Latest / This Jungian Life Podcast / DECISION ARCHETYPE: The Power of Sacrificing Options

Transcript

DECISION ARCHETYPE: The Power of Sacrificing Options · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  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.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. So
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: today we're going to talk about the archetype of the decision,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: which is a topic that's kind of been sitting on
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: my list for a while. But then we periodically have
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: polls where our patrons get to choose the topic. And
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I put the archetype of the decision on the list
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: and it had the biggest response in So we dedicate
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: this in particular to our patrons. Thank you for your support.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: And if you would like to help pick a future episode,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: you can become a Patreon too. Just go to thisyoungianlife.com,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: click on podcast, and you'll see a link there to
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: our Patreon. So what do we think about what a
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: decision is? What does it mean in our lives? How
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: do we make decisions? How do the decisions that we
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: make determine who we become? So that's what we're going
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: to be circumambulating today.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: And one of the decisions that is coming to fruit
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: for us is the decision to write our first book together,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: The Three of Us, Dreamwise, which is going to be
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: published in four days on November 11th.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: November 12th.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: November 12th, excuse me.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: So we're thrilled. We're nervous. We're hoping that all of
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: you will love it as much as we do. And
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: we hope that you'll support us in jumping on and
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: also giving us a review on Amazon.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be great. So of all the books
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I've written, I think this is the one I'm most
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: proud of. I think we've done something really incredible here.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: And I hope you will consider pre-ordering now or wait
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: till next Tuesday, the 12th, and you can order it
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: once it's released into the world. And Joseph, you're absolutely right.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: If you love the book, a review on Amazon is
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: always greatly appreciated or Goodreads. And I'd also like to
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: say that we're going to be doing a live podcast
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: event around the book on November 17th. We're going to
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: have giveaways and sort of like a dream-a-thon event. Lots
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: and lots of opportunity for you to submit your dream
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: at the event. We'll be picking dreams that were submitted
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: at the event and talking about them. And we'll also
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: be talking about the book. So put that on your
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: calendar as well. The details will be in the show notes.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: And without further ado, let's begin talking about the decision.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: One of the things that was so challenging for me
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: as we were wrestling with the topic is thinking about
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: it as an archetype. Because there's a thousand choices that
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: I make in a given day. I'll have this for lunch,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: or maybe not that, or I'll do one thing or another.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: But when I was challenging myself to try to define
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: what is universal about the idea of the decision that
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: would then cut across all those different areas, it has
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: so many different dimensions to it that it was challenging
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: to make it As crisp as I hoped it could be,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: I couldn't make a decision.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: One of the things that struck me about this and
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: actually made me want to talk about it was, it
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: was actually, I think, a tweet by one of our
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: listeners and a colleague that I saw where she made
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: the point that decision, the etymology of it, the The
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: scission part comes from the Latin to cut. So it's
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: literally to cut away. But it's the same etymology as
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: suicide or homicide, the second part of the word. So
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: we're sort of murdering the other options. We're cutting away
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: the other options. We're killing off the other options. And
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: I think that speaks to... the archetypal nature of the
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: decision because it really does mean that we are, it
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: lifts up, I think, why it can be so hard
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: to make a decision because we don't want to have
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: to kill off those other options. And there can be
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: a lot of kind of mournfulness about having to do that.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: You know, little things, but obviously big things too. I mean,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: one of the big decisions is who do you marry?
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: And that is a real killing off of other options. Or,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: you know, what graduate program do you go to? Or
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: what college do you pick? These things feel really big.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: And in a sense, they actually really are. I mean,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: if you marry person A versus person B, your life
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: might be different. So, uh, That there is that sense
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: of having to countenance the fact that you're really closing
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: a door on a potential version of yourself.
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Which brings up a certain kind of existential feeling as
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: you say that. Because to suspend a decision is to
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: live in a world of limitlessness. And that if we
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: think of the decision as cutting off the limitless options,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: there's something fateful there. mortal about saying, I only have
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: so much time, energy, resource to pursue this person, not
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: all persons, to pursue this career, not all careers. So
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: there is that weightiness to the moment when we say
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: this and not that. Yeah. Yeah.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: You know, we've done two other podcasts, I think, that
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: kind of touch on this. One, we did do a
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: podcast on being indecisive, I believe, a long time ago.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: We also, a long time ago, did a podcast on
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: the pu-erh, this kind of archetype of the eternal youth.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: And that touches into it because I think one of
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: the qualities of the pu-erh is someone who can never
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: commit to anything. And when everything remains in potentiality, when
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: life is all potentiality, but it hasn't... When you make
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: a decision, you kill off all these potentials. You sort
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: of prune them away and you come into a specific
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: form in time and space. You become this particular individual.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: The necessity of making a decision, of killing off other options,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: is part of kind of growing down into our own life.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: And maturing, really, and not staying in this place of
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: pure potential.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Right, growing into reality, that kind of reality principle.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, yep.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: It also reminds me a little bit of the Myers-Briggs typology,
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: which is a little bit different from Jung's typology because
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: the Myers-Briggs folks added another dimension that they call the
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: P or the J type at the end. And so
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: J types tend to be more decisive and they find
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: indecision to be tremendously anxiety producing. And so it's painful
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: and distressing to not finally just call the game It's
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: going to be this and not everything else. Well, people
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: that have more of a P type, prospecting type, for
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: them to make a definitive decision brings on an enormous
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: sense of loss because all the other possibilities are suddenly
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: not available. So we're also holding that tension between the
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: anxiety of ambiguity and the grief of cutting away all
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: the many possibilities and um it seems based on the
