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Demure Social Media Trend: Elegant or Oppressive? · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello, I wanted to let you know about a special
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• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Welcome to this Jungian life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
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  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Hi, everybody. We've been paying a little bit of attention
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: to the trending ideas in social media, search engines, and
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: we just kind of stumbled along a particular term, demure,
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: that just seemed to be showing up everywhere. It's connected
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: to a particular influencer here and there. But it caused
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: us to just wonder, why is that concept seem so
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: attractive in the collective? Why is it that people want
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: to talk about demure? And we thought we would take
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: a Jungian perspective and and unpack that to surmise, why
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: would that suddenly become valuable?
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: And I think it's an interesting phenomenon, right, that suddenly
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: something gets taken up, and it's a little bit inexplicable
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: sort of why or how it happens, why this, why now. And,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: you know, Jung did this with a different trend before
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: social media when people started reporting UFOs.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: So people all over the world, I think most many
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: of them in the United States, of course, because we're
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the nuttiest bunch. But many people all over the world
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: were reporting seeing UFOs. And this would have been like
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: sort of after World War II, the Cold War in
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the 1950s, I think when he wrote that article. And
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: he writes this brilliant essay, which we've talked about in
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a prior episode about UFOs. And the way he understood
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: it is, an archetype has been constellated. And I think
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that there's something moving in the culture that's informed by
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the collective unconscious that's giving expression to something that needs
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: to be brought forward. And usually that thing compensates something
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: that's missing in the collective. So we wanted to sort
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of do that same thing tonight with this interest in
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: demure So.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Just for people that might not be familiar with the term,
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: because it is kind of old-fashioned, in general, if somebody
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: is thought to be demure, they seem calm, they seem settled,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: perhaps mature or fully grown. The word demure comes from
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: a Latin that simply means something that is ripe, full, grounded,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: It's come to mean something about good manners, being reserved.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: And perhaps when it's excessive, it can mean coy. But
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  Speaker 3: it's an ancient term, which means that it's a quality
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: that human beings have noticed in each other, either being
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: present or being absent. And there are certain cultures and
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: time periods where where being demure was an expectation, and
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: that particularly women would often be encouraged to be more subtle,
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: more good-mannered, more receding in a way.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, I think
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: one of the interesting things about the phenomenon of it
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: getting kind of picked up, and for those of you
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: who maybe aren't so aware, it's very popular now on TikTok.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: And there's even brands that are picking it up and
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  Speaker 1: making it part of their marketing. One of the questions is,
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  Speaker 1: is it sort of ironic? You know, are people saying,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: you know, being demure is good? Or is it sort
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: of tongue in cheek and sarcastic? I don't even know
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that anyone really knows. It's just the nature of this
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  Speaker 1: that it's touched something off. But of course, part of
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the problem with the concept of demure is that I
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: think it's really only ever applied to women. And so
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  Speaker 1: there is this sense of a kind of regressive expectation
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  Speaker 1: of feminine, you know, being sort of retiring and pure and,
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  Speaker 1: you know, self-possessed and not showy, self-effacing even perhaps. So
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  Speaker 1: that's sort of a, I'm going to say kind of
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  Speaker 1: like a problematic aspect of it, that it seems to imply,
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  Speaker 1: if you're lifting it up, it seems to imply that
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  Speaker 1: you have a certain standard of behavior for women. Although
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I will say that as a lover of Victorian literature
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: and also Jane Austen, this is a quality that is
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  Speaker 1: very common that this is, this is a value of
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  Speaker 1: Victorian society, right? But it is a value for men
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  Speaker 1: as well as women. It's just that it might be
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a different word used for men. So for example, I mean,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: I said Victoria, but now I'm thinking of Austin, like,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I just finished rereading Emma, which was just
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: so fun. And, and, and then Emma, there are these
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: two men, right? There's, um, Frank Churchill, and then there's Mr. Knightley.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And Frank Churchill is not particularly demure. He's a little showy.
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  Speaker 1: He's not necessarily, he's very charming, but he steps out
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: of line a few times and he's very flirtatious with
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Emma in a way that's kind of off-putting. And ultimately,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: although Emma enjoys it in the beginning, later she's like, wow,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: he's kind of a He's kind of a jerk, you know?
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: And it's Mr. Knightley who is, I think, what we
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: could call the masculine version of demure. Not that he's
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: retiring and self-effacing. He's definitely not. But he is very modest.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: He doesn't put himself forward a lot. He's not attention-seeking.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that the value is completely absent
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  Speaker 1: for men, but there are some shades of demure as
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: a word. that carry with it sort of, I would say,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: a regressive expectation for women.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: And what I would suggest is we've kind of blended
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: two worlds as we do. Sorry if I took us off.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: It's okay. Well, we started with the idea of when
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: something just pops up in the culture where no one's
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: really been talking about it. It's somehow been under the ground.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: And then we look and provide a historic perspective that
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: when Demure was a very conscious woman, and that people
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: were monitored for the behavior. Anytime that happens, then it
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: becomes a problem because it becomes a restraint. What if
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  Speaker 3: I'm not demure? Or what if I'm born in a
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  Speaker 3: family where I'm expected to be on stage all the
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: time and I wish I was demure. But as soon
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  Speaker 3: as this society begins to set anything up as a standard,
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  Speaker 3: sooner or later it's going to become a cage to
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: certain people for sure.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Well, but it's interesting though. And I think like worth
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: maybe a different podcast is like, does it make sense
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: for society to have standards? Because like, yes, it's going
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: to become a cage and we probably need to have
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: some standards, which in a way, I mean, I think
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that's a whole separate conversation, but in a way it
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: does relate, I think, to why I'm thinking this concept
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  Speaker 1: has touched something in the collective at this time, because
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the ethos of our moment is that being very expressive,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: putting yourself out there in a very loud and showy
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  Speaker 1: way has been rewarded on social media. I mean, as
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: a older person, sort of a Gen X, I, I
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: am sort of shocked at how many younger people just
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: share really personal parts of their lives online all the
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  Speaker 1: time for everyone to see. And it's, clearly that window
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  Speaker 1: has shifted around what we consider personal, right? And people
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  Speaker 1: are putting things that I think of as very private
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  Speaker 1: online in a kind of casual way and in some
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  Speaker 1: sense the louder and more demonstrative and more attention seeking
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  Speaker 1: you are the more you are rewarded and and it
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  Speaker 1: could be that this is a compensation for that saying
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  Speaker 1: maybe it's time to be a little more self-contained.
