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From Worry to Insight: Making Sense of Uncertainty · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod. Hi, everyone. Today,
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: Lisa can't be with us, so Joseph and I are
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: going to do our best to talk about worry. Let's begin.
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: by setting forth some of the essential differences between worry
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: and anxiety, which are often used somewhat interchangeably. And basically,
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  Speaker 4: worry is kind of one of the unfortunate side effects,
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  Speaker 4: so to speak, of our ability to imagine. Because we
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: imagine and get worried about what might happen if this
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: or that or the other thing. Worry is really a
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  Speaker 4: thought process. We can usually express it in words. You know,
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  Speaker 4: I'm worried about my Uncle George. He's in the hospital and,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: you know, I hope his surgery goes okay and I'm
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: worried about it. I'm worried about all kinds of things
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  Speaker 4: that I can express, whether my flight will be on
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  Speaker 4: time and I'll be able to make my connecting flight.
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  Speaker 4: These are thoughts that I can say out loud. It
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: often has to do with our attempt at control, as
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  Speaker 4: if worry is either preparation or worry has some magical
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  Speaker 4: property to ward off disaster. That if I really keep
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  Speaker 4: my kid in mind, who I allowed to take the
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  Speaker 4: car for the first time since getting his driver's license,
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  Speaker 4: my worry can make sure that he or she doesn't
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: get into a fender bender, that nothing happens. It has
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: those kinds of properties in our effort, misplaced though it is,
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  Speaker 4: at control. So pretty much worry is about real-world kinds
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: of concerns. our desire for consciousness and control, and it
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: usually doesn't impact our ability to function. I might be
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: really worried, but it is in my frontal cortex, so
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  Speaker 4: to speak, and I can go about my day without too,
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  Speaker 4: too much interference because of my worrying. Anxiety, on the
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  Speaker 4: other hand, really involves our emotions. It involves our fear center,
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  Speaker 4: the amygdala. It involves our bodies. It involves a whole
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  Speaker 4: system-wide diffuse kind of responsiveness. It's a broader physiological and
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  Speaker 4: emotional state of a more generalized sense of unease or
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  Speaker 4: fear and physical arousal that we experience. notice our shoulders
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  Speaker 4: are tense or our heart rate goes up. We can't
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  Speaker 4: settle down, can't calm down. We may have emotional and
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: mental sort of images, but it's really, really distressing. And
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  Speaker 4: it gets activated by our response to danger, even though
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  Speaker 4: there is no impending danger. There is No saber-toothed tiger
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  Speaker 4: out there on the sidewalk threatening to jump on us.
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  Speaker 4: And in a way, that too is a kind of
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  Speaker 4: suffering from imagination, that there are things out there that
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: can get us and that trigger this physiological and emotional
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  Speaker 4: kind of hyper-vigilance and anxiety. that is connected to hippocampus
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  Speaker 4: and amygdala and lots of neurology involved in anxiety. So
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: let's see if that gives us a good enough jumping-off
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  Speaker 4: place to think about worry.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I had been thinking for quite some time of
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  Speaker 3: anxiety as more of a neurotic symptom, that when we
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  Speaker 3: are churning with a lot of unconscious material and the
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  Speaker 3: ego really is avoidant really wants to stay away from
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  Speaker 3: whatever that feeling or realization might be that we unwittingly
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  Speaker 3: kind of throw confetti in the air and try to
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  Speaker 3: scan for every little bit of glitter that's going to
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  Speaker 3: hit the ground and that's kind of how anxiety works
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  Speaker 3: we're kind of darting around scanning and scanning and scanning
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  Speaker 3: But it's actually, rather than trying to find something, we're
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  Speaker 3: actually trying to stay away from something by skittering all about.
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  Speaker 3: Then we also have a tendency to look into the
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  Speaker 3: environment and create some fundamental misattributions. So for instance, I
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: wake up and I'm really anxious. So then I look
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  Speaker 3: around and I'm like, oh, it must be because the
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  Speaker 3: kids are making a racket in the kitchen. Right. My
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  Speaker 3: anxiety was actually present before I noticed the kids were
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: making a racket in the kitchen. Then I'm scolding the
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  Speaker 3: kids for making me anxious. But actually, that's another way
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  Speaker 3: of avoiding some internal conflict. So as you said, worry,
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  Speaker 3: we know what we're worrying about. And as you had said, Deb,
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  Speaker 3: that on one level, worry is the attempt to solve
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  Speaker 3: a problem and to resolve this difficulty of uncertainty. Yep.
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  Speaker 3: So your kid doesn't come home at 10, and that
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  Speaker 3: was the agreement. So then you begin running scenarios of, oh,
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  Speaker 3: but what if they had a car accident? Or what
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  Speaker 3: if this happened? Or what if they're stranded somewhere? Which
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  Speaker 3: is really, although it's distressing, you are trying to solve
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  Speaker 3: for potential problems.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: My women's retreat is going to be in Tuscany this
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  Speaker 2: August 10th through 16th. On our itinerary is the Tomb
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: of the Unknown Chariot, one of Italy's most fascinating Etruscan sites.
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  Speaker 2: Imagine standing in the hush of an ancient tomb, cold,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: wet stone surrounding you, as a chariot races toward the underworld,
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  Speaker 2: driven by a demon with flaming red hair. Further in,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: you'll find a three-headed serpent and a scene depicting a
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: mysterious reunion taking place in the afterlife. Visiting the tomb,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: which dates back to the 4th century BC, really makes
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: you feel like you're stepping inside an ancient myth. Excavated
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: in 2003, it is one of the most important recent
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: archaeological discoveries made in Italy. The fragile tomb is rarely
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: open to the public and must be booked a long
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: way in advance, but we have managed to secure private
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: access for the Wellspring Women's Retreat. These local excursions will
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: enhance the work we do together at the retreat, including
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: fairy tales, yoga, and dream work. If you'd like to
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: join us, please book your place soon, as there is
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: now limited availability. The link is in the show notes.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. And it's your example, which I and every parent
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  Speaker 4: of anybody who has ever had a teenager knows this one,
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  Speaker 4: of he's not home. Mm-hmm. Supposed to be home by midnight.
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  Speaker 4: Can't call him. No answer. No response. Texting doesn't work.
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  Speaker 4: You call the friend that he or she was supposed,
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  Speaker 4: whose house they were supposed to be at. Or you
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  Speaker 4: call the place they said they were going to be.
