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Loyalty to Self and the Death of Illusion · 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 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. Today,
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: we are going to talk about loyalty and the flip
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: sides of betrayal, transgression, and more. So just to start
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: us off with a framework, here is a definition for loyalty.
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: A commitment to support, believe, or buy from someone or
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: something even when faced with challenges or alternatives. Loyalty has
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: to do with how we perceive ourselves. It can have
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: to do with identity. And it certainly is part of
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: social glue that ties people to groups and fosters feelings
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: of security and belonging. We all have to have some
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: basic rules that we agree on for conducting ourselves and
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: what we can depend on from others. And we start
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: out having to be loyal in life unconsciously to parent
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: figures and caretakers. And then where does it go as
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: we start to grow up and encounter all the things
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: life faces us with?
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: So this seems like a particularly timely topic because so
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: many people are clinging to an idea of political loyalty,
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: being loyal to a particular political party, being loyal to
• 2:12
  Speaker 5: a philosophy, being loyal to one political leader or another.
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: And sometimes, either to ourselves or as we observe other people,
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: we may find this mysterious and hard to understand. So
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: hopefully today's podcast is going to shed a little bit
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: of light on What are we seeing and how can
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: we understand something about human nature secondary to whatever we
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: happen to be loyal to? The first thing that I'd
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: like to just throw on the table is that loyalty
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: in and of itself for most people is rather unconscious,
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: that it's something that they discover. And then, of course,
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: we hope over time as we become more aware that
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: it becomes a choice, that we know our values and
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: consequently we find a representative or a group that's aligned
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: with the values that we've discovered in ourselves. But foremost,
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: loyalty is somewhat instinctive, often unconscious. And Deb, I was
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: thinking about your mentioning of how the infant has attaches
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  Speaker 5: to the authority figures, to the caregivers.
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. You know, I always, I'm aware that I often
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: mention developmental sort of tap roots and origins of things,
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: because I think as we grow, those themes can grow
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: along with us. It's like a spiral that the same,
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: the same idea comes up again and again, but at
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: a higher level of awareness and, But certainly loyalty and
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: attachment and bonding go back to day one, and maybe
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: even in utero, of we are dependent on an other
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  Speaker 4: to come and meet our needs, to feed us and
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  Speaker 4: hold us, rock us, sing to us, and intuit whether
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: we're too hot or too cold or whatever it might be.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: that out of that attachment, that necessary instinctual bond, comes loyalty.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: Even children who are neglected or abused are loyal to
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: that parent, turn to that parent, depend on that parent.
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  Speaker 4: So it has its roots in early dependency.
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: And that weaves right into the foundation. I mean, when
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: we think of ourselves as infants, or fantasize about it.
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: You know, we come out of the womb, which, by
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: the way, is highly upsetting, distressing.
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  Speaker 4: It's very disruptive. I was having a fine time.
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 4: And then what happened?
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  Speaker 5: And, you know, often the first person that comforts us
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  Speaker 5: is our mother.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 5: Takes us to her, her heartbeat, the scent of her,
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  Speaker 5: the nursing voice, And then a lifelong process of alignment
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: with our primary caregiver, evolutionary psychologists, suggests this makes perfect sense.
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: You should be as seamlessly aligned with whatever figure is
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: making sure that you stay alive.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. But I like what you said, Joseph, about then
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden there is the awful experience of
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: childbirth this horrible disruption, transgression, and a kind of betrayal
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  Speaker 4: of the peaceful, you know, what I imagine as this peaceful, uroboric,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: floating in an oceanic world. And it is traumatizing for
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: childbirth can be very traumatizing. So there it is. Status quo,
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  Speaker 4: all is well. I can safely depend. And then this disruption,
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: which is going to happen again and again and again.
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  Speaker 5: And talking about that blissful ouroboric state, and for those
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: who are new to that term, the ouroboros is a
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  Speaker 5: very ancient, oft-repeated symbol of a serpent eating its own tail,
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  Speaker 5: creating a kind of circular containment. So We have some
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  Speaker 5: kind of deep kinesthetic cellular memories of a bliss. And
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: the bliss involves a system where we don't have to
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  Speaker 5: do anything. You don't have to breathe. You don't have
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  Speaker 5: to eat. You don't even have to poop. You don't
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  Speaker 5: have to clean yourself. The mother's placenta, the umbilical cord,
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: her body, takes care of everything, and then you're just
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: kept in this wonderful temperature-controlled, buffered environment. And often the
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: very vague archetypal memory of that can haunt us. Often people,
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: for instance, that feel suicidal are longing unconsciously to go
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: back to the Great Mother. Mm-hmm. where there is nothing
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: that they need to do. Consequently, we can be so
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: easily seduced by any kind of an authority figure who
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: says that they will do it for us, and that
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: we can inch towards that blissful dependency where little to
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: nothing is required from us. So that can be a
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: kind of seductive loyalty or a drive to want to
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: go back to that state where so little is asked
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  Speaker 5: of us?
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  Speaker 4: Well, we are contained. You know, we are safe. You know,
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: the birth experience and then growing up and not getting
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: our needs met all the time at the very instant
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: that we have that need produces anxiety. We all are
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: familiar with the so-called terrible twos of the development of ego,
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: where this toddler sometimes very charmingly just says, no. I
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: remember at that stage offering our son something good, something
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: that he liked. So I'll say a cookie, because he
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: was just caught in this web of no, no, no.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: And I said, well, do you want a cookie? And
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: he said, no. And then all of a sudden he
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: realized what he'd said. And I was just playing because
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: it was just, you know, he's two and a half
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: or three and obviously just being a little boy. But
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: I think that that anxiety, when we start to realize
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: on the plus side, I have an I. And sometimes
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: what mom asked me to do is not what I
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: want to do. I don't feel like eating dinner right now.
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: or putting my shoes on. or any of that stuff.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: And we want that to happen. But it's also very
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  Speaker 4: anxiety producing that then the external authority says, too bad,
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: it is dinner time. Or you do have to wear
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: your shoes if you're going outside. It sets up a
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: lot of ambivalence and a lot of inner conflict. And
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  Speaker 4: I think that then plays out with how else, where else,
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: to whom else, to what else can I safely just belong?
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  Speaker 4: Because at that point, and I think forever after in
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: a way, you know, that kid is little and the
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: world is really big and we need a place to turn.
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  Speaker 5: So this evokes something about attachment theory, which I think
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: is really relevant because the more that I deeply feel
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: my way into attachment theory, the more it really describes
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: how people relate to all kinds of things, not just
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: a primary partner, but a political party, a church, their job.