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  Speaker 3: Yes. I think that certainly when we look at extremes,
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  Speaker 3: so if we think about what's the opposite of demure, flamboyant, exhibitionistic, ostentatious, garrulous, historic, historic,
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  Speaker 3: attention seeking, extravagant. And, and, um, in terms of capturing attention,
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  Speaker 3: either just within your social group, but certainly fighting to
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  Speaker 3: capture the attention of the collective, that's a technique. To
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: be really overdone in one way or another gets people's attention,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: which goes to what you were saying about histrionic traits.
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  Speaker 3: Is it often the histrionic personality style is fighting to
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  Speaker 3: be noticed because their feeling states or their needs were
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  Speaker 3: not attended to. And so they developed a trait of
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: exaggerating their style of communication as a way of being
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  Speaker 3: known because whoever's taking care of them is not really
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: understanding or even seeing what they need. But here we
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: were talking about a collective process. So absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: That there's a kind of cultural value that's been in
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  Speaker 1: play that has kind of promoted a certain sort of brashness,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: let's say.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So I think back to the podcast we did on
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  Speaker 3: the dark side of Aphrodite, that there's an enormous pressure
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  Speaker 3: to be an Aphrodite and to put everything out there
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  Speaker 3: and that being seductive and extravagant and flamboyant, wearing a
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  Speaker 3: lot of makeup, being sexy and flashy and showy, that
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  Speaker 3: that's where all the good stuff is. And that that
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  Speaker 3: can be an enormous pressure and a very unfair pressure
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  Speaker 3: on young women. They'll despair at the pressure of having
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  Speaker 3: to look like Venus. So something else comes forward and says, hey,
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  Speaker 3: wait a minute. What about the compensatory side where you're
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  Speaker 3: not worried about what your hair looks like? where you're
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: not worried about whether or not you're going to stop
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  Speaker 3: traffic with the outfit that you're wearing. Maybe if we
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: found an attitude that would allow us at least sometimes
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: to cast all of that off and to be quieter,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: more subtle, and perhaps even subtly elegant even, what's that like?
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Is there any benefit to that? And I think just
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: as we were saying, curiosity about that seems to have
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  Speaker 3: taken hold if for no other reason it's given people
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: a term, even just a language for what the opposite
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: of the pressure to have to, as you were saying,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: be so flamboyant all the time.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: You know, I want to pick up on that because
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: you just made something connect and it's a little provocative,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to just throw it out there. So,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: you know, this idea about the male gaze is I mean,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's a real thing, right? And it's just
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: sort of the way it is. Men are very visually
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: cued when it comes to sexual response, more so in
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: general than women. And so, you know, men are looking
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: at women and having a response to a way a
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: woman looks. And as a woman... You can respond in
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: all kinds of ways to that. You can invite it
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and sort of glory in it. And there's nothing wrong
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: with that. But it's like, well, they're all looking at me.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: So let me enjoy that power. Let me put on
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that traffic stopping outfit and kind of feel the power
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: of that. Or you can sort of feel frightened and
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: hide yourself. which is also understandable, but perhaps the idea
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: of demure is sort of a response to that. Like
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I could choose to know that I could choose to
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: know that I'm being gazed at and I could respond
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  Speaker 1: to it with a kind of agency where I neither
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: reject it, you know, and sort of hide. I'm not
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: wearing like baggy sweat clothes or, but nor am I
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: opening myself up to it, but I'm maybe kind of
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: responding in a way that feels like I have control
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: over it or something like that. I mean, like I said,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: it just occurred to me, I haven't worked it out,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: but it occurs to me that there might be something there.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: What came to mind as you were speaking is, if again,
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: a young woman or girl has felt an enormous pressure
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: to take on an Aphrodite-y I'm flamboyance. And then she acknowledges,
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: I feel uncomfortable. I feel like I have to present
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: myself this way, but I'm getting a lot of attention
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: that I feel ambivalent about. The introduction of demure also
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: reminds people that there are other choices. Choices of how
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: to present oneself, choices of how to respond, choices, choices,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: all kinds of choices. that we're not trapped, and whether
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: it's avoiding attention, unwanted attention, or for any other reason.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: So I love, and there's, being Aphrodite or Demure, I
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: might say, is Hestia. Being Aphrodite or Hestia are only
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: still two options. Or would it be Artemis? I was
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: wondering about that, because Artemis is so dynamic and bold,
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: and the Demure seemed rather quiet. And so maybe it
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: may not be the best.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I can see that.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: It's a quietness and the calmness of the hearth fire
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: and privacy.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think, I
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: think that's interesting because demure, I think can certainly mean
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: like you said, coy and kind of flirtatious, which is
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: definitely not Artemis.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: But Artemis is like, I don't even care about sexuality.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Certainly not with you. You know, she's, She's a sworn virgin,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and there's some indication that she has female lovers, but
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: she's definitely not interested in men. And that could almost
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: be a form of demure, too. But like you're saying,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: demure also kind of carries this flavor of it's a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: little bit kind of flirtatious, so in a quiet way.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. But the idea of pulling back, not being big.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: I think what you're saying with Artemis and Diana is
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: they're rejecting anything about being attractive to the opposite gender,
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: that she is just her own person doing what she wants.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: And when Actaeon kind of stumbles into the sacred circle,
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: he's taken down. Yeah. So there's this fierce... a privacy
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: that she is entitled to and enforces for sure.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And so that story is that Actaeon spies her bathing.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: And when she recognizes that he's out, I should say,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: he's out hunting with his dogs. When Artemis realizes that
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: he's seen her bathing, she turns him into a stag
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: and his own dogs kill him. So that's a bummer
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: for Actaeon.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up this other idea of enantiodromia,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: which is this idea that Jung talked about a lot.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And he said it's kind of a law of the
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: psyche that one thing eventually goes so far in one
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: way that it kind of becomes its opposite. And I
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: wonder if that's, again, another way to think about what's
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: happening now with our sudden interest in this term. That
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: we've for so long, you know, it's almost like in
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the world of social media anyway, you almost couldn't be
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: too flamboyant. You know, if you think about those viral
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: things that happen like where teenagers are eating Tide Pods
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: or whatever.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like these sort of extreme things that
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: people do for attention.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: Outrageous.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Outrageous. You know, it's like there's no limit to it.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: But has that sort of kind of almost kind of
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: become its opposite where it's like now we're going to
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: be very understated.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Distrained. Yeah. So just, I can hear because we're such amplifiers,
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: you know, here on the podcast, just to kind of
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: relax things into a little tighter circle. The phenomena as
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: it's showing up is this value of emphasizing modesty and restraint,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: understated elegance. And the advocates of this as a, it's
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: not quite a social movement, but of the style. A trend.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: A trend, thank you. To be consciously subdued and to