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  Speaker 4: Is the movie out?
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  Speaker 3: Busted.
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  Speaker 4: But it is as if. The focus on that, you know,
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  Speaker 4: we do all the practical things we can think of,
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  Speaker 4: but it is as if it is actually useful. That
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  Speaker 4: if I keep trying things and keep thinking of things
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  Speaker 4: and keep worrying about things, I can get this kind
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  Speaker 4: of little bug that has landed in my brain dislodged.
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  Speaker 4: and go away. We get stuck, like the needle on
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: an old vinyl record gets stuck in a groove. I
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  Speaker 4: can't get rid of it. So I try this and
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  Speaker 4: I think of that and I talk to my husband
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  Speaker 4: and is there anything else we can do? And maybe
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  Speaker 4: one of us should get in the car. He probably
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: took this road.
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  Speaker 3: Right. We keep running scenarios in our heads and it
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  Speaker 3: becomes this futile effort to find A certain solution or
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  Speaker 3: a plan of action.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly. Take action. Do something about it. But it's a
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  Speaker 4: disorder in a way or momentary, hopefully momentary, disordered thinking
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  Speaker 4: of how can I solve this problem? This problem needs
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  Speaker 4: to be solved. Plus a little magical thinking of kind
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  Speaker 4: of warding off danger, if I'm really thinking about it,
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  Speaker 4: somehow I'll be able to see it coming and put
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  Speaker 4: up my hand, stop.
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  Speaker 3: Right. So we're worrying in an attempt to reduce our
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  Speaker 3: anxiety and also prevent the bad outcome, which is hovering
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  Speaker 3: around just at the edges, you know.
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  Speaker 4: I once had a colleague who had a T-shirt because
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  Speaker 4: she was inclined to worry that said, worry is not preparation.
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  Speaker 3: Nice. Yes.
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  Speaker 4: So that's what we want to think, is that somehow
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  Speaker 4: this is effective. And it really isn't. But we as
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  Speaker 4: human beings have a horrible, awful, terrible time dealing with uncertainty.
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  Speaker 3: Exactly. And if someone has a strong intolerance for uncertainty,
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  Speaker 3: they're much more predisposed to worry frequently.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's really sort of, you know, kind of like
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  Speaker 4: our payback for having consciousness, imagination, and the ability to
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  Speaker 4: anticipate that then we get into this kind of catastrophizing,
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  Speaker 4: what if, hypervigilant, because we can imagine all the things
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  Speaker 4: that could have happened to this kid who was supposed
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  Speaker 4: to be home by midnight, and now it is quarter
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  Speaker 4: of one. And we imagine what could have happened. And
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  Speaker 4: that's a price we pay for our ability to think.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's called catastrophizing. Yes. It may have been Albert
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  Speaker 3: Ellis who put that out. But we imagine worst-case scenarios,
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  Speaker 3: and then we run those scenarios. Well, if I get
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  Speaker 3: that call from the cop, and, oh, my God, my
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  Speaker 3: kid's been injured, and then we'll race to the hospital,
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  Speaker 3: and they'll pick a bag, and they'll, you know, planning
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  Speaker 3: out contingencies.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 3: There also is productive worry. is where a realistically appraised
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  Speaker 3: concern leads to a concrete solution or an action. I'm
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  Speaker 3: really worried about passing this exam, and then that leads
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  Speaker 3: me to create a study plan, and then I actually study.
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  Speaker 3: But that the worry that you won't do well if
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  Speaker 3: it's harnessed to the right chariot can kind of move
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  Speaker 3: you into a plan of effective action. So a little
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  Speaker 3: bit of worry can kind of tase our butts to
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  Speaker 3: kind of get us in motion. And if we're thoughtful
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  Speaker 3: about it, it could lead to something that makes sense.
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  Speaker 4: That's such a good thing. So it veers into motivation.
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  Speaker 3: There we are.
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  Speaker 4: And it's the old story of the carrot and the stick.
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  Speaker 4: And this is the stick. If you don't get your
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  Speaker 4: button gear, get those books down off the shelf, And
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  Speaker 4: hit the books. You Might Not Pass the Test, you know,
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  Speaker 4: brings up a story from my early years of being
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  Speaker 4: a special ed teacher working with adolescents. And in a
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  Speaker 4: subtle way, I think I haven't thought of it this
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  Speaker 4: way before, but I did intentionally spark worry by By
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  Speaker 4: saying in my most empathic tone of voice something like, Bobby,
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  Speaker 4: if you don't pass English, you know, with our help,
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  Speaker 4: of course, but if you don't get those papers in
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  Speaker 4: and you don't pass the test and you don't get
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  Speaker 4: to class on time, which is what's been happening, I'm
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  Speaker 4: really worried that you'll have to go to summer school.
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  Speaker 4: Do you know how... summer school works. I mean, it's
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  Speaker 4: eight weeks, and it's like from eight in the morning
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  Speaker 4: until almost noon.
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  Speaker 3: And they serve you gruel. And it's like that scene
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  Speaker 3: from Oliver Twist. You don't want that.
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  Speaker 4: It's exactly like the scene from Oliver Twist. So I
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  Speaker 4: would be, quote, worried, unquote, on their behalf, on our
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  Speaker 4: proverbial Bobby's behalf, and start to motivate him by sparking
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  Speaker 4: what you're talking about, a useful function that worry can
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  Speaker 4: serve of, you know, you better get going.
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  Speaker 3: Right. So there can be productive worry, which is based
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  Speaker 3: in realistic consequences and having a relationship to realistic consequences
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  Speaker 3: in the conscious mind rather than have it plague us
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  Speaker 3: from behind a closed door. It really is true. You
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: don't graduate If you don't get a C in this class,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: then there are consequences. You could pay the consequences, but
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  Speaker 3: we're not going to pretend there aren't consequences. So that
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  Speaker 3: can be a productive worry, so to speak.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, if it veers into taking positive, productive, effective action,
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  Speaker 4: all to the good, Versus just planning. You know, I
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  Speaker 4: could have, would have, should have just planned some time
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  Speaker 4: to do the studies and write the paper and prepare
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  Speaker 4: for the exam and just plan it out.