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: So in secure attachment, which I think is what you
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: were describing with your son, there's a sense that even
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: if we push back, even if we're full of ferocious needs,
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: or sometimes we're not very gratifying to our parents, that
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: we're loved. And that the parent is ultimately going to
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: be with us, is going to be benign and loving,
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: and is going to meet our needs. And as adults,
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  Speaker 5: that gives us a sense that we can trust that
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  Speaker 5: the people, the systems, the job, the friends that we
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  Speaker 5: have become attached to, perhaps even reliant on, are fundamentally
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  Speaker 5: decent and that they're going to be there for us
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  Speaker 5: and we for them so that we don't have to
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  Speaker 5: be anxiously worried about that or we don't have to
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  Speaker 5: fear them in any way. And that becomes just a
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  Speaker 5: foundational stance. So the example of your son is great.
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  Speaker 5: Because there's a secure attachment, you can afford to disagree
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  Speaker 5: with the authority figure. Yes, no, I want this. This, that, push, do.
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  Speaker 5: And there's a trust that nothing catastrophic is going to happen.
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  Speaker 5: That's a healthy relationship. When the child's needs are not
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  Speaker 5: met often, and there's too much distance between the caregiver
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  Speaker 5: and the child, the child can develop an anxious, preoccupied attachment.
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  Speaker 5: And in that kind of an attachment, there's always an
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  Speaker 5: over-monitoring of whatever we're attached to, to make sure that
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  Speaker 5: we're not going to be abandoned, to make sure everything
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  Speaker 5: is okay. And so there is often an abandonment of
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  Speaker 5: oneself and a constant hovering. Are we okay? Are we okay?
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  Speaker 5: Is everything all right? Where were you? What were you
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  Speaker 5: doing over there? Open up your phone. Let me see
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  Speaker 5: your laptop. You were five minutes late calling them, texting
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  Speaker 5: them all day long. But there's a desperate sense of
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  Speaker 5: need for whatever we're attached to. But this underlying memory
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  Speaker 5: of the authority figure, the caregiver, not showing up and
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  Speaker 5: the infant being left for too long in a state
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  Speaker 5: of deep and uncomfortable need. So that can make us
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  Speaker 5: feel pandering, overly focused on the other person, and kind
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  Speaker 5: of chronically panicking. The third bit, just to put them
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  Speaker 5: all on the table, is a dismissive attachment, which is
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  Speaker 5: that the child has lots of needs, but when the
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: caregiver shows up and they meet the needs, they do
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  Speaker 5: it in a way that's very uncomfortable for the child.
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  Speaker 5: So that could be something as simple as the baby's
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: crying with a wet diaper for long periods of time.
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  Speaker 5: The caregiving parent shows up and they change the diaper,
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  Speaker 5: but they're kind of rough. Or when they put the
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: diaper on, they put it on too tightly, and so
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  Speaker 5: the baby's uncomfortable. or the baby cries for food and
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: gets the bottle, but the bottle is being pressed unconsciously
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  Speaker 5: too forcefully into the child's face, let's say. And so
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: the child gets its need met, but the process of
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: getting it met is also uncomfortable or even slightly painful.
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  Speaker 5: So then when the caregiver shows up to provide something,
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  Speaker 5: the child is rearing, pulling back, even as they need
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: various things So those can, in adulthood, become patterns or
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: styles of loyalty to whatever system or person they rely on.
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  Speaker 4: A kind of pushing against and rebelling or distancing or
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  Speaker 4: feeling the need to comply in order to belong. And
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  Speaker 4: I think that, above all, is just so deeply human. Yes.
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  Speaker 4: of how can I belong? I need to be part of,
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: you know, even the sort of rebellious kid needs to belong.
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: But the libertarians are kind of the dismissive attachment group.
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  Speaker 5: Get away from me. Whatever you're going to give me
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  Speaker 5: is going to be bad news. So I can only
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: rely on myself and I don't believe in marriage, and
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: maybe I'm just going to date, or maybe I'm going
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: to live alone, because anyone that I depend on, any
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: political system I depend on, is ultimately going to give
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: me more pain than help or pleasure. So get the
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  Speaker 5: heck away from me.
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  Speaker 4: It's a kind of defensive rebelliousness and belief in self-sufficiency.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: But I'm going back to the developmental thread that we
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: started on and to how kids have to encounter the
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: idea of fairness as they grow up, that things are fair,
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: that mom will pretty reliably meet your needs, isn't perfect,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: but is warm and accepting and cares about And when
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: we go to school, there are rules and regs and
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: that the teacher is supposed to care and things are
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: supposed to be fair. And then there's an inevitable disruption
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: of that, of when things aren't fair. There's a famous
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: experiment with monkeys by a man whose name I'm sorry
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: I can't drag up. I think it's DeWall, W-A-A-L-L. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: he worked with a certain kind of monkey and had
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: two monkeys, each in a separate cage. And the cages
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: faced each other so that each monkey could see what
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: was going on. There was a task that the monkey
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: was supposed to do that I'll say was something like
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: pressing a lever to get a reward. So monkey number
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: one presses the lever and gets a banana. And monkey
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: number two sees that that's what happened. Press the lever,
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: got a banana. Great. Monkey number two is asked to
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: press the lever. He got the picture. He presses the lever.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: He gets cucumber, which is obviously far inferior to banana.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: And this monkey had a tantrum. Ray shook the bars,
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: screamed and screeched. It wasn't fair. I did the same thing.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: And I didn't get what I should have gotten according
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: to the rules that had been internalized. And Jung had
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: an experience with that. I did, too, as a sixth grader.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: But what Jung writes about in his autobiography, this is
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: how deeply fairness gets embedded in our psyches. Jung is
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: in his 80s now, and he's writing his memoir called
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: And this experience in grade school is important enough to
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: show up in the book. A paper had been assigned
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: and for once Jung was interested in the subject and
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: really hunkered down and wrote about it. A teacher reads
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: the essays and Jung says, I waited and waited in
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: vain for my name and didn't come. And Jung says,
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: it just can't be that mine was so bad that
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: even below these poor ones It hasn't been called out.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: And then when all the essays had been read, the
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: teacher paused and said, Now I have one more composition, Jung's.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: It is by far the best, and I ought to
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: have given it first place. But unfortunately, it's a fraud.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Where did you copy it from? Confess the truth. I
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: shot to my feet, as horrified as I was, furious,
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: and cried, I did not copy it. I went to
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: a lot of trouble to write a good composition. The
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: teacher shouted at me, you're lying. You could never write
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: a composition like this. No one is going to believe that. Now,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: where did you copy it from? And then Jung says,
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: you know, vainly he swore to his innocence. And Jung
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: winds up at age 10 or 11 or 12. You're
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: swearing vengeance upon the teacher. So what happens when we
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: are loyal to a set of precepts that you are
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: to write an essay or press the lever, and then
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: you'll get a reward judged on the merits of the action.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: There's been a contract here, and that is abrogated. The
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: teacher is not playing by the rules, or the researcher,
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: or the parent, or the pastor, or your Girl Scout
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: or Boy Scout leader. It's not fair.
