: up to new psycho-spiritual growths. it can, uh, call for
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: us to be initiated into adulthood. So I think we
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: did our usual job of circumambulating it. And I do
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: want to acknowledge, we, we talked about, um, the work
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: of Leanne Downs, who is a Jungian analyst who wrote
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: her thesis on divorce. And I was lucky enough to
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: be able to read it. And her website is leandownsyungian.com.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: We'll put that in the show notes, but, uh, She's
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: interested in hearing from you if you have a divorce story,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: because she might be doing more writing on this in
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: the future. So I hope that you enjoy today's episode.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Divorce by Jose Alcantara He has flown headfirst against the
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: glass and now lies stunned on the stone patio. nothing
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: moving but his quick beating heart. So you go to him,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: pick up his delicate body and hold him in cupped
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: palms of your hands. You've always known he was beautiful,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: but it's only now, in his stillness, in his vulnerability,
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: that you see the miracle of his being, how so
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: much life fits in so small a space. And so
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: you wait, keeping him warm against the unseasonable cold, trusting
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: that when the time is right, when he has recovered
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: both his strength and his sense of up and down,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: he will gather himself, flutter once or twice, and then rise,
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: a streak of dazzling color against a slowly lifting sky.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: What a powerful... arc in that poem about divorce and
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: how it is for so many of us it is
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: like flying into uh a window that we we didn't
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: see and we're we're knocked stunned.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And we lose our sense of up and down Yeah,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: it's a beautiful poem because it doesn't mention divorce at
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: all in the poem. And yet it describes the experience
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: so poignantly.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: And it evokes the attitude of the self. Because even
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: as we are the bird that has smashed into this
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: unexpected situation, so there is a larger one inside of us,
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: a larger attitude that is also holding us and observing
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: and warming us. and holds a certainty about our potential
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: to recover and soar again that the ego, in the
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: moment of distress, often cannot find.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Yes. I mean, I'm thinking of how birds are often
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: associated with hope, or at least they were for Emily Dickinson,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: and how, you know, a loss of hope can be
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: an aspect of going through a divorce.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: So... Divorce comes from the Latin word divertere, which means
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: to turn in a different direction. And divorce and divert,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: they all have that same root. So, in that regard,
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: there is something simple about divorce on that very archetypal
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: level of having traveled as two people in a particular
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: direction and one or both turning into a new direction.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: There's something comforting in the simplicity of that idea, especially
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: in the midst of all of the incredible flood of
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: details that any of us has to deal with when
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: we are ending a marriage.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm thinking about the different, I want to say,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: kind of shades of emotion that we might have about
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: a divorce. And it obviously depends on where we are
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: in it and how it came about. I'm thinking of,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: like you're saying, the incredible overwhelm about the details. You know,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I have actually right now several friends going through awful divorces.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: And just the amount of kind of back and forth
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: with the lawyers and the forensic accountants and the money
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: and the kids and the visitation and the constant legal wrangling.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: And just I'm watching in some awe, actually, as my
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: friends navigate this, because just the amount of the administrative burden. of, oh,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know, figuring out how you're going to liquidate
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: the assets and get the house ready to put on
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: the market, you know, in the midst of the emotional upset.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: So I think there can be just this incredible kind
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: of numbness and overwhelm. There can be tremendous sadness, despair, fury, anger,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: if we're the one who's been left And for some people,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: divorce brings a sense of relief.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: A lot's on the table all of a sudden, just
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: as it is with the divorce. I like my overly
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: simplistic idea of just turning in different directions.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: But Joseph, I can relate to that. I can relate
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: to that. I recently was talking to someone who was
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: considering a divorce, and she felt very, very, very overwhelmed
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: by it. And I was able to say, because I've
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: seen a lot of people do this, it's going to
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: be really awful for about a year. And then you will,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: there is another side. You know, there's this side of
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: it when you've got to tell the person or tell
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: the kids and you've got to find the lawyer and
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: you've got to do the money and you've got to
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: sell the house. But once you're past that, there is
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: another life. So in some sense, what you're evoking with your,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: just turn a different direction and And obviously for some
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: of us, if we don't have a lot of assets
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: and there aren't kids or there's a good prenup, it
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: can just kind of be like, oh, let's sign on
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: the dotted line and walk away. But for most people,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: you know, the nature of a marriage is that your
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: life gets entwined and you have to disentangle all of
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: these things.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: So people talk about the dissolution of a marriage and
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: that alchemical metaphor is so apt that we come together
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: in this crucible. has two different substances and Jung writes
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: about this and there's a chemical reaction of some intensity
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: and then we become an amalgam. And from the amalgam
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: of the marriage, all of these secondary effects occur, some
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: of which are wonderful and for some of us can
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: become toxic. Some marriages give off fumes that make us
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: or other people around us perhaps unwell. And we may
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: try to fight that and try to go through another
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: alchemical process. Well, let's try to transform it over and
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: over again, which of course is a worthy pursuit. Mm-hmm.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Because the joining together is so profound and the separating
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: is so costly. Yes. It's worthy of attempting at least
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: to improve the amalgam if that is possible. Mm-hmm.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're leading into this really important question
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: that we have discussed at other times on the podcast.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: But I'm also very interested in this question is like,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: when is a divorce the right thing? Because I mean,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: it certainly is sometimes. There's interesting data too, on how
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: people feel after a divorce. Some people, you know, are like,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: did I really need to do that? There is sometimes
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: some of that flavor among a certain percentage of people.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, I think in some sense that, People
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: who fall into the category of this marriage clearly needs
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: to end are fortunate. Like the person is using drugs
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: or the person is, you know, cheating on me or
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: the person is, you know, violent or the person is,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: you know, fill in the blank, that kind of thing
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: that you tell anyone, and they'd be like, Oh, God,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: you know, get out as fast as you can. But
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: for many of us, that's not the case. And we
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: don't have that clarity. And of course, this is a
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: reason why many people come into therapy, at least for
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: me for, you This has been a major issue that
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: has brought people to my consulting room, which is, I
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: think I might need to leave my marriage or my
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: long-term relationship or whatever. And having sort of sat with
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: people in that discernment process, many decide to leave, but
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: a certain number don't. And it is interesting to think about,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: how do you know? How do you know if it's
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: right to leave marriage? What criteria should you use? You know,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: some people kind of get into affairs, and it seems
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: to me that that's often a way of letting some
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: unconscious part of us decide that the relationship is over
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: before we can consciously admit that to ourselves.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: So let's pick any one of those starting places and
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: kind of work through it. So first, I just want
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: to reflect on the just marriage itself, just to get
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: a basic sense of it, that so much about the
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: archetype of marriage has to do with the sense of completeness,
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: that we move through life longing, feeling that there is
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: more in us, there is more possible, and that when
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: we come into relationship with another person who seems to
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: evoke the sense of wholeness, that is rare and incredibly exciting.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: And the wholeness can come forward in a number of
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: ways that a marvelous sexual connection is a kind of wholeness.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: To meet somebody in that erotic dance in such a
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: way that it feels so fulfilling, so remarkably gratifying is important.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: To meet somebody... who fits so beautifully with us that
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  Speaker 3: we experience a sense of peace, that the rumblings inside
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: of us, the fight, the longing, the searching, comes to
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: a blissful pause in the arms of the beloved. And
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: then there is another kind of union, which is a
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: union of joy, that when we are with the beloved,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: there is such a sense of mounting dynamism in one
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: idea and we talked for 10 hours on that first
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: date and one idea leads to another idea and then
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: we found ourselves just in a state of delight. So
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: there's all these levels of union or the promise of union.
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  Speaker 3: And if we come to a feeling that there is
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: a high likelihood that we will maintain these states of union.