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  Speaker 3: So worry can kind of help us push through maybe
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  Speaker 3: resistance that we had to making a sensible plan that
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: this is where complexes come in. Like when the ego's unfettered,
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  Speaker 3: it's like, here's the recipe. I'll follow the recipe and
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  Speaker 3: I'll get an A on the test. But then some
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  Speaker 3: complex comes in like, you know, this teacher reminds me of,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: I don't know, my uncle that I don't like. And
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  Speaker 3: then all of a sudden we need an extra gallon
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  Speaker 3: of gasoline, so to speak, to drive towards the plan
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: because the complex is like a boogeyman in front of
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: us interfering with our ability to get this. And then
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: we need some more heat to kind of punch our
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: way towards the plan.
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  Speaker 4: Punching our way through because the pain of failing English
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  Speaker 4: and having to go to summer school is worse than
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: the pain of getting the books down and writing the paper.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: But let's go to the other side of what I'm
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: thinking of as an example of really unproductive, life-hindering worry,
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  Speaker 4: which is obsessiveness. Of having to check the locks 10 times.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: Having to make sure you unplugged the iron. That is,
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: if anybody still actually irons anything. You know, or the
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: turning off the stove of just, I can't let go.
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  Speaker 4: This thought process repeats and repeats. And people know that
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: they're worried about something that isn't real. You know, they know.
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  Speaker 4: But I already checked the locks three times.
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  Speaker 3: It's the demonic what if. What if I left the
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: stove on? What if I whatever and whatever? Yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So that kind of veers back into anxiety. And really,
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  Speaker 4: you know, these two things are sort of like a
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  Speaker 4: Venn diagram. Those two circles that overlap so that that
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  Speaker 4: section in the middle is both. And they both sort
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: of mix around in some amorphous way where they're not
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  Speaker 4: well differentiated.
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  Speaker 3: Then we get into this unproductive worrying, which really takes
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: us out of reality. When I think of those kind
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: of worries like, oh my God, did I turn the
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: stove off? In one way, those are failures of consciousness
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: to take really crisp, reality-based pictures of what we did
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: or what we didn't do. So something is interfering with
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: us looking at our hand, putting the key in the
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: lock and turning it and then testing the doorknob. That
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  Speaker 3: if we are functioning reasonably, we actually take a little
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  Speaker 3: mental snapshot of that activity and then we hold on
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  Speaker 3: to it. So then when we go away, like we
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: can revisit that little video in our mind. Like I,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: I know I did that because I can see that
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  Speaker 3: in my mind.
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  Speaker 4: I'm kind of hunching out that my guess is that
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  Speaker 4: when we get obsessed by the old trope of checking
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  Speaker 4: the locks, that what's really going on is an underlying
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  Speaker 4: state of diffuse anxiety that is vague and amorphous. And
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: then we create a concrete, seemingly outer world problem to
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: worry about. So now I know, you know, that it's
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: about the lock.
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  Speaker 3: That must be why I'm really anxious today.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah. And if I check the lock, then
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: it's like an atropotraic kind of thing. Then I can
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: breathe and I can go on with the day.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great. I want to grab hold of that
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: word apopotraic, that it wards off. You know, people will
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: put hex signs on their barns or wards. a little
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: amulet that had a grimacing face. So if anyone were
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: to give you the evil eye, it would ward that off.
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  Speaker 4: So it's preventive. And that's that wonderful $ 5 word, apopetraic,
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  Speaker 4: that if I check again, if I check again, if
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: I'm vigilant... It'll protect me. Don't worry. Nobody will break
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: into the house. But you're right. I mean, I think
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  Speaker 4: if you go back and then do something, let's say
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: for the third time, just to make up a decent
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: number of things, then you might engage your self-reflective capacity
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  Speaker 4: to say, wait a minute, and take that mental snapshot
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  Speaker 4: of here I am checking the lock, my hands on
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: the doorknob, I'm pulling and pushing. Yes, I see for
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: sure and definitely In consciousness, that it's locked. And then
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: that could take us to, so what is underlying the
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: seeming concern over the lock? It can't be the lock.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Right. So then there's this reaching more deeply inside of
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: ourselves to try to catch images, to catch... some of
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: the underlying fantasy that is causing this distress, which may
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: have very little to do with what's happening in the
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: outer environment. And I do want to look at the
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: 12-step serenity prayer. And the reason is that that is
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: trying to manage this issue God grant me the serenity
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: change the things I can, and the wisdom to know
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: the difference. Because often worrying has to do with not
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: knowing that difference. Can I affect this? Can I not
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: affect this? Should I just give it up into the
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: hands of the universe, or should I roll up my
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: sleeves and get involved? So this struggle we all have,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: To know whether or not we are called to be
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: involved in something, but even more importantly, would it even matter?
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Do you actually have any capacity to influence the outcome?
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  Speaker 3: And then consequently, if not, how do we step away?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think it's hard to step away. Because
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: we would rather worry whether it's about the locks on
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: the door or if I am waiting for a flight
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: and it's delayed and I need to make a connecting flight.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to be vigilant.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: If I check my phone for constant updates on the flight,
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: It is easier for me to feel worried and have
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: something I can do to check my phone or check
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: a lock or whatever it is than it is for
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: me to really go down deeper to the place where
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: I'm just anxious. Because the worry, having a phone that
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: I can check or a lock that I can check,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: transfers it into a more comfortable realm of there's something
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: I can do. Now, it may be fruitless. It does
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: not help to check my phone every five minutes. But
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: it's better to be able to take misplaced action than
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: it is to have to realize I'm really powerless over
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: this situation and something else is bothering me that I
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: can't really quite manage. I can't quite control that part
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: of me.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: So unproductive worry tends to be vague and tends to
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: be about things that are outside of our control and
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: so we keep you know spinning and spinning like that
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: little spinning wheel when your computer is trying to start
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: but it's not working yeah circling around and around you're
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: like the computer's worried about something clearly um so so
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: exactly you know i mean kids supposed to be home
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: By 12, it's one. In a certain way, you can't
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: really control if something's happened. I mean, you can, I suppose,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: over time control discovering what's happened. But there are autonomous
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: forces that are at work, one of them being your
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: teenage child.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: Oh, gosh.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Which, that's part of the disturbance. It's like, I told
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: them to come home at midnight. It's one. And I
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: can't control them. I can't control the factors to get
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: them into the house because I think that's the right idea.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: So what do we do in the face of like,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, my 16-year-old's making their own decisions and
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: maybe they're terrible decisions.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: Unlike the decisions you and I made when we were
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: teens that were always thoughtful and wise.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: We were geniuses at 15. Oh my goodness.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: So, you know, there's a saying that sort of a
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: self-help guru from, I think, the 80s and 90s had,
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: whose name was Leo Biscaglia. And he says, worry never
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It just only saps today
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: of its joy.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, I haven't thought about him for a while. His
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: book on love was just such a, I think it
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: was a real bestseller because it was such an exuberant celebration.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So, and of course, worry is, here we are
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: talking about all of this. And yet, as we're talking,
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: I know I'm going to get worried about something. It's
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: going to happen. I will never, you know, understanding it
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: is not really going to save me from getting worried.
