Latest / This Jungian Life Podcast / SELF-SABOTAGE: Why we do it and how to stop it.

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SELF-SABOTAGE: Why we do it and how to stop it. · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Jung said that dreams are the guiding words of the soul.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
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  Speaker 2: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
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  Speaker 2: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Well, hello, listeners. Some of you may know we have
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  Speaker 1: by patrons. And at the $ 10 level, you can also
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  Speaker 1: vote on podcast episode topics. And we have one of
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  Speaker 1: those for you today. So we recently ran our first
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  Speaker 1: ever poll. And the winner was self-sabotage, which will be
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: our topic today. So if you would like to vote
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  Speaker 1: And thank you so much for supporters. We couldn't do
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: it without you. So let's move on and talk about self-sabotage.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I would like to start with what I thought
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  Speaker 4: was so interesting, which is just, what is sabotage? And
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  Speaker 4: as it turns out, it comes from a French word
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  Speaker 4: from some centuries back of saboteur, which comes from the
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  Speaker 4: word sabote, which were wooden shoes that were allegedly thrown
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  Speaker 4: by laborers who had labor disputes. And thrown into the
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  Speaker 4: machinery and thus interrupting and interfering with the work to
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  Speaker 4: be done. But who could tell who had thrown the shoes?
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  Speaker 1: Except maybe the person missing a shoe.
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  Speaker 4: They're wooden shoes, and everyone would be able to say, well,
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  Speaker 4: I didn't do it. So that leads to saboteur, which
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  Speaker 4: is a kind of protest against But it's subverted. It's
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  Speaker 4: on the sly. It's beneath consciousness from a psychological point
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  Speaker 4: of view that we don't really know we're doing it.
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  Speaker 4: So we are sabotaging ourselves, not factory management. And the
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  Speaker 4: inner world is concealed from us until and unless we
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  Speaker 4: notice that, oh my gosh, I did it again. I
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  Speaker 4: was late to class again. I wasn't prepared for the
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  Speaker 4: pop quiz again. So something is trying to get our attention.
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  Speaker 3: So I think that there's so many different angles to
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  Speaker 3: approach this. I mean, one is just very pragmatic and
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  Speaker 3: even very modern. I think that Jung might have something
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  Speaker 3: different to say about the the fateful mistakes and the
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  Speaker 3: things that cross our path that thwart the ego's intention.
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  Speaker 3: I think that the complex is, of course, Jung's great
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  Speaker 3: discovery of what thwarts the ego's functioning. So there's so
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  Speaker 3: many things that can get in the way of the
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  Speaker 3: ego's intentionality. And that makes self-sabotage such a complicated topic
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  Speaker 3: that the symptom of self-sabotage can have so many different consequences.
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  Speaker 3: causes as we kind of sift down, some being more
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  Speaker 3: pathologic than others.
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  Speaker 1: Deb, I really liked the word you use, protest. And
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  Speaker 1: it kind of ties it with the wonderful etymology of
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  Speaker 1: this word, workers throwing their sabot into the machinery to
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  Speaker 1: stop up the works. Because I think that self-sabotage can
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  Speaker 1: be seen as a kind of protest from some part
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  Speaker 1: of us, that doesn't agree to go along with what
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  Speaker 1: the ego wants or what the ego thinks it wants. So,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in a sense, what we're talking about in
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  Speaker 1: self-sabotage is kind of the definition of neurosis where our
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  Speaker 1: ego wants one outcome, but some other part of us
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  Speaker 1: clearly wants a different outcome. And we can see that
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  Speaker 1: in the word association experiment, you know, where, We've talked
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  Speaker 1: about this before on the podcast, but this was something
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  Speaker 1: that Jung innovated in the early years of the 20th century,
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  Speaker 1: where he would give a stimulus word to someone. He
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  Speaker 1: might say table, for example, and then the person was
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  Speaker 1: supposed to come up with a first word that comes
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  Speaker 1: into their mind. So you might say chair. And if
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  Speaker 1: the word comes easily and it makes sense, then it's
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  Speaker 1: a kind of conflict-free area. But the inner conflicts that,
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  Speaker 1: as you pointed out, Deb, we might be unaware of,
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  Speaker 1: would manifest themselves in, for example, if you said bed,
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  Speaker 1: and let's say the person had a kind of inner
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  Speaker 1: conflict around sexuality or intimacy or something like that, they
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  Speaker 1: might They might stumble. They might take longer. They might
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  Speaker 1: laugh a little bit bizarrely. They might come up with
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  Speaker 1: a very odd kind of response word. Like they might
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  Speaker 1: say something like sad or something like that, which doesn't
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  Speaker 1: really make any sense on the surface. Underneath, it might
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  Speaker 1: make a lot of sense. But it's revealing these areas
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  Speaker 1: in our conflict. And we can think about self-sabotage as
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  Speaker 1: a sign that there's an inner conflict. that some part
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  Speaker 1: of us is not in alignment with the ego attitude.
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  Speaker 4: And I like what you said about what consciousness wants
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  Speaker 4: or thinks it wants. And so underneath that is buried
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  Speaker 4: our famous word, should. I really should get to bed
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  Speaker 4: at a reasonable hour, and I should... floss my teeth
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  Speaker 4: every day. And there are a whole list of things
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  Speaker 4: that we agree are good things, worthwhile things. And some
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  Speaker 4: part of us says, hell no, I won't go. I
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  Speaker 4: don't really want to do that. It is not in
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  Speaker 4: alignment with my desire. And until we can have that
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  Speaker 4: conversation with ourselves and Or with the help of somebody else,
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  Speaker 4: like a therapist, the dynamic may continue. It doesn't mean
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  Speaker 4: that what the unconscious wants is absolutely right or, you know,
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  Speaker 4: the quote, answer. But at least we need to have
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  Speaker 4: that conversation between consciousness and unconscious.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think that the unconscious, on one level, we
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  Speaker 3: can think of as a kind of tape recorder, that
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  Speaker 3: it's the impression... making machine inside of us. So when
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  Speaker 3: we receive certain kinds of messages, they just feed back
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  Speaker 3: to us. And just because it comes out of the
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  Speaker 3: unconscious doesn't mean it's been vetted or well thought or
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  Speaker 3: moral necessarily. The unconscious echoes back to us. And then
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  Speaker 3: of course there are other factors in the unconscious like
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  Speaker 3: the self and other forces that are seeking to move
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  Speaker 3: us forward in evolution. But breaking it down into this
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  Speaker 3: more problematic part of the unconscious. I was thinking about
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  Speaker 3: the internalized negative beliefs about ourselves and that many of
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  Speaker 3: us have find when we look inside a lot of
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  Speaker 3: critical terms, a feeling of being unworthy or a feeling
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  Speaker 3: of being incompetent. And those things are often rooted in
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  Speaker 3: early childhood experiences And one of the ways to understand
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  Speaker 3: that is that when we are in a very fraught
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  Speaker 3: relationship in our early childhood, fraught with our parents, and
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  Speaker 3: the parents are doing things that leave the child feeling
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  Speaker 3: very uncomfortable, there is a primary drive inside of the
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  Speaker 3: child to protect the goodness of the parent. And so
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  Speaker 3: the child will then take upon themselves the negative qualities
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  Speaker 3: and the problems in the relationship with the parent. And
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  Speaker 3: so mom can't be the one who's doing something wrong,
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  Speaker 3: so it must be that I'm the one doing something wrong.