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  Speaker 3: And by comparison to other relationships, this is extraordinary. We
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: may come to the decision to want to commit to
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: a permanency that we shall both be together for this
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: life in these states of union. And even though we
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: might read all kinds of books and YouTube videos that say, well,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: you know, it's all going to change over time. We
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: go in with a nod to that, but really our
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: current experience gives us a sense of the relationship is
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: so valuable. And I think this is where I'm going
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: to go as we move towards the divorce stage, that
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: the marriage and to the other person has such a
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: high value that we want to enter into a contractual agreement.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: That we are going to nurture this value and we're
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: going to protect the value of the relationship against the
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: assaults that life is likely to give us. And so
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: the transition out of that state, to me, has something
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: to do with the violence to any of those unions,
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: the sexual joy. begins to fall apart, or the sense
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: of peace and completeness begins to disrupt, or the sense
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: of dynamic joy begins to somehow go awry. So I'm
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: going to just lean into typology. I'm trying to look
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: for some kind of central tenets, because there are 10,000
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: tiny pieces to divorce, all of which are valid, but
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: there's so many moving parts. So in terms of Jung's
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: typological system, we are going to fall into one of
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: two positions. We're either feeling types or thinking types. And
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: the reason that's important is that we evaluate or we
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: determine the value of a thing, of an object, based
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: on either what we think about it or how we
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: feel about it. So feeling types, in a very basic way,
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: and I'm a feeling type, if I like something, I
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: want to move towards it. If I'm neutral about it,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: I may or may not be terribly motivated. And if
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: I'm averse to it, if I really dislike something, it
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: can be very, very difficult for me to value it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: We're born this way. I don't think we have a choice.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: We can force ourselves to stay in relationship to all
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: kinds of people, things, and situations as an act of will.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: But in terms of whether or not we value something,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: whatever contributes to us liking it more means that it's
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: more valuable. As thinking types, we would actually have a
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: growing list of positive thoughts and evaluations that are quite rational.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: That all these potentials are rationally there. All of these
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: realities are rationally present. And in the relationship and with
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: this person, it's very perceivable to me as a thinking type.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: And so consequently, the relationship and the other person becomes
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: more and more valuable. And one would say that at
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: some point, either on a feeling level or a thinking level,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: the other person becomes the most valuable person. and more
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: valuable than other people we might commit to. And if
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: that value sustains, we come to believe the relationship, the person,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: our visions are valuable enough to commit a life to.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: So part of the movement towards divorce is the accretion
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: of experiences that cause the marriage, and the other person
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: to lose value in our inner world. So as a
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: feeling type, if I am in relationship with anyone, could
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: be a friend, could be a lover, if I am
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: in that relationship and the behavior of the other person,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: the context, or the synergy, for that matter, between us
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: creates conflict, intensely painful, emotionally painful experiences. And they are
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: poignant and they continue month after month, year after year
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: after year. As a feeling type, it can be very,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: very difficult for me to hold that relationship and that
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: person with the high level of regard that I had
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: at one time. And at a certain point, the relationship
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: can lose value and become something that, as a feeling type,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: I want to retreat from or might powerfully need to
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: retreat from. So these assaults to the heart of the
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: feeling type is one thing that can lead to the
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: decision of dissolution. Now, I'm not a thinking type, so
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: sometimes I'll speak to this more clumsily. But again, We're
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: in the relationship, the other person, we have a huge
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: library of very positive reasons that this person is valuable
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: and the relationship is. And in a quite rational way,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I could observe changes of circumstances that alter the reasons
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: to be with this person and the reasons to be
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: in this marriage. And at some point, there are so
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: many reasons to step away that, again, the thinking person
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: has a very hard time holding the relationship as valuable.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: And then other fantasies of dissolution begin to rise up.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: You know, I remember in social work school reading about divorce,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: and the professor said something I have never forgotten. that
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: when we get engaged or we get married, we have
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: the wonderful feeling of being chosen. And getting divorced is
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: like being unchosen. And I think that's really poignant, you know,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: because we do have a primal need for connection and partnership.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, most of us yearn for partnership, And so
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: to find that in a marriage, you know, I mean,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: this is why, you know, weddings and engagements are just
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: such happy times. And then to have that fall apart
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: is so devastating. I mean, you know, as I said before,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I think there can be a real range in what
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: we feel around divorce, including like, hooray, you know. But
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: at a minimum, I think there's a terrible sadness at
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: the end of the fantasy. of completeness and connection, that
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: we have found our person, and that this will be
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: our person forever. And I mean, I don't think anyone,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: you know, most people, let's say, don't begin a marriage thinking, ah,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: maybe we'll get divorced in a few years, you know.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: The purpose of marriage is to make a vow that it's,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: you know, through good times and through bad till death
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: do us part. So when it's not that, there is
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: the loss. Even if we're happy to let the person go,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: there's often a tremendous sadness about having to let go
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: that fantasy that we found a forever something.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Sadness and grief are somewhat different to me. In fact,
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: I've recently been talking with one of my analysis hands
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: about how those things are different and both are relevant
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: in the divorce process. I think of grief, the pain
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: of grief, is the sensation of accommodating to a new reality.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: And that every time how we thought something was going
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: to be changes in a way that's out of our control,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: there is a kind of pain that we go through.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: And the end of grief is often the integration of
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: the new reality that this new thing is true. Somebody
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: passes away. There is this process of accommodating the new
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: reality that they are no longer here. My spouse is
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: now living somewhere else with someone else. And once we
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: come to a state of acceptance, there often is a
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: feeling that the grief is completed. Sadness is a different
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: kind of pain. How do we define sadness, and particularly
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: as somewhat distinct from grief?
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I definitely think they're related. I think
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: that it's the process of kind of removing energy from something.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: You know, I think of that wonderful psychoanalytic word, de-cathecting.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: That's essentially what grief and mourning is, is kind of
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: taking back the psychic energy that you had invested in
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: someone or something. And, you know, sadness might be a
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: part of grief, but it doesn't have that same function
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: necessarily that grief has.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Sad, I think, has something to do with that deflating,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: that it is the withdrawal of exaltation. It is the
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: sense of, it comes in some ways with a sense
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: of defeat in a way.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, sorrow too, I mean, it's a kind of,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: it's a core emotion. So it's a little hard to
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: kind of break it down. It has a huge bodily
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: component that we usually experience as tearfulness, whether it's just,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: you know, it's sobbing or that tightness in the throat
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: or a kind of queasy feeling in our stomach, you know.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: So it's, and it's, it just, it just kind of
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: is when we're sorrowing, you know.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: I think that sorrowing, I think that makes sense. And
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: it's so important, the sorrowing. It's almost like a season,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: the sorrowing season.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something that we have to go through, whether
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: or not what we're sorrowing over is the loss of
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: the person or just, as I said before, the loss
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: of the idea of the relationship. But a lot of times,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: divorce is really difficult because there's a lot of ambivalence.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, again, if your spouse was cheating on you
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: and had a drug habit, you might escape from the
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: painful experience of ambivalence. Because perhaps you feel like, this
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: is 100% right, I need to do this, I'm not
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: going to look back. And I've worked with people who've
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: had that experience where they, you know, learned that their spouse,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: you know, had returned to drug use, for example, and
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: they just saw very clearly that this is what had
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: to happen. And it can be less painful, I think,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: when you have that kind of clarity. But a lot
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: of times we lack that. We feel unsure, is this
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: really the right thing to do? And then oftentimes in
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: modern legal divorces, the process almost kind of helps us
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: out because people can be so fully awful to each
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: other in this process that then you begin to hate
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: the person And you forget any good thing that you
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: ever knew about the person, which is a shame in
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: a lot of ways, especially if there are kids, you know,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: to kind of collapse that tension of opposites to see
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the person is all bad. And I do believe that the, again,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: the legal process almost encourages that because you kind of
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: have to rewrite the narrative a little bit about just
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: how awful the person is. And I'm, you know, in