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: myers-briggs spoke it's about a 50 50 split in terms
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: of just human nature which side we trend towards but
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: it still brings up this great question of what is
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: it inside of us that moves us towards a decision
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: versus staying in some other softer um place where we
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: either don't or don't have to or refuse to actually
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: make a decision.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about people who really, really struggle with making
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: decisions and how painful that is. And in our modern lives,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: we are asked to make so many decisions. done about this,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: about decision fatigue. I remember this wonderful story, which I
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: think is true that Obama had like 10 black jackets
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: and like 10 black, or when it was, maybe it
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: was Navy, I don't know, but he had, he, he
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: didn't want to have to make a decision about what
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: to wear because he was making so many other decisions
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: and they've, they have studied this and there is, you know,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: there's an ability, you know, the, the surgeon who goes
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: through his day is having to make life or death
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: decisions about, you know, how to treat patients comes home.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: It's like, does not want to have to think about
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: what to have for dinner. There's always a little, I mean,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: we love the idea of choice, but it also stresses
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: us out. And when you go and you're going to
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: buy toothpaste, you know, there's like, I don't know, 20
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: different kinds of toothpaste and, you know, breath freshener, and
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: it's going to whiten your teeth. It's going to, it's
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: going to do, you know, it's going to do everything,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: but drive your car. And it can be kind of overwhelming.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: I totally relate to that. You know, I'm doing a
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: little bit of renovation work in one of my homes.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: This is going to sound like a ridiculous example, but
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: I have to pick the towel bars for the bathroom.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: And so, like, I click on Amazon and there's like
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: 800 choices to make. And It's amazing that there's so
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: much creativity and resource in the world, but that exact
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: moment of, what the hell is even the criteria for
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: something like that? Where am I casting about? It's not
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: a consequential decision, but it still speaks to this flood
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: of images and possibilities, which is too much to actually
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: sort through on a conscious level.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've certainly worked with people who you know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: their presenting problem is I have trouble making decisions. And
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: you can feel the sort of exhaustion of that. So,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: you know, and what the research says, as I understand it,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: is it's better to just pick something and just pick
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: something and move forward. And that it probably doesn't make
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: such a big difference what you pick. And it makes
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: sense to me from a depth psychological sense, because When
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: you're staying in the indecision, you're staying in that fantasy
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: of pure, limitless potential. And that is a lovely place
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: to be for some period of time. I think it's
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: important to be able to stay there when we're young,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: for example. You know, there's some people who feel so anxious,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: they just want to figure out what their career is
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: right away. It's like, well, maybe take some time. Go,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: you know... Go waitress for a little while and see
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: what that's like. Don't decide, oh, I've got to go
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: to graduate school tomorrow. Because when I don't even know
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: what I want to study, but I feel like I
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: want to just collapse the tension and know. It's like, well,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: it might be better to just leave that open for
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: a little bit. So there is a time to leave
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: it open. But if you stay there indefinitely, it means
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: that you never really live.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: I'm really thinking about the way that each of us
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: has to discover how we set up a valuation system
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: inside of ourselves. And sometimes we just don't have enough data.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: So we do need to perhaps go and wait tables
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: or perhaps join the Peace Corps for two years and
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: travel and wait to absorb enough facts about ourselves and
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: the world in order to set up a criteria. So
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: thinking types... will accumulate a lot of rational clarity about
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: what decision or what option is more valuable. And feeling
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: types have to discern what they like or don't like
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: in increasing levels of intensity. And both of those things
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: take a lot of energy and a certain amount of
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: exposure to the reality that one is evaluating. Mm-hmm.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: But like your towel bar decision, it's almost like, you know,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: past a certain point, it's like you just pick something.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: I'm sure. And then I'll complain about it for the
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: next 20 years. Like a goddamn towel bar.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: But that's an interesting point, though, because I think that,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: you know, part of making a decision is having to
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: live with the consequences.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: That we're at the towel bar crossroads. I was walking throughout.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: through a woods darkly and the path diverged and it
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: was all, my future was determined, consequences and risks and
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: opportunity of the towel bar. But it is interesting that
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: for some of us, something as small as a towel bar,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: which is a funny example, can take on a level
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: of dread or import For reasons that can be very
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: mysterious to us. And that may be that the archetype
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: of the decision has become its own complex. Yeah.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, say more about that.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Well, if we think about just the complex theory, just
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: as you said, there are innumerable decisions, tiny and life-changing,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: that we have had to make in our lives. And
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: all of those decision moments, come together and satellite around
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: the archetype of the decision. And if that has been
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: a particularly fraught process, if we have a lot of
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: really disturbing, painful memories around decisions we've made, it may
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: be that when we approach even a small decision, that
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: the entire complex begins to beat its drum and we
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: begin to feel incredibly anxious as if It's as big
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: as some of the decisions that haunt us, but it
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: may just be a towel bar in the reality of
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: the moment. So I think if we have disproportionate anxiety
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: or we act strangely around decisions, we have to be
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: curious about our history around that and also even perhaps
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: the history of our parents because how they orient to
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: decisions is gives us a sense of whether or not
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: we can trust ourselves or trust the world. Yeah.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: You know, one of the things I'm thinking of is
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: the way that you can make a decision, like I'm
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: going to get this towel bar. And then, you know,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: there may be a relief that comes with that. Like, oh,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: thank God I made a decision on that. Now I
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: can pick out the tile or whatever it is.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: But some of us second-guess ourselves. So you get the
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: towel bar and then you sort of undo the decision by,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: was that the right decision? Was that the right decision?