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: So I can imagine that as children, we can question
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: the value of our own loyalty. And if this happens regularly,
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: there can be a sense of what's the point of
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: trying to please the authority figure if the authority figure
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: is capricious and unstable and inconsistent in how they behave.
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: And as children, that can seem like a reasonable thing
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: to consider because we expect authority figures to be somewhat omnipotent.
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: This is, of course, unconscious. And we can't imagine a
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: more sophisticated reason as to why one day a parent
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: might be particularly generous and another day they're not available
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: for that. Or that there may be some kind of
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: an adult reasoning as to why one sibling gets more
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: attention than the other sibling. We're young. We just know
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: that it's not fair.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: There was an implicit promise that if I have to
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: share at all, at least there's a sense of equity
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: and sameness. between things. So again, when we look at
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: political parties, for instance, and someone is pointing out how
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: there is an unfair distribution of gifts, benefits, and that
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: you're the one who is not receiving your fair share,
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: that can evoke very primal feelings of outrage that something's
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: got to be done about this because everything should be
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: divvied up equally because I intrinsically have as much worth
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: as anyone else. So that can be a very powerful,
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: seductive promise.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: So what happens when things are not fair to Jung
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: as a pre-adolescent, to someone who loses his job? Because
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: the factory closes and they can make the item, the object,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: less expensively overseas. That we're victims. We are victims. The
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: powers that be are greater than we are. The factory
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: does close. The teacher does not believe that you wrote
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: that good essay. The rules are transgressed. of if you
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: do your part and you do it faithfully and well,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: you'll be rewarded, like those monkeys. And we're confronted with
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: something really awful when that happens.
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: Our obedience in our infant mind suggests that the authority
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: or the system, the individual authority, political party is in
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: turn going to be loyal to us. And loyalty generally
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: means that my needs will be met in a way
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: that is reasonably pleasant and reasonably timely.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Wow. And I did my part.
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: I did my part. I showed up for work on
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: time every single day, and I did a good job
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: every single day. I always did. And we are victims.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: I think that's simply.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: The truth sometimes. Bad things happen. We did not have control.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: We didn't have the power. But how we reason about
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: that and where that goes in us makes all the difference.
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: Whether we are personally affronted and aggrieved, as Jung understandably
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: was in his student years, or whether we can accept
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: the disappointment, face our sense of helplessness at the loss,
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: for example, of a job, and process those feelings as
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: the catastrophe that they are without the blame, without some
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: of the outrage, makes a big difference.
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: So I think we're bringing up the affective or emotional
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: dimension of this unconscious assumption of mutual care, that I'll
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: be obedient and in turn I will be cared for
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: by a consistently benign and helpful authority figure. That gets
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: violated or plunged into intense feelings. We process them with
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: a compassionate other, but also need to rest deeper and
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: deeper into the underlying fantasies that were informing our relationship
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: to our employer or our church or to any number
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: of other communities or individuals. A political party. A political
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: party is at the bottom. There is something very, very
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: young in us and that we are projecting something very
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: powerful onto the other, which is full of expectations and
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: a kind of unconscious contract. Yes. Exactly. And then we
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: find that the shocking intrusion of reality, which is, I
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: thought the corporation was my mother or my father. And actually,
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: it's just a bunch of people doing their jobs, and
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: most of them don't even know my name. That the company,
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: quote unquote, is a fantasy. It's just a legal entity.
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: People just register a piece of paper and a bunch
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: of people decide we are now a corporation. But the
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: corporation actually isn't aware of you. The corporation is just
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: an idea. So consequently, it can't care about you. But
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: we will bring that early paradigm with us because our
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: jobs are so important. And getting that paycheck, of course,
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: is remarkably important. So we make even organizations into a
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: single fantasy figure.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: That there is a contract, as there is supposed to
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: be a contract, between infant and and caregivers. The helpless
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: infant brought into the world by a mother who the
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: deal is, mom will take care of me. Now I'm
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: grown up and I have a contract with XYZ Corporation.
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: And I do my part and the corporation will reward
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: me with a paycheck and job security.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: And this was the big transition in our lifetime, Deb.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: Where things like unions, for instance, might have guaranteed you
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: could get a job, stay there and retire after 20, 30,
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: 40 years and get a nice pension. And that really
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: reinforces the good parent paradigm, that you're a good boy,
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: a good girl, and the corporation is going to be
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: a good parent and take care of you. And then,
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: of course, with the dissolution of most of those situations,
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: the fantasy of the corporation taking care of the workers
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: is just dissolving, although we keep unconsciously putting it back
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: from our ends onto these organizations. And there is a
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: sense of outrage that we have to turn corporations back
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: into good parents and we are going to create legislation.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: There is all that outrage, and would that it were so,
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: that we had all kinds of securities that matched up
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: with our inner vision of how things are supposed to be.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: to be. Begs the question here of what were we
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: loyal to? I was loyal to my department head, my company,
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: my marriage partner. It goes on and on as if
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: loyalty to an external other could be the dependable, caring, container, other, provider,
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: force in the world. As if. As if.
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: That's the word. That is the word. I mean, the
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: as if-ness can allow us to begin to wonder what
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: the fantasy level is. And the as if-ness is also
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: kind of a trap. because we treat as if and
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: assign a reality to it. I'm thinking about attachment styles again,
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: that if you're in that corporation and you have a
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: secure attachment, you might be able to feel that you
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: can negotiate with the corporation to kind of get your
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: needs met and to protest when things don't feel good.
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: I've known plenty of people who have an anxious attachment
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: to their corporation or their job and they're constantly fretting
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: about whether or not they're going to be terminated and
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: they're anxiously trying to fawn and please and figure out
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: what needs to happen. Sometimes people will stay in really
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: ill-fitting jobs and that's being polite about it. Sometimes terrible
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: jobs because the fear of being abandoned by the corporation
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: or the political party or the church feels like it's
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: an existential threat to their survival. And so the anxious attachment,
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: the fear of abandonment just traps people.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: Oh, and I think it's also just plain deeply human.
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: It's unconscious.
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: It's deeply human that we need certain kinds of securities
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: to And long for them. And, you know, we need
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: some place to live. We need a way to make
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: money to pay the rent. These are terrible, difficult disruptions.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: But I want to bring in another factor here besides
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: the attachment, which is our innocence. That, you know, we
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: really believe in the rules. That if I do a
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: good job, I'll be rewarded with a paycheck and job security.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: If I'm a faithful marital partner, I'll be rewarded with
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: a long and relatively healthy, happy marriage. And fairy tales,
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: which I think of as our psychic bones, which is
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: why they've survived for thousands of years, is there's just
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: plain truth behind and the truth of reality in fairy tales.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: Innocence is no protection. And Hansel and Gretel, played by
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: the rules we can imagine, how bad could they possibly
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: have been as two good kids? And off they go
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: to be abandoned in the woods because there's not enough
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: food to go around. Snow White didn't deserve to have
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: an evil stepmother. It's not her fault. She didn't do
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: anything wrong. She was just a pretty girl. And then
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: her stepmother was threatened by that. Cinderella, another good kid,
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: landed with the proverbial wicked stepmother. So innocence does not
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: protect us. And we encounter disruptions and disillusionments to our
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: innocence over and over and over again. So what's the answer?