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: avoid overt displays of wealth, sexuality, or emotion. So it's
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: a trend. It's not a rule. No one's being pushed
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: into it. Just as you're saying, There's a certain kind
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: of psychic hygiene to it.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there is.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: When we talk about the collective, we're fantasizing that there
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: is some kind of a gigantic mind that we all
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: somehow participate in. Jung called it the grand man, Adam Kadmon,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: that there's an archetypal human psyche and that we are
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: like little parts of the greater psyche.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: So again, we needed as a collective to cast off
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: a lot of things that were suffocating. And that allows
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: us to be extravagant in our experimentation, in all realms,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: by the way. And so for this to be showing up,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: particularly in the feminine psyche, and has become now a
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: stylistic trend, this option, again, of understated elegance and modesty
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: doesn't it doesn't seem surprising and it doesn't seem injurious either.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: So there's a, there's a something I want to move
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: into that is a little, um, I think it's big
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and I want your help with that. Cause I think
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you can really speak to it. And the idea is
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: containment and containment as a psychological principle and, and even
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: with its link to alchemy. So I'm going to sort
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: of plant that seed, but before I kick it back
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: over to you, what I want to say is, um,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: jane ayers this book that i've loved since i was
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: young and you know at some point i don't know
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: some guy broke up with me and i was like
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: sloppy sad you know what i mean and i'm i'm
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: talking a long time ago you know this made my
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: early 20s elegant.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: And fashionably sad.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: That would be the goal that's the goal right.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: But I was not fashionably sad then, you know, I was,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: I was really feeling sorry for myself. And I don't
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: think I, I'm not, I'm not saying I, you know,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: sort of did anything terribly cringe, but, but I certainly
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: had an impulse to do some very cringy things.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And I, and I remember being really aware of like
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the different sensibility portrayed in Jane Eyre, of course, which
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: is a novel and it's even has some really fantastical elements.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: So it's not like I wanted to like model my
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: life after Jane Eyre, but.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I was aware that there was something in it that
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I was very, very different. And I'm thinking it's kind
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: of related to this. I mean, Jane gets left at
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the altar, basically. And she doesn't indulge in self-pity. Maybe
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that's where I'm going. And maybe that's related to demure
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: or not. But it seems to me like there's something
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: about that. What made me think about this is what
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: you said a minute ago about sort of psychic hygiene.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: She gets dumped at the altar. She, you know, sort
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of sits around and is numb for a little bit.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And then she, you know, packs up her shit and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: gets out of there. She does. Well, it's a little
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: bit more than that, but she does the right thing, right?
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: She doesn't, She doesn't wring her hands. She doesn't feel
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: sorry for herself. She just does the next right thing.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And that was so far from where I was when
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I was however old I was, 18 or something, and
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: feeling terribly sorry for myself. But I can remember sort
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: of feeling called to try to do something a little
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: different by holding in mind that response. And I think
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: there's something. So again, I'm putting that under the bracket
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: of containment now. And like when faced with a hardship,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: can you practice containment? And I don't know if you
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: would agree, Joseph, that that falls under this category of demure,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: but something came up for me.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: When we were just briefly talked about the etymology, that
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: it has something to do with maturity. And we think
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: that children, for instance, little children will throw a tantrum
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: or they'll howl and cry and we soothe them and
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: contain them. But we associate unrestrained feeling with being young.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: And when we look at somebody who's facing adversity, of
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: course they have a full range of feeling, but they're
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: not swamped by their feelings in that they're able to
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: maintain a kind of efficacy in the very painful circumstance.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: We associate that with ego strength and a mature attitude.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: And we really do admire that when we see that.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: And that's what you're saying in the novel is, She
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: was in pain, but she also made a plan and
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: executed a plan and did not allow herself to regress
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: and collapse. And there was something admirable about that.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And it's this idea of, you know, which I think
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: containment is an interesting idea to hold up against demure
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: because I think, you know, the definition you gave a
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: minute ago, you know, without excess displays of emotion, sexuality,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: and what was the other one?
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Wealth.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: You know, containment sort of fits that really well. And Jung,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you know, was interested in what happens when you psychologically
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: contain something which is different from repression. So, Joseph, I
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: feel like you could talk about that really well. Would
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you just sort of talk about the difference between containment
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: and repression and what Jung meant by containment?
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the first thing is that it's conscious.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: In order to contain something, you have to pick something
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: up and put it in a container and screw the
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: lid on and carry it around.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: And you're looking at that glass door and it's like, oh,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: it's in there. But I'm going to put it on
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: the side, that compartmentalization, and I'm going to keep visiting it,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: but I'm not going to let it overwhelm me because
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: I just have a lot of things I have to
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: take care of and no one's going to take care
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: of them for me. I mean, Jane there had to
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: pack her own bags.
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: No one's going to show up and whisk her off
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: and take care of all of that terrible problem that
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: she found herself in. Rather than being loud and performative
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: with her distress, she kind of had a stiff upper lip, which,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: by the way, is very British.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: And keep calm and carry on, which was also a
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: kind of value. And even that, as I just stumbled
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: upon that, about thinking, keep calm and carry on, that's
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: quite different than this wild display as a feeling or appearance.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: And again, it's not that everybody should do that. It's
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: that when we go too far in one direction or
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: there's so much pressure to have to be flamboyant that
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: it's exhausting, then something else rises up and it presses
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: us to be restrained for a while.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: To your point about it being a choice, it seems
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to me like the ability to contain is it's a
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: good ability to have. It's not proscriptive that this is
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the way you should meet every hardship. Sometimes it may
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: be the right thing to yell and scream. That might
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: be exactly the right response, but it's good to have
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: a range of responses and being very contained. Now, I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: want to say a little bit more about containment because
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you use this great image of you put
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: it in this jar and you screw the lid on and,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: you know, it relates to this idea of alchemy, that
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the alchemist would put the material in the retort. And
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of the time it was maybe a closed
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: retort and nothing else can come in. And then something
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: happens to it in the retort and it changes. I
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: think another idea about So repression, you're just like, well,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: I don't want to know about that. I don't want
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to think about that. Nope, don't want to talk about that.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Or that it gets sucked out of your brain like
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: a vacuum.