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  Speaker 3: Dad must be right in him yelling at me for
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  Speaker 3: one thing or another, so I must be stupid or
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  Speaker 3: foolish or clumsy or wrong. And so strangely enough, as
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  Speaker 3: an adult, we can cling to these feelings of being incompetent, stupid, clumsy, oafish, unable, wrong.
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  Speaker 3: And when we begin to challenge some of those assumptions
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  Speaker 3: and there is a feeling that we are violating something
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  Speaker 3: in a very dangerous way. Because the edict in the
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  Speaker 3: childhood is, the other person must be seen as good
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  Speaker 3: and even perfect so that I can maintain a survival
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  Speaker 3: relationship with them. So we take into ourselves these very
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  Speaker 3: dark and negative, attitudes about ourselves, and then we seek
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  Speaker 3: to reconfirm them out in the world. So I can't
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  Speaker 3: display my competence fully. I have to be somewhat oafish.
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  Speaker 3: I have to prove over and again that it is
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  Speaker 3: true that I am these negative qualities. Because if I don't,
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  Speaker 3: then like Pandora's box, the negativity sprays out into the
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  Speaker 3: environment It begins to populate my other relationships. And that
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  Speaker 3: is incredibly disturbing to the inner child.
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  Speaker 1: I think that is one scenario. And as you said before, Joseph,
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  Speaker 1: there are so many. And maybe I'm a little sensitive
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  Speaker 1: to that narrative because I am a parent. But I
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  Speaker 1: think the idea that everything has an antecedent in early
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  Speaker 1: childhood and our parents didn't treat us just exactly right.
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  Speaker 1: It's certainly true sometimes, but it isn't always true. And
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  Speaker 1: we know now that when parents are kind of always
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  Speaker 1: giving their kids praise and heaping up all kinds of
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  Speaker 1: positive sentiments on them and giving them participation trophies, that
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  Speaker 1: that also can set someone up for self-sabotage, actually, because
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  Speaker 1: the person... is fragile or may feel the weight of
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  Speaker 1: these expectations, may not feel comfortable failing or being less
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  Speaker 1: than perfect because they've always been told they're perfect. So
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe as a parent, you know, Jim
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  Speaker 1: Hollis has this great thing that he says that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: life is traumatic and your parents either make it a
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  Speaker 1: little less so or a little more so. And, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I think Jim is on there. But we're talking.
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  Speaker 3: About a pathologic situation where we all have good enough
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  Speaker 3: parents because if we make it to adulthood, But if
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  Speaker 3: somebody is listening to this and saying, I self-sabotage myself
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  Speaker 3: all the time and more than most other people, then
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  Speaker 3: there's something going on in part with childhood and many
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  Speaker 3: other domains that is kind of extraordinarily problematic.
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  Speaker 1: That's more what we're talking about, not the average parent.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a great clarification. But the situation
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  Speaker 1: you described is a very... a potent one that does
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  Speaker 1: apply to many people. So I think it's good that
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  Speaker 1: it's on the table. I think one of the things
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  Speaker 1: that I want to sort of bring our attention to
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  Speaker 1: a little bit, and Deb, you sort of were in
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  Speaker 1: this direction, I think, is often self-sabotage has to do
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  Speaker 1: with adaptation. It has to do with whether or not
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  Speaker 1: we are meeting expectations in the outer world. So self-sabotage
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  Speaker 1: often occurs in the domain of school or work, vocation.
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  Speaker 1: It can also happen in terms of relationships. So we
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  Speaker 1: might sabotage ourselves in terms of getting into a healthy
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  Speaker 1: relationship because we always do something to mess it up
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  Speaker 1: or we pick the wrong person or whatever. But I
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  Speaker 1: think those are the major domains. And it has to
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  Speaker 1: do then often with real first half of life stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Are we getting out there in the world and doing
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  Speaker 1: the things, you know, love and work, as Freud said, that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, that we need, we need to do?
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  Speaker 4: I think that's such a good point that we have
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  Speaker 4: to adapt to the world. Jung called this the collision
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  Speaker 4: with reality. You know, we all get to that place
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  Speaker 4: sooner or later that, you know, it doesn't matter. You know,
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  Speaker 4: whatever happened in the past or the exigencies that are
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  Speaker 4: operating in your current life, you have to show up
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  Speaker 4: for work on time. That's it, open and shut. And
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  Speaker 4: I think one of the things that happens a lot,
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  Speaker 4: especially because this is first half of life, so people
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  Speaker 4: are by definition still growing and maturing, is things get externalized.
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  Speaker 4: It's not my fault because... I don't have enough time.
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  Speaker 4: I don't have enough money. The bus is always late
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  Speaker 4: and I don't have a car, so I have to
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: take the bus. And as many of our listeners know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: I started out my professional life as a special ed
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: teacher working with adolescents. And one of the things I
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: learned was a lot of new profanities and ways to
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: combine them and especially picturesque ways, which was, I kind
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: of appreciated that, but that there were these kinds of
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: difficulties for students, including with their own learning disabilities, the
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: bus could be late, a hundred other things, but where
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: and when, and it was our part of our job,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: does that young person learn to say, I'm just really
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: scared of this. I'm afraid that I'm going to try
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: and I'm going to fail anyway. And in a way,
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: whether that particular student passed history or any other class,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: it really was symbolic of having enough ego strength to say,
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: I can show up for this. I dare to show
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  Speaker 4: up for the hard thing where I really believe the
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: teacher dislikes me. I have difficulty reading. This is so
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: not my thing. But I can show up. That was
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  Speaker 4: a huge transition. and I think is part of everyone's maturation.
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  Speaker 4: One way or another, we all have a collision with reality.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Hopefully.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Something special is happening. You are invited to join us
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  Speaker 3: on Saturday, July 13th for a live podcast recording, Jung's
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  Speaker 3: American Muse, Christiana Morgan's Visions and Art. Our guest will
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  Speaker 3: share intimate memories of her grandmother, who, as a gifted
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  Speaker 3: and beautiful young artist, was one of the most important
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: women to shape Jung's ideas of the feminine principle in psychology.