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Maybe that was the wrong decision. So I've known people,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: and of course, I mean, this is human. I've done this.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I don't do this routinely, but I bet every one
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: of us has done this, where you make a decision
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: and then you sort of torment yourself over it. And
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: you go back and you reverse it and you think,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: you know, and you waver and And, and again, I,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: there's something really unhelpful about that. There's something to be
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: said for simply, simply saying, you know, this, this is
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: the decision I made and I'm going to move forward
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: with it. Even big decisions, you know, of course, like I,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: like I was saying before, something like who you marry
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: is going to be incredibly consequential because it's, you know,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: it's going to obviously speak to your day-to-day happiness, but
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: also in terms of like your health and your financial well-being.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you marry someone who's profligate with your money,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: you might wind up in really bad streets. That happens.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: If you get married, you're kind of tied together financially.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: So obviously there's things you can do to mitigate that,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: but that's sort of beside the point. It's a big decision,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: but at some point... because one can't have perfect information
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: about what's going to happen, you sort of have to
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: take that empty-handed leap into the void. You have to
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: do your due diligence. You have to look at as
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: many towel bars as you can. And then you just
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: put one in the cart and click, you know, buy now.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: And then you tell yourself, I'm going to live with it,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: you know, and hope for the best. And you don't
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: really know.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: But the decision point, As we're talking about this silly example,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: that there are many different moments between when I click
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: the button and it says my order has been delivered
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: to when it's finally screwed into the wall and there's
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: my towel hanging at it. And so there is something
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: unique to each person about what is the moment where
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: it cannot be called back again. Yeah.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: So there are times I've ordered something and then five
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: hours later I'm like, oh, and then I canceled the
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: order on Amazon. And then I need to think some more.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Like for me, because the wall that it's going to
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: go into is tiled. So I'm going to have to screw,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: drill through the tile, which will forever change the tile.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: And so like the width of the towel bar, it's
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: so costly to, to take that out and move it
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: around and then you have this permanent hole in your tile.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: But there's something about the consequence or how easily something
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: can or cannot be retracted that gives us this feeling
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: of there's no turning back now.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: You know, that brings up something else for me, which
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: I think is the other side of this kind of flip-flopping,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: which is sometimes when you make a decision and you
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: have to manage the cognitive dissonance around the doubt. And
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: so you become a sort of true believer that this
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: is the best towel bar in the world. No other
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: towel bar would ever be possible. And you could even
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: become a proselytizer for that towel bar because it feels
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: really good when other people make the same decision we do. Now, obviously,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: the towel bar is kind of a silly example, but
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about a little bit of a personal example
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: like if you send your kids to a certain school,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: you kind of, you know, it's such a big investment.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: You're handing your kid over to this institution. And it's
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: something that, you know, I saw again and again, when
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: a parent would pick a school, suddenly that parent was
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: like the biggest believer in that school. And that school,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: it was like, you'd ask the parent, what do you
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: think of this school? And oh my God, it's the best. It's,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine any place better. And I would think, really?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: You know, because, but I think it's very human to
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: do that because it, And Jung said, great quote, fanaticism
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: is always a sign of a repressed doubt. And whenever
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: we're making a decision, there are always doubts. And if
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: we've made a big decision, we may not want to
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: have to think about the doubt. So we can torment
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: ourself with it and go back and see, oh my God,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: is there another towel bar I can get? Maybe I
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: can have the whole wall retiled. But we can also
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: just become... kind of a true believer about the particular
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: school we sent our kids to or the towel bar
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: that we bought. So that's kind of maybe the other side.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: So there's something about decisions and managing uncertainty because usually
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: when we make a decision, there's something unknown about the
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: consequences on either side that we're choosing between. And we
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: have to, that's a very difficult thing to bear up under.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: So there's a way in which when we're making a decision,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: our imagination has something to do with this. Our fantasy
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: life has something to do with it. Again, using a
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: very lighthearted example, I have some friends and we'll go
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: out to dinner. I'm usually the guy that will try
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: the thing I've never heard of. Oh, squid ink pasta
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: should be interesting. It was disgusting, by the way. But
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, try it. I have friends who
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: will look through a menu and they're actually frightened to
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: get a food that won't taste good. But what if
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: I order it and it doesn't taste good? And there's
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: something about the weight of that for them that carries
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: an almost termitogenic energy for them. So there's something about,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: do we have faith or evidence in our own adaptability,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: our own capacity to tolerate and make adjustments later on?
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: Or do we feel like we make the decision and
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: our feet are in a cement block now?
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Right. And that the stakes are high. Like, I won't
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: enjoy my dinner. I might go home hungry, you know,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: which would be a shame if you were looking for
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: a nice night out. But, um, You know, I once
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: made a decision that I then flip-flopped on. And it's
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: interesting to look back because I did undo the decision.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: And I look back and I think, I kind of
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: wish I hadn't undone that decision. I was going to
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: spend my junior year abroad in Italy at the University
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: of Bologna. And I got to Italy. I got there.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I was going to take a sort of an accelerated
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Italian immersion class, you know, before starting. I already spoke Italian,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: but I was going to speak it better before starting
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: college at the University of Bologna. And I and I
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: was there and it just sort of overcame me like
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I really was sorry to me. I think the biggest
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: thing is I was really sorry to miss that year
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: back at my university, which it seemed like, God, four years,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: each one is precious. I didn't want to forego that
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: opportunity to be on campus. But I think it was
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: a kind of, I think it was a kind of
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: neurotic fear that I had. And I got myself all
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: twisted in knots about it and decided that it was
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: a mistake and I came home. And I, you know,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: if I'd done it, I would have missed that year,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: and that was a good year in many ways. There
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: were opportunities that I had on campus that I would
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: have foregone. But now I would have had that experience
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: to look back on, and my Italian would be a
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: lot better than it is. And I would have had
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: this experience of living for a year in Italy. And
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I look back at the person that I was, and
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, that wasn't... I wish I pushed through my.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: My neurotic fear about what I would be missing out on.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: So I think that was a little bit of a
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: lesson to me. I don't think I've made that same
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: mistake since, so that's good.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: And that brings us back to the way that the
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: complex can skew our ability to evaluate an option before
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: us because we're not fully engaging the realistic or reality-based
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: elements of what's occurring. And that's true for all of us.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: So part of making a decision, I think, is trying
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: to weed out some of the distortions that we are
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: holding inside of us. And just as Jung said, we
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: become suspicious of a distortion because our emotional intensity around
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: the decision seems disproportionate to what's at stake. So, you know,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: weeping over whether you're going to get the fish and
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: chips or the pork sandwich or just feeling agonized by it,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: one might say, it seems a bit excessive. And so
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: we have to kind of dig in and wonder, wow,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: what's interfering with my ability to just evaluate what I
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: like or don't like, which could be a rather simple situation.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: For instance, it may be that you're a guest. And
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: you're hung up trying to get a sense of what
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: would please your host.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: And so asking what you like or don't like has
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: been subverted by a kind of authority complex about what's
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: appropriate or pleasing. And then we're alienated from something inside
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: of ourselves which could give us good information. Yeah. And
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: help the ego make a true evaluation. And this is
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: so much part of the individuation process. that we are
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: colonized by so many different agendas. And yet in the
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: middle of all of that, there is an authentic core
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: that is able to chime in and give us a
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: sense of what is more or less valuable.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: But we might feel genuinely ambivalent about it. Sometimes it
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: doesn't feel like there's something so clear. Actually, I think
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: one of my one of the reasons why I made
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: a poor decision then is because I was looking for
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: like absolute certainty instead of being able to say, well,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: I don't really know. I don't really know what the
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: year would be like if I went back to university.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I don't really know what it would be like if
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: I stayed here. But maybe I can bear that uncertainty and,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: and just move forward. You know, maybe I can bear
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: being ambivalent, not knowing if I'm going to like the
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: squid ink pasta.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: So what that brings to mind is what is the
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: criteria that we are using in order to weigh something
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: inside of us? And if we don't know the scale
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: with which we're weighing something, then it's very difficult to
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: know how to orient towards it. So is this about life? Oh,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: what's going to give me the most rich life experience?