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: many cases, the person is really awful, but it might
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: be that The legal process encourages us to really see
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: it as black and white. Then there's this kind of
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: collapsing of the tension and we're split off into hatred.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: And we try not to let that show to the
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: kids because we want the kids to have an okay
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: relationship with the other parent, hopefully. But still, it's just
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: any good that was there, talk about that process of
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: kind of leeching it of value. We can't look back
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: and think, oh God, I know why I married him
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: or I know why I married her. You know, that
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: was really great in the beginning. It's like, it's gone. And,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: you know, hatred is a powerful, it's a powerful place
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: to sit. You know, it can be a kind of
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: compensatory inflation to the feelings of smallness and sadness. It
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: can give us that kind of needed clarity. It's a
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: very difficult thing to do to navigate a divorce with
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: a person where you can say to the other person,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: you know, we gave it a good try, but it's
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: really not working. And I want to remain friendly and
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I want to be a good co-parent. And I want to,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I want to have an appreciation for how this might
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: be hitting you. And I want to see if I
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: can continue to be a support to you and you
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: can continue to be a support to me. You know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: it happens. It doesn't happen often.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: Well, I think this brings us back to the value
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: of sadness, is that it's perfectly understandable that we need
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: all the variations of anger in order to shore up
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: our ego, in order to have some agency, in order
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: to have the courage to repel ourselves out of something
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: that's been so central. But I think it is in
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: the sadness that we can sit with that question of,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: you know, I still feel for you. Your suffering matters
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: as well as my own. Yes. And I think some
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: people have this fantasy that we'll transition and be friends.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: And maybe that's true. But what I have found to
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: be most helpful is if couples can make a contract
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: to be nonviolent in the divorce process. that there can
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: be a commitment to gentleness and nonviolence in the process,
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: in the way that the couple speaks to each other,
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: in the way that they speak to the children, in
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: the way that they navigate the separation of property, that
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: things can be done with enough gentleness that there is
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: a humanity in it. Mm-hmm. And then I think that's
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: the gift of sadness because when we're feeling really sad
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: about it, we generally don't want to club the other person.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: So there is a softening process around that. It's not
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: to say that it has to be that way or
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: that it is for everyone, but it seems to me
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: that that's helpful. Yes.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think one of the things that happens
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: in a marriage is there is the, we talked about
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: this before, but there's a making of a life together.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: You've got one set of pans. You've got, you know,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: the family recipes all in one place. The one set
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: of Christmas decorations. I remember when my husband and I
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: were engaged, we bought up, we purchased our first home.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: We weren't married yet. We purchased the house and we
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: went to the closing. And he looked at me and
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: he said, well, you know, I mean, you thought the
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: big deal was when we got married, but we're really connected. now,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: you know, because we both were names are both on
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: that mortgage, you know. So I mean, the degree to
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: which couples can their finance, their financial lives are entangled.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's practical, they're financial, but above all, there's
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: kind of emotional and even psycho-spiritual ways that we are connected.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: And so if a marriage is a making of a
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: life together, and, you know, friends, and I haven't even
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: mentioned children, then the divorce is an unmaking of that life.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: And so every little, you know, every little item in
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: the house, is it his or is it hers? You know,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: if it's a heterosexual couple. You know, what do we
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: do about this? Who wants this? You know, which friends
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: are going to go with this person versus that person?
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: What are the, you know, so it's a tremendous undoing
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: of something.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: And when I think about the divorce process, unlike what
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: leads up to it, the divorce process is a conscious unraveling. Now,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: often there are many years of challenges or insults or
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: betrayals or frustrations, disappointments that lead up to this tipping
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: point where we no longer have faith in the idea
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: of the union. And then we're surprised to find out
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: the innumerable, meticulous decisions with all kinds of competing values
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: that we have to weigh inside of ourselves, within the
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: legal situation, with our soon-to-be ex-spouse, and as you said,
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: weighing the needs of the children. And it forces us
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: also to consider how many ways our lives have become
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: woven together in ways that we do not even understand
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: until they are either rent or unraveled by decision of fate.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: And the great cost, people are exhausted as they're moving
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: through divorces. It takes an enormous amount of libido to
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: do that.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: You said something like this a minute ago, but I
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: think I just want to go back to it and
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: lift it up. You know, I have people that come
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: in kind of claiming this is the process that they want.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: And I've spent years sitting with someone over this decision.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And sometimes people will say, Oh, you know, it's taken
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: me so long, you must be getting frustrated. I'm like, No,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: you take the time that you need to take. And
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: I think I've said this before in the podcast. But
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: what I'll say to people is like, you're not going
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: to get certainty. I mean, again, unless there's violence or
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: drug use or gambling or, you know, something, something that
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: makes it really, really just black and white. But if
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: you're not in that zone, if you're married to a
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: perfectly reasonable person, a basically decent human being, but there
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: are just these kind of irreconcilable differences, then you may
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: never get certainty, but you can get clarity. And I
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: want to just make a little hat tip here. A
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: few months ago, I sat in on, I was a
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: thesis reader for a candidate from Zurich, and I'm not
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: going to say her name now because she hasn't given
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: me permission, but if she gives me permission, we'll put
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: it in the show notes. She wrote her thesis on divorce,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: and it was a really lovely, lovely job. She did
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: a great job looking at divorce essentially as an individuation process,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: which I love that idea. And I think someone, if
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: she doesn't publish this, I hope maybe someone someday will
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: write that book. But I asked her as part of
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: her thesis defense, I said, you know, how do you
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: know when it's right to leave? And I loved the
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: answer that she gave. Because she, I'm paraphrasing, but she
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: said something like, when all of the urgency is gone,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: when all of the urgency to leave has just disappeared,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: and you've sort of sat through that and come to
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: the other side, and it still looks like the right
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: thing to do to leave. And I thought, yeah. That
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: feels about right. So, you know, we fall in love
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: with another person and all of a sudden we're like, okay,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: we've got to leave the marriage. You know, the marriage
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: is the only thing wrong in my life. If I
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: were just with this other person, everything would be great. Well,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: that's probably not the right time to leave a marriage.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, granted the exception being if there's
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: urgency because there's violence or any of these other things,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: that's different. But that emotional urgency that we feel sometimes
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: simply because We want to collapse the tension. It's that
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: urgency that I would say, distrust that. You know, if
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: it doesn't make a difference practically if you leave now
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: or six months from now, and you can just kind
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: of feel this impulse to leave just so that it's
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: over with and you don't have to think about it anymore, eh,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: maybe think about it some more. Because it is a
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: big deal. It is costly. It's costly to go through
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: a divorce. It is tremendously costly financially. And I haven't
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: looked at these numbers in a long time, but divorce
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: is one of the kind of life events that can
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: really take a toll on your financial health. And of course,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: if there are kids, you know, I mean, kids are
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: resilient and most will do okay. And we know that
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: it affects kids. So it's a big decision. And sometimes
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: it's the right one to make.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: I think all of that is very, very practical and real.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: I find myself just wanting to shift a little bit
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: into talking about the, as you had begun, the psychological
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: process that we kind of go through.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: So I think that in the beginning, of course, as
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: you had said, Lisa, any number of parts of the
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: psyche will come to our aid, which is generally our defenses,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: because in that declaration that the divorce is real, it
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: has been spoken. I mean, that's really kind of the
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: first salvo that there's lots of griping. Oh, I can't
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: stand you or go sleep on the couch. Or if
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: you do that one more time and that's socially, although
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: just the kind of griping it's there's the protest period.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: If you'd one more time, you know, or Ralph Cramden
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: to the moon, Alice, you know, Which are all of
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: these venting processes that we go through. And then there's
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: the moment of, I want this to be done. Yeah.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: And the other person says, I agree. And at that point,
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: we're plunged into a crisis time. Yeah. Which, as you
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: were saying, all of these, this raw stuff comes forward.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Part of the raw stuff is that the marriage... Has
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: acted as a kind of container. Yeah. I mean, there