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  Speaker 3: Her visions and art illuminated the unconscious in ways he
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  Speaker 3: had never imagined. Together, we'll watch Hilary's extraordinary documentary, Tower
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: of Dreams. And after our discussion, the audience can ask questions.
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• 18:27
  Speaker 3: small cost of $ 5. We hope to see every one
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: of you there. One way that we could categorize that
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: is distress tolerance. Yep. That the teacher I don't think
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: likes me and that's distressing. And can I tolerate being
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: distressed and take the test or I'm not sure I'll
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: make this job. Maybe I'll be embarrassed. Can I tolerate
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: the distress of one thing or another? And for some
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: of us, distress tolerance is very, very difficult. Part of
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  Speaker 3: that could even be neurologic, this idea of the highly
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: sensitive person. But often, as we were saying before, it's neurotic.
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  Speaker 3: There's a self-perception that I couldn't possibly tolerate it. And
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: the phrase, which is so painful when I hear it
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  Speaker 3: from anybody, is I can't take it. I just can't
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: take one more minute of hearing the customer say thus
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: and such. I just can't take one more rejection. I
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: can't take it. Which is such an interesting phrase, right?
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: What does that mean? And we can pretty much take
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: most of the things that modern life at least provides
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: to us, but once we take it into our hands
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: or take it into the realm of experience, the question
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: is how do we metabolize it? What do we do
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: with the thing that's now in our hands versus just
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: flipping our hands in the air and letting it crash
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: to the ground? And that goes to what we were
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: saying earlier about adaptive capacities to know what to do
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: with the thing in your hand. I wanted to also
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: circle around to something that I know shows up a
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: lot in the public discourse is just fear of success,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: which I think is a very tricky phrase because if
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  Speaker 3: we're afraid of it, it's hard to even call it success.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: We have a goal. Let's say instead of fear of success,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: we might say attaining the goal in that regard. And
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: one of the things that I think people rightly perceive
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: is that we've set a goal for ourselves, and there's
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: an idea that I could attain the goal. And as
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: we approach the goal, we come into a greater sense
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: of the reality of what the attainment might be, and
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: we realize that actually achieving the goal will require things
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: from us. And even on the most basic level, it
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: means that there will be new responsibilities and new expectations.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: So let's say we have the goal of buying my
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: first house. And there's the archetype of the home and
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: everything that the family believes about how wonderful it is
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: to buy a home. And then as we approach purchasing
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: the home, we realize, oh my gosh, I'm going to
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: have to pay taxes. And then I have to have
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: a roof on it. I'm going to have to learn
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: how to fix a pipe. And then people are going
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: to be expecting to come and visit me and stay
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: in the house, but I'm an introvert and I don't
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: really want anyone to visit me. Maybe that one room
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: efficiency I was staying in really protected me from anybody
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: ever intruding upon my space. So as we come towards
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: the reality of the thing that we were sure we wanted,
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  Speaker 3: the success that All the other things about the responsibilities
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  Speaker 3: and expectations can make us ambivalent enough to want to
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: pull the rug out, stop the train chain. And of course,
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  Speaker 3: this can happen very unconsciously. So we don't kind of
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: realize that we don't really want to take on the
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: thing we were sure we wanted.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking how closely what you're saying relates to imposter syndrome,
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: that we do all the things that are conventionally expected
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  Speaker 4: of us, including, to take your example, I'm going to
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: buy my first home. But then the bar keeps getting raised.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: It's like the goalposts keep moving. Now you've bought a home.
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  Speaker 4: Now you have to learn how to repair a pipe.
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: Now you're prepared to host people for the weekend. So
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: now you have to learn how to cook and prepare
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: food for everybody, which means you have to spend more money.
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  Speaker 1: It's like, ah!
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  Speaker 3: Reality.
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  Speaker 4: But I think where I'm going is the same as
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: with– my high school students is, what are you afraid of?
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  Speaker 4: Let's just talk about what you're afraid of. Well, I'm
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  Speaker 4: afraid of all these things that go along with buying
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: a house. Well, that makes sense. I hear you. Or
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: for one of my former students, I'm afraid of my
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: inability to really decode all these words and understand it
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: and organize it. I can't deal with this content and
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: I feel like I really am stupid. Okay, now let's
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: talk about that. And that goes back, I'm hooking this
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: back to what you said, Lisa, about neurosis way back when,
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: both of you, which is the dissonance between what consciousness
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: feels and what our feeling life has to say about it.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: The split between thinking and convention and expectations and what
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: our feelings are. And your feelings are fine. You can
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: feel anything you want to feel. And that doesn't have
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: to be the basis for making the decision.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Two things that you had said, Deb, I just want
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: to lift up that are so important with working with
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: your students is, one is, like I've mentioned a number
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: of times, puncturing the neurotic isolation. Getting the child to
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: come forward and confess, like, I really am scared of this.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: That they know they're scared of it, so it is
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: in consciousness. But they're holding it as such a secret,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: it becomes overpotent. And then the stress of that can
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: be so intense. The other thing is that, which I
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: think we have to remind the listeners, is that when
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: we think of self-sabotaging, for the most part, these things
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: are functioning under the threshold of consciousness. Yes. So we
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: really are marching along towards the house closing or to
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: the interview or getting ready to write our thesis. And
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: it feels like some external force or some mysterious ghost
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: in the works or some ghostly worker throws the wooden
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: clog into my computer and all of a sudden it
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: won't work anymore. And we're mystified. We can't really name it,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: at least not easily. And what you do with Your students,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: which is great, Deb, is trying to pull things into
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: consciousness so you and that kid can talk about it.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: And then, of course, things loosen up and change is possible.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: You're not supposed to be afraid of history class. You're
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: not supposed to be afraid of buying your first house
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: or writing your thesis. So we're not supposed to be
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: afraid of things. And we are. And it's okay.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And where I want to go with that is, Joseph,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you brought up this great word, ambivalent. And of course,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: as you've both just been saying, a lot of times
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: our ambivalence is unconscious. So just as you were saying, Joseph,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: you don't know that there is a part of you
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that doesn't want what you think you want. That may
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: be just kind of ghostly in our consciousness, just a
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: vague awareness. But I think that ambivalence is normal. We've
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: done a whole episode on ambivalence. You can go check
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: that out. But if we don't have our ambivalence and consciousness,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: just like you were saying, Deb, it can grab us
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: by the ankle and trip us as we're trying to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: move forward. So there is a real value to just
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: getting it out there. I remember I went to social
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: work school at New York University. And our first day,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: this was so great. Our first day, they passed around
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: index cards. And they said, write down on the card,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: what is the thing about social work school that you
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: are afraid of?
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And, you know, some people say, well, am I going
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to have to go into people's homes in very poor neighborhoods?