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: Who do we attach to? What are we loyal to?
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: If we can understand that, to be disillusioned is to
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: have an illusion removed.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Oh, darn, I hate that.
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: I know, because the illusions that we project kind of
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: keep us comfortable. They mostly reduce our anxiety. and they
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: allow us to be more comfortable. So we discover with
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: each of these things that we think of as betrayals,
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: or that the other is being not loyal to us,
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: that we realize that we were projecting something onto the situation,
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: the job, the political party, the partner, the boyfriend, girlfriend,
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: the best friend, and that we were not attending to
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: other levels of reality that were present. And often people will,
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: can take several years, but look back in retrospect and say,
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: how could I not see thus and such? Because it
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: was right there in my face, but I somehow was
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: blinded to important information. And that goes to the idea
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: of projection and the defenses. So we will dismiss things
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: that are not congruent with our illusions, because we long
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: to have this very comfortable, non-anxious relationship with any number
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: of people and organizations. So we won't see a reason
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: to pull back. We'll minimize a politician's behavior or justify it.
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: Rationalization is a defense. to create strange justifications for behavior
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: that should alarm us. And then consequently we keep propping
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: up a fantasy and are surprised when all of a
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: sudden we are sold down the river and we're not
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: being taken care of at all.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: So in a way where I'm going with all this
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: is What do we do when the disillusionment happens because
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: it's either foisted upon us the way it was on
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: Jung with the teacher accusing him of plagiarism, or it
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: just happens that the work we were in goes out
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: of business or goes overseas or any one of a
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: number of things happens? Well, you know, one thing we
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: can do is to register our protests, as Jung did.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: It didn't work, as is often the way with protests.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: We can sometimes access our power, as Hansel and Gretel did.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: Rapunzel falls in love with a guy. There are all
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: kinds of things, but we are forced to rely on ourselves.
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: that loyalty to how things should be to people, to
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: an organization, or any kind of a group, once that's breached,
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: then what?
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: Well, I think that there are really, there are two reactions.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: I was going to say two options, but I don't
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: think they're conscious. One, and the more mature position, is
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: to mourn.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: Which is, which is not inflating. It's a very lowly, heartbreaking,
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: often soul-making position that yelling or screaming or accusing or
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: pounding on the table or any of the protests, the
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: ferocity that we want to bring to the authority figure
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: to make them give us the thing that they're frustrating now.
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: You used to give me the bananas and now you're
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: giving me cucumbers and I should, if I rage to
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: the parental figure, if they loved me, my distress and
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: frustration should matter to them. And what you're saying, Deb,
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: is often we discover it doesn't matter to the political system,
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: to your corporation, to your neighborhood. And sometimes it doesn't
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: matter to a spouse or a lover who's got one
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: foot out the door. And so we can get caught
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: in the frustrated intensity and we get really big and
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: loud and we start moving very, very quickly. Sometimes we're
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: sure that if we do a big flurry of stuff,
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: write a bunch of letters, run around, tell everybody that
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: we know that somehow we'll finally get the milk flowing again.
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: And maybe we will, Deb is just saying, if the
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: system we're in is properly responsive, our protest would be
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: heard at the very least and acknowledged, and maybe the
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: system would adjust. particularly if our request is reasonable and
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: not neurotic. Yeah.
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: So what I'm thinking about is from fairy tales and
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: what you've just said and thinking back to levels of
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: system from my Gestalt training, that we can register our
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: legitimate protest. And if the organization or the club leader
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: has integrity, there can be a response that takes that
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: into consideration. We can address our concern to and others.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: to a partner or a colleague or our supervisor. And
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: that's a one-on-one level of system that says, hey, you know,
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: so-and-so got the promotion and not me. Talk to me
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: about that because I didn't think it was fair. But ultimately,
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: when all else fails, we are called upon to be
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: the source of our own redemption, healing, and greater consciousness
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: by going within. And as you just said, Joseph, of
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: feeling the pain and grieving it and mourning that this
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: is what happened. And if I continue to project everything
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: out there on another person or a system or some
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: other organization or reality, I will not be able to
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: get over my sense of betrayal.
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: That we can get caught in the fantasy that the
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: other is omnipotent, and if I rage long enough, they
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: really will give me the good stuff, which I know
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: they could give me, and they're just holding it behind
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: their back. So there's all of this storming, and raging
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: and manipulation or any number of different things.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: And there's resentment and there is victimhood.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: Long lists of sufferings.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: But the pain is inviting us to truly suffer it,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: to go within and be able to use it as
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: a call to acceptance, as a call to grief. And
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: ultimately as a call to a greater sense of self.
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: And what I would say is part of that turning
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: within starts with understanding that the person, the political party,
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: the religious group has an independent life, independent agendas that
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: one are not omnipotent and that you can't fully control.
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: And so consequently, when we realize that we can't control everyone, everything,
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: and the person we thought was omnipotent, maybe they could
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: control everyone and everything, then we are cast back, as
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: you're saying, Deb, into ourselves, saying, well, what the heck
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: am I going to do? Like, if I can't control
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: these vast systems or all these people, how the hell
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: am I going to get my needs met? How am
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: I going to be safe in the world? And that's
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: a creative question, actually. So we might feel scared and
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: angry and mourning and confused for a while. But if
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: we can tolerate that, we will relax down into a
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: much deeper layer of the unconscious. We might even say
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: an archaic level of the unconscious that actually is well
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: acquainted with the instincts and patterns that are necessary for
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and with
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: your own saw and hammer, build a life that's going
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: to meet your needs that you have shaped based on
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: the reasonable sense of what you need in the world.
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: So one of the things that troubles me so much
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: is when people organize in large groups and they align
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: around political theory or an individual, and again, this is
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: in many different dimensions, that their quality of consciousness is
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: always lowered because individual thinking is suppressed. And it's suppressed
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: in order to feel congruent, a kind of congruity within
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: the large group. So when we are dropped down deeper,
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: we are closer to our infant selves. And then we
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: project or are looking for the omnipotent parent. And we
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: see this in our political discourse right now, that we
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: are looking at the president, for instance, quizzically saying, but
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: you didn't fix the fact that I didn't get a
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: mortgage that I could afford. You should be omnipotent. You
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: should be able to control all the banks and tell
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: them that I need a mortgage and I need it
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: at this rate. And I should be able to go
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: and pick that up, you know, because you're kind of
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: in charge of me. Or the prices in the supermarkets
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: are too high and, well, the president's omnipotent. So you
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: need to go to these stores and make them change
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: their prices because I can't afford the stuff that I like.