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Or what's going to help me master Italian? Like if
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: that was the scale of consideration, it would be very clear.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. And I think that, you know, we also
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: sometimes we think it's a rational process. But as you
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: said earlier, I think it's often really an unconscious process
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: and a very emotional process. And I think that's why
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: when we, you know, it almost requires being a little
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: gentle with ourselves, you know, and sort of just being
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: able to tolerate that there's going to be some ambivalence,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: there might be some mourning, you know, like, again, to
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: go back to my experience, I mean, I had made
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: this decision. And just as we spoke about at the
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: beginning with the etymology of the word, I had killed
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: off this possibility of being on campus and I couldn't
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: tolerate that, or I felt like I couldn't tolerate it. But, uh,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: but if I'd spoken to myself a little differently, I
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: might've been able to say, you know, there's something you're
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: not going to be able to do both. You're going
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: to kill off something. And, and, you know, that's, that's hard,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: but maybe it could be okay.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: What I found myself thinking as you were, uh, Talking
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: about that is the locus of the energy. to make
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: the decision. So we have a rough division as Jungians
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: between the ego and the unconscious. And the unconscious is
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: kind of a landscape which can be populated with many things.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: And particularly when we're young, the ego or the conscious
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: part of us can have a pretty big gas tank.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Like there are things that the ego can do just
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: because it's curious. The unconscious may have no interest in
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: it at all, or even dislike it, but we've got
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: some muscle. And so we can drive the ego chariot
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: in a direction just because the ego decides it's going
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: to do that. When was... had decided to write Memories, Dreams,
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: and Reflections. There's a section that's so important to me
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: when I had read it, is that people had been
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: asking him for many, many years to write an autobiography.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: And he said, I just couldn't. That when I looked
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: inside of myself, and this is his language, I did
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: not feel a gradient form. And I was, and was
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: at that time for him, unable to initiate a decision
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: or initiate action without the support of the unconscious mind.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: So for Jung, he imagined the inner world as quite
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: literally a landscape, and that libido or life force or
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: energy moved on the landscape, much like water. And the
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: way that water flows down towards the ocean, he would
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: sense in himself as if the inner landscape had just
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: slightly sloped, and libido kept flowing down towards a project,
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: an idea, a concept. And I believe it might have
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: been an island who had asked him, you know, is
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: he interested in looking at this again? And suddenly, libido
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: started flowing toward the project, and then the ego found
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: that it could ride on the flow of life force,
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Jung came to believe that it was not a conscious
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: part of the personality that would decide where the energy
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: would flow. It was something that one just had to notice.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: And again, as he had become older and even more fragile,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: he really needed that internal support to make himself do
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: things And also there's perhaps an integrity and a privilege
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: of old age to be able to say that I'm
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: not interested in doing much of anything just because I've
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: been asked to do it, because somebody else thinks it
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: would be a good idea for me to do it.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Which goes back to the beginning of our conversation with,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: we have whatever limited resources we have at a given moment,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: internal and external resources, and we can't do everything. Right. Hello, listeners.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: We are really excited to invite you to a live
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: podcast recording to celebrate the publication of our new book, Dreamwise,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams. The event will be
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: held on November 17th at 1 p.m. Eastern, and there's
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: going to be a lot of fun stuff.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: We'll let our hair down with you. You can laugh
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: along with us as we roll with bloopers in front
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: of the live cameras. And a lucky few of you
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: will walk away with the Dream Alchemist Toolkit. We really
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: want you to join us in this mission of awakening
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: people to their inner wisdom. And when you think of
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: buying your copy of DreamWise, think about the people you
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: could share that with and introduce them to a similar
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: moment when you realize what your dreams really could mean.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: At the live event, we're going to be interpreting a
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: lot of your dreams. It'll be kind of like a dream-a-thon.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: We're going to ask that you submit your dreams at
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: the event, so come prepared. We'll be sharing a link,
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: and then we'll be interpreting those dreams as we get them.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: So we hope you'll join us. Tickets are in the link,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: and we'll see you on the 17th. You know, Jung
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: had an important decision to make in his youth, which
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: is what to study. Mm-hmm. And he couldn't decide. And
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: there's a great bit in Memory Streams Reflections, actually, that
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: maybe I'll share a little bit of. So he had
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: to get this decision. So he said, my father was
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: very worried. He said once, the boy is interested in
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: everything imaginable, but he does not know what he wants.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I could only admit that he was right. As matriculation
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: approached and we had to decide what faculty to register for,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I abruptly decided on science, but I left my school
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: fellows in doubt as to whether I intended to go
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: in definitely for science or the humanities. And because he's young,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: he was helped with this decision by a couple of dreams.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I'll just read about the second one. He said, I
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: was in a wood. It was threaded with watercourses, and
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: in the darkest place I saw a circular pool surrounded
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: by dense undergrowth. Half immersed in the water lay the
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: strangest and most wonderful creature, a round animal, shimmering in
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: opalescent hues and consisting of innumerable little cells or of
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: organs shaped like tentacles. It was a giant radiolarian, measuring
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: about three feet across. It seemed to me indescribably wonderful
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: that this magnificent creature should be lying there undisturbed in
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: the hidden place in the clear, deep water. It aroused
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: in me an intense desire for knowledge so that I
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: awoke with a beating heart. These two dreams decided me
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: overwhelmingly in favor of science and removed all my doubts. So,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: you know, sometimes we're looking for that certainty. And, you know, Joseph,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: you're bringing up this this wonderful thing about, we just
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: sort of listen for where, you know, where, where is
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: the unconscious moving me toward? And sometimes that does come
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: in a dream. I mean, I think I've had times
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: when a dream made it really clear what I needed
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: to do. For sure. I've had that. Um, doesn't always
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: happen though. Sometimes you're, it's really, you really have to
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: just deal with it. And the answer doesn't kind of
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: magically pop down from the unconscious.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: And it comes to that, the quality of criteria for
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: instance because i'm a feeling type i can be very