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: The next time I have to make a connecting flight
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: and my outbound flight is late. Count on it. I'm
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: going to be worried.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: A couple of rules we can make for ourselves is
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: if we're worrying constructively, it should lead to a plan
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: and we shouldn't indulge it for maybe more than 10 minutes.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: We don't worry about this. make a plan, put it aside,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: move on. If I'm worrying in such a way that
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: no plan emerges from it and it goes on more
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: than 10 minutes, then I'm doing something else that's more
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: neurotic and more costly.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: And it's part of the human condition. It's hard for
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: us to let go of worry. And I think there
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: are so many people folktales and myths and so on
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: about this, because from time immemorial, we have known about worry.
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: And in that Venn diagram, it's overlapping companion of anxiety.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: So there's a couple of stories that are interesting. One
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: is a tale, a legend about King Solomon and the
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Ring of Happiness. which is sometimes also called Solomon's Ring.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: So King Solomon, the wisest ruler of Israel, was renowned
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: for his wisdom, yet often wrestled with human emotions, joy, sorrow, worry,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: and doubt. And one day, he decided to test his advisors,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: teaching himself a lesson at the same time. He summoned
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: his most trusted minister, Benaiah ben Yehoyadah, and gave him
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: a seemingly impossible task. I have heard of a magical ring,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Solomon said. It has the power to make a sad
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: man joyful, and a joyful man sad, and I want
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: you to find that for me. Benaiah was perplexed, but
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: dared not question the king. He searched high and low,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: traveling through the cities and villages, asking merchant's jewelers, and
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: sages if they knew of such a ring, and everyone
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: shook their heads. No one had ever heard of such
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: an object. As the deadline for his return approached, Benaiah
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: became desperate. He wandered through the poor quarters of Jerusalem
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: searching for an answer, and at last he found an old,
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: humble jeweler in a small shop. The jeweler smiled knowingly,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: took a simple gold band, and engraved something on it.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: Benaiah read the words, and his face lit up with understanding.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: When he returned to the palace, Solomon eagerly took the
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: ring and examined it. And upon seeing the inscription, his
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: expression changed instantly. On the ring were the words, Gamzei Avur.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: Aha, translation please.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Which means in Hebrew, this too shall pass. Solomon fell silent.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: He realized the profound wisdom of the words. If he
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: was in sorrow, they reminded him that suffering is temporary.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: If he was joyful, they humbled him and reminded him
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: that nothing is permanent. And from that day on, King
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Solomon wore the ring as a reminder of life's impermanence
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: and balance, preventing both despair in hard times and arrogance
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: in success.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: Isn't that lovely? Yeah. That was something, that was one
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: of my father's favorite sayings. You know, when I... when
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: I would be all wound up about something, especially as
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: a teenager. He would just sort of take his finger
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: out and say, this too shall pass. And it actually,
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: even today, is something that I find very useful to
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: keep in consciousness. And so I think about, this is
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: how I'm feeling today. And I'm wrought up about something,
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: worried about something with its good undercoating of anxiety. And
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: the way I often think about it is, you know,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: if this happens or if it doesn't happen, will there
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: be a national crisis? Is it the same thing as
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: a giant meteor hurtling toward Earth? And that's my other
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: little trick to say, no, not a national crisis, not
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: an existential disaster.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Not an extinction event.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: And so it helps me sort of get things back
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: down to right size. And usually it's connected to some
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: kind of a feeling of, I will be disappointed if
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: this doesn't happen. I will be embarrassed if I'm not
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: prepared for all the exigencies of some possible event. So
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: I'm going to have a feeling that is uncomfortable because,
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: in fact, it's not an extinction event, as you've said.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Life will go on. This too shall pass.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: I like that putting it in perspective by comparing it
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: to a true catastrophe.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: Like a real catastrophe is here. The burnt roast, not
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: a real catastrophe. Inconvenience, undoubtedly, you probably have to call
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: up and order some pizza.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: That's a fact.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah. The dinner party, the course I was going to serve,
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: something happened. It's burned beyond recovery. The guests are coming
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: in 15 minutes.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: That's right. Spaghetti for everyone all of a sudden. But yeah,
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: interestingly enough, what I was thinking when you said that, Deb,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: is how the dream maker will also at times help
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: us gain perspective by exaggerating something in a dream. Yes.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: take a way that we're kind of off balance and
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: then blow it up in some big theatrical symbol to
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: get us to see the ridiculousness of it when it
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: gets that big so that we can, well, ideally we
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: might laugh at ourselves, although that can be difficult when
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: we're worried.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah. You know, I know everybody has had, you know,
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: what we often call anxiety dreams, but I think I'm
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: wondering if worry, which is essentially kind of a thought
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: process of what can I do to prevent this or
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: what can I do to ensure that the outcome is
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: what I want. I wonder if worry really is often
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: a call to go down a little deeper and and say,
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: you know, what am I really worried about? So your
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: example about the dinner party, I'm worried about being embarrassed.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: I'm worried about not even knowing what to do. What
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: do I do when six people arrive for dinner and
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: the main course has somehow become incinerated? What would you do?
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: What can I do? Versus that feeling of powerlessness and mortification.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: You know, and it occurs to me that what I
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: could do is to say to everybody, guys, you know,
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: I feel terrible about this. And even say I am
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: embarrassed to the max. But the dinner was ruined. Come
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: on in. Sit down. Here are some nibbles. Let's think
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: about plan B. Should we all go out for dinner?