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: And in all of those lamentations, what we hear is
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: an underlying fantasy of the omnipotent parent, which is actually
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: a memory. That when you're one years old, your parents
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: do seem omnipotent, and they have total power over you.
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: And whatever it is you want, they're the ones that
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: have to find a way to give it to you.
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: And that's a reasonable expectation. So if we can notice
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: that we are expecting our church to provide things as
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: if they're omnipotent, our political party to provide things as
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: if they're omnipotent, our advisors, our therapists, for that matter,
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: to provide things because they've got it all, omnipotent or omniscient,
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: we know we're caught in the baby place. And that
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: is inevitably going to lead to the breaking of that illusion.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: We are going to be full of rage, just like
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: the monkey. And we've got to pull back into our
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: mourning and our grieving for that fantasy. And then, as
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: you were saying, Deb, then dust ourselves off, pick up
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: our own saw and our own hammer, and build whatever
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: little house that we can with our own muscles.
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm really affected by that sometimes when things
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: are hard, they are so hard. And it's one thing
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: to have a life crisis, and then sometimes it's another
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: thing when Truly, the circumstances are really tragic. And yet,
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: the reality is a reality that cannot be denied. You know,
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: people whose families and children are affected by flash floods
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: or tornadoes, or we could make a list of all
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: kinds of awful misfortunes. And it does call on us
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: to use ourselves and not an external other, even the
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: projection of deity, but to find something in ourselves because
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: that day or the day after, we simply have to
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: go on and put one foot in front of the
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: other and continue to live. And all this takes me
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: with some sadness to simply the truth of Jung's concept
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: of individuation, of how we can bear living in ourselves,
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: with ourselves, and with some of the harsh realities, the unknowns,
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: the uncertainties, the losses, and all of it that is
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: life on earth, rather than projecting it onto an other person,
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: a leader, an entity, an organization. While at the same time,
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: belonging to families, neighborhoods, work groups, friend groups, volunteer programs, groups,
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: associating without the projection that those others hold our truth.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: There's no escaping it. We are the arbiters of our choices,
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: our truths, our loyalties, our beliefs.
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: And another way of summing that up is you are
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: the one you've been waiting for.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: And we don't have to be superhuman. But we do
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: have to feel our ambivalence and our uncertainty and our
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: pain and do it anyway. We have to keep breathing.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: We have to go to the grocery store. We have
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: to pick up the pieces.
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: I remember something you said many times, Deb, when we
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: are able to rest back into the reality principle, to
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: ask ourselves, what can I have?
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: What can you have? Want what you can have.
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: Want what you can have. To look at the bounty
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: such as it is around us, And to make the
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: best choices that are possible, understanding that we don't live
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: in a world of infinite possibility. Now, I know that
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: there are many motivational speakers who love to inflate people
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: by saying that you live in a world of infinite possibility.
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: And what they're doing is they are unconsciously inviting you
• 51:03
  Speaker 5: to become infants again and to live in a fantastical world.
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: and to dream, dream of the infinite. And you can
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: even hear how tempting that is to want to be
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: so young again. And yet there is also something beautiful
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: about wanting what you can have because there are beautiful
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: things around you that are not fantastical, but are satisfying
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: and warm and valuable and, and, can be precious if
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: we are looking at the things we can have through
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: the right lens. And one of those lenses is gratitude.
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: And another one, I think, is humility of what are
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: the things we can have and be grateful for. We're
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: not omnipotent. And there really is no safe place We
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: do live with uncertainty. We do not only the best
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: we can, but as consciously as we can, because we
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: have the inner resources to deal with the uncertainties and
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: our anxiety and all the rest of it. We are
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: simply here and we can do the next right thing
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: without having to project grandiose possibilities or safety or wisdom
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: onto some external person or organization. We don't have to
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: do that. It's okay to just be you.
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: And anyone who says, I will do it for you.
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: I'll get everything for you. I'll do it for you.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: I'm going to change your world, change the world, change
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: all the circumstances. And we feel so excited by that,
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: that we're being seduced back into the child position, which
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: will always lead to disillusionment and suffering. Until one day
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: we think, oh God, I've heard that too many times.
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: I think I'm going to make my own choices. I
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: think I'm going to discern what reality is. I'm not
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: going to really depend on a news channel or a
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: TV commentator or an Instagram expert, but I'm going to
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: look with my own two eyes and stand on my
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: own two legs. And as you said, make the best
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: choice that lays before me based on rather sensible things
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: that I can know. If we notice that we are
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: prone to regression, and by that I mean we're prone
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: to to fantastical excitement and handing power over to these
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: media figures. The thing that we can do to help
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: ourselves is to turn your phone off. Is to stop
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: subjecting yourself to certain hypnotic streams of manipulation. And that's
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: a form of humility that if we know God, if
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: I open that news channel, I'm going to be watching
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: it for six hours because that happens every time. And
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: then I'm in a panic or I'm enraged or I'm
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: suddenly writing letters that never even occurred to me to write.
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: Maybe deleting that app is actually the wiser situation because
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: I am humble about my vulnerabilities to being manipulated. And
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: that's knowing what your limits are.
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know, to return to our red
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: thread here of loyalty, of being loyal to your own
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: sense of self, of what will you think or do
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: or feel if you've turned that app off? Will you
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: feel anxious? Will you be bored? Will you be at
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: loose end somehow? It's an interesting experiment. You are, as
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: Joseph said, you're the one you've been looking for. We
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: all are, and we need to depend on our own
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: inner life and the strength that we have to look
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: at reality minus all the lenses of projection and wishful
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: thinking and illusion. We can all do that.
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: And there is a level of the psyche inside of
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: us that is totally aligned with the reality principle, and
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: that is the unconscious. The unconscious simply tells us every
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: night in our dreams, this is how it is. Here's
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: a little snapshot of what's going on inside of you
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: every night. Take a look, see if you can align
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: to the reality principle that the unconscious is looking at.
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: Its language sometimes is mysterious because it is symbolic, but
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: a part of you does get the gist every night
• 56:45
  Speaker 5: when you wake up. Turning within also allows us to
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: discover what is inherent inside of us, not what's being
• 56:57
  Speaker 5: colonized into us from the outside. And that is often
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: quite unique. I want, I discover, I want this. I discover,
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: I feel these several ways. I discover a guiding image
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: of something that's very inspiring that comes up unbidden, untempered,
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: unmanipulated by the external environment. And that there is something
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: trustworthy there. about the images that spontaneously rise up from
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: the soul. So going inside and discovering who you are,
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: who you are, not what the political situation is, not
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: what the economic situation is, not what the pundits tell you,
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: not what your great aunt so-and-so believes, not what your
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: minister tells you to believe. but who you are. And
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: from that discovery of who you are, if you choose
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: to participate, let's say, in a political arena, then you
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: have a chance to go and survey, is there anyone
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: who seems to be aligned with me? Not me aligning
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: with them. Because when we see these mass movements, what
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: you see is a bunch of regressed, people who are
• 58:32
  Speaker 5: aligning with a parental figure, and in that moment, they're
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: abandoning themselves. Because a million people can't all have the
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: same need. A million people don't have the same fantasy.