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: Like repression is unconscious and it's like you kind of
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: forget you were even troubled by it. That's something or
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: other a couple of weeks ago.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Right. But if you're containing something, you're not denying the
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: pain of it. You're not, you know, you're not, oh, that, no,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: that didn't really bother me at all. That's, you know, no,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: it's like, that's really painful. And I'm going to put
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: it in this, in this vase and carry it around
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: with me. With the, with the trust, I think that
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: when you do that, and this is the alchemical piece
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: of it, when you put it in the container, you
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: trust that it will transform. You don't know what it's
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: going to transform into. You don't have control over that.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: But you trust that if you do that, something else
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: will happen. And again, an important part of that is
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: you're not cutting yourself off from the feeling and the pain.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: You're not denying that. You're just giving it its own space.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: You know, there's something here too I want to say
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: about the relativization of the ego, really. Because if you're
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: able to contain a great, great hurt like that, or
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: any big emotion, let's say, there's a sense that I'm
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: not in charge of this, that there's something else going on,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: and I can submit to the process.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Deepening into that, so maybe we do have an impulse
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: that would be thought of as the opposite of demure,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: where we're really big and out there. And for whatever reason,
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: we decide, we decide that we're going to take something
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: and make it private. So for instance, if we think
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: about some of us who are intensely extroverted, may find
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: that every thought we want to speak or every experience
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: turns into a posting or a film on social media,
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: that there's just not a private moment for us. And
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: sometimes people begin to feel strangely and intensely anxious. And
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: what's happening is that they're putting all of their material
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: or way too much of it out for public commentary.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: And so that can then give us an impulse that,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: wait a minute, what do I get to hold just
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: for myself? And then we discover that some things are
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: really not meant to be shared. Right. And that's a decision.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: And then we begin to feel more sturdy and more stable,
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: and we have a sense of privacy inside of ourselves.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: So it can allow us to kind of constellate a sturdy,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: feeling versus being kind of vaporous. So that's a skill
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: that we generally need. When we have a little bit
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: more of that, which by the way, happens later in childhood,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: because again, kids, it's all extroverted. It's all out in
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: the middle of the room or in the middle of
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: the supermarket or whatever it's happening. We then get to
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: be wise and think, I'm having this really big reaction.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Let's say, I just hate my boss. I mean, like
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: hate them, like every time I see them, like my
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: face turns shades of red. And it's a problem, and
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: I acknowledge it as an excess that I don't want
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: to be caught in for whatever reason. So the first decision,
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: as you were saying, is we put it in the vessel,
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: which is the decision that I am not going to
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: outwardly express this.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Even though I am monitoring my inner experience, that alone
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: is quite difficult, but it builds character. It builds ego strength.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: The second piece in terms of this being made into
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: an alchemical process is that I'm watching my fantasy life
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: around the thing that I am suppressing. So if this person,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: let's say, was journaling or in analysis, we would say, okay,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: you're thinking about your boss, you feel furious. What are
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: you imagining could happen next? Oh, I walk in and
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: smack him in the head with a, I don't know,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: a wet card. And then what would happen? And he'd cry.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: And then what would happen? And you begin to notice
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: the intense fantasies that are linked to that strong feeling.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: And that has to go on for a while. And
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: then if we can keep watching without interfering, which is
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: what you were saying, Lisa, that the fantasy begins to
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: lead to an unexpected place, which is often at the
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: root of what's going on. So, for instance, I hit
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: him with this big wet cod, he falls on the
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: ground and cries, and then I say this and he
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: does that, and on and on and on, and then
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: suddenly we're both on the floor crying, and then suddenly
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: I realize... but I'm really mourning a terrible loss of home.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: And I have this interesting fantasy that if I were
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: to leave my job, then I would be free to
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: relocate back to a place that feels like home. And
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: then that creates this radical shift of feeling. It's like,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, it isn't about my boss, but the
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: unconscious had created a strategy that by causing this alienation
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: of my career, that then it would be able to
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: yank me back to this place that it wants me
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: to go. But by deciphering it through containment, I could
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: discover that's something I really want, and then the ego
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: can elegantly, demurely, can make a plan, or decide at
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: least if it's something that it wants. containing and watching
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: particularly the fantasy material that suddenly will go to a
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: place that we couldn't have guessed that gives us relief.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Yeah, that's really, really great. And it brings
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: up for me something that it's been a little while
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: since I have worked with this concept. So I'm feeling
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: a little rusty on it. So maybe you can help me.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: But it's the way that like part of the point
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: of what we're supposed to do in analysis is not
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: repress and not act out. And perhaps, perhaps demure captures this, right?
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: This kind of middle way that you don't repress it
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and just not know. But you don't act it out.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, you know, like you're saying, you don't just
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: actually go hit your boss. You talk about it in therapy, right?
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Therapy is that alchemical vase, you know, where things can
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: be held, right? Or it could be, hopefully it is.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: And then we're in, there's a union analyst named Goodheart
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: who coined this term, the secure symbolizing field.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, I love that.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: And so that's the place where you're not repressing and
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: you're not acting out. But things can be held. Things
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: can be related to. Things can be, we can be
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: curious about them. We can circumambulate them. And that's where
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: things transform. Things don't actually transform if you repress and
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: they don't transform if you act them out. But they
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: do transform if you're in the secure symbolizing field and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: that's the field of kind of containment.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: So what I'm liking, we're kind of bringing an idea
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: forward that the demure language or the valuation of demure
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: could also be a bid from the collective psyche for
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: containment and self-reflection, not just containment. But if I just
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: bring things in, which by the way is also a
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: form of introversion, if I bring things internally a bit more,
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: and I'm considered about my actions, what might I discover?