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: What could we order in? You know, we can turn
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: to other people for problem solving.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: I think that's really wise. When I think of times
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: when I've indulged in worry, there is something... isolating, lonely.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: It's the thing that we're doing alone, wringing our hands,
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: that there's a kind of neurotic isolation in the fretting.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I like that, neurotic isolation. And what one of
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: my past wise women mentors used to say is, if
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: you've thought about something three times, a worry, three times,
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: and you cannot come up with a solution on your own,
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: get support. You might get support on the internet that
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: might have some solution to offer you or some options,
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: possibilities from a neighbor, from who can help me with this?
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: I am so worried about this. I don't know what
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: to do. Who could help me? And the help might
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: even be just empathy and companioning. You know, if I'm
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: worried about my kid who was supposed to be home
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: at midnight, getting to 1 o'clock, still not home, somebody
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: could just hold my hand for a little bit and
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: help me not be so worried. Oh, gosh, I know
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: what that's like. It's just awful. He's probably fine.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: To seek comfort.
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: Right. I will sit here with you and wait for
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: that teenage beast to show his horrible little face at
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: the door. And I've had that happen. We've all had
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: it happen. I'm so relieved I could break down in
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: tears and I'm ready to kill him.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: For putting you through it. Yes.
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: Now that I know you're okay, I can kill you.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: It sort of goes like that. But get support.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: So the idea of puncturing the neurotic isolation is an
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: old Freudian idea. And it was one of the realizations
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: that Freud had that when people confessed their secrets, that
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: just the confessing process alone seemed to free them up mightily.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: And sometimes that was even enough to get them to
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: continue to move forward in some constructive way. Because the
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: isolation in and of itself keeps the tempest in the
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: teapot going and going and going. So sharing the worry
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: sometimes can be really helpful, as well as then perhaps
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: receiving some kind of comforting co-regulation, some containment from the
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: other person.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: The other thing I think that can help is sometimes
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: to imagine, and then what? The dinner guests come... The
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: main dish is inedible.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: And then what?
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: And then what? Well, let's see, nobody's going to die.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: And then what? Well, then I'll feel a certain way.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: And then what? Well, somebody might come up with an idea.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: People might be empathic and go, oh my God, isn't
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: that too bad? Oh, you poor thing. But usually, you know,
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: this kind of catastrophizing leads to a feeling, an uncomfortable feeling.
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: It's really the uncertainty and how bad we feel and
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: uncomfortable and bad.
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: So I like what you're doing there, which is kind
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: of pressing the fantasy a little bit beyond. So like
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: dreaming the nightmare forward, so to speak.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Because worrying often... is a very tight kind of circle.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: What if the roast is burned? And then it's burned.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: But what if it burns? And then it really burns.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: And it doesn't kind of move beyond that. Just as
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: you said, okay, so the roast is burned. I open
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: up the window. I fan out the smoke. Open up
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: the door. I throw the roast out. The guests arrive.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: I tell them the dinner was ruined. Somebody says... this
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: is a new restaurant, and we all get in the car,
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: and then we go to the restaurant. To imagine a
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: life beyond the consequence that you think you cannot tolerate. Exactly. Which,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: of course, is always a fact, frankly.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: And even if the consequence, you know, that your worst
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: fear comes true, and there was a car accident, you
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: have to go to the hospital.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: Well, Then you'll go to the hospital, and then I'll
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: see my child, and then I'll take care of them,
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: and then we'll meet with the doctor, and then life
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: will go on.
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: But it's as if the unimaginable catastrophe will be beyond
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: my power to cope. And I can feel my own
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: sort of teariness about this, because we once did get
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: such a call.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: And, of course... We cope. That's simply what has to happen.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: That our suffering is part of our lives.
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: And that if we had perfect memory, we would have
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: a long story of sufferings and overcoming sufferings and adaptations
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: and wonderful things and bad things that have happened. And
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: here we are alive today, such.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: As we are.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: And we go and hopefully can grow through most things.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: But one thing is for sure, fruitless worrying doesn't help anything.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: It does not. It does not. It's costly, actually. Because
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: fruitless worrying can also make us numb to certain factors
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: and facts that are in the environment that we really
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: do need to be paying attention to.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: It makes us powerless and motionless. We, you know, in
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: the old fight, flight, freeze thing, I think worry tends
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: to be in the freeze category of like, I'm just
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: so worried about this. I'm just so worried about this.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: I'm just, and, and, uh, We just get stuck in
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: this endless feedback loop of what if, what if, maybe
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: I'll do this, maybe I'll do that. I know for
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: a lot of women, one thing you do when you
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: really can't do anything at all is I'll clean up
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: the kitchen, get that cutlery drawer cleaned out. That's where
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: all the crumbs always fall. Because it's comforting to take
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: some kind of action rather than nothing at all, which
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking about somehow making a segue to the story
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: of Damocles' sword. And the story, as it goes, you
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: can help me out here, is that there was a king,
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: and he had a courtier who was a flatterer and
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: so on, and said, oh, you know, king... You know,
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: you have everything. You have a beautiful palace and riches
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: and fine robes and this and that and the other thing.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: What a glorious life you're leading. And the king says, oh, really?
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: You want to spend a little time in the similar
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: kind of state that I often live in? And he says, oh, yes, yes, king.
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: That would be great. And so the king moves him
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: into the bedchamber. and has him lie on the bed,
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: and there he sees above him a razor-sharp sword dangling
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: by one single strand of horsehair. So the courtier freezes.
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: I don't dare move. I don't dare move. If I move.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: Something will jangle the sword. I'll make a little, you know, breeze,
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: and the sword will start to dangle, and then it
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: will drop, and it will drop on me, which is
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: a great image of don't move when you're in perceived
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: danger versus why didn't he shout out for somebody to
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: come and help him?
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: Hey!
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: Hey! Somebody get in here.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: I think that this story, it has to do with
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: holding tension. Because worrying is, in a way, a failure
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: to hold the tension, to hold it, contain it, versus
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: being overcome by it. So for the king, who's the
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: king of Syracuse, Dionysus II, To sit on the throne,
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: to make the decisions that a king has to make, good, bad,
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: or indifferent, to hold the tension of the terrible responsibility
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: of running a country or running a kingdom, means that
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: one has to be able to function, function well, with
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: a lot of tension and repercussions around oneself. And I
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: think we are often impressed. very large corporations or run
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: parts of our government. And we think, God, that's very stressful.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Who would want that job? And it takes a certain
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: kind of person to have the sword of Damocles hanging
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: above them, knowing that, you know, if they mess up
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: or they don't see something correctly, there are consequences.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Or even if there are things that happen that
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: are beyond their control. Market forces. Mm-hmm. You know, I
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: remember Blockbuster, where you went to a big store to
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: rent a video to play at night. Uh-oh, what happened
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: to Blockbuster? What happened to the CEO who might have
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: managed it brilliantly, but market forces created, you know, streaming?