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: influenced by other people's enthusiasm so i'll be talking with
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: somebody and they're really enthusiastic and then they'll ask me
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: a question and i'll be like yes and without realizing
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: that i'm actually riding on their vitality.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah and i think i've probably done that to you
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: uh to good.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: To good end many times but uh But part of
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: what I had discovered really by the time I was
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: in midlife, by the time I was 40, 45, is
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: that my youth was kind of littered with projects that
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: I had started, directions that I had taken, gone two
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: miles instead of a hundred. And I was tired of
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: the litter. And so at a certain point, I made
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: a decision with, kind of spoke to my unconscious and
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: I said, I will listen. to anything. And if it
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: seems like a good idea, I will put it in
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: a little nest somewhere in my head. But I refuse
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: to act on any of those ideas unless I feel
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: absolutely sure that I'm going to be given the energy
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: to bring it to a conclusion, because I am tired
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: of being left, you know, with an empty tank of
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: gas halfway through a trip. And in many ways, I
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: still I still use that criteria. It's a little bit
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: like Jung's idea of the gradient, but for the most part,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: that has served me reasonably well because for me, the
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: criteria is coming to its conclusion. Now, that's not everyone's criteria,
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: but it was for me.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard you say that before, and I've really
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: taken it to heart because I think it's relevant. This
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: is another... place where decision comes up is um if
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: you're an intuitive as i am and you are and
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: i have lots of other intuitives in my life and
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: one thing that's true about us is we get lots
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: of ideas and you like i get more ideas than
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: i can do and so there is that question what
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: there is a decision do i do i try to
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: run with this idea or do i not And you're
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: giving this kind of criterion according to which you can
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: make that decision. It's like how much energy is behind it,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: which I really appreciate because I think I used to
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: kind of feel tormented that I couldn't do every idea.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: And then just like accepting that I'm going to have
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: to kill some off. That's the decision again. I'm going
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: to have to cut some away. But that's just how
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: it is. That's just how it is. It's a kind
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: of pruning pruning process.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: For me the the binary of of killing or living
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: which is in the word undoubtedly the idea of a
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: seed idea just staying in the nest and maybe some
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: seed ideas take 20 years to accumulate enough libido for
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: me to trust that it's going to do what it's
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: supposed to do And I'm open to that. And I
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: don't look at everything that's in the nest. It has
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: to start making noise before I kind of remember that
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: it's over there in the corner and it's, you know,
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: been gestating. Yeah. But I think discovering whatever our criteria is,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: is also part of that journey of self-knowledge.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're right. And I think that there's, you know,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: you mentioned before, like my decision with Italy, what's the
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: overarching goal?
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: And I think that it's good to know what that is. And,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a fairly small example is the rich
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: life experience, more time on campus, learn Italian. But even
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: in a big way, you know, like if we're, let's
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: say we're in our 30s and we have the potential
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: maybe to choose a particular relationship. But on the other side,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: there are some things that maybe we're not thrilled about.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: But you almost have to ask yourself, what's my big
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: picture plan here? Not that you have to have everything
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: planned out, but an awareness of finitude. you know, if what, if,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: if you're 36, you've got a good guy, but it's
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: not perfect. You might have to say to yourself, you know,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: this is, uh, this is one path I could take. And,
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: you know, the other path is over here. What, what,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: what are my higher values? Does it, does it matter
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: to me to be married? Does it matter to me
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: to maybe have children or, or is it more important
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: that I listened to this other thing? But, but I think, um,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: you're really raising this important question. I think about, do
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: we have a sense of, you can only be loyal
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: to a handful of ideas, plans, and values. You, you
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: have to pick. And, uh, but if you know what
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: those three or four things are, it makes all the
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: other decisions easier, still difficult, but easier, you know?
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: And I think that, uh, these guiding values, or Jung
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: might even say attitudes, are something that we discover, that
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: they constellate deep down in the bottom of the personality,
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: and that we discover it often by encountering the outer
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: world in all these different ways that we do, and
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: beginning to notice that we trend, you know, in certain ways,
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: and then upon reflection we think, you know, I really
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: seem to Think safety is very important. Not good, not bad.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: But I really like the feeling of being relaxed and
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: safe and contained. Just works for me. I'm at my
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: best in those environments. And so then we kind of
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: name that and then we can use that as one
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: of many criteria to decide what we think will help
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: us be the best version of ourselves based on however
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: we decide that. But it is the experiment. Yeah.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's your experiment about what works for you and
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: what matters. What matters to you? What matters most? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: And then if you know that, if you know that
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: what really matters to you is, let's say, it really
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: matters to you to be partnered, then the concessions that
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: you might have to make to be with this particular
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: person feel okay. Because they're in service to this higher goal.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: So again, not good, not bad. You can have different values.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: But knowing what they are is helpful instead of trying
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: to actualize everything.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Right. And that often has something to do with intensity,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: the relentlessness of it. And there are certain seed ideas
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: that rise up in us that demand actualization, demand being
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: born in a way that we live these things out. Now,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: I want to just hop over to Ian McGilchrist's work,
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: The Master and His Emissary, that you know so well,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: is that based on this research about tracking neurologic signals
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: in real time, in the minds of people who are
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: being studied, that we have a sense that our conscious
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: mind has chosen something. And we have this strong sense
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: of autonomy and rationality about ourselves. But McGilchrist's research suggests
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: that before the ego becomes aware of a choice, something
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: in the right side of the brain has been activated,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: it starts sending out all kinds of information and signals,
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: the conscious mind, without realizing it, is responding to a
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: quote-unquote decision that's in the unconscious or the right side
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: of the brain. And then its job is to set
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: about having that experience or responding to it, actualizing this,
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: what I would call a seed idea. Mm-hmm. This is