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: They can be tricked into thinking that. Everyone is so
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: remarkably unique. And so finding that is the best vaccination
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: against giving up the way you are unique just to
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: fit in or be safe.
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: I think that is... so much what Jung was about
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: with individuation is such appreciation for the uniqueness of every
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: you out there. And the reality is whatever we do,
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: we do with ourselves. And so the more self we have,
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: the more we can do, the more we can give.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: And there is freedom in that and choice and a
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: greater ability to love and to belong paradoxically enough.
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: So it seems before we finish for today that we
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: should talk a little bit about what it's like to
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: choose self over systems. does it actually look like to
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: cling to your individuation, to the individual way that you are,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: despite the pressure of the system or the unconscious forces
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: around us? And I was thinking about the process of
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: coming out as gay, that while it has become infinitely
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: more acceptable to today than it was 20 years ago,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: there is still a sense of the cultural norm that
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 5: being born into a family where there is an expectation
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: of heteronormativity, that boys are going to marry women and
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: start families and women are going to marry boys and
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: become moms and any number of other system expectations. And
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: then the individual discovers often during puberty that there is
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 5: no true attraction to what the system is telling them
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 5: they should be or they should want. And the enormous
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: battle that goes on inside of the individual attempting to
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: conform often, praying for things to be different, maybe even
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: subjecting themselves to some form of a, transformative therapy, promise,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: maybe even getting married to someone of the opposite sex,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 5: hoping that if they ape the expected behavior, somehow they'll
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: like it. They'll fall into line. And for many people,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: there's a certain point where it is so intolerable to
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: pretend that they are different than what they really are.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: It causes them to come out And that wonderful metaphor
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: of coming out of the closet, that the sexuality was
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: hidden in a small room inside of the psyche. And finally,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: that aspect of the authentic individual opening the door and
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: stepping out into the room and saying, I need space.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 5: I have to be integrated into the personality. And often
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: at great cost in many different ways. And Most everyone
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: I've ever spoken to has said in retrospect, well, of
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: course that needed to happen, that being oneself is infinitely
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: more important than aping what the system thinks I should
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: be in that regard. That's an example of choosing the self.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: Well, and we have, that's a really poignant example of
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: choosing one's own true nature. We have examples of people
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: who defect from other countries. Someone recently in the news
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: from North Korea. There are examples of whistleblowers whose truth
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: is often not valued in the moment, but they are
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: aligning with their own selves and a higher loyalty to
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: a different value. in coming out against poor business practices
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: that are harmful to people. Then, of course, I can't
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: resist this. In today's news, there's all the purported demonization
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: of childless cat ladies. Well, women have a choice today
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: and can be true to themselves about whether they want
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: to have children or not. So there are many, many
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: ways in which sometimes by necessity, sometimes because, well, maybe
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: always because it matters so much, we find a different
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: loyalty to self rather than system.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: Another, frankly, very common Circumstance I've seen in my practice
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: is people that were raised in families that were very
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: intensively involved in a particular religion. And I've seen this
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 5: in any number of different religions, by the way. Sometimes, yes,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: they're extremely suppressive, oppressive, fundamentalist religions that the procrustean bed
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: that one has to be set on and so much
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 5: has to be cut away in order to fit in,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: is so limiting, is so painful, that the self, the
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: true self in the person, mounts a kind of insurrection
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: and fights with the ego in order to step away
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: from the oppressive system so that they can give themselves
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 5: more choices, more ways of being and self-expressing. And often
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: that's very painful. People can be ostracized by their families
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: for stepping away from their church. They can lose friends
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: that may be involved with that system. It comes at
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: great cost to step away from a system that we
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 5: are heavily embedded in. So that's why I think Deb
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: and I are wanting to speak to this with a
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 5: great amount of respect and humility for the suffering that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: it takes to become your own person, and the cost
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 5: of being at odds with a large system that you
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: are embedded in. One of the things that people struggle
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: with also is voting against their political party in a
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: given election. It's easy to simply receive a voting guide
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: in the mail and And you're like, oh, well, I
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: guess I'm in that political party. I'll just go down
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: the list and check all those people. But what if
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: you really don't have faith in one of those people?
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 5: There is a real inner battle between the system that
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: you've been embedded in for a long time and your
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: own individual conscience, your own sense of values about what
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: is appropriate for me to align my to be loyal to.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 5: And of course, as Jungians, we're always going to choose,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: if it's apparent to you, the voice of the self
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 5: inside of you. Hopefully that will steal your resolve, maybe
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 5: your courage. And one of the things we also see
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: is that when we align with the self, because the
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: self is also connected to all points in space. We
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: can find ourselves guided into new circumstances that are more
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: supportive of who we discover ourselves to be, that certain
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: people and circumstances tend to move away from us. Other
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: people and circumstances seem to present themselves to us. So
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 5: in the final analysis, when we find ourselves in these
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 5: moments of suffering, and Deb, as you were saying, faced
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 5: with the terrible vicissitudes of life, the terrible things that
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 5: can happen to us, even as we take the reins
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 5: and try to make our own choices, that's not a
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: guarantee that everything is going to be rosy. Jung turns
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: the question back to us and says that a person
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: in such a situation should ask, Who am I such
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 5: that this should happen to me? And he's not asking
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: a question of morality. Where am I bad such that
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: I would be punished with this terrible trial or loss?