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: And I do think when I, as I were talking
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: and I've been thinking that often what we call demure
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: is something that might be actually very natural to people
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: that are more introverted.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I was just thinking, I think we're in typology. Yeah.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: And so there is a, because Americans are very typologically,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: we trend towards extroversion and we reward extroverts. So part
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: of the, The movement towards demure could very well just
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: be a call to introverts to kind of gather together
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: and cast off some of the pressure to have to
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: ape extroverted, highly extroverted behavior. And instead, be able to
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: kind of pull back into a style, a psychological style
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: that doesn't pressure you to have to put everything outside.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Right, that there can be a lot that's held internally.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: For example, you have a thought and you just hold
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: it internally. You don't have to extrovert it. You don't
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: have to announce it out there. And as you're saying,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: that comes quite naturally to introverted people who tend to
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: be somewhat devalued in our society.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: I can imagine that. And there is this interesting typological
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: phenomena called false extroversion.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: You were born into a family of extroverts, but typologically,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: just by your own nature, you're an introvert. So when
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: your parents that are all involved in the community theater,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: let's say, see their kid who's really bookish and doesn't
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: want to play and doesn't want to be involved in
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: the things that the parents think of as normative, it's concerning. Oh, Lisa,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: she's alone. I think too much of the time. And
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: so an extroverted parent will then sign Lisa up for
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: the local, I don't know, dance troupe that's going to
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: give performances or is going to, you know, force you
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: to do one thing or another to be out in front, again, thinking, well,
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: this should be a good thing. Because we're children and
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: we want to please. A child who's an introvert can adapt,
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: can learn how to navigate that space, maybe even find
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: it pleasurable. But often later in life, When they realize
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: they're actually an introvert and they give themselves permission to
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: naturally be introverted, it feels like they're finally back in
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: their own skin. It's almost euphoric for people to discover that.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: So I'm wondering if also being able to talk about
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: the demure characteristics as valuables as useful as perhaps even
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: elegant and beautiful. People who are introverts may think, oh God,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: that sounds perfect. And it's maybe one day going to
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: be seen as something that's good and not that I'm
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: just being too quiet or that I'm a wallflower.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right, right. You know, this idea of kind
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: of like taking things in and the way that we
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: as a culture don't value it. And so maybe... There
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: are some things going on in the culture that are
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: kind of countercultural in a way, like perhaps, you know,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: this emphasis on being demure. It's interesting because I opened
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: up my email this morning and there was an article
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: about the return of veiling in the Catholic Church. And
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: it profiled these young women who are attending mass and
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: wearing veils. I mean, you know, these veils, they have pictures,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: these kind of beautiful lace veils that, you know, these
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: women wear over their heads. And there's a scriptural reason
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: for it, you know, that, that, uh, you know, somewhere,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: somewhere in the Bible, it says, you know, that, that
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: women should cover their heads or something. But, but I,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: but what some of the women said, and it made
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense to me and kind of psychologically,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I think it's very, it's sort of in, maybe in
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the same realm is when you're wearing a veil, the
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: symbolism of the veil is there's a separation between you
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: and the world, right? So some of these women talked about,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: you know, this is kind of, these are my words,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: but sort of inviting in a sacred attitude. And that
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: thought that you could choicefully, not because you're being mandated
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: by anyone, but you could choicefully decide to veil yourself
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: from say the secular world out there for some period
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: of time so that you can have this inner experience of,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: of prayer. Uh, I think it's similar to what we're
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: discussing that the value of privileging the, is that the
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: right word? The value of, of privileging the inner world
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and your own communion with the inner world at times
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: for a time.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Well, Just by choice, as long as you want to.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: But particularly in modern culture, we're deprived of meaningful ritual
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: all the time. So for people to rediscover this ancient
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: practice of veiling as a way of moving away from
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: the outer world and towards the inner, and to try
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: it and see, gosh, it actually does have an effect
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: on consciousness.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: That I find valuable. It's novel. It's fun because it's novel.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Like any other techniques. And many traditions have a lot
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: of ritualistic elements to enter into sacred space. You remove
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: your shoes before you go into a mosque, for instance.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Or you put a yarmulke on when you go into
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: the synagogue. And any of those ritual actions signal this
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: change of inner locus. Yes. And it's remarkably effective, which
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: is why it's lasted for thousands of years, this idea.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: So when I imagine wearing a veil, I'm not Catholic,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I don't go to Mass, and I certainly don't wear
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: a veil if I ever do go to Mass. But
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: when I sort of try it on for size, what
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: I think it would feel like is I am alone
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: with myself now. You know, other people I can't really
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: be clearly seen, so it goes back to that kind
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: of external gaze. And I can just have my own
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: experience here that's somewhat separate from the outside world.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: And to feel that there's a social trend that's making
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: space for that without you seeming strange or being criticized.
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: So anytime, well, the truth is, On one level, we
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: know that we have many, many different options, but the
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: collective can exert such an enormous amount of pressure on
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: us that we feel that we can't exercise them or
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: we only can exercise them privately in our own house.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: So when the collective opens up and says, how about this, everybody?
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: There's a sign of relief for the people that find
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: that meaningful that they can kind of put themselves out there.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: It's an option, right? It's given another option. So there's
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: another psychological concept that I just want to bring in.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think we've been touching on it, but
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I just want to sort of name it. And that
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: is affect regulation. And this maybe goes back to kind
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: of what we were talking about with containment. But affect regulation,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: as it sounds, it means the ability to deal constructively
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: with strong feelings. And you mentioned before, this is not
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: something we expect of small children. Small children have tantrums.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: We're teaching them affect regulation. Um, you know, here's what
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: you do when you get upset, you don't run off and,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: you know, slam the door, you know, here's some other
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: things you can do that are more constructive. And it's
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: a very, very, very important thing, affect regulation, because it
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: turns out that difficulty with affect regulation, uh, is implicated or,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: or involved in, let's say, um, you know, borderline personality disorder, um, um,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: substance abuse disorders, uh, real difficulty with procrastination, uh, It's
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: kind of a pan-diagnostic phenomenon. Almost any difficulty and almost any,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: let's say, diagnosis that you could come up with has
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: an element of dysregulated affect in it. So learning how
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: to regulate affect is really important. And by the way,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: there's just some really frightening research that came out about
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: early use of tablets in kids. it appears that it
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: retards their ability to learn affect regulation, which makes total
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: sense because when a kid's freaking out and you hand
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: them a tablet, they don't learn how to regulate, right?
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: They just get pacified. And then apparently, I didn't read
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the research, so I'm really just reporting on the headline.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: But then a couple years later, they're sort of behind
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: where they should be in terms of affect regulation. And,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: you know, it's something that, you know, hopefully we learn
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: as children and adolescents as well, but it like it
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: never goes away. I mean, you know, those of you
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: who work in offices, do you have anyone in your
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: team who has difficulty with affect regulation? Do you sometimes
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: have trouble with affect regulation? I do, you know. But
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I think this idea that we could be contained, that
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: we could choose to avoid excessive or overt displays of emotion,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: going back to your earlier definition, it has to do
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: with our ability to regulate affect. So something to strive towards.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Again, thinking about the wisdom of the collective psyche, that
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: if there's such a pressure to over exaggerate feelings so
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: that it can be interesting right to be filmed or
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: photographed or put out in some kind of media environment
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: something inside of us says well maybe it's also valuable
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: not to do.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: That right maybe that's another option it's.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: Another option and what you're saying is there's good proof
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: it's actually good research to suggest yeah that learning how
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: to put kind of cotton mittens around our fiery feelings
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: and just softly calm that down. And what would that
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: look like to the outer world? It might be in
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: that world of being demure, being quieter, kind of drawing inside,
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: being more subtle about it. Now, I want to talk
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: a little bit, because we started with this idea of
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: social media previously, that the idea of demure has actually
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: come into the fashion industry, it's come into the makeup industry,
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: and there is and has been a whole collection of
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: YouTube videos, sometimes are literally unnarrated, highly produced videos of
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: a lovely woman in a kitchen making a cup of
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: coffee slowly and then sitting at a window, and drinking it.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: And these can go on for 20 minutes. People will
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: enjoy watching it for the same reason that you're saying, Lisa,
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: is that there's something comforting. And in that same way,
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: often the setting is elegant but understated. The outfits are
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: minimalist but of high quality. Just a little bit of makeup,
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: but she looks very, very natural. And that she's doing
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: an action like making tea or coffee in a way
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: that's unhurried. There's no anxiety. There's no crazy music going on.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: And that these little videos make it seem like it
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: actually might feel good to deport oneself in that way.