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: also something that's very clearly held in some of the
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: ancient mystery traditions, that something drops down into us from
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: a transpersonal place, and that is the ego's job to
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: discover that and then to bring it into fruition. But
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: humanity has evolved in this fascinating way, where the ego
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: can act autonomously, that we can disregard this deeper wellspring,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: and we are in this state of choice, which is
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: suggested in the story of the Garden of Eden. When
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: we are living in this perfect quote-unquote state, where we
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: are walking in the garden with God or the self
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: or whatever that transpersonal source is, You know, the will
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: of the self and what the ego experiences is all
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: congruent and there's no conflict in any kind of way.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: And then humanity, mythically, but also perhaps even in terms
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: of evolving brain structures, separates out from instinct. And then
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, we could go in this instinctive
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: direction or we could go in a different direction that
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: is alien to anything that's inside of ourselves, which has
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: allowed us to separate from the collective, which I think
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: we could imagine from an evolutionary psychology standpoint, is that
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: we're separating out from the flock mentality, that we're rising
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: above the herd by discovering I am discreet, I know differences,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: I can make distinctions that are not based on instinct
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: or just unconscious impulse. And so we've had some eons
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: of human beings being able to say yes or no
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: to that unconscious impulse. And perhaps we've gone too far,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: which I think is what Jung was saying, we've gone
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: too far in preferencing the ego as the sole impulse
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: to make decisions. The unconscious, that right side of the brain,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: is still sending all kinds of information and signals. When
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: we ignore it, when it's powerful tension, we can become symptomatic.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: McGilchrist is suggesting that that right side of the brain
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: is still talking. The unconscious is sending out all kinds
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: of information. And that perhaps it's time for the ego
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: now to look back at dreams. back at the irrational,
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: back at the seed ideas, back at the hunches, back
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: at the signs and auguries, and consider whether or not
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: the deep signal could be giving us information that the
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: conscious mind has not initiated, but could still be the wiser, contextual, correct,
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: best outcome information so we needed this process of alienating
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: ourselves from the irrational becoming a discrete conscious creature and
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: then with more consciousness going back into that right side
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: of the brain and inviting the dialogue again which jung
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: called the transcendent.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Function mm-hmm Yeah, that's really interesting. And it makes me think,
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is a slightly different take on it,
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: but I think I'm touching into some of the same things.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Haidt in... The Righteous Mind talks about, he has
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: the metaphor of the elephant and the rider. The rider
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: is the ego and the elephant is the unconscious. And
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: we all think we're the rider who's actually moving the elephant,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: but really the elephant makes up its mind and then
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: ego justifies ex post facto. So we actually think we're
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: in control and we're making the decisions and pulling the
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: strings when often we're having an emotional response and we're
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: not even acknowledging that. So there's something here, Joseph, which
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: I think you were getting to about a different kind
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: of relationship between the ego and the unconscious where the
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: ego ideally is open to the promptings of the unconscious,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: but perhaps is at least honest with ourselves about what
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: we're responding to and able to evaluate the promptings that
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: come from the unconscious, from feeling and intuition, perhaps a
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: little bit more honestly, maybe.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: You said that so much more clearly than I was
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: meandering around for the last 10 minutes. Well, it's complex.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: That's beautifully said. It's complex.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I want to go to this idea
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: a little bit. I was talking earlier about the relationship
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: between the decision and the ability to tolerate cutting away,
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: tolerate the death of options. And you would mention, you know,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: it has to do with the reality principle. I want
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: to bring, there's a really great, some great quotes that
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: I have here. They're both from an Adam Phillips book.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: Adam Phillips is a British psychoanalyst. And he says, we
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: have an inner need, a desire. We hallucinate, we fantasize
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: its satisfaction. That is, we fast forward the wish fulfillment,
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: and this is pleasant for a bit. But then we
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: noticed that we are still in need and the only
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: way we are going to be properly satisfied is by
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: finding what we want in the external world. Reality is
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: our second choice, but our best option. So this is
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: related to the idea of the decision because oftentimes what
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: we're deciding between are two or more less than ideal
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: options in reality. And sometimes what prevents us from making
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: a decision is the fantasy. So, for example, we may
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: not want to commit to a certain partner. I had
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: a friend who was dating a man and they were
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: getting along great, like a house on fire, but he
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: didn't want to propose, he didn't want to propose, he
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: didn't want to propose. And finally she said, you know,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: what's keeping you? And he rather sheepishly admitted that that
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: there was a part of him that still thought he
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: might wind up with Christie Brinkley. This was a long
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: time ago when Christie Brinkley was a supermodel. But we
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: all have that, right? Like, well, I could marry this
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: real person here, or I could continue my fantasy that
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: I'm going to wind up with, you know, someone who's
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: really with some ideal, but it's really only a fantasy.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: So there's one more quote that I think taps into this.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: This again is from Adam Phillips, and I just love
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: this one. Anna Freud once said, in your dreams you
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: can have your eggs cooked the way you want them,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: but you can't eat them. The implication is clear. Magic
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: is satisfying, but reality is nourishing.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, well said.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Isn't that great?
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: That's beautiful. And to quote our colleague Deb Stewart, want
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: what you can have. But just that salty, practical part
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: of it is, Let your mind go wherever it wants
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: to go. Have your dreams. Think of whatever it is
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: you choose. But at a certain point, we have to
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: look at what is possible and in reach. Yes.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: So I'm wondering if you would indulge me in a
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: little bit of Marie-Louise von Franz. So this is her book,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: Puer Eternus. It's not, I think, a coincidence. that this
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: stuff about making a decision is in that book. So
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: there's a motif from a Russian fairy tale that can
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: illustrate the need to make a decision to kind of
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: cut off the other options and how difficult that can be.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: And so now I'm reading from Louis von Franz. At
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: a dinner party, the czar says that none of his
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: sons had yet picked his flowers, so the three sons
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: ask for his blessing and set out on the search.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Each takes a horse from the stable and sets forth.