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: He's asking you to dive deep into your complexes, archetypes,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: into the unconscious structures that play a part in nudging
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 5: us towards or away from the innumerable choices that happen
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: to us day after day, and to believe that there
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 5: is a deep, deep, deep part of us that is
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: moving us around. Some of those unconscious forces like complexes
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: are not our friends, but they are exerting an influence.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: But in the center of all of that There is
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 5: a nodal point of the self, which is the wise
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 5: friend that loves us, that knows us, that is trying
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: to help us. And to learn how to identify that
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: voice in the fray of battle is probably the most
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: important thing that we could probably help each other with.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: So with that, it is definitely time to turn inward
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: And see if we can sense that inner voice of
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: an unknown person who has sent us a dream.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 5: That's a great, that's a great thing to do.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: Have you ever wondered what your dreams mean? Join us
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: in Dream School at thisyunginlife.com and find out. Jung wrote,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: dreams are a little hidden door in the innermost and
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: most secret recesses of the soul.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: Dream School is a unique Self-paced online program you can
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: start at any time that unlocks access to your inner world.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: Our 12-month program provides the support, knowledge, and guidance you
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: need to reach within, decipher your personal dream code, and
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: harness it to optimize your life. By enrolling, you'll join
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: an affirming community of fellow travelers, each pursuing a unique quest.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: And it's fun. Join us on an adventure to wholeness
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: and healing through understanding your dreams. Go to thisjungianlife.com and
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: click on Dream School. You'll be taken to our secure checkout.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: Once you join, you'll get immediate access to our first
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: three modules. You can get started right away. We look
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: forward to seeing you there.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: Today's dreamer is a 42-year-old female who works as a
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 5: restaurant manager operations assistant. And here is her dream. There's
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: a flooding in the backyard and inside my childhood home
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: in Brooklyn, New York. I was saving kittens from a
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: crocodile in the water. The kittens were white. My mother,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 5: who passed away in 2016, was chopping vegetables. I told
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 5: her to get on the counter due to the flooding
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: and the crocodile. She did do as I said. Then
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: I woke up. I wasn't wet either, and I was
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: in the water too. It was nighttime in the dream.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 5: She was younger in the dream and thinner. She was
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 5: obese when she passed away. She gives us a bit
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 5: of context. I had this dream in February 2022. No transitions,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 5: but I'm feeling kind of stuck with boredom. I've had
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 5: many animals in my dreams attacking me or chasing me.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: The feelings in the dream were urgency and fear. Well,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: one thing I find interesting is that the dream has
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: kind of haunted her.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 5: I mean, we have many, many dreams, and we don't
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 5: even think to bring them back up, but this one
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 5: keeps ringing her doorbell.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's such a good point. And then what a
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: great image that there's flooding. And flooding often refers to emotions.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: We get flooded with something. Floods inundate things. Of course,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: there's many a flood myth. The one that we're often
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: most familiar with is Noah and his famous ark during
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: the flood. But something covering what should be dry land.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: So it's in the backyard and then inside the childhood
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: home in Brooklyn. And I often pay attention just to
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: that very initial, here's the situation, says the dream maker.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: And it's the childhood home. So we could well imagine
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: that this dream has something to do With a child complex.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: It puts her back in the childhood place in her psyche.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: And I think childhood dreams and childhood homes are very,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: very common. We all have unfinished business.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 5: So the dream maker is trying to give her a hand,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 5: giving her some information that she might not have known before,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 5: and perhaps trying to at least nudge something along.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 5: And so the backyard and the inside of the home
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 5: in Brooklyn is flooded. So that lets us know that
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 5: it's not a flood from like a burst pipe in
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 5: the wall or the ceiling. That the whole landscape of
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: the psyche is saturated. There's been a rising of a
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 5: river or a storm or the ocean. So this is
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 5: something that is really substantive and is kind of happening
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: across a wide swath of her psychic landscape.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: And then what happens next? Well, I'm saving kittens from
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 4: a crocodile in the water. This is part of what
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: is so really wonderful about dreams. What a great image, really,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: of out of nowhere that we in waking life could
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: never create this. But we have the small, white, vulnerable,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: innocent baby mammals. And who can resist a kitten? From
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 4: a crocodile who is marauding around in a Brooklyn kitchen.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 5: And has access to the Brooklyn kitchen because of the flood.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: It's a denizen of the flood that now the monster...
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 5: You know, can easily swim around.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 4: Yes. Well, and what is mother doing? She is oblivious
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: to what's going on. There's a flood. There are these
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: little kittens, presumably, you know, if we were to use
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: the real life test of what this would be like
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: in real life. Well, these poor little kittens are mewing away.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: Mom doesn't notice. And neither does she notice the crocodile.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: She's absorbed in chopping vegetables.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: So we have a particularly inattentive mother complex.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 5: Neglectful, maybe. And we don't know if this is historic,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: but it might open up a conversation. Was mom distracted
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 5: or so involved with issues of keeping the home that
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 5: what was happening in the dreamer's psyche as a child
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 5: went unnoticed. And she's there trying to save parts of
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 5: herself from possibly overwhelming feelings or experiences.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And mom has her back to the whole thing.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: You know, most of the time, if you're chopping vegetables,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: you're facing a wall, you're facing the wall where the
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 4: sink is. Not always, but just I'm imagining that there
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: are multiple facets of mother is oblivious to a flooded kitchen. Yeah.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: That would be, wouldn't you notice? So here's a good
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 4: vivid image that doesn't comport with what's likely at all
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: to be happening in waking life. So our dream ego says,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: eager ego, says, get mom, mom. Mom, get on the counter.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 4: The kitchen is flooding and there's a crocodile. Then I
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: woke up.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: Well, mom did get on the counter, which is at
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 5: least mom is responsive.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: Yes, but it's the child in the dream who's taking
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: care of mom.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 5: Exactly.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 4: Which is, you know, kind of backwards. I mean, we
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: all do all kinds of things for ourselves. our parents
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: and vice versa, but I have to wonder about this
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 4: vivid image of the child alerting an adult, a mother,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: to a clear and present danger and having to be
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: in that adult, parentified, caretaking, life-preserving role, having to be vigilant.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 5: So that's exactly what I was thinking is a lot
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: of us that were raised in homes that might have
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 5: been inadequate or worse wind up having to develop a
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: tremendous amount of hypervigilance. There's not a lot of space
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 5: to just relax and let the adults take care of everything,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 5: which would be a better environment for a little child
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: at least. But here, mom's distracted, and so that means
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 5: the child's learned by probably having some scary experiences that
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 5: she's the one that's got to be up. on the
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: watch for things. So I find myself also thinking about
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 5: the crocodile. And crocodiles are really ancient symbols because they're
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 5: ancient creatures. They've been around for millions of years. Their
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 5: Egyptian iconography is filled with crocodiles.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 4: There was a crocodile god.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 5: Yes. All the environments where crocodiles were well known they
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 5: were seen as dangerous and divine. One of the associations
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 5: is that the crocodiles are motherly. They lay their eggs.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 5: Interestingly enough, depending on whether or not the air temperature
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 5: is warm or cool determines the sex of the crocodiles.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 5: And the warmer the environment is, the more likely the
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 5: eggs will germinate to be male. In cooler environments, the
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: eggs will come out as female. This is why the