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: Instead of, you know, having music blaring or something on your,
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: checking your phone constantly or the environment has It's a
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: mess with everything under the sun laying out everywhere else.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, you mean like the way I would make a
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: cup of coffee?
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: It's almost Zen-like.
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, what it reminds me
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: of is the Japanese tea ceremony, Cha No Yu, the
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: way of tea, which I don't know that much about.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there are listeners who know a ton more
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: about it than I do.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. It's a Zen practice. It's a mindfulness practice,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the tea ceremony. I believe it's Zen. It's certainly a
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: mindfulness practice. But do you know much about it?
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: I don't. But I actually don't know if you've seen
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: the wonderful... new series made of that old novel Shogun. Yep.
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: And it's gorgeous.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: This kind of 1800s Japan and the way that they
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: depict the tremendous ritualization of life, including tea and many
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: other things. And all of that, as you said, makes
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: us be more mindful.
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the tea ceremony is like incredibly elaborate and
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: intricate and like every single aspect of it is regulated.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: Like the pot and the way you boil the water
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: and the way it's just, it takes just decades, I think,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: to master it. And it's, you know, and the building
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: that you have it in and the way you pour
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: the tea and everything. But it's, yeah, it's very meditative.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: I wasn't aware of these YouTube videos. But the other
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: thing that came up for me when you mentioned that was,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: you know, I was, I've been visiting some art museums
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: recently and looking at a lot of impressionist art. And
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: I realized, I mean, it's not just true of impressionists,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: but maybe particularly true of them, like a lot of Renoirs,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: you know, there'll be this painting of this kind of,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: you know, this young girl reading or, or someone looking
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: out the window, you know, And you realize that what
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: the artist has captured is this very quiet moment when
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: the person is lost in thought. And you can almost
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: hear the quiet when you look at the painting. And
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: it's a real moment of kind of introversion. Again, this
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: sort of quality of a certain kind of reverie or mindfulness.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe those two things are totally different, mindfulness and reverie,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: but But some, okay, here's the word, interiority.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: That's what it is. Yeah. And that one of the
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: things that happens is we need to often kind of
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: relax the environment around us so that it's a bit
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: easier to kind of go within. And often meditation retreats
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: or an ashram might have a very, very plain space,
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: a very quiet space, so that it's easier. We don't
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: have to compete anymore. so much as you were saying
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: with the tablet and the television and all of this.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Maybe one day we'll be so disciplined in our capacity
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: to concentrate that we can block out those other things,
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: and undoubtedly many of us have because this is where
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: we live. But we can curate an environment internally and externally.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: So again, coming back in the fashion industry, the demure
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: clothing is modest. emphasizing elegance and simplicity over flashy, body-revealing clothes,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: neutral tones, classic cuts, minimalist aesthetics, something that quiets down.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: And if you think about this in movies, if you
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: want to portray the woman that's walking out of the mansion,
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: she's going to be dressed in beige and white in
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: clothing that you would guess cost maybe $ 2, 000, that outfit.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: And then the woman who is not from that world
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: is going to show up, you know, wearing, you know,
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: skin tight jeans, high heels, you know, blue spangled tube top, big,
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: big makeup and jewelry. And then we put them next
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: to each other. Iconically, I am not criticizing anyone, by
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: the way. The reason we recognize these things in films
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: is that we have a certain kind of stereotype of
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: something that is calm and something that is more agitating.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Or sort of like attention-seeking. It needs to draw attention
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: to itself.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: So this trend of shh. We'll call it the shh.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: And we talked about lifestyle, slow living, minimalism, mindfulness, and
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: there are makeup lines that are based on demure. I
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: think some of them are called even demure, which is
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Not having bold trends, but actually emphasizing one's features, neutral palettes,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: soft contours, good skin care. A lot of these things
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: are not terribly provocative, by the way. I mean, no
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: one thinks, oh, that's outrageous. But it's what's interesting.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: It's almost outrageous to not be outrageous.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: Yes. What's interesting is that it's rising in the collective
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: with a lot of energy. Nothing about this is actually new,
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: which is what we're just saying. Right. demure is an old,
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: old idea, but it's coming forward with dynamism right now
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: because it's opposite is very, very dynamic. Yeah.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: It's, it's kind of compensatory. Yeah.
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: And, and I, you know, when, when I landed on
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: that word a minute ago, interiority, I just want to
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: sort of circle back. Cause I think that that's maybe
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: an important element of what I've been trying to wrap
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: my hands around as we've been talking about it, you know, from,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: from wearing the veil and kind of having this inner
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: experience to, um, to feeling like you can disconnect from
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: the world and its expectations and just be with yourself.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: And maybe a kind of demure presentation signals that. I'm
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: not really interested in catching your eye right now, actually.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: I just want to be with myself. So maybe that's
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: one way to understand it.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that demure as a decision, like anything else, can
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: be empowering because you decided to do it that way.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: So we will see. We'll see what the collective psyche
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: does with this.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: I think so. And like I said, there's nothing new
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: under the sun. This isn't like a shocking event. And
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: you had said that, what would this look like in
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: a male character? The truth is, these qualities are often
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: associated with many of the masculine cultures being stoic.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yeah.
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: Men are expected to be unassuming. Men are not supposed
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: to be dressing flashy often, being reserved. Men should be modest.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: Men should be gentlemanly. Yeah, it is. It's probably the
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: coordinate of demure, polite, respectful, a bit retiring, discreet.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, self-possessed.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, refined, composed, courteous, subtle. So like all of that
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: stuff's not, none of that's radical.
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: No.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: But if that were to rise up in the collective
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: with a lot of determination, you'd think, oh, that's interesting.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: Not that it hasn't been there, but someone's put some
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: voltage to it. Right. So demure is not new.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: I think you and I have talked, I don't think
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: we've ever talked about it on the podcast, but we've
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: talked about talking about it on the podcast, this idea
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: of the cultivation of virtue, which I think this kind
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: of relates to, you know, it's like we're talking about
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: cultivating this virtue of being kind of, you know, self-possessed
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: or demure or whatever it is. We should have that
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: fuller conversation sometime too. Because you can actually make a choice.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: You don't have to just vomit every thought you have
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: out there in the world. You can decide, does that work?
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's right. Maybe you should do that. But you
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: can actually make a choice about it.