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: All three come to a signpost which says, he who
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: goes to the right will have enough to eat, but
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: his horse will be hungry. He who goes to the
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: left will have enough for his horse, but will himself
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: remain hungry. And the one who goes straight ahead will die.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: So you have a decision to make. The first brother
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: would be robbed of the instinctual experience and therefore his
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: horse would be hungry. The brother who goes that way
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: finds a copper snake on a mountain. When he brings
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: it home, his father is furious and says he has
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: brought home something dangerous and demonic and puts him in prison.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: That is, he only finds a kind of petrified life
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: and falls back into the prison of the traditional spirit, i.e.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: The father.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: The next brother goes to the left and finds a
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: whore who has a mechanical bed to which she invites him.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: Having jumped out of it herself, she presses a button,
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: the bed turns over, and he falls into the cellar
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: where there are a lot of other men all waiting
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: in the dark. That's the fate of the one who
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: goes to the left. Then comes the great Ivan, the
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: hero of Russian fairy tales. When he gets to the signpost,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: he begins to cry and says that a poor fellow
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: who has to go to death will find neither honor
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: nor glory. but he gives his horse the whip and
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: goes ahead. His horse dies and comes to life again,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: and he finds the witch and conquers her. Then he
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: finds the princess, returns home, and becomes the Tsar. He
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: has a normal, successful fairy tale career.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: He chooses.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: to remain in the conflict, which seems like death to
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: the ego for ego consciousness wants to know what is ahead.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: So this is me in, you know, in that telephone
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: booth and Sienna, you know, talking to, you know, my
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: mom about what I should do. I couldn't remain in
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: the conflict and just say, well, I don't know what's
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: going to happen. Let me just ride forward to death,
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: you know? So I think that's really, really, beautiful. So
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: in reality, I'm just kind of going to jump in
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: and out of this a little bit. The Puer does
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: something much worse. He risks neither way completely. So to
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: make a decision is to commit to cut away the
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: other options. And then you, you, you, you make this
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: kind of total risk. Um, so he arrests the process
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: of life and gets stuck. That's what happens if we can't,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: if we can't cut away. We can't tolerate the death
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: of these other options. Let's see, there's one other thing
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: I love here. Everybody has in front of him a
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: field of reality where he can work if he wants to,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: and the childish trick of saying, I would work if
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: it were the right thing, is one of the many
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: self-delusions of the puer eternus by which he keeps within
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: the mother and his megalomaniac identification with God, because the gods,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: as you know, do not work. except for Hephaestus. That
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: is the drawback of getting in touch with reality, because
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: in that way one becomes limited. There are restrictions. One
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: comes to the miserable human situation where one's hands are
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: tied and it is not possible to do as one
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: would like, something which is particularly disagreeable to the puer.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: What one produces is always miserable compared to the fantasies
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: one had lying in bed, dreaming about what one could do,
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: what one would do if one could. So here's the
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: importance of having the courage to cut away those other
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: options and make a decision, because otherwise you get stuck.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: Yes, I love that. Actually having the imperfect eggs in
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: your mouth when you're chewing actually allows you to get
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: any kind of nutrition versus just thinking. that we're satisfied
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: fantasizing about one thing or another. She's so great. She's
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: such a clear-thinking master in that regard.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: So coming full circle just in terms of unpacking a
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: little bit of what goes on inside of us or
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: what has to go on, there is something about the
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: decision that is, We start in some form of contemplation,
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: and that decision has something to do with action. And
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: as you were saying, once we take an action, immediately
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: it implies that we're not acting in other ways, that
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: any action in that moment sets aside all the other
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: possible actions. So it's something about allowing something to concretize,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: which I think is what von Franz is saying. versus
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: the fluidity inside of us. So there is a magical
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: moment where an internal deliberation crystallizes or coagulates into an
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: external commitment.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And that's the magic in that. So that coagulatio,
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: which is still mysterious, you know, in the same way
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: that you can dissolve sugar into boiling water, and maybe
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: you did this as a kid, you'll drop a string
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: into it. And then over several hours, the sugar crystals
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: will begin to accrete on the string as it cools off.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: And there is a secret pattern. that is coagulating that
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: you can't see when it's in the solution. So something
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: needs to make that change from the ever-changing fantasy world
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: into the coagulating reality. And there is a way in which,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: you know, there's something about instincts and intuition and a
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: rational analysis in terms of what's even an option. And
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: our values, broader life context, are all chirping in the background.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: But it is that idea of the absolute external commitment.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: It's the moment before your hand actually moves that you've
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: made the decision. And it could be something as simple as,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: take that bite of food and you swallow it. It's
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: the action that now is, has happened and cannot be undone.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: And that's the way toward more life. And that's the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: little bit of a paradox is just like in the
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: fairy tale, the right answers to choose death. That's what
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: leads to more life. And if you allow, uh, the
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: fantasies to die, if you allow the version of yourself
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: as you exist now to die, if you allow your
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: certainty to die, if you allow those other options to die,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: you decide you kill off those other options, then that
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: leads to more growth.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: It does.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: And more life.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: So then we're ending here with this sobriety.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: About decisions, that there's nothing giddy necessarily. There's something just
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: sober and nutritious about the decision.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And as we go into the dream, Joseph,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: would you like to read it?