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 5: way an unintended problem with global warming is that we're
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 5: going to lose female crocodiles because they can't find a
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 5: cool enough space to germinate female eggs.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 4: Well, what a nice little herpetological journey you've been on.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 5: And I think what was very interesting in the ancient
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 5: world is that when there is danger in the water,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 5: the mother crocodile will open her mouth and the babies
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 5: will swim into her mouth and she'll guard them inside
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 5: of her mouth from danger.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 5: So the crocodile is often seen as a primordial mother figure.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 4: Crocodiles, I'm thinking about Crocodile Hyde. You know, having been
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: in Florida and my husband traveled and so on, he
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 4: has a crocodile hide wallet that he has had for
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: I don't know how many years.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: Many.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 4: He's always had it, it seems like. Looks just as
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: good now as it did then. And I am thinking
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: about crocodile hide and how impenetrable it is. So this
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 4: is a creature that has a really thick skin.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 5: Crocodiles are it. sensitive in the way that, let's say,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 5: kittens are.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 5: This dream reminds me a little bit of a movie
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 5: called The Babadook.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, yes.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 5: It's very similar.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 4: Give us a synopsis for people who aren't familiar.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 5: So in that movie, which I recommend very highly because
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 5: it's psychological content, there's a little boy who is constantly
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 5: evading and contending with a kind of nighttime monster that
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 5: we never see, but is pretty scared.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: The Babadook.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 5: The Babadook. And he's trying to communicate this to his
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 5: mom and also trying to rescue her from the Babadook.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 5: And in the end of the movie, what we find
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 5: out is at night, the mother turns into the Babadook,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 5: which suggests that maybe she has an alcoholic problem or
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 5: some other issue that she gets out of control at
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 5: some point in the night and the child has to
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 5: protect himself from the same mother that he is dependent
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 5: on in the daytime. So when I think about the
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 5: crocodile and then the mother who is dutifully chopping vegetables
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 5: and is in the kitchen, that there's the crocodile mother
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 5: and then there's the more human mother and that the child,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 5: the daughter, is trying to keep the crocodile version of
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 5: the mother away and trying to protect the innocent self,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 5: the innocent part of her soul, envisioned as the kitten.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 5: So she's protecting her soul, but also hoping that the
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 5: mother doesn't turn into the crocodile version And then that
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 5: becomes a whole other problem.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 4: There are multiple images here of the mother. So this
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: is a dream about a mother complex.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 4: That there is the mother in the dream in the
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 4: kitchen chopping vegetables. You lifted up that crocodiles have a
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: maternal ability that many other reptiles don't have. that they
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 4: will save their young. And then we have the mother
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 4: in the dream who is younger and thinner than the
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: dreamer's actual mother.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 5: And probably the mother of her childhood. We often forget,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: we look at pictures of our moms around the time
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 5: we were born, and they're young and often beautiful. And
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 5: we often remember them when they're much older. So the
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 5: kitten has to be protected. That's probably the most important
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 5: thing is that in many dreams, the kitten or the
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 5: vulnerable animal represents the soul of the dreamer. Especially a female.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 4: There's such a female image. Cats are very much associated
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 4: with the feminine. And these are white, innocent, vulnerable animals.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: little kittens who are, they're particularly powerful as sort of
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 4: soul images and baby images, innocence images. Who wouldn't want
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: to save a kitten? Oh my gosh.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 5: And so the fact that the dream maker is giving
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: her a symbol of her young and vulnerable and in
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 5: some ways her true self, One, it's alive, that's great,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 5: that it's in danger, but we don't know in the dream,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 5: but hopefully she does rescue the kitten so that she
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 5: has it for herself. So what would it mean for
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 5: a crocodile mother or a mother who is possessed by
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 5: the crocodile to kind of go after the kitten inside
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 5: of a daughter? So this mother, if she is fairly reptilian,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 5: She might be not terribly warm. She might be very pragmatic.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 5: I'll protect you if someone's going to kill you, but
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 5: that's about it. And then the assumption is that like
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 5: many different reptiles, you kind of come out of the
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 5: egg with your instincts and you pretty much know what
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 5: food looks like and you know what to do. But
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 5: if somebody's really going to harm you, you can run
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 5: and I'll open my mouth. That's not a lot of warmth.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 5: It's not a lot of help. So we have a
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 5: kitten also that can't run into the mouth of the
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 5: mommy crocodile. That's dangerous. So a reptilian mother can be
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 5: too cold, can expect the child doesn't need very much
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 5: and is somehow just going to know how to raise itself.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 5: That can be really tough on someone.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we can't know. No. But this is illustrative of
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 4: how we start to think about dreams. Maybe this, maybe that, maybe,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: you know, you associate to the crocodile, we associate to
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 4: all kinds of parts of the dream. And there are
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: the multiple images of mother in this dream. And ending
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: with a mother that is younger and thinner than the
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: dreamer's mother was when she passed away. So I'm wondering
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 4: about the transformation or a possible transformation of a mother
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: image into a woman who has youth and attractiveness.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 5: And potential.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Of that something is happening inside the dreamer, which,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 4: as we often point out, all of it is happening
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: inside the dreamer. that your inner mother and your inner
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: flooded backyard and kitchen and the crocodile, the kittens, it's
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: all you. Right.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 5: And this is true even if we had difficult childhoods
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 5: in the end. You're still the only one that has
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 5: to deal with the residue of your childhood because it's
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 5: in you. And even if our parents were still alive
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 5: and became totally enlightened and They couldn't reach in and
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 5: rewire stuff by the time you're middle-aged. It's your crocodile now.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: It's your crocodile.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 5: Even if it's based on memories of having a mom
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 5: that was rather cold. So you can be a crocodilian
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 5: person as well, which is the conundrum.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 4: I keep thinking of that song, The Crocodile Rock, that
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 4: something in our discussion that may relate to the dream
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 4: has lightened my mood and given me that seemingly unrelated,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 4: and it may be unrelated, association to that fun song.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 4: But I'm also thinking in this dream, there's another hint
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 4: about something transforming because the dreamer says, then I woke
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 4: up and I wasn't wet, but I was in the
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: water too. So there's a hopeful note there that, oh,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: there was this flooding and there was a crocodile and
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 4: so on and so forth, saving the kittens. But I
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 4: didn't get wet. It didn't affect me that much.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 5: Which could be taken as a reference to alchemy. Because
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 5: the alchemists, when they were often clearly speaking symbolically, they
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 5: would talk about our fire, our water, our lead, not
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 5: just the external thing. And our water is a liquid
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 5: that does not wet the hand. And what they were
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 5: talking about is quicksilver. that mercury, literally the substance, chemical
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 5: substance of mercury, which looks liquid, but can roll around
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 5: in the palm of your hand when it's mixed with ore,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 5: can melt the gold or put the gold into solution,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 5: pulling it out of the ore. Then the mercury is
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 5: driven off with heat and a coating of gold is
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 5: left in the vessel, which looks rather miraculous. So going
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 5: to your... where I think you might have been going, Deb,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 5: is it's a dream about potential soluteo, that if the
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 5: mother of the childhood, the crocodile mother, the kitten, are
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 5: all in the soluteo or in the mercury of the dream,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 5: it's possible that some gold could leach out of these
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 5: images that at first isn't quite so clear.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:31:05
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• 1:31:10
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