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: And so that happened. So an easy... lies the head
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: that wears the crown. And in some sense, we all
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: wear the crown, whether it's household management or some kind
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: of big company. But I like a lot that you're
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: veering into holding the tension. And that is different from worrying.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: When I'm worried, I'm scurrying around. I'm on my phone.
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: I might be making phone calls. Worst case, I'm cleaning
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: the kitchen, I'm taking action that doesn't yield actual results
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: in an attempt to discharge an uncomfortable feeling, an agonizingly
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: uncomfortable feeling, versus what would happen if I could wrap
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: my sense of presence, myself, around These two opposites. I
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: am worried. Really worried. And I don't know how this
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: is going to turn out. Don't know what the outcome
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: is going to be. And bear it. And sometimes I
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: think we just have to bear it.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: I think that the idea of holding the thing that
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: we have to bear, means that we're also thinking about
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: it as a phenomena of psyche. That I think when
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: we're trapped in a hand-wringing, in a worrying, in a lamenting,
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: that we've kind of lost the distance between ourselves and
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: the fantasy of we're regarding. Part of containing and holding
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: the tension is that we recognize I'm over here. The fantasy,
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: the negative fantasy is a little bit away from me
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: on a kind of mental movie screen. Mm-hmm. and that
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: I can regard my worry as a fantasy and ask
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: other questions about it. Why this? Why am I pondering this?
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: What is the meaning of this? What does it say
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: about me that I'm wrapped up in this particular concern?
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: And to reflect on that and to invite that, some
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: other deeper insight to come forward from the unconscious, from
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: other creative part of ourselves, or as you had said, Debbie,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: from another person.
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: But to face the fear.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: And face the fear as a product of your own mind.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: It may come to pass, in which case then you
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: will face it as a physical reality.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: But prior to that, it is an internal process, nightmarish perhaps,
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: but it is playing out in the internal theater. Yeah.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: And to know that is to begin to contain it. Yeah.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: In the proper realm that itself.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: It's anticipatory. It hasn't happened yet, so you really don't know.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: And to be able to, as you say, sit with
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: this and feel the feelings. If my flight is delayed
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: and I miss the connecting flight, and there was some
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: event that really depends on me getting there on time,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: then that's that. I think so many of these things
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: are always undergirded by feelings, and we want our minds
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: and our capabilities to have control.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: I'm going to share a little poem by Wendell Berry.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: who was an incredible essayist, naturalist, advocate. And after I
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: read it, there's a particular phrase that has been ringing
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: in my mind as we were talking, which is, where
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: I want to go. When despair for the world grows
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: in me, and I wake in the night at the
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: least sound, in fear of what my life and my
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: children's lives may be, I go and lie down where
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: of wild things who do not tax their lives with
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: water and I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: with their light for a time I rest in the
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: grace of the world and am free. The sentence that
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: was ringing as we were talking is, the peace of
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: of grief.
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: Forethought of grief. Yes, that's the worrying.
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah. That takes us full circle back to where we started.
• 53:03
  Speaker 4: that worry is a side effect of our ability to imagine,
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: that we have the capacity to imagine the future, and
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: it often serves us very well. If I do this,
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: then that is likely to happen, and I therefore don't
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: do something that's really foolish, such as go out poorly
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: dressed for a winter day, let's say. But other times
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: it doesn't serve us. And we engage in unnecessary forethought,
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: usually ending in disaster. When we're worried about it, we're
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: not imagining the happy outcome. We're imagining worst case.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: And so taking control of ourselves, observing our cognitive process,
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: questioning it, making a plan if we can. abandoning the
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: thought stream if we can't, discerning what we can change
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: and what we can't change. All of this is clear,
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: discriminating thinking. And that is helpful around our neurotic worrying,
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: as well as sharing it with somebody else to help
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: us get a different perspective, to see ourselves, perhaps, or
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: see the circumstance in a slightly different way. Our dreamer
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: is a 46-year-old female who is an art school director.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: And here is her dream. I'm traveling with three other
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: people in some kind of vehicle and I'm riding in
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: the back seat. The driver is driving on the right side,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: although I live in the U.S. and have never lived
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: in a country who drives on the right. The two
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: people in the front seat work at the place where
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: I am the executive director. They have friction in their
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: relationship to one another. In this dream, though, that seems resolved.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: We're passing through a narrow passage and I decide It's
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: best if we walk. So I get out and down,
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: and I have bare feet. I'm comfortable until someone else
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: points out that they are doing construction here and it
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: might be dangerous to walk in the sawdust. I look
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: for shoes, but only find a pair of Victorian-looking booties
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: that are too tight and have heels. inappropriate and awkward
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: for this short passage. Suddenly the dream changes and I'm
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: in a store where everything is on sale and I
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: realize that all my personal clothes and shoes were here
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: and they have been removed. I understand that it is
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: because I've done something wrong and I accept that and
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: go to find them to take them with me. I
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: find a room that's been cleared out except for a
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: few articles of very nice high quality vintage designer clothes.
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: I throw as much as I can into bags that
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: are lying about, and am hurrying to leave with what
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: is left of my belongings. As I leave, there are
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: three security guards who have since closed the store and
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: turned the lights out and are waiting for me. I
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: make a run for it into the hallway and wait
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: around the corner to try to knock one of them
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: out with a telephone receiver. At this point, it becomes
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: kind of slapstick, and I understand. It's all a joke,
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: just theater. For context, the dreamer writes, I had this
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: dream at the end of a needed week-long vacation. I'm
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: feeling detached and passionless about my job and have felt
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: increasingly so about my vocation as a whole for years.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: The current job I've been in for two years through
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: the pandemic, but have been an arts administrator for 15 years.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: I'm in California, which I love, and am longing for
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: a different life, but don't know how to make the
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: right series of decisions to make a permanent change. The
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: main feelings in the dream were mostly a long for
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: the ride, or acceptance and contrition, but woke up more
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: puzzled by this dream than usual, lying awake and trying
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: to get back into it with little success.