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: And I thought, well, that's a great question. What am
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I afraid of? And mine was that I won't like it.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Because for me, it was this big gamble and this
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: career change as part of, you know, hoping to become
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: a Jungian analyst. But it was just so great to
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: know that. Okay, that's there for me. I'm afraid of this.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: So I think there's something really great about that. But see,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: the thing is to risk... moving forward in life, we
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: have to take these risks. And it's sort of like,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I think one way to think about self-sabotage is how
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: comfortable it is to stay small. And oftentimes self-sabotage is
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: in the interest of keeping us small. That's another possibility.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: It's not the only one, but it's another possibility. So Joseph,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: like your example with the house, like it's a big
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: thing to become a homeowner. Oh, huge. But maybe it's
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: safer if I stay small. So I think we're sort
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: of talking about fear as a motivator for self-sabotage, and
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I think that that's a powerful one.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Again, you brush against this, Deb, which is another kind
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: of fear is imposter syndrome. When we're talking about the approach,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: when we approach the fantasy and then we realize how
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: complicated it is, the expectations and responsibilities maybe, or some
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: part of the unconscious begins to chirp about the responsibilities.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: We could be ambivalent about imposter syndrome is the fear
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: of being a fraud. Even though I've got that PhD
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: and I've got all this background, there is this inner
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: voice that tries to convince us in some very complicated
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: way that we really are fraudulent. And so staying small,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: as you were saying, Lisa, is a way of, I
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: guess in this cognitive distortion, is a way of not
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: being subject to the fantasy of humiliation. It really is
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: a fantasy, but as you were talking about the word
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: association test, we can have a humiliation complex. Maybe we
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: saw somebody humiliated. It didn't even happen. to us, but
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: we saw some kid, I don't know, pulled up in
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: front of the class and humiliated because they cheated on
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: the test or did some other thing. And then we
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: can have this expectation, well, it's just a matter of
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: time before that happens to me. I'll be exposed in
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: some horrible way. And then that begins to invade areas
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: of the inner terrain where it doesn't belong. Just as
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: you were saying, Deb, we're not supposed to necessarily feel
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: that way. But something has invaded, an atmosphere has invaded
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: that shouldn't be there.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah. There's a fear and there's also a secret.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: A secret from ourselves.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: A secret from ourselves, but what if people find out
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: that I'm really not good at this? What if people
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: find out that I'm ambivalent or I don't like it
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: and I'm supposed to like it? It's supposed to be
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: great to buy your first house. It's supposed to be
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: great to be expecting a baby.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: And that's a big one. So it's the sense that
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: there's a fear and it's a secret and it's a
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: secret from ourselves versus the terrible secret is that you
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: don't really like hitting the books and studying history and
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: geography or whatever else it is. Okay, what do you like?
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: And also, how do you do the thing that the
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: world requires of you. You don't have to like it.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: But it's probably a good thing to graduate from high school.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: You know, all in... So once the secret is out
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: and the fear of failing, how can you face the
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: task that's not so terrible? And I'm going to do
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: a pithy Jung quote here. Jung says... I no longer
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: seek the cause of a neurosis in the past, but
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: in the present. I ask, what is the necessary task
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: which the patient will not accomplish? So, you know, that
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: is all these things that you feel, and they're all legitimate.
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: And now, what about the necessary task that is in
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: your interest? and where you've been sabotaging yourself. How can
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: we get cracking on this?
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: And one of the ways into that question that you
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: brought up so well is, what is in the immediate
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: environment that the symbolic attitude can also reveal? We don't
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: always have to go into the past in order to
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: understand something. And this goes to... something that you'd also said,
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: not in the same terms, but self-handicapping. So the idea
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: that we externalize the failure, we misattribute the failure to
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: an external factor. And then one way, that's called self-handicapping
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: in a way. But that is a symbolic event that's
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: happening in present time. So what is it about the
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: train or the schedule or the train schedule that the
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: ego cannot orient to. It means something that it is
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: symbolic of something that's happening right here. Just you're saying
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: that there's a task right here in the room and
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: that the inability to engage just the task of getting
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: to the 7 a.m. train is its own task. microcosm
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: that holds the secret right there in the room.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: And this goes to taking incremental steps. So job one
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: that is not going to be a killer is get
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: up a little earlier and take the earlier bus. That
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: is actually doable, and that's a step.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: But you have to have consciousness before before you can
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: do that. I mean, I think one of the things
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: that's interesting here about self-sabotage is that you both were
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: saying you don't have to look to the past, Jung's
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: great quote. There can be a prospective function here because
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: if we think about it as a split between the
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: conscious attitude and the unconscious attitude, the self-sabotaging behaviors could
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: be could reveal the agenda of the unconscious. And in
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: that sense, it may be moving us toward individuation. It
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: might be that the conscious attitude, like I'm going to
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: go to be, I'm going to go to law school
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and be a lawyer, but that's not really what the
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: psyche wants of you. And so you sleep through the LSATs,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: you know, and it might be that that's the felix culpa,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the happy mistake. That seems like self-sabotage at the time,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: but really it gets you on a different road that
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: you needed to be on. So that's where we can,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: like you were saying, Joseph, there's meaning in this and
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: we can be curious about the meaning. I don't think
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: it's always the case that our bumbles are revealing our
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: true path. It's often a little bit more complicated than that. Joseph,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: if you don't mind, I'm thinking of your great story
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: that you've told on the podcast before about your early
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: work when you were a body worker and you just
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: weren't attending to things. So you started having that dream
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: of the intruder coming up the stairs.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, but that was more about my business. I was
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: not attending to my finances and how to run a business.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Right. And in that way, you were self-sabotaging.
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: One could say that I was serving this Catholic poverty fantasy,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: spirituality and poverty being woven into the worldview. And I
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: was doing a very good job and being holy in
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: that regard.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: So the tension there was that you had a you
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: had kind of an unconscious allegiance to this idea of
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: holy poverty, in a sense, that probably made you feel
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: safe and small.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: I think perhaps so. And protected by God by.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Not risking the.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Wrath by being avaricious.
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: Yes. And that is part of something that some of
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: the writers call moral masochism.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think so.