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: are all kinds of explicit and implicit rules that exist
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: around the marriage. And as the marital image dissolves, everything
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: in the zoo, you know, starts to move out, you know,
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: into the town. Mm-hmm. So we find ourselves willing to
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: be more rageful and say much more hurtful things than
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: we might have said two years earlier.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: Or suddenly someone just decides they're not coming home one night,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: leaving the other person frightened, even though divorce has been named.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: We're not accustomed to having the normal structures suddenly just
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: break down. So it's frightening to be in that. crisis process,
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: we can also understand that that's normal. There's been a
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: lot of tension and frustration. And now that the marriage
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: isn't containing that, things are going to erupt. Some of
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: those things are going to be shadowy. And by that,
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: I mean surprising and hard to approve of. But some
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: of those things are going to be rather marvelous. I've
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: seen people declare they're getting divorced. And then they've been
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: unable to get themselves to apply for a new job.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: And then suddenly, two weeks after the divorce is declared,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: their CV is updated and they're out looking for a
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: better job. And for some reason, they could not find
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: the libido six months earlier when the marriage or the
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: conscious or unconscious rules of the marriage were in place.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden, somebody is spending hours more a
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: week with their friends, which is something they wanted to
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: do during the marriage. But now that the rules of
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: the marriage are gone, reigniting important social relationships, which are
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: inherently positive anyway, suddenly seem permitted. But all of this
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: new material begins to flood our psyches, flood the house.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: and flood our partners. So that is a discovery process
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: if we're paying attention to it. Mm-hmm. That we learn
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: something about ourselves, lots of things about ourselves, and a
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: lot of things about our spouse as we watch them
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: suddenly give themselves permission. Mm-hmm. to do things that the
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: rules of the marriage didn't seem to accommodate. And I
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: don't mean simply perhaps suddenly being more sexual. It's actually
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: much more complicated than that.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. So one of the things that happens in
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: the process of the dissolution of a marriage is that
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: we take back our projections. So when we fell in love,
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: you know, you were the best thing ever. And I
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: projected my, you know, parts of myself onto you, you know, um,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: The animus, even perhaps the self, we project onto a lover.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: And over time, you know, we take some of those
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: projections back. But boy, as a marriage is dying, we
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: really take those back. The other thing that happens is
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: that we take back those functions that we've delegated to
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: the other person. So this can look... I have a friend.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: And her parents, you know, actually both just recently passed away.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: But when they were married, she did everything for him
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: to the point that when they got divorced, he would
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: buy those little containers of yogurt with like a fruit
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: yogurt and didn't know that you had to stir it
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: to bring up the fruit from the bottom. So, and,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, listen, any relationship you're in, there
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: are things that you do that your partner doesn't do
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: and vice versa. So, you know, even if you try
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: to fight that, it's like she's the one who pays
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the bills and he knows where everything is or whatever
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: it is, you know. Even if you've got a kind
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: of egalitarian marriage, you've delegated something. He's the one who
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: changes the light bulbs and she's the one who gets
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: the cars fixed or whatever it is.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Right. Right.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And we do that emotionally. So he's the one who
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: worries about retirement. She's the one who takes care of
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: the friends. Or, you know, she's the one who attunes
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: to his moods. And he's the one who is kind of,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: you know, the strong shoulder to cry on when she
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: gets overwhelmed, whatever it is, you've made some unconscious or
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: barely conscious deal with your partner. Where there's certain things
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: that he does, and there's certain other things that you do,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: or whatever the sexes are we're talking about. So when
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: you get divorced, you have to learn how to stir
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: your own yogurt. And that's true for both the practical things,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: but it's also true for those emotional things. And that's
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: why divorce can be a potential for individuation. Because it
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: can be stultifying to be in a relationship where you
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: never have to stir your emotional yogurt. There's all kinds
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: of things you don't know about yourself. When you suddenly
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: get that thrown back at you, it's like, whoa, it's
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: like you're meeting yourself for the first time. So that,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's very disorienting. It's very upsetting, but it is,
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: you know, kind of renewing in a way, or it
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: can be. The woman whose thesis I read, I wanted
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: to share a great quote from her thesis. She said,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: we need to live our divorce as fully as we
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: are able. And I like that. It's a sense like, okay,
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: I'm doing this. I'm here for it. What can I
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: learn from all of this? Who am I on the
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: other side of this? You know, I'm no longer the
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: person who doesn't know how to stir my own yogurt.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Now I'm a completely different person.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Look at that.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: That's fascinating. So there is an opportunity for it to
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: be a growth experience. It does invite us to grow up.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: And it can be a kind of initiation.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: I think that's Absolutely true. On a practical sense, I've
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: had male friends who divorce and then all of a
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: sudden half the furniture in the house is gone. They're
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: kind of sitting there on a stool. And then they
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: discover that, of course, they have apportioned the decorating of
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: the house to their wives.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: And then once they relax through the shock and sadness,
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: they think, they begin to discover, I actually have some
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: ideas about what I think is beautiful here. Or how
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: I want my surroundings to reflect my psyche and what's
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: important to me. And then we'll discover that they actually
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: have a lot of interesting choices that they'd like to
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: make about their surroundings that they have assigned. Another thing
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: that I think is so important is that men, when
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: they're young, are very interested in whether or not they
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: are attractive to their mates. And they'll invest a fair
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: amount of energy in it. Often, men will project beauty
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: onto their spouse. They're the attractive one. You know, I'm
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: kind of the hard worker or maybe the leader of
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: the family or whatever fantasy it is. But the wife
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: is the one who's carrying all of the beauty in
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: the relationship. And so I see men in their 40s
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: or 50s, about six months after the divorce, actually looking
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: in the mirror and wanting to be more attractive. That
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: they want to hold some of this aesthetic dynamic.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: Upgrade the wardrobe.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, like actually, I'd like to know a little
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: bit of that beauty in myself or however I characterize that. Similarly,
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: I've seen men take a much greater interest in children.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: Not just their own children, but nieces and nephews that
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: they've assigned the care of children to their spouses, and
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: then discovered that it's deeply rewarding to care for a child,
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: to care for the family pet, even to care for
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: the garden, which again had been assigned outward. So it's
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: an opportunity for a man to, as we were saying,
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: discover his anima, discover that the inner feminine in him
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: is alive and well, And now that it's not projected
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: onto the wife or in a gay relationship onto the
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: other partner, now it's in me. And often because it's
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: later in life, we're a little more capable of bringing
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: forward some of those qualities than we would have been
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: 20 years earlier.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's the real, the real possibility for sub
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: renewal and, uh, And getting to know ourselves as a
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: different person because we do inevitably become somewhat defined and
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: I would say even constrained by even a very good relationship.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: It's just part of the nature of it. So things
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: get kind of thrown up in the air. I was thinking,
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: I remember I once worked with a woman who had
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: just gone through a divorce and she went to the
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: grocery store shortly after she moved out and she was shopping.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: You know, she was in the cookie aisle. let's say,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of making this up. And she started to
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: buy the cookies that her husband and children liked, and
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: stopped herself short and thought, I can buy the cookies
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: I like. And then she thought, what kind of cookies
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: do I like? She had, you know, she'd been married
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: with kids for a couple of decades. And she had
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: not even queried what kind of cookies would I like
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: for almost two decades. And there she was in the
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: cookie aisle thinking, wow, I can buy whatever cookies I want.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: So there can be a real sense of renewal.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Years ago, I made this decision that for my
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: female friends, when they had announced or if they announced
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: they were getting a divorce, that I would put together
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: a toolbox for them. Because very commonly, that was one
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: of the things that they had assigned to their husband.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, The screwdrivers have disappeared and
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: the power drills. And how empowering and strange it was
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: for them for me to show up with a gift
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: of a toolbox. And then how enlivening it was. They'd
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: like call me up. They're like, I changed the electrical outlet.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: You're right. I was like, yeah, you go. So all
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: of these, I know that sounds extremely traditional, but it's
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: also not uncommon.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, let's face it, that happens sometimes.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: I'll buy my male friends the joy of cooking.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, and at first they're like, what, man?