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I start right at the beginning with
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: how our dream ego is positioned. In the back seat
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: and in a car where the driver is on the
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: right side of the automobile, as it happens, I somewhat
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: recently traveled to a country where they do drive on
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: the right side the driver's on the right side of
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: the car, but to my way of thinking, they are
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: completely on the wrong side of the road. And although
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: I was a passenger, I'm thinking about, I could feel
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: some anxiety that every now and then my attention would
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: go to, let's see where we are, and like, whoops,
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: we're on the wrong side of the road because I'm
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: so accustomed to one way of driving. So here we
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: are in a discomforting initial psychic situation, imaged by being
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: in the back seat and driving on what to us
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: is the wrong side of the road. And the two
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: people in the front seat have friction between them. So
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: they're not in a compatible kind of relationship, even though
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: in the dream it seems resolved. So we get an
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: initial scenario. The psychic situation being presented is one of discomfort.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: And some anxiety. You're not in the driver's seat. Literally.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: But she does feel some agency. Because as things are
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: driving along, she becomes aware of this tension between the
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: two people in the front seats. And then she decides
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: that it's best if we walk. And She's able to
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: get out of the car, and she starts walking. So
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: there's this movement from being swept along to her acting
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: on her own agency. So that's an encouraging shift at
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: that point, although she is acknowledging she has this vulnerability
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: of being tender-footed.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: She's a tender foot. Exactly. That's great. But she has
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: to get out because they're going through a narrow passage.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: So when we're in a tight situation, maybe we talk
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: about get up on your own two feet and do something.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: So we have what are sometimes colloquially called our legamobiles.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: So she decides to utilize those. And then what happens?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: She's in a place where they're doing construction, and it
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: might be dangerous to walk in the sawdust. That's right.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: There are all kinds of stuff that land on the
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: floor during construction.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: Could be nails, all kinds of things that might.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: Injure her foot.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: Sharp objects.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: The tender foot. So she says, oh, yeah, that's right.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: It's probably not good to be barefoot. And she needs shoes.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: which often really represent our standpoint in life. And I
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: think we know this intuitively because sometimes I'm here in
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: Florida and there are cafes out on broad sidewalks and
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: so on. And I can really see people wearing just
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: all kinds of footwear from sort of sandals and running
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: shoes and all kinds of great sneakers to something like
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: gladiator sandals of high heels laced all the way up
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: the calf.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: Very creative.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: And, you know, we notice immediately, well, that's an interesting
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: standpoint in life. And our dream ego finds Victorian-looking booties
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: that are too tight and have heels which are not
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: the right kind of footwear, not ideal for this kind
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: of situation.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: But how interesting that she decides she's going to move
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: and move through this passage inside of her psyche. She's
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: comfortable being barefoot until something else in the psyche alerts
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: her to a potential danger.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, someone else points out. So there's an unseen shadow
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: figure here that says, hey, wait a minute, wait.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: You can't see what's in that sawdust. Wait a minute.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: There could be vipers in the sawdust.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: And our dream ego does, appropriately enough, takes action. All
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: she can find are Victorian-looking booties. So now she's got
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: a new problem because, better than being barefoot perhaps, but
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: not Not really serviceable.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: And so what you were saying about attitude, that to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: take upon a Victorian attitude, to take a Victorian attitude
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: into us, we might say is an extremely conservative, very persona-bound,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: very bodice-laced, repressed, non-instinctive. And in the Victorian era, exposing
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: one's ankles and feet would have been way too erotic.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: To see a young woman's ankle was very provocative. So
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: there is some tension between her having a naked foot
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: versus a Victorian clad foot.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: However, when our dream ego listens to the invisible someone, Mm-hmm.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: And at least takes action to find some footwear. If
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: that happens, then the dream changes. So this affects the scene. Absolutely,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: it does. And our dream ego is in a store
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: where everything is on sale. Now, that seems like good news.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: From my young adult life, I had a friend who
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: used to say, Sale was her favorite four-letter word.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: I was raised in a family like that.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: So it seems like, wow, that's good news. But, uh-oh,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: all of her personal clothes and shoes were there and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: had been removed.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: On sale in a store. So it's like, really, they've
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: been stolen and put into this shop, and they're being
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: sold by the proprietor without her knowledge or permission.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: That's really interesting.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: So what we're doing is really sort of literalizing the dream.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: If this happened, what would you do? That's right, you're
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: in the sawdust, get some shoes on. Oh my gosh,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: everything's on sale, but somebody took all your stuff and
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: put them up for sale too. And then our dream
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: ego says, I understand because I have done something wrong.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: That's interesting. We don't have any data about that from
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: the dream itself. Dream doesn't say she snitched a candy
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: bar from the corner store. But there's guilt that comes
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: into this. And she accepts that and goes to find
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: them and take them with her. Hmm. And then we
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: have a doubling. I find a room that's been cleared
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: out except for a few articles of nice, high-quality, vintage
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: designer clothes. So where previously her footwear was Victorian with
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: its usual association, as you said, Joseph, to sort of
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: this uptight, overly proper, constricted attitude, now they're old. but vintage,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: which has positive connotations now, and they were their designer clothes.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: Hmm.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: And she scoops as much as she can into bags
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: that are lying around, hurries to leave with what's left
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: of her belongings. So this seems like, wow, this story's
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: going to have a happy ending. Huh?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: Whew.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: Relief. No. Not yet. Sorry.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: And the last part I find interesting because I've been
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: spending a lot of time thinking about the difference between
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: the dream ego's interpretation versus the actual facts of the dream.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: So she realizes that her belongings have slipped out of
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: her ownership, slipped out of her control. They're being distributed, sold.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: She's gathering them back up, stuffing them into a bag.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: The security guards have closed the store. They're turning the
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: lights up, but they're waiting for her, which is what
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: someone would do. It's like, you know, we're closing up.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: It's time to step out.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: She interprets that as threatening enough that she's got to
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: evade them, and she's planning on knocking one of them
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: out with a telephone receiver, which must be a telephone
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: receiver from, like, 1950. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: We are talking vintage.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: Heavy enough to be a weapon. I don't think my
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: iPhone would knock somebody out. And then it becomes kind
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: of slapstick, which is really, I think, the whole gift
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: of the dream is the change of attitude. It starts
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: with a particular tone and a journey, and she's passive.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: And then in the end, it becomes mirthful. This running around,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: trying to find her clothes, and trying to take back
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: something that has fallen out of her hands, which Jung