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Of And you take the harder, more difficult road through
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: the rocky terrain and the brambles because it is more virtuous,
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: more holy. And then when you don't have enough money
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: or your old car finally breaks down, it's not self-sabotage.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: It is, uh, the consequence of virtue. And I think it's,
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: that's a good, really good point of the moral masochism of, um,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: it's all to the good. And I'm giving myself, uh,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: to others, uh, in my, uh, what is it that
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: the monks used to wear those rough hair shirt, the
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: hair shirt, uh.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Nothing like a hair shirt.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: I've got several of them in my closet right now.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Psychological hair shirts. You know, here's where I think we're going.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Which is that when we find ourselves sabotaging ourselves, the
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: first thing is to get curious. and to wonder about
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: what's going on. Because it might be that really psyche
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: is saying you're not meant to be a lawyer, or
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: it could be that you're, you know, staying small and safe,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: or it could be, you know, a kind of childhood
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: trauma that you're in service to, or could be any
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: number of the things that we've talked about. Could be
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: just the voice of the unconscious saying, no, you know,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: that's not my plan. So the first thing to do
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: really is to have a conversation. And I think that
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: this is really a form of active imagination. Again, I
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: think we've done an episode on active imagination. It was
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: like forever ago, but I think it's out there. And
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: you can go and have a listen to that. But
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: what I would recommend is that you personify the part
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: of you that keeps on throwing your wooden clog into
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: the works. If you, let's say, have just found out
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: that you're headed toward diabetes, you have whatever those elevated
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: markers are, And you really, really need to get a
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: hold of your eating. But you just find that you
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: keep on reaching for the cupcakes.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: French fries.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: French fries.
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: Skitties.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: Confession.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Mine is cupcakes. You know, sit down and turn off
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: your phone. Close the door. get some quiet time, make
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: about 30 minutes in your day, and just let yourself
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: picture who is the kid who wants the cupcake. Or
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: maybe it's a kid, maybe it's not a kid. What
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: part of you wants the cupcake? And then have a conversation. Say, listen,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: We have a problem here. I have to stop eating
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: this French fries, Skittles, cupcakes. And you're really making it hard.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: So let's have a conversation and have a dialogue. And
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I've seen this really turn things around. I mean, it
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: still requires effort. It's still effortful to push.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Through things like this.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is. but it can be so much easier
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: when you're not on opposite teams, when you don't have,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: when you don't have a saboteur in your midst, you know,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: and you could say, look, what, what, what, okay. You,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: you want to feel, you know, cared for and you
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: want to feel like you're special and you want to
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: feel like you get a little treat. Is there another
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: way I could do that for you? Could, could I,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: could I take a 15 minute break in the middle
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: of my work day and take a walk and maybe,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: you know, buy you a cold seltzer with, Would that
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: be okay?
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: No.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: No. Absolutely not, by the way.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: You try telling a.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: Six-year-old who wants ice cream, would you like a delicious seltzer?
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: It's really hard. It is really hard. But I think
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: imaginably engaging with the inner saboteur is really the best
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: way to move forward. It's still not easy. It's not foolproof.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: It's like, Deb, what you came up with in the beginning.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: It's like, Difficult labor relation negotiations.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: Yes. And the task that needs to be accomplished. It
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: just does. That's the collision with reality is my health
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: requires this. The truth is the Skittles and the French
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: fries got to go, except for very occasionally perhaps.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: But the reality is the reality, and it may need
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: to be mourned. Boy, it's hard. It really is hard.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: That Friday after work, a burger, fries, and beer with
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: the gang. I'm going to order, what, a salad? That's hard.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: But also, the saboteur is the one who is propping
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: up the fantasy that something is not true. By that
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: I mean that I'm eating the Skittles, which proves that
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: I don't have diabetes. And if I gave up the Skittles,
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: then I would have to collapse and grieve, as you
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: were saying. I would have to grieve the fact, oh crap,
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: I really have diabetes. And not eating the Skittles is
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: one of the proofs that I have diabetes. So if
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: I attack anything that proves the reality is the reality,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: then I can keep floating in this cloud of denial
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: that the reason I can eat an entire box of
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: cupcakes is that I don't have diabetes and I did
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: eat it. And so therefore I have evidence.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: That it's really okay. That's a good, that's, so we're,
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: it's about, some of it is about denial. And I
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: think there are so many ways to at least let
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: the other side that has no other recourse but to
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: be a saboteur until we let the other side have
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: its say. And Jung says that, that we have to
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: let the unconscious have its full say. And so sometimes
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: people can journal. There's something about holding a pen in
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: your hand The eye, hand, mind, body connection can be,
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: and let that other part say whatever it wants, or
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: the other place you can really do this is out
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: loud in a very private place or in your car.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: Cars are self-enclosed little bubbles. It's pretty soundproof, and you
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: can let that part of you be angry and protest
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: and say whatever needs to be said about, I don't
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: like it, I don't want it, I wish I didn't
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: have to do it.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I really appreciate what you're saying, Deb, about
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: kind of letting that part have its feeling because it
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: might be, as we've been saying and you've said again
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: and again today, it might be fear. I'm really afraid.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: And maybe it was a fear we didn't know we
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: had before, like I'm afraid of what it might be
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: like to own a house. I thought I wanted a house,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: but now... wow, that's really pretty scary. You know, what,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: what will that mean? Like letting that little part of us,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: that young part of us feel afraid and say, I'm
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: afraid I'm scared. And then, and then being able to say, oh, wow,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: you know, have some compassion, have compassion for the part
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: of us that's afraid and saying, yeah, gosh, I bet
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: you're afraid. That makes a lot of sense. And, you know,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: and I, I think we can handle this or whatever
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: it is, but letting yourself really have those conversations can
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: be helpful.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: Another saboteur element I just want to throw out is
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: fear of rejection or abandonment. Because often when we are
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: on the verge of some kind of a success or
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: attaining the goal, it implies a change. And that for
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: many of us, there is an unconscious fantasy that we
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: will be in some way unacceptable to the people around us.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: One really powerful part of self-sabotage is the fear of envy.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: Exactly. If I get the great big job and no
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: one in my family has had a job at that level,
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: that I will be then subject to kind of envious
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: attack of one kind or another, or I'll be isolated.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm the only one with a great big
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: house and my And they won't, won't show up. They
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: won't visit me because it's somehow provocative to them that
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: they have less and I have more or that literally
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: will be abandoned because we've attained something. And the sad
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: thing is that sometimes that actually happens.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: So we've seen it maybe in other people's lives or
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: we've experienced trying to negotiate that in very small ways.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: leading up to what might be a really substantive success
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: that we're on the verge of. Being an object of
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: envy is a very painful, scary thing.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: But again, I think that bringing it to consciousness, then
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: at least we know what we're dealing with.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Exactly. There's a way out of it. But the inner saboteur, again,
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: can be the one who thinks that they are the
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: inner protector.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: They don't think they're sabotaging you. Mm-hmm. they think they're
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: trying to pull you out of the highway because you're
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: about to get hit by the envy of a bunch
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: of people, which is going to be annihilated.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that we haven't brought
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: up is self-sabotage and dreams. And I think there's a
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: couple of relevant things here. One is that the way
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: that we self-sabotage may be shown to us in dreams.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: So our tendency to kind of always get in our
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: own way may be one of the things that dreams
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: could show us. I'm just trying to come up with
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: a good example. But Joseph, you had the experience where
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: the dream offered the medicine to your self-sabotage, and you
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: kept on shooting him in the head.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Right. It was break. Often in nightmares, the solution is
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: pursuing us, which may not necessarily be the solution to self-sabotage,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: but it could very well be.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: The thing that's hunting us in the street or breaking
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: into the house or the thing roaring at us initially,
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: the monster, is the thing that we won't know, can't know,
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: refuse to know, and yet is the medicine that we need,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: which was true for me. I needed some just very
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: salty advice on surviving in a difficult world.