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: And just as you said with interiority is, and this
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: is why we're worried about our teenagers. Somebody's 12, whether
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: a 12-year-old boy or girl, putting all their material out there.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: As Jungian analysts, we can predict, yikes, that's a lot
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: of very private psychological material that now is not contained
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: and people are making God knows comments about it. And
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: if they're negative comments, kids can fall into despair.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: And you just don't even realize what effect it has
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: on your psyche even to have all that kind of
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: personal material out there.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: Exactly. We're not designed to that. And that's why certain.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: Novels like George Orwell's 1984 one of the most horrifying
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: aspects of that novel is you're observed all the time
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: right that you discover your television actually is a camera
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: and that there are cameras everywhere in the world by
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: the way this is happening many of these things are
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: happening in China yes and all of this is being
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: absorbed and monitored so that's happening in China without people's permission,
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: strangely enough, we're creating that by decision in the United States,
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: by inviting cameras everywhere we go. And there's a part
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: of us, as we see in that novel, that should
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: be a little horrified by that. There's a downside to
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: having a lens on us all the time.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: There certainly is.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: So is this a good time to switch to a dream?
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do a dream.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered what your dreams mean? Join us
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: in Dream School at thisjungienlife.com and find out. Jung wrote,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: dreams are a little hidden door in the innermost and
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: most secret recesses of the soul.
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: Dream School is a unique self online program you can
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: start at any time that unlocks access to your inner world.
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: Our 12-month program provides the support, knowledge, and guidance you
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: need to reach within, decipher your personal dream code, and
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: harness it to optimize your life. By enrolling, you'll join
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: an affirming community of fellow travelers, each pursuing a unique quest.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: And it's fun. Join us on an adventure to wholeness
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: and healing through understanding your dreams. Go to thisjungianlife.com and
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: click on Dream School. You'll be taken to our secure checkout.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: Once you join, you'll get immediate access to our first
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: three modules. You can get started right away. We look
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: forward to seeing you there.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: So the today's dream comes from a 29-year-old woman who
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: is training to be a therapist, and she named her
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: dream Grim Reaper. And here's the dream. I'm standing in
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: the living room of my parents' home, looking out the
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: bay window onto the street. I see a dark figure approaching,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: resembling a Grim Reaper. My heart sinks, and I hide
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: out of view below the window, quietly calling out to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: my mother, who is in her room. Mom, there's someone
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: here for you. The figure knocks three times and my
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: mother emerges from her room to answer the door. When
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: she opens it, the figure barges in, pushing a red
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: file folder into her stomach assertively. My mother laughs nervously,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: unsure of what to do. I feel energy rising within
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: me and I stand up, pushing the reaper out of
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: the doorway and up against the side of the house.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: My mother stands beside me as I interrogate it. I
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: speak to it forcefully. Who are you? What do you want?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: The Reaper, who was previously wearing a mask, now morphs
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: into my mother at a younger age, approximately three to
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: four years younger than she is now. Her hair is
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: long and oddly patched with different colors. She says, I
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: am from another timeline. I cut my hair short and
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: I wanted to see if your mother cut her hair
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: short in this timeline. She is the true timeline. I
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: tell her that she has never cut her hair short
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: and that it's time for her to leave. So for context,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: she says two years ago, my mother was diagnosed with
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: stage three stomach cancer. She has since gone through treatment
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: and is now in remission. Prior to her diagnosis, she
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: struggled with addiction. Many positive changes have followed her diagnosis.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: The past two years, I have been in deep conversation
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: with my mother wounds. The main feelings in the dream
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: were alarm, fear, anger, courage, fortitude, and curiosity. And her
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: associations are as follows. She said, parents' home. I have
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: a mixed experience of my parents' home. It was my
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: home throughout my adolescence and during the height of some
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: of my mother's addiction issues. Grim Reaper. Interestingly, I feel
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: fairly neutral toward the image of the Reaper in my
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: conscious life. I find the idea of confronting the Reaper intriguing.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: The red file folder. The folder reminded me of the
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: folders my mother used to use to put her music sheets,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: except it was blood red. My mother used to tell
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: me that red was one of my colors. The long
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: patched hair. The patched colored hair reminded me, excuse me,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: the patchy colored hair reminded me of those hair coloring
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: kits from the early 2000s made for kids. There was
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: something childish about it. My younger mother. I found this
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: version of her strange. I associate this version of my
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: mother with naivete, disassociation, recklessness, and aloofness. So certainly a
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: complex dream.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: We know it has something to do with her parental
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: complex and her mother complex sometimes. a way in which
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: the mother is alive in her. And we know that
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: the dream maker is often trying to help us sort
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: something out or find a different angle, a perspective on
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: something that we are trapped in often. She's standing in
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: the living room of her parents' home, looking out of
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: the bay window onto the street. So one way I
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: might interpret it is she is looking at the outer
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: world through the lens of the parental complex. So that
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: gives us a hint that how she is going to
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: be seeing things is somehow giving her and us information
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: about how her perceptions are affected. And she's looking out
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: through the parents' eyes. Now, I think this is a
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: really important topic and has a lot to do with individuation.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: For instance, if you're raised with a mom, and let's
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: say there's a divorce, the mom might be very upset.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: She gives you her perspective about your dad who failed her.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: And the child will see the father through those lenses,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: perhaps for a long time. Hopefully, later on in life,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: she forms an independent relationship. with her father and discovers
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: that she sees him quite differently, but didn't even know
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: how tightly she was holding the lens of the mother.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: This can also happen conversely. The father has a very
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: strong opinion about the mother. The child identifies with it,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: therefore doesn't see the mother accurately through their own lens.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: And later in life, when they realize they actually have
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: their own independent opinions about something, They can see through
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: their own eyes and not the parents' eyes and make
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: a decision. So that's one association I have just with
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: her looking out at the world. And through the lens
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: of the parental complex, a dark figure approaches and she
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: interprets that as the Grim Reaper, although I have to
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: say there is no evidence in the dream that's true.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: But we do know that it's a dark figure objectively
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: because the camera shows the a dark figure, but from
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: within the parental complex and her mother's recent, um, rush
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: with a serious illness, the unconscious comes to her dark
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: and unknown. And there's a clearly a projection of death
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: is approaching.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: Like I said, it's a, it's a complex dream, but,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: but here's a couple of thoughts. So first of all, um,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: You know, death is, I mean, let's say that the
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: figure of the Grim Reaper is kind of an archetypal figure.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: It's kind of the archetype of death. And it's an
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: image of that. And, you know, death is the sort
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: of ultimate symbol for transformation. And if you think about
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: the tarot card of death, I mean, what it portends