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to ever cook again. But I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, they'll call me up
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: and say, I baked a souffle. It was amazing.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: I have a friend who got divorced a few years ago,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: and he got so into cooking. He got really into,
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: it was either vegetarian or vegan cooking, to the point
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: where I think he even started a food vlog. And
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: he'd never cooked before, but he was having so much
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: fun learning all these things. And so, I mean, gosh,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: we're making divorce sound really great right now. But there
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: is this upside to it.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Particularly if it's been a lengthy marriage where so
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: much has been apportioned to one partner and then the
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: other that we don't even realize. You know, somebody gets
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: divorced and they're like, I don't think I've changed the
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: toilet paper in my bathroom in 20 years. Who's been
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: doing that? Okay. So it's a lot of list making
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: that happens, you know, after the divorce. So the movement,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: as we go through crisis and tumult, One of the
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: things that we can try to do is take back
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: into ourselves things that we have assigned to our partners,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: our exes, and develop some conscious relationship to it to
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: understand that all of the cages are open and all
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: of our beasts are now roaming around the town. Okay,
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: so it is that we are going to begin to
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: have to create some structure. And actually, the legal divorce
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: process is often The beginning of the structuring process. Because
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: we need the ego to establish the new rules. Where
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: are the kids going to be on what days? What's
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: the budget? What money is coming and going from where?
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: What are the living arrangements? Those are not necessarily things
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: that would have been foremost on our minds, perhaps if
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: we'd been more educated about it. But all of a sudden,
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: we're building the new foundations. through that. One of the
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: important transitions also is that often to leave a marriage,
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: we have to blame the other person mightily and ridiculously.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: So there's all of this resentment and demonization of the others.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: Even the person, let's say, who's had the affair, which
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: has caused the marriage perhaps, or the final blow to
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: the marriage. Often there's many, many difficulties leading up to
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: something like that. They will still demonize and devalue the
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: other spouse who didn't have the affair and we devalue
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: something to diminish the pain of losing it you know
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: we get fired from a job oh i never liked
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: that job at all you know my boss was a
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: big jerk well that's fine i mean because we need
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: to survive these transitions so in the beginning there's all
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: of this demonization of the other hopefully In about two
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: to three years, the person can begin to tolerate understanding
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: that the dissolution of the marriage or the marital problems
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: were co-created. And many of the incompatibilities are actually neither
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: person's fault. We don't know what we don't know, and
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: there are vast terrains of our psyches that are hidden
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: from us, let alone from our spouses that emerge 5, 10, 15,
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: 20 years later, who knew that I needed to become
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: a farmer and live in rural North Carolina, and you
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: needed to go and move to Manhattan and go onto
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: Wall Street and become an incredible Wall Street shark investing
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: into all kinds of things. We didn't know that. We
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: didn't know that the self would demand those things. So
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: what What are we going to do? Can the amalgam survive?
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: And I find for myself, and I'm as vulnerable as
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: anyone to get into a snit about one thing or another,
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: but the faster that I can lean into the feeling
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: that there are greater forces at work, both with the
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: bringing together of people as well as the separation of people,
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: that the self has a hand in the events of
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: our lives, even when they're deeply painful, all in service
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: to growth, truly. Even infidelity, and this is something I
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: know you've written about and are knowledgeable about in your practice, Lisa,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: is that infidelity, if it's understood in the right way,
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: can be seen as sometimes even desperate attempt to, inelegant perhaps,
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: or even clumsy, but all things have a telos in them,
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: which is part of our determination as Jungians. And telos
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: means that there is a secret purpose in all things,
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: that the universe has a kind of intelligence, or at
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: very least our psyches do, so that even what seem
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: to be mistakes are clumsy mistakes, unskilled behaviors that may
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: lead to tumult in our lives, that there is a
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: greater force that is trying to move us in a direction.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: And sometimes that causes great suffering.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't disagree with you about infidelity, but let
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: me just lean in there for a second. You know,
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: I have seen, as I alluded to earlier, a couple
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: of what I would call really exceptionally good divorces. where
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: people remained on good terms, were able to like be
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: at family events, you know, were able to share a
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: second home, you know, nursed each other when they got ill,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: you know, in spite of the fact that maybe they
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: were both in other relationships or whatever. But really, that
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: ideal thing of we're going to put the kid first,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: and we're not going to put the kid in the middle.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: And we're going the number one thing is what's right
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: for this kid. And we can co parent like that.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: And kind of continue to have respect for each other
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: even while we're doing this difficult thing of disentangling and
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: you know it's it's incredibly moving to see these kinds
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: of situations and and and there's a real value to
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: it i mean on the one hand it's so much
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: better for kids but even if the kids are adults
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: or there are no kids to be able to it
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: you know to keep intact the you know yeah, I
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: didn't know what I didn't know when I married you
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: when I was 24. But you know, I didn't make
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: such a terrible decision either. You're basically a good guy.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: And I needed to go on my way. But I
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: can honor what we had together, I can honor the
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: life we built. And I, you know, I can continue
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: to have warm feelings about you. There's something really, really
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: great about that. What I will say about both of
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: those situations that I'm thinking of is, there was a
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: really good process. There was a really good process, whether
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: it was a, an individual therapy process, you know, or
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: kind of deep couples therapy. And so what we're talking
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: about is by the time the decision came, a lot
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: had been made conscious. And I do have a lot
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: of empathy, actually, for people who just go have an affair.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Because the thing is, I think when you're in tumult,
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: and you know that a relationship needs to end, but
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: you maybe can't you can't find the courage to do it.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Having an affair, it's like, you know, it's a little
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: bit like that image of you're trying to climb over
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: a tall wall and you take your bag and you
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: throw it over the wall. Once you've thrown your bag
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: over the wall, you've got to figure out how to
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: climb the wall. That is, I think, what an affair
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: winds up being for a lot of people is it's
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: like the way out of the relationship because you've, the
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: other metaphor is, you know, you've burned your ships in
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: the harbor, you can't go back anymore. there wasn't a
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: lot of consciousness there. So that would not, although I
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: have empathy for people who do that, it's not the
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: best way. And if you can remain in the conflict
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: and sit with the conflict and not collapse the tension,
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: really get curious about what's going on and maybe do
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: some deep work, maybe do some couples therapy, see what's there,
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: what's not there, to come around to that at the
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: end that I think might be a psychologically richer experience
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: if you can do it. And of course, I'll just
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: say it one more time, you know, this, this is
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: not the case if there's violence in the relationship or
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: anything else like that, those, that admonition does not apply, but,
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: but otherwise there might be some real value into trying
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: to just stay in the conflict and until there's, until
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: there's real clarity.
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: There's a, And I concur, I'm not suggesting people have
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: affairs as a way of actualizing. But often, maybe in hindsight,
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: people will return to revisit, why did I do that?