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, these... These chase dreams of something pursuing us or
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: something is rustling in the woods, something is coming up
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: the stairs. I think almost everybody has had a dream
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: like that. And the other category of dreams I think
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: that almost everybody has had are school dreams of I'm
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: in high school or college or anywhere and I'm driving
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: to school I've had this dream. I'm driving to this school,
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: and it's the exam, and then all of a sudden
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: I go, oh, my God, I totally forgot to take
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: the class. I never even, how could I have done that?
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: And my dream ego is in a dither scrambling for
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: a parking space, and then I realize, I don't even
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: know what room the class is in. I can't even
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: show up for the exam and hope to somehow wind
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: my way through it because I have no idea where
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: the class is. And then it's at that point with
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: these multiple iterations of not being able to, you should
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: pardon the pun, make the grade, that I wake up
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: and go, and the question is, well, Where in my
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: life is this happening? What is this dream symbolizing? And
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: all kinds of people have had this dream of not
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: succeeding at a required class or a job requirement. You're
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: going to be promoted. It's the party. You're dressed in
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: jeans and flip-flops. There are a million variations.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: One more thing I just want to toss out. I
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: know we're finishing up soon. One of the self-saboteur dynamics
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: can be caused by the too-good mother or the too-good father.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: And that it's so pleasurable to be in that child complex.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: It's so pleasurable to receive the support and care from
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: another person. which could literally be the parents, but sometimes
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: it's a parental substitute, but it's so yummy, and that
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: if we were to take a big step upward, becoming
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: more successful in one way or another, that would also
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: carry an expectation that we are now increasingly independent, that
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: we are now a self-feeding system. And that means that
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: we'd have to give up something that might have been
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: intensely pleasurable.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Or at least comforting or feel safe.
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: So independence or, or sabotaging independence, we get attention support.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: It's at the cost of personal growth.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: Sometimes that milk is so sweet that it's, we don't
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: know how to get off the teat, so to speak.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm really, really glad you brought that up
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: because I think that, that, That is a real dynamic
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: that we see pretty often. And yeah, that it feels,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: you know, I know someone who if you ask him
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: to unload the dishwasher, he will make sure he does
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: it wrong so that you never ask him to do
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: it again. And some of us can live our lives
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: like that, you know, where we make sure that we're
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: never very competent so that not much is ever asked
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: of us.
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: I also think that, graduations are part of this, then
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: there you are, regardless of what kind of background or parenting.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: Chances are you had a roof over your head and
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: meals on the table, and now it's a wonderful thing. Congratulations,
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: here's your diploma, and off you go, whether it's high school, college,
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: graduate school, Ph.D., And it's like, I don't know how
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: to navigate this. And I've known a couple of PhD
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: people where you're in the alma mater, the all good
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: or beneficent mother. And then there is the harder world of,
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: and what exactly are your job prospects? And the world
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: is big and we are small and it activates exactly
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: that complex of This is scary, which I personally think
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: is the root of self-sabotage. And the question is, what
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: are you scared of? And to be, as you said, Lisa,
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: to be curious, to just get interested in that.
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: And this comes back to, Lisa, your suggestion about active imagination,
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: that sometimes in that deep meditative state, we have to
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: call into the darkness and be like, who's scared in there?
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: Or who's hiding?
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, who's hiding?
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: Jump out and scare me in one way or another.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's important to not go in there and say,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: all right, who's been fucking up my plans? That's not
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: the right attitude. The right attitude is, hey, who's in there?
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: What's going on? I really want to hear.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: Or what I sometimes say is, it's great if you
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: can have a friendly attitude. It's really great. But if
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: you can't, at least you can say, okay, we need
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: to sit down. We need to get it on. Come on.
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: Talk to me. Show me what you got. Spit it out.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: Let's deal. A matter-of-fact attitude can be perfectly okay.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Okay. But you want to be open to learning from
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: that other part. Like the ego attitude actually might be wrong.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Even if, even if there are things you have to do,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: like stop eating Skittles. Joseph, do you really love Skittles?
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: I do. I don't know.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, I, I like have, I never like crack,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: you know, like this is companies, they're crunchy and then they're,
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: tangy and then they're sour and they're sweet and it's
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: so i'm sure it's a metaphor for something.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: I think you're just on the payroll.
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: I am on the payroll and there's a link you
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: can click at the bottom to order skittles from our
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: affiliate program with skittles.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Or listeners can send you Skittles at the following address.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Oh, gosh. Yes. Thank you.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: No.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: Merry Christmas.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: But, you know, sometimes we have to do things, but
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: we should assume that there's some wisdom there. In that
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: part of us that is causing the sabotage. Sometimes there's
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: a lot. Sometimes that's where all the wisdom is, and
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: we really need to get that part. But sometimes there's
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: at least a little wisdom there. There's always at least
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: a little.
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: But there's an intelligence in what's happening. It's not random chaos.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: Right, exactly.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: There's a secret order to our suffering. Yes, and so
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: what is that? What is that other thing that we
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: need to know? from this part of us that doesn't
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: have other words to speak, and so it's just throwing
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: a wrench in the works for us, or a shoe,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: as it were.
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: Right, those wooden shoes.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: The last thing I just wanted to toss out, which is,
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: I think, a sadder piece of the Inner Saboteur, is
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: that it's highly correlated with a disorganized attachment style.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: So for those, I know attachment styles have gotten a
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: lot of interest, and you see all kinds of stuff
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: on TikTok and YouTube about attachment styles right now. So
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: a disorganized attachment style happens when the baby is caught
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: between being anxiously attached, which is feeling abandoned, and wanting
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: to be soothed, wanting more from the caregiver. And then
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: the dismissive attachment style, which is when the caregiver actually
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: does show up, the experience that the child has is
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: often enough negative. So maybe they get fed, but they
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: get fed in a way that feels bad. Or maybe
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: they get scolded for crying. So they're crying out because
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: they have a lot of need, but when something arrives
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: to meet the need, They pull away because they're not
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: sure if it's going to wind up feeling bad. So
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: when that becomes universalized, it catches us in a kind
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: of impossible tension that I really want the new job,
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: but when the new job arrives, it's going to probably
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: make me feel miserable. And that can be something that's
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: established very, very early. The advantage, perhaps, if it's true
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: that this is based on the attachment style, we can
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: find this similar dynamic played out in many, many circumstances.