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: is some kind of fundamental change of state. psychologically. Um, so, uh,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: I think that, that this dream is really about this
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: transformation and, and transformation on a couple of levels is,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: as you were saying, Joseph, I want to tie this
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: into what, to what you were saying. First of all,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: there is a sense that her mother, her outer mother,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: actual outer mother may be in a process of transformation
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: because she, as can happen when we have a, a
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: brush with a serious illness, you know, When we have addiction,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: one of the things that we know is that people
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: change once they hit bottom. Well, that means different things
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: to different people. But if you suddenly find yourself with
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: stage three cancer, that may be your bottom. I can't
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: keep doing this. I can't keep treating my body like this.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: And it can catalyze a genuine transformation. And it seems
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: that the dreamer is reporting that her mother has, you know,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: there's really been some changes in, in the outer mother. Um,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: and so we, we might say that, yeah, she's, you know,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: she's having her, uh, her confrontation with the, the archetype
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: of transformation known as death. But the other thing, and
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: this is, I think where, where you, you were really
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: speaking to Joseph is there was also the mother complex.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: And I, I think that the dream is, is perhaps
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: also signaling or signifying that, that the inner mother, the
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: way the mother operates in the psyche of the dreamer
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: is also going through a kind of death and transformation.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: And that may be more in the significance of this
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: kind of other timeline mother, you know, that this sort
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: of odd dissociated childlike version of the mother that perhaps
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: wreaks havoc in the psyche to some extent. It's time
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: for you to go, you know, you need to go.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, I'm so struck by
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: the way the dreamer confronts the Grim Reaper and says,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: who are you? What are you doing here? It's really,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: I think it's a positive thing that the dream ego
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: is so ready to have this confrontation. And it is
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: the confrontation that allows the change to take place where
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: this kind of archetypal figure morphs into this kind of
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: strange figure. And then the, the dream ego is able
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: to kind of dismiss her or send her away. This
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: kind of unhelpful maladaptive complex that's living in my psyche
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: of this, uh, childlike mother is something that, that doesn't
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: need to be there anymore. Um, I just want to
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: remind myself of the dreamers age.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: 29, 27.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: So, so that 29. Yes.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: So that, you know, that is a time, um, when
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes we do come to terms with things and there
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: can be a real shift.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: I think from that archetypal standpoint, it makes sense that
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: it would constellate these very powerful changes inside of her,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: particularly when we're facing this experience with the mother. And often,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: when we have a parent that we have ambivalent feelings towards,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: maybe the parent's been very, very, difficult, even abusive. And
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: then they become helpless. It's an enormous decision and tension
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: in the adult children. How involved do I want to be?
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: What do I have in me towards them? Sometimes a
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: kind of forgiveness wells up in the individual because the
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: parent is finally vulnerable in a way that they hadn't
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: seen before. And there's an opportunity to repair that. an
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: opportunity to connect that wasn't there. So death can bring
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: on so many different dynamics. I'd like to put a
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: slightly more psychodynamic lens on the dream, which is going
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: to make it seem more ordinary in some ways. So
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: she's in the parental complex, and the dark figure approaches,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: which means there's something unconscious approaches. She reacts to this
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: unknown thing, by becoming frightened. My heart sinks, I hide.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: And then she does something very important because I think
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: the unconscious wants her to see this, is when you
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: feel frightened of something, you call the mother forward and say,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: this is for you. This isn't for me. That's not
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: really clear. It's almost like she tricks the mother into
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: going to the door because If she really thought it
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: was death coming, why didn't she run to mom and say,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: we've got to get out of here, mom, let's go
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: into the panic room. But she's like, oh, mom, death
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: is here. I'll be over in the other room. Someone
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: or other is here for you. Right. It's a very trickstery,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: complicated thing. The figure knocks, the mother comes, opens the door.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: The unconscious then pushes something into the body of the mother.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: And you see something very specific. The mother laughs nervously
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: and becomes unsure of what to do, which is exactly
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: how the dream ego felt in the beginning of the dream.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: Her heart sank. She hid out of view. She doesn't
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: know what to do. So what I would suggest is
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: whatever that quality is in her, we'll just call it anxiety,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: but I think it's more specific than that. Something occurs
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: where she becomes anxious and hides. She then pushes that
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: into the mother. This is called projective identification. She pushes
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: it into the mother and then suddenly she has access
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: to being aggressive. The mother is going to be the
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: unsure one. And now I'm going, I have access to
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: being a hero and being aggressive and interrogating and being
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: forceful and who are you and what do you want? So,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: There's important information, if this person were an analysis about, one,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: the relationship with the mother. It is normal for a
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: child to project overwhelming feelings into a parent and to
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: pressure them to evidence that. That's part of the mother
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: metabolizing feelings that the child can't metabolize. But for some
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: reason at this point, perhaps because the mother is vulnerable
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: and the dreamer is an adult, the psyche might be saying,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: this is a thing that happens inside of you. Do
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: you still want to do this? Maybe there are things
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: that you are projecting and pushing into your mother now
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: that make her seem a certain way that might not
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: actually be as fully accurate as you think. But she
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: stands up, she's aggressive, and lo and behold, she's not
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: aggressive towards Death, she's aggressive towards her mother. So she
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: comes from someone who's small and hiding and anxious to
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: someone who's looking in front of the mother and jacking
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: her up against a wall and interrogating the mother. Who
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: are you? What do you want? What's going on around here?
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: Which is interesting. And then she's revealed. She was unconscious.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: She was in the dark veiled. And suddenly the inner
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: figure is visible through the intense engagement that the ego
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: can now have. And she starts to have a dialogue
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: with the part of her unconscious she didn't know. And
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: the mother figure seems mostly curious. She's like, I showed
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: up because I was just curious about short hair and
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: timelines and fashion.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: Just checking things out, thought I'd show up, take a look.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: Hardly death. Gently just kind of curious, and I have
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: to say even a little superficial.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. It may very well be that, again, because
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: of all the projection, when that's revealed, the mother might
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: actually be a lot more benign and unthreatening than we
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: might have felt in childhood. And maybe because, again, The
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: mother of the childhood, as she's saying, had a lot
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: of trouble. She was an addict.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: Lots of scary stuff happened. But now the unconscious is saying,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: now you have a mother with a cancer diagnosis who's
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: worried about her hair.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 3: That's what you've got.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: Not a monster.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: And your rage, you need your rage. You need to
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: be strong. But she's not the enemy.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: Of your childhood. And yes, everything you said that this
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: is all intensified because this is a life and death
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: reality is going on and big stuff causes us to
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: dig deep.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: That's a really interesting take.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode
• 1:16:42
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• 1:16:47
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