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: What was that about? Oh, absolutely. And there is a
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: telos in it. I like the way Buddhists will often
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: look at their choices and behaviors and the choices of
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: behaviors of others. And rather than say whether it was
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: right or wrong, They'll say that something was less skilled
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: or more skilled. That perhaps having that affair or getting
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: caught up in an affair, which is often more likely
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: what it is, being swept into an affair was an
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: unskilled attempt to individuate. Yes. An unskilled attempt to transition
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: out of a relationship that was very painful. Or stultifying.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: Given the situation, now I would be more skilled. about
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: that people also have affairs they're called compensatory affairs that
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: in order to stay in the marriage they will find
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: a side partner and attain an aspect of something that
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: the marriage is not providing, which is enough for them
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: to stay stable in the situation and not have to
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: blow things up. Again, I'm not talking about it as
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: a strategy, but it is a thing that happens. And
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: then there are transitional affairs, which as you were saying,
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: that Somebody wants a kind of safe erotic harbor to
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: rest into as they withdraw from one relationship. So the
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: fear of abandonment often and the struggle to self-soothe can
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: compel somebody temporarily into another person's arms so that they
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: can tolerate the strain of transitioning out of a marriage. Mm-hmm. Again,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: I don't want to say whether that's right or wrong.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: There are reasons why we do these things. And again,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: looking back, we might say, well, if I was the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: person I am now, I would have done something different,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: more skilled. But again, there is an intelligence in these
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: things based on what is possible for us at a
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: given moment.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: One of the positive things I think we can bring
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: to the discussion is that, you know, it's almost 2024,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: probably will be 2024 by the time people are hearing this.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: There are options, you know, so a few years ago,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: it was a little bit, I think, you know, made
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: fun of, but that, you know, this term conscious uncoupling
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: came on the scene. You know, but it raises this
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: idea that this could be kind of negotiated without rancor.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: And it just, it might be just, you know, something
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: that's conscious that we both make a decision to go
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: different ways. You know, there's also, I've heard people describe
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: something that's called a parenting marriage, where you effectively decide
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: to dissolve the romantic kind of intimate portion of the connection.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: but you want to prioritize co-parenting. And so it's a
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: little different than just staying in the marriage for the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: kids because you're not exactly doing that. You're sort of
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: liberating yourself emotionally. And I suppose that might mean having
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: another partner or not. But you're making it explicit that
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: what we're going to do now is focus on raising
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: the kids. And we're going to kind of declare that
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: the marriage is over But this is our joint project now. And,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: you know, I think that there may be other ways
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: where people can kind of get creative about how to
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: solve some of these problems. And thank goodness there are options.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: There are. Absolutely. As you say, I've only had one
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: friend and his wife who truly transitioned out of their marriage.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: thoughtfully and nonviolently. Now, there were no children involved, but
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: there was just a substantial care for each other and
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: willing to sacrifice to eat what the other person felt
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: they needed in order to be safe and step away.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: And it was remarkable. I think that they imagined that
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: they would retain a friendship, which they did not. But
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: it wasn't that they walked away raging. It seemed that
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: even though the process was thoughtful and gentle, continuing to
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: meet with each other, it was as if they kept
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: pulling the scab off of a wound. And each time
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: they came back to themselves, they were just bleeding again.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: And so they needed to stay away a good long
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: time just to allow the psychic skin to heal again.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: And then I think after that, they just became interested
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: in other people. I do want to speak a little
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: bit about this post-divorce process. And I particularly want to
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: talk about it to the men in our audience because
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: two-thirds of divorces, I think that's the statistic, are initiated
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: by women. Most men, statistically, will stay in a marriage
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: that they think is bad for them perhaps because they've
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: found ways to be less sensitive or to compensate for things.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: And women generally report a greater satisfaction a couple of
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: years after the divorce, have a tendency to look back
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: and think, well, I made the right choice, my life
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: is better. Men have a tendency to fall into depression
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: and social isolation for much longer periods and sometimes for
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: decades after a divorce. So... Men often do not feel
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: fully restored until they have initiated the next successful intimate relationship.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: I want to say that there's nothing wrong with that,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: that we all need what we need and there's no prescription.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: So a lot of men feel ashamed during and after
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: a divorce. They have a sense that they failed to
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: keep their woman or their spouse happy, to provide enough,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: whether that's emotionally or financially, that in some way they
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: are inadequate, even though they might rage during the process.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: But when they are left alone, there is a sense
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: of deep sorrow and defeat, which can capture a man
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: for years. This leaves men much more vulnerable to alcoholism
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: and suicide homelessness even later in life. So to me,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: it is the loss of the anima object. A man
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: may divorce or be divorced more frequently as left by
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: his wife. And when she leaves, she takes his anima
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: with him. And he will too often pine of her.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: And the divorced men in my practice find themselves dreaming
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: about their ex-wives very, Very, very frequently. So it is
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: difficult for the anima to land on another person or
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: to reconfigure itself. Jung notices as well that most men
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: will settle into a single anima image, while women have
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: often a multitude of animus images. There's more flexibility, more
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: creativity in how the animus can look. inside the feminine psyche.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: So one, I want to reach out to those men
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: who are in despair post-divorce and say that what you
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: are experiencing is understandable and well understood and that other
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: men will understand you if you choose to reach out.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: Even our neighbors who we might not have been terribly
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: close to The community of men around you are generally
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: very responsive if you reach out in your pain for
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: some kind of support, which could be as simple as,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: let's watch a game on the TV.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for raising that, Joseph. I think that's
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: really important. And I was thinking, you know, here we
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: were talking about, you know, food vlogs, and, you know,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: all these other wonderful things. I thought, oh, are we
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: are we are describing these divorces that were very harmonious,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: let's say, I want to make sure that we don't
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: kind of glide over, right? the deep pain and also that,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: you know, we're talking about our tenderest, most vulnerable aspects
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: of ourselves, our need for intimacy, our dependency needs. These
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: are deep, deep, deep, deep places. And when that becomes violated,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: you know, in effect, we are very young, whether or
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: not we know it, we're in a kind of childhood place,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: a young child place. we could feel profoundly rejected, profoundly hurt,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: and also like profoundly furious, you know? So, so again,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, we did raise this before to sort of
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: go back to it, just the hatred that can be
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: engendered by this process as we feel so betrayed by
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: someone with whom we entrusted our very soul. So that
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: is undoubtedly a piece of it for many people.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: So, Let's finish by just throwing out a couple of
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: self-care ideas for men and women, because I think there
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: are different things. What I would like to speak to
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: the men is that do reach out to the community
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: of fellows that are around you, even if you haven't before.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: And generally, men your own age have a tendency to
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: be more aligned If you've been divorced for a little
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: while and you find that you have not found a
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: way to thrive yet, I'm going to say something which
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: will seem counterintuitive to you. Go and get body work.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: That investing, even if you've got to really scrimp the
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: money from some other place, and give yourself a massage
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: twice a month, maybe once a week. Yep. at a
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: reputable place, a therapeutic massage. And by the way, it
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter if this comes with a male massage therapist
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: or a female, but for another human being to consciously
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: and attentively make contact with your body with the intent
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: to calm, soothe, to help you let go and feel
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: safe again. And for many men, it's the gate of
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: the body that allows them to come back into themselves.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: And there are many other kinds of body work. So
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: you may doubt my saying that as you are alone
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: and perhaps having dinner alone tonight again, but to take
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: a bold step and to do something as simple as
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: just go in a clinical setting and have your body
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: well tended to There's a good amount of research, by
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: the way, well-done research to suggest that your mood will improve,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: your sense of isolation will reduce, the sense of trauma
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: and distress around the loss will reduce, and you will
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: begin to have a sense of being comfortable in the
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: world once more. And out of that, many other choices
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: can come forth.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: That's great advice. And I actually have a a friend
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: who's divorced and she has gotten a weekly massage for ever,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: even during the pandemic, she kept it up. So, and
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: I think you're, I think you're right. Sort of tending
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: to the body is really great. I do want to
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: offer a book suggestion. There's a book by union analyst,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: Guggenbuehl Craig called marriage dead or alive, which is a
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: really interesting look at marriage and divorce. And, uh, we will, um,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: make that available in the show notes. Um, And then
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: I want to just offer something about dating again because
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: sometimes men and women feel like they've got to get
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: back out there and before the ink is dry on
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: the divorce decree, they're on the dating apps. This is
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: not necessarily a problem, but what I'm aware of is
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: that that can be a depressing, difficult process sometimes. You know,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: if you're really in the market for somebody and you're
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: going on date after date after date and they're all
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: disappointing and you just think, you know, it might be
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: important to give yourself just a little break from that
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: and maybe take some time to rediscover who you are,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: to have some of these broadening experiences. One of the
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: things I like about your suggestion about massage too, Joseph,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: is it's in that category of maybe something we've never
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: done before, especially for men. And there's something enlivening about