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: would also call the regressive restoration of the persona. So
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: she's going through a passage in her life, right? She's
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: in that world of Janus, the two-faced god of portals
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: and doorways. You enter into a threshold, something happens, and
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: you exit a threshold. So she was going to go
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: through a passage. She discovers her feet are bare. What
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: I would suggest, seeing the dream, is had she tolerated
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: the risk of moving through this passage, given there may
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: be things that she can't predict, she might have successfully
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: come to the other side. But I think if one
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: of the complexes starts fretting, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: about this? You don't have the right equipment. Don't keep
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: walking forward to this new attitude or new career or
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: a new life. You need the right equipment. Even take
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: the passage. And the only thing laying around in this
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 3: construction site are Victorian booties, which are laying around in
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: most construction sites, apparently.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah. Construction sites are notorious for being strewn with
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: Victorian booties.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. You know, those construction workers walking around in those tight, high-laced,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: you know, Victorian shoes. And then all of a sudden,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: she's frantically trying to recover old things.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's right.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: And clutch them back to herself. And then she's going
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: to smack somebody around with a telephone to make sure
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: that they don't take away her old stuff.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: So in a way, and our dream ego and presumably
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: dreamer get it at the end, the dream sort of
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: sends her on a wild goose chase. Okay, it's a
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: tight passage. Get out and walk. Uh-oh, don't walk through
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: all the sawdust on the construction site. Get some shoes on. Oh,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: try on these Victorian booties with high heels. Uh-oh. And
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: I like that image of she's in a store where
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: everything is on sale. The merchandise that is put on
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: sale is the stuff that didn't sell. Exactly. Nobody wanted
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: to pay full price for it, so now it's overstock,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: and we slash the price. It's half price.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: Let's just get it out of the store.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: Actually, that's a lot of your stuff. Surprise, surprise. Dream ego.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: Look at that. This is where your belongings have wound up.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: Is it worth it? frantically stuffing into a bag and
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: taking with you.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: Maybe, maybe should have been left behind as you walk
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: forward through the passageway to what lays before you. There's
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: also other ways of moving through sawdust carefully, you know,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: brushing the sawdust aside if you were very concerned about
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: it so that you could keep moving forward in whatever direction.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: She also says that she's felt detached and passionless about
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: her vocation as a whole for several years. Transitioning out
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: of a vocation into a new work, into a new calling,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: into a new career is a stressful thing for many people.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: It takes a lot of energy to walk out of
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: your old situation and into whatever's next for you. So
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: I could also imagine that this feeling of vulnerability, which is,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: I think, captured in the barefoot.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: And it's a construction site because new things are being
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: built in the psyche.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: It calls up what is the course of right action. Now,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: in dreams, usually the dream ego does this, that, and
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: the other thing. The scene may change, etc. So we've
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: walked through this dream. And I am kind of hypothesizing
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: that the dream, as I said before, sends a dream
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: ego on a wild goose chase. And that at the end,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: the dream ego kind of gets it. Hurrying and scurrying
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: and trying this and doing that is just slapstick and theater.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: And that makes me wonder about whether the concern about
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: career and vocation calls for an inner adjustment or an
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: outer world adjustment. Our dream ego is really busy doing
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: outer world adjustments. Get out of the car, walk to
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: the construction site, find some shoes, get to the store,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: throw your stuff in a bag, bop the security guards
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: on the head with a telephone.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: Lethal weapon it is. Right?
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: Really sort of keystone cops kind of scurrying around.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: And I wonder if, you know, oftentimes when we are
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: working with people in our consulting rooms, like, wait a minute,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: you know, is it your attitude towards the job or
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 4: are you really in the wrong kind of career? And
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: the dream points to it's an inner attitude of getting
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: so busy and racing around that was the problem.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: If this were my dream and I were to go
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: back in active imagination, I would be curious to come
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: to the narrow passage and risk also just walking forward.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: Just see what happens.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: Go through the construction site, discover what's being constructed, what's
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: on the far side of the passage when it finally
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: opens up. Go into the unknown a little bit.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: I think she never really gets through it.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: And if I were to do an act of imagination,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: I would imagine just staying in the car.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: Interesting.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: Because nothing bad is happening. The driver is driving on
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 4: the right side of the car on the left side
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: of the roadway, which is discomforting, but nothing bad is happening.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: She doesn't say, you know, we're about to bump into something.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: Then she says the two people in the front seat
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 4: work at the place where she's the executive director. They
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: have friction in their relationship, but it seems in the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: dream to have been resolved.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: So I think I might just say, could I just relax?
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: See what happens.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, let's stay in the car. I want to see
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: where it's going.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: So to kind of back out of the frantic reclaiming
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: of the old clothing.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: Get back into this little capsule that you're in and
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: it's transporting you to something new, at least. You can also,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: in active imagination, query the driver. There's a lot of
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: curiosities that can be explored in active imagination that, of course,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: didn't occur to us in the dream.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: Yes, and that's what we have the possibility to do
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: when we dream the dream on. you can seize hold
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: of almost anything and imagine your way into it. And
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: then what would that feel like? So it's well worthwhile.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: It deepens our participation in what the dream maker has
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: offered us.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: And in times of transition, it is stressful and it's
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: not uncommon for us to In the heroic journey, you
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: hear the call, you think you're going to start out,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: then you run back into the house and you don't
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: do it. Then the call has to happen again, and
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: then maybe you'll answer the call to whatever is new
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: the second time. So to me, this reminds me of
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: the first call to the heroic journey, and you kind
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: of step on the road and you're like, no, no, no, no,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: I'm going back home. I'm just going to reconstitute my
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: closet and just stay where I am. That's funny. And also,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: the next time, maybe you'll heed the call and you'll
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: go through the passage. So there's something natural about the
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: hesitancy that we just all have.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 4: But to dream the dream on gives our dreamer and
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 4: all of us a chance to explore various alternatives and
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: to engage basically in sort of a process of discernment
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: by trying things on imaginably.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 4: You know, what if this, what if I stay in
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: the car? What if I do this? What if I don't?
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: What if I walk through the construction site barefoot? What if?
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 4: So we refer you, dreamer, to yourself and your own
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: dream maker and imaginal capabilities.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: Indeed.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisunionlife.com. If
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: you enjoyed this episode, give us five stars and a
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: good review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: your podcasts.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: Bye.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: Bye.