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: And instead of attributing it to the job, or attributing
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: it to the disappointing restaurant, or the third person that
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: disappointed you on the date, or the multiple relationships that
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: I shied away from, by placing it in this confusion
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: in the early childhood, sometimes that can liberate us because
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: we realize that it's a kind of phantom that we
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: continue to distribute in circumstances where it no longer applies.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: I'm not a baby. I can get my needs met
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: and I can even make sure that the thing that
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: I take in is in fact really pleasurable for me.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to be subject to awful experiences in
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: many circumstances that I fear it. And that when I'm
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: anxious for contact, I can do something about it. I'm
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: not a totally passive baby anymore. So sometimes realizing that
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: we're projecting that really early, struggle can remind us that
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: we have choices now we could not have possibly had
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: when we were four months old. And that can be,
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: over time, very freeing.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: That's a great point.
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: I think some of it, too, is just very, very human.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: that if I succeed at this, I'm just going to
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: get more. And then after I do that, I'm going
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: to get more and then more. So I will have
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: household and responsibilities and parental responsibilities and work responsibilities and
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: the list of burdens and responsibilities and duties and musts
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: just grows and grows and grows.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: And I think some of there's a legitimate protest about,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: you know, wait a minute, you actually can have satisfactions
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: in life. And just what you were saying, Joseph, there's
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: something you can do about it. There are decisions you
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: can make. It doesn't have to be, you know, somehow,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: you know, just getting on a train of responsibilities and
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: duties and an ever-increasing load. Life is supposed to be,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: on the whole, it is supposed to have goodness and rewards.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: It won't just be one task after another.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: And I think when we're dealing with this very deep,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: deep part of the psyche, I think Freud had this
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: nailed when he talked about the pleasure principle. Mm-hmm. One
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: of the things when we approach certain changes and possibilities
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: is that we're having a hard time sensing that the
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: attainment will be pleasurable. And just that one piece that
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: I think that if we can gain some legitimate sense
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: of the pleasure that is possible or likely in the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: new thing, we might be able to free up a
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: little crack, a little place to slip through and grant
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: ourselves the pleasurable new thing. And often when we're self-sabotaging,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: the possibility that the new thing will be pleasurable is
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: very far away from us.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really great point. I think that's helpful. Yeah,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: maybe even let yourself enjoy it in the imagination. Kind
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: of let yourself have a fantasy about it and really
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: enjoy it and taste its sweetness and know that you
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: can get there. And with that, maybe it's a good
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: idea to switch to a dream. Jung said that dreams
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: are the guiding words of the soul. Dream School is
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: our 12-month self-paced online program that teaches you how to
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: understand these important messages from the unconscious. We break down
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: the essential skills, teach you how to apply them, and
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: offer opportunities for practice. You can become part of a
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: vibrant community, join a dream group, or share your dream
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: with other students. There are monthly live Q & As
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: with Joseph, a chance for one-on-one time with Deb in
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: her office hours, and monthly dream seminars with me, Lisa.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Visit our website, thisjungianlife.com, to learn more or sign up.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: Our dreamer today is 24 years old. She is a
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: woman who's a former consultant and an aspiring artist. And
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: the title of her dream is My Husband's Ex-Girlfriend. And
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: here's the dream. I meet with my husband's ex-girlfriend, who
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: he has no contact with in real life. We're cordial
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: with each other. She asks me if I am envious,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: and I say that I envy my husband's childhood. He
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: was free to pursue his interests and speak his mind.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: I ask her if she is sad about breaking up
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: with my husband, and she says they're just friends. Later,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: she and her aunt try to kill my husband and
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: I by tricking us to take an Uber to an
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: empty field. We thought we were going to a restaurant,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: but the Uber driver has been co-opted into their plan.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: The ex-girlfriend and the aunt smile innocently at us, and
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: we realize we are tricked. For context, she says, I
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: recently got married. and transitioned careers from a consultant to
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: an aspiring artist. Both me and my husband's ex-girlfriend are
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: creative people who grew up with extremely controlling mothers. The
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: main feelings in the dream, she says, I feel relaxed,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: then naive, then terrified. like there were dark forces at
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: play which I had no idea how to understand. And
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: for additional context, she says, my husband's ex-girlfriend was an
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: accomplished artist, but gave up her dream when her mother
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: stopped her. I rebelled against my mom as a teenager
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: and am only now beginning my creative journey. My husband
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: has frequently remarked on the similarities of temperament and upbringing.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: Both immigrant families in the United States.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that strikes me right
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: off the bat is when we recorded our bonus content
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: this week, which you can access if you're a patron.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: We had this beautiful dream that was just like a
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: perfect anima dream. Yeah. And this is just a really
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: good example of a shadow dream. So, you know, that's
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: the thing that jumps out to me is we have,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of a classic configuration here. We have
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: possibly the animus figure and her husband, although it could
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: also be, you know, a dream that has some validity
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: on the objective level, something about her actual relationship with
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: her husband. But if we're looking at it archetypally, the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: husband might be an image of animus and the ex-girlfriend
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: is an image of shadow. And it's interesting that they're
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: alike because that is usually the case with the shadow.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, one of the versions of shadow is kind
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: of a doppelganger. So this ex-girlfriend is kind of a doppelganger.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: And well, I'm going to stop there and let you
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: guys run with it. But I'm sure I'll circle back.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that to me that the the key
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: in the dream is all about envy yes just how
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: powerful and problematic envy is and envy of the husband
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: so i would imagine that the aunt and the ex-girlfriend
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: are representing that envious part of her psyche and and
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: really bringing it into consciousness in such a powerful way
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: that Envy has such a murderous dimension to it. It
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: can kill our good feelings towards our spouse. It can
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: kill off the sense that we have anything good inside ourselves.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: It has such a terrible, spoiling energy in it, and
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: it seems like the unconscious really wants the dreamer to
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: understand just how. how negative and how destructive envy can be.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: And I suppose if that can be integrated, there might
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: be a strong motivation to kind of get to the
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: root of that and maybe make some progress or bring
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: it into consciousness at the very least.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: I think there is envy of the dreamer, at least
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: in the dreamer's imagination. of the ex-girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend was
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: an accomplished artist, but gave up her dream when her
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: mother stopped her. And our dreamer says, I was rebellious.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: And she is now transitioning careers to become an artist,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: which can feel transgressive. If you've grown up in a
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: family where the emphasis might have been on doing practical
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: income-earning pursuits, that's what it takes. And now our dreamer
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: is pursuing her artistic dream, which is psychologically somewhat transgressive,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: even though becoming an artist is hardly transgressive in and
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: of itself. And now in the psyche, the shadow figure
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: is there feeling envious of the dream ego, as well
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: as the husband who grew up in a supportive family.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: He was free to pursue his interests. And so the
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: punishment is not only the ex-girlfriend, but together with her aunt,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: there are two female figures who... are tricking them to
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: abandon them. It feels like a Hansel and Gretel story
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: of the ex-girlfriend and the aunt are taking them out
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: into the woods, as it were.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: I really had a different take on this dream, actually,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: than either of you. Okay. I mean, first of all,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: I will say just kind of, I don't know, for
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: a little framing, that situation where we're interfered with pursuing
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: our interests as a young person can be very difficult
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: and even tragic. But there are sometimes ways where it
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: works paradoxically. where because our parents were like, no, you'll
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: not be an artist, that fires us up even more.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: Or we come to it with a sort of vigor
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: that we might not have had if they'd been like
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: from the time we were four, like, oh, you're so talented,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: you know? So I just want to say like sometimes
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: things are just in general not that straightforward. But specifically
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: in the dream, here's what I see is, you know,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: shadow figures usually bring something forward that we're not quite
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: conscious of. And so it's always a bit of a
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: challenge to the ego. And in this dream, the dream
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: ego thinks she's being taken to a nice restaurant. She
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: thinks it's going to be this kind of comfortable experience,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: but instead she's taken to an empty field.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: Where she's going to have to work to make anything happen.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Yes. Maybe where she's going to have to work, but
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: there's going to be some kind of, um, You know,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: the idea of an empty field, it's like, wow, you know,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: an empty sheet of paper or, you know. Exactly. I mean,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: she thinks she's being killed, but as you like to
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: point out, Joseph, there's actually no evidence of that. There's no,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not like someone's there with a chainsaw.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're just taken to an empty field. And
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: by the way, I think the Uber driver is a
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: super interesting character, right? Because he's this slightly, you know,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: kind of nefarious but indistinct figure who's driving her.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: So we've just talked about self-sabotage. What's driving her to
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: the empty field? And what is she going to learn there?