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: Yes, that would be great. Today's dreamer is a 37-year-old
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: male who is a freelance artist, and he titles this
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: dream The Flooded Pyramid. I was inside a large pyramid
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: with a small group of unknown people whilst the whole
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: earth was flooding with water. We were all treading water
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: whilst the pyramid filled up, grasping for any ledge or
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: surface we could. It finally filled high enough to reach
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: the very top platform. and we all climbed on. A
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: large set of double doors opened immediately. I rushed through
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: and began to free fall to the bottom. I felt
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: like the other people knew what was on the other
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: side of those doors, so they waited. I awoke before
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: I hit the bottom. For context, he writes, my partner
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: and I are in the process of starting a new
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: business alongside our current jobs. He says the main feelings
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: in the dream were equal parts panic and determination, disappointment
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: after rushing through the doors, and then a few associations
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: he notes. I didn't know any of the other people.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: I have an interest in ancient history, and I'm not
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: overly fond of water, or am I a confident swimmer.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: So I'm sort of assuming this is like an Egyptian
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: pyramid because he referenced ancient history. So it's a sacred place.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: It's a tomb. And the interesting thing about a pyramid
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: is that it would begin to fill faster and faster
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: because of its shape. So it would take a while
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: to fill the bottom, but as the water gets higher,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: it would increase the rate at which it was filling.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: And also, you'd be really kind of squished toward the end.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: You'd be squeezed up into a smaller space. Just think
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: about the nature of the space inside a pyramid.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking about that. I'm thinking about the paradox that
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: from the base, You know, we can't see high enough.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: We can't see the opportunities that might be there. That
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: while we're tolerating the anxiety of the growing tension of
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: the rising waters, it's also lifting us upward in a
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: way that we couldn't on our own, which then allows
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: this more thorough examination of each layer as there is
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: a rising. So the ego can't get itself up higher.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: It needs some other mysterious substance, the unconscious maybe. Maybe
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: it's feeling states or maybe it's literally even his own panic.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: That the confinement, the desperation, the panic allows him to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: kind of elevate a bit where he then can finally
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: see this platform and double doors and an opportunity. So
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: the panic... This reminds me very much of procrastination, you know,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: that putting it off, putting it off, putting off, and
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: then finally the consequences are so awful that that rising
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: water of panic pops you over to a ledge and
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: you can walk through a door and do the thing
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: where you've been putting off for God knows how long.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: But then because we've used panic to get us up
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: to the opportunity, we also can be highly impulsive and rush.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: Because we're still carrying the panic that got us to
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: the moment of decision. So how we get there matters. Yeah.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, cause he says he's disappointed at rushing through
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: the doors and he kind of feels like it was,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: you get the sense. He feels like it was precipitous
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: because everyone else was kind of waiting so that he
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: may have jumped before he needed to or something, you know,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: or there somehow it was, uh, You know, like you're saying,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: it was kind of instigated by panic and therefore wasn't considered.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: And of course, this dream does not have a good resolution.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: It's sort of, you know, what would I say about
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: the resolution of this dream? I mean, there's a sense
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: that he did the wrong thing. I think that's, you know,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: when he says there's disappointment, it's like, oh, everyone else waited.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: I jumped through the doors. And the sense that maybe
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: this isn't going to particularly end well. He's in free fall.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: But you don't know exactly what's going to happen. So
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: if we're thinking about this dream, this dream's a little
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: bit like you might want to work on your attitude.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: Because if you keep going the way you're going, it
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: might not work out so well.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, perhaps if this is related to the new business venture,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: that the amount of anxiety... And perhaps the claustrophobia, which
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: comes to what we were saying, that you have to
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: begin to make decisions in order for anything to take form.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: So everything is moving to this smaller and smaller triangle
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: at the top of the pyramid, which is really how
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: a venture does get launched. You're not selling every product.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: You're not providing every service. It becomes condensed into something
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: very specific. But again, the... The unconscious feeling of panic
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: and claustrophobia and this wanting more space, wanting more options
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: is a way, I think, of the claustrophobic demand to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: get out to the larger space. Builds and builds, and
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: then just as we said, that catapults him out the
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: door instead of standing on the ledge and evaluating the options,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: one of which is the water is also going to
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: be going to begin to drain outside the door if
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: you're concerned about the rising water. I don't know what
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: the bottom was at which he was here. Is this
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: the bottom of another area in the pyramid that's dry?
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: Is it the bottom of the desert floor? But there
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: isn't the cushioning water. He's not diving into a pool
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: that could safely buoy him. So now he's subject to
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: gravity in a way that's going to get his feet
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: on the ground.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: Um right yeah and i'd be curious i agree this
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: would be one of those dreams would be helpful if
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: he were well it would it's always helpful to have
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: the tumor there but but i'm wondering so what's the
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: fate of the people who remain do we have a
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: sense of that um What do you think of the
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: fact that it's a pyramid? I mean, we mentioned that
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: it's a tomb, that it's a sacred space, but it's
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: not the highly specific image. What comes up for you
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: around that?
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: I liked what you said about it being a tomb.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: And it has something to do with the storage of
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: resources for the afterlife. Yes. So there's something about a
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: promise here. of a better thing on the far side.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: But it is very magical, it's very mystical. One has
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: to have an awful lot of faith that whatever is
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: resourced into the pyramid is in fact going to carry
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: you into this good future in this future life, the
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: next life. I wonder if there's something about For instance,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: if we think it's about the collaboration, that there's something
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: about the collaboration for him that carries a quality of death.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: And claustrophobia is often a feeling of death that I'm
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: going to suffocate. So to realize that I feel as
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: if this venture is me living in a crypt and
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: whatever one's associations are to that that could lead us
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: into a kind of a cloying desperation.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: To escape yeah yeah and that is a particularly gruesome
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: sort of image that you're you know we've seen it
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: in movies and stuff where you the cavers are in
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: an underground water and the water's rising and there's only
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: this much space and you know like eventually you know
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: if the water rises all the way up you're a
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: goner so That sense of kind of something rising. And
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: it's interesting that it's water. So, you know, I do
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: wonder if it's a big wave of feeling somehow or
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: somehow connected to the emotional life that's really threatening to
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: pull him under.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: There's a possibility that the intimacy of the partnership and
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: then going into a business, that there's a threat of regression.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: That He's going to go into this business. He's suddenly
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: feeling younger and younger. The partner is, in his mind,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: is going to take on more and more authority and
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: more of a parental role. And he's going to be
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: engulfed in some kind of a childlike state, which is frightening.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: And he's in a bit of a panic around this
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: issue of autonomy versus cooperation and collaboration. Mm-hmm. So I'd
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: be very interested to know about those developmental experiences in
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: his own childhood.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting thing
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: to bring up. Thanks for listening. To submit a dream,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: suggest an episode topic, or join our mailing list, visit
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: our website, thisjungianlife.com. If you enjoyed this episode, give us
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: five stars and a good review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to our YouTube
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: channel and make sure to click the notification bell to
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: be alerted whenever we upload videos. And keep up with
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: all things TJL by following us on Instagram, Facebook, X,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: and TikTok.