Latest / This Jungian Life Podcast / MOTIVATION: What Happens When Your Get-Up-and-Go Leaves Without You?

Transcript

MOTIVATION: What Happens When Your Get-Up-and-Go Leaves Without You? · 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 1: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: We're going to be talking today about motivation. And motivation
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: comes from a Latin word that means to move. So
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: what moves us? Why are we moved? Educators want to
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: figure out how to motivate children. Bosses want to figure
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: out how to motivate employees. We may find that we're
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: lacking motivation where we wish we had it. And we
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: may be motivated to do things that we somehow wish
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: we didn't want to do. So what is motivation? Where
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: does it come from? And most of all, how can
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: we understand that from a Jungian frame?
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: What I discovered from our good friends Merriam and Webster
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: is they define motivation as an act or process of
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: giving someone a reason And I thought that was a
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: really interesting sort of cognitively oriented definition that made me
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: smile because all I could think about was how often
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: reason fails completely and utterly of, you know, here's why
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: you should really pick up your room. Here's why you
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: should try to pass algebra.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: And as a one-time long-ago special ed teacher with adolescence,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I've well experienced the failures of reason, which is very
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: different from consequences.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: So what often could work is if you don't pass
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: English and sit down together with me to see where
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: the sticking points are, you're going to wind up in
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: summer school. which is eight weeks from eight in the
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