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: Because I think the shadow is bringing her there for
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: a confrontation. She thinks that she's going to have a
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: certain kind of experience. And she's 24. To transition to
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: a full-time artist at 24, that's like, wow. Maybe she
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: thinks she's going to have a certain kind of experience.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: But really, the unconscious is saying, oh, no. It's going
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: to be something else. It may be something else really
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: quite wonderful, but it's not exactly what you think. And
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: it may not be as sort of on the surface
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: pleasant as a nice restaurant. It might be much more
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: important than that. So that's sort of what I was
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: getting from the dream.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: No, I think you're there. I think that for her,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: being an artist is in some way, she thought, Related
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: to kind of being the divine child.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: That she's going to be fed delicious food, just like
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: her husband was supported. She has some idealistic view of
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: him receiving all this wondrous support. Again, she envies being
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: the divine child. She hopes she'll be returned to that.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: And then she discovers, as we always do, particularly in
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: the adult world, it's a lot of work, a lot
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: of disappointment being a commercial artist. And it's a big
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: blank canvas, like you said. It's not a cushy five-star
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: Michelin restaurant. It's an empty field. And by the way,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: here's a hoe and here's a plow. And we'll come
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: back in a year and see what you can grow.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: And that feels like death to the ego.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: Because the ego has its plan of how it's going
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: to go.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: You know, it ties in so well with what we
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: were talking about as ambivalence.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: Of what if the dream comes true? You got your
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: dream and now you're an artist. And I like the
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: analogy between the empty field and the blank piece of
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: paper or a canvas on an easel of that. Everything
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: will be coming from you of your own generative powers
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: and creativity and the that dealing with those feelings of like, yikes,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: now what do I do?
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: And I definitely think that there's something here about the
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: negative mother because that is a major thing that she
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: has in common with this other woman. And so somehow
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: part of what has to be confronted or dealt with
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: is this negative mother that you think you've dealt with,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: because you were rebellious in your teen years or whatever, but,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: but really she may be operating in there still in
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: a way that's affecting you and, and your ability. And
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: so it might be that you're going to go out
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: to this field and yeah, you're going to have a
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: confrontation with this kind of, and then on to, you know,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: sort of a relative to the mother maybe. So maybe
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: that's kind of a mother figure.
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: So it could be a bit of a Cinderella thing.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: It's like, you think you're going to the ball, you
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: wind up in a field, And it's like, you know,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: scrub the fields here, weed 10 acres by tomorrow, or else,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: you know, we're going to kill you. So there's, and
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: it is possible that that's a vestigial memory, that when
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: she did want to be creative or she wanted freedom
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: to pursue things, it's possible that her mother would kind
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: of sweep in and say, well, you know, that's silly.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: So you should be over here and doing your chores,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: let's say. And so there can be a kind of, um,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: Protestant work ethic that can weave itself into a childhood
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: where play is seen as somehow highly negative.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, enjoyment.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: Being industrious is the only really good thing. And that
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: can definitely put the kibosh on a creative spirit, which,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: by the way, the creative spirit is something that Jung
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: wrote about and did identify very explicitly with the divine child.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: You know, what's coming up for me around the mother stuff, though,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: is something maybe a little more subtle, because if somehow
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: being an artist is about rebelling against mom, that's not
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: enough of a place for it to come from.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: So part of manifesting this life as an artist might
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: be coming to terms with what was there with mom
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: and kind of putting that to bed which is you
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: know not an easy task especially when we're 24 we're
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: still often working a lot of that stuff out but
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: it's like yeah mom wasn't very supportive but i really
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: don't need to let that stop me like it doesn't
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: have to be about that anymore you know and uh
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: so that's that's sort of my the thing that my
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: my imagination is playing with but um Yeah, it's a
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: really interesting dream.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: There's that feeling, the rebelling, and what we talked about
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: earlier about envy versus being able to relax a little
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 4: bit into the enjoyment that was perhaps transgressive in childhood.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: As you were saying, Joseph, no, no, no. Come over
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 4: here and get cracking on some chores. But to really
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: appreciate and affirm and that it is okay, those inner
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: sensors don't have to be there any longer, and you
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: can have and enjoy the good thing. It's very hard
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 4: to relax and enjoy the good thing if you've been
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 4: told it's transgressive. There's a lot of inner doubt and
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: is it really okay? And sometimes guilt, which we haven't
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 4: folded into the mix yet. I'm the one that has
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: the things that my family of origin never had. They
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 4: had it hard. Life is supposed to be hard. And
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: now my life isn't. And am I being disloyal to
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: my family of origin? And there's a lot that can
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: come up before you can say to yourself with a
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: whole heart of, wow, I'm on a wonderful, rewarding, generative path.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 4: And I appreciate it.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:18:05
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• 1:18:10
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• 1:18:13
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