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: doing something you've never done. So, you know, if you're divorced,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: it comes, there's a, there are downsides and there are upsides.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: And the upsides is, one of the upsides is you
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: have more freedom. And maybe take advantage of that freedom
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: to do something that you've never done before. I mean,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: it might be like, oh, I don't know, take a
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: hip hop class. You know, it doesn't have to be,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: doesn't have to be big, although it could be. Maybe
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: you've never traveled to Europe by yourself before and you
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: decide you want to do that. But give yourself some
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: time to experience yourself and be in relationship with yourself
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: before getting into what can be an exhausting and bruising
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: process of dating.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: From the other side, fellas, I think there can be
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: merit putting yourself out on some dating apps, even if
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: you don't go to any dates.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: But just to get a sense of what is the
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: dating market like? Sure. How do I rank as I
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: kind of put myself out there? By the way, if
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: you don't know how to do this, watch a couple
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: of YouTube videos so you actually present yourself in a
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: way that's to your advantage, both in terms of information
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: and photographs, by the way. It might give you a
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: good cause for hope to see that there are people
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: out there that are at least winking at you. It
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean you have to invite everybody out on a date.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: It doesn't mean you've got to run off with them.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: But it would be nice to know that, you know,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: You've got a little bit of something, a little bit
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: of shine is still in there. Life continues. And you've
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: got something to offer. And sometimes just being on the
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: dating app for a month or two, and even if
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: you close it down, you're like, you know, when I'm ready,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: there's people out there. And there's people out there that
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: are interested. And that's not a bad thing to know.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: I would completely concur. And so now we're going to
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: shift over and do what we always do, which is
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: to talk about a dream. I just want to take
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: a minute out from the episode today to let you
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: all know that we're going to be doing something really exciting.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: On February 10th at 3 p.m. Eastern, we are going
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: to be recording a podcast episode live on Zoom. And
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: we would like for you to join us. You can
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: reserve your spot. It's free, but you need to reserve
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: your spot. You can do so at our website, thisjungianlife.com.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: We're going to be talking about my new book, The
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: Vital Spark, Reclaim Your Outlaw Energies and Find Your Feminine Fire,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: which publishes on February 6th. And at the live podcast,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: we'll be taking questions, We'll have an opportunity for you
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: to submit your dream at the podcast and we'll select
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: one of those dreams to discuss. And we'll also be
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: entering everyone who comes into a drawing to win one
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: of five signed copies of my book. So I hope
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: you'll join us. Come on over and get your free
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: ticket and we'll see you there. Today's dream is a
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: 33 year old woman who works as a software engineer.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: And the dream is called Missing Baby. Here's the dream.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: I dreamt I lived in a house with many other
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: people and children, including my mother. I gave birth to
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: a baby that already had crooked, yellow, pointy teeth, lots
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: of hair and could crawl. I knew my ex-boyfriend would
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: be mad at me for having him, but I don't
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: think he was the father. I sat the baby down
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: and turned away for a few seconds, and then he
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: was gone. I didn't want anyone to know I had
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: lost him. And while I was looking everywhere in the house,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: my mom came and told me the police were there
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: to search the house because we had been reported by
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: a neighbor as hoarders. I knew she had illegal drugs
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: in the house, so I told her to let me
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: hide them for her. The police didn't find anything. After
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: they left, someone from the house came and told me
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: that they found my baby outside by the pool where
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: he could have drowned. I had only been looking inside
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: the house and I was ashamed I didn't think to
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: look there, but grateful to have him back. And she
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: notes that she was recently broken up with and that
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: she has started a new job that she finds unfulfilling.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: The main feelings in the dream were shame at not
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: caring for the baby and a fear of the police.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: And finally, she notes that the house was like the
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: one I lived in with my mom as a teenager,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: and my mom is very childlike. So this is kind
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: of a pretty heartbreaking dream. There's a lot of pain
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: in it.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: Let's start with that. Can you say more about the
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: pain that it evokes for you?
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think any time that there's kind
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: of an image of a lost baby in a dream
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: or an injured child, baby or an injured or lost animal.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: It's often an image of how we have been untended
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: to and have been unable to tend to ourselves. Yeah,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: the first thing that comes up for me is just
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: sort of an intuition about, well, I mean, I suppose
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: it's an informed intuition. We know her mother was childlike,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: and there's some imagery in the dream that points to
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: what that may have been like, that this person probably
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: had a pretty chaotic upbringing.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: So just building on that for a second, if we
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: have our primary caregiver, which is often the mother, if
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: the mother is struggling to function, she can often perceive
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: her babies as monstrous in as much as babies have
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: such fierce primal needs. And to the mother who is
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: childlike or under-functioning, the child's needs can seem monstrous. So
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: one of the things that I go to is, The
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: baby she's given birth to is somewhat monstrous, hairy with
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: pointy yellow teeth. He comes out of the womb and
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: is crawling wildly all over the place. And there's a
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: way in which if we are perceived as monstrous in
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: some way, then that's an image that we can adopt,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: that can stay in us. So she lives in a house.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: with many other people and children, including her mother. So
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: just thinking about or fantasizing what part of the psyche
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: the action is taking in. So we have house, we
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: have mom, But it also seems like it's communal in
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: some way, that there's many people, not necessarily siblings, and
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: many children. So it's this interesting juxtaposition of the intimate
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: and the collective are somehow involved in this dream. So again,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: leaning into your intuition about what's going on in the
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: childhood home and the fact that it doesn't seem contained.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 3: Which of course is one of the themes in the
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: dream that, you know, your baby disappears, it's crawling outside
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: and you're not even sure what's going on. So there
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: is something about the lack of maternal arms that would
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: normally be surrounding the home and tending.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to, I'm going to, um, I think
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: I have a lot to say here, so I'm going
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: to put a big piece out.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: Let's hear it.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: So here's a theme that I hear in the dream that,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: you know, she doesn't want anyone to know that she
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: lost the baby. And then, you know, it's been, they've
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: been trying to hide it from the neighbors at their hoarders,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: but it's been reported. And then she's trying to help
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: her mother hide the illegal drugs. So there's a sense
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: of like shame and the need to hide something. And
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: I find that that is such an inevitable constellation in
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: people who have had parents who have substance abuse issues.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: So whether or not your parents are drug users or alcoholics,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: the one thing I hear again and again and again
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: and again and again is shame. So there's such deep,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: deep shame when we grow up in a house where
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: we kind of know that our situation's not the norm
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: and we have to hide it and there are secrets.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: So I really hear that as a sort of, you know,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: installed feature in this person's psyche that there's probably, I mean,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: when we feel that sort of not situational shame, but
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: almost it becomes part of your character structure where you
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: feel ashamed kind of all the time. That's what I'm
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: imagining about this person, because she operates according to shame,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: like I don't want anyone to know. It's like it's
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: normal to hide. It's normal to hide things. I can't
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: let anyone know about the baby. I've got to help
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: my mom hide the drugs. So I'm guessing that, in fact,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: her mother did use substances. Her mother did use maybe drugs.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: And I would also wonder whether or not there's a
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: way that the dreamer has her own addiction issues. It
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: may not be drugs. It may be drugs. It may
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: just almost be a kind of addicted way of going
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: through the world. And the reason that I say that
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: is because she's so invested in the mother's behavior. You know,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: what happens essentially is she puts the baby down for
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: a second and then he's gone and she's looking for him.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: And then the mom comes and interrupts the search and says,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: oh no, the police are here, you know, because we're hoarders.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: And the dream ego totally takes that on. And instead
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: of allowing the police to do their work, and I'll
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: say more about that in a minute, the dream ego
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: is going to collude with the mother complex and make
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: sure that no one finds out about the drug. So
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: it may be that there's some drug, and I'm putting
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: that in air quotes, in the dreamer's life. And that
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: could just be a tendency to go unconscious to things.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to literally be substance abuse, but it
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: might be. where she's very much aligned with this inner
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: childlike mother who is hiding illegal drugs. And the cost
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: of that is the baby almost drowns because she gets
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: distracted from her job of looking for the baby by
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: helping the mother. Now, I said I was going to
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: come back to the police, so let me do that.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: If we look at the police as an image of
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: what sometimes union analysts call the dominant police, Like what
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: is the dominant thing about police? We do this all
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: the time on the podcast. We call it explanation. So
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: police are there to enforce laws. So if you move
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: out of the realm of personal association, and this streamer
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: might have personal associations to the police and those would
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: be interesting, but we don't have those. So let's work
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: with explanation, which is also usually quite relevant. The police
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: would be that part of the psyche that comes in
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: and says, no, you shouldn't be doing this. You shouldn't
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: be X, Y, or Z, whatever the dreamer's doing that
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: is kind of like hiding illegal drugs or using illegal
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: drugs or being a hoarder. The police are there to say,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: don't do it. But the dream ego is not yet
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: ready to align with the police part of the psyche
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: and is aligning rather with the mother part of the psyche.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: And that's where she's not taking good care of herself, right?
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: That's the image of the baby by the pool. is
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: there is this new little baby and she's not adequately
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: caring for him. The good news is that she finds
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: the baby and she is grateful to have him back.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: And there's someone from the house that found the baby.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: So there is an inner part of her that is
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: tracking her psychological baby. All right, that was a big piece.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: I'll shut up, never now.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: Well, it's wonderful. So with that frame... Mm-hmm. What do
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: you imagine the medicine is for the dreamer given this
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 3: confrontation is being offered? And dreams, of course, can be
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 3: highly confrontive.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: Right, right. Well, I mean, first of all, like I said,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: you know, the good news is there's someone who's tracking
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: the baby. And that part, you know, kind of, in essence,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: wins in the end. And there is a very clear,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: positive resolution in this dream. And that she gets the
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: baby back and she's glad to have the baby back. And,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like, that's the part of the psyche
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: she needs to align with is the baby part of
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: the psyche, not the mother part of the psyche. I
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: would imagine that the dream is tracking inner movement, you know,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: that a subsequent dream might show that she's further along
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: and being able to kind of tolerate looking at the
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: consequences of not tending to herself adequately.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: So I think that that reorientation towards what the priorities
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: should be or could be is medicinal. I was also
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: wondering if the medicine is just right there at the
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: end when she says that she's grateful to have him back.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: But that's the first appearance of gratitude. And for many
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 3: of us that have I don't know, for whatever reason,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: maybe it's addiction, maybe it's childhood trauma. Strangely enough, gratitude
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: is often broken in people that have suffered greatly. It
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: is often a sign that something is getting better. Yeah.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: So for instance, there is a certain quality in the
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: dream of narcissism. And again, I'm, I'm making a lot
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 3: of assumptions. I don't mean to offend the person who
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: submitted the dream, but it's the narcissistic refocusing that allows
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 3: the dreamer to put her baby down. She's like, oh,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: where's the baby? Well, we've got other priorities going on here.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: Where the relationship is not primary. And one of the
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: things that I feel very strongly about is when somebody
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 3: who's suffering with a narcissistic wound or a narcissistic complex
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 3: Is able to feel gratitude. Yeah. Because that is always
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 3: missing with the narcissistic complex. Something is softening. Something is
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: opening up. I was thinking about the sequencing. So she
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: can't find the baby. And then the police come and
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 3: they are searching. That's great. She thinks they're searching for drugs,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: but we don't know. But that something that the ego
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: can't identify with, which is her own prioritization of the search, arrives.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: And I don't know that she says whether or not
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: the police are male and female, but I think we
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 3: often associate that kind of civil militia with the masculine energy.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 3: So she really does need her animus back. energy to
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: show up and mobilize her and also redirect her that
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 3: the search is the important thing whatever else is going
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: on like hiding it's not that's not what the priority
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: is here because you have a missing baby so I
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: like that the police come and they they're declaring now
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: there is the illegal or illicit drugs that are being hidden.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 3: She's just had a baby. She doesn't know who the
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: father is. And the baby is strangely precocious. So there's
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: also some combination between the illegal or illicit drugs and
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 3: the illicit quote-unquote baby that she doesn't know how it arrived.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: And both of them, because of the atmosphere of shame,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 3: are hard for her to relate to and hard for
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: her to want to display, to want to be associated with.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: There's a feeling that she's going to get in trouble
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: for just showing up magically with a baby that she
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: doesn't even know how she gave birth to in the
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: same way that she's ashamed for people to find illicit drugs.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: In the house. The dreamer is a mother. Her own
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: biological mother are in the dream. And there's this sense
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: of something that's illicit or needing to be hidden. So
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 3: the atmosphere of shame in the dream is distributed all
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: over the place. And that interferes with the feeling of
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 3: natural priority, which of course would be the child.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: Given how vulnerable children are. The other thing I go
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: to in terms of building on your thesis of having
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: been raised in a home that's disrupted is that children
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: don't experience themselves as being prioritized. And they are left
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: to kind of feral self-survival. And so that pattern is
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: intergenerationally communicated. Yep.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: It's funny, I just made a note, you know, her
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: mother didn't prioritize her. And that that brings me to
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: the word parentified, which is this great, you know, some
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: therapy speak is just so great. And parentified is a
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: great therapy speak word, right? It means that we were
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: a child who was made to behave as a parent.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: And I suspect that that happened here, both because she
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: says in her associations that her mother was childlike, but
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: also that's exactly what happens in the dream, right? She
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: should be taking care of herself, right, her baby, and instead,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: She feels the need to hide her mother's drugs. And
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: as you were saying, Joseph, I mean, it's this really
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: key thing because she gets pulled off of her care
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: for herself to kind of go over to the mother,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: which probably happened all throughout childhood and probably is continuing
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: to happen now in real life. And this can be
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: both an inner and an outer dynamic. So it could
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: be that in real life, she is focusing too much
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: on her mom. But even as an inner dynamic, like
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: that sick part of us, the mother complex in this case,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: I think is not a particularly well part of this person,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: that that's the part that she tends to prioritize rather
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: than focusing on the baby. I do think, though, that
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: turning away from the baby, to me, it's very, very
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: poignant because it's not that she's doing it because she's
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: a terrible person. It's because she's doing it because she
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: never had that experience of being mothered. And so it's very,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: very difficult to mother herself. So for me, it's very
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: poignant and I feel a lot of empathy for the dreamer.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: And then I just want to say that the dream
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: has this lovely mythological element of the kind of progressed child,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: the magical baby. It is a strange magical baby because
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: it's a little creepy or something with its pointy yellow teeth.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: It's a changeling.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a changeling. But like other magical babies,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: it can do things very, very quickly. There's a German
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: fairy tale called The Black Princess. And the king and
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: the queen don't have any children. And essentially, to tell
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: it very, very quickly, the queen winds up praying to
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: the devil for a child. And she is what a
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: coal black daughter is born to her. And she grows
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: as much in an hour as normal children grow in
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: 18 years. And they have this big party. And she says, oh,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: unhappy mother, oh, unhappy father, you know, now. sets up
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: the whole rest of the tale, which is a whole
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: other story. But the point is that, you know, it's
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: a little bit like this. There's something kind of dark
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: and unholy that arises, but it is new life. And
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: spoiler alert, there's a wonderful positive transformation at the end
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: of the story. So this baby may be a little unusual,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: but it is the archetype of the divine child. It
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: is new life. And it may need to be tended
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: to in a particular way in order to be transformed
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: into the kind of handsome prince that these things inevitably
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: turn into. And I just finally want to say, you know,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: picking up on something you had said, Joseph, you know,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: dreams can be really confrontational. They always come in service
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: to health and healing and wholeness. So this is a
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: little bit of a, you know, this is one of
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: those dreams that might land pretty hard, but I think
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: it's here to show the dreamer a way, and I
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: think there's a lot of hope in it.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to This Jungian Life. From our website, thisjungianlife.com,
• 1:34:05
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• 1:34:08
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• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: and submit your dreams for possible interpretation on another episode.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: We'd like to thank our listener who shared a dream
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: living this Jungian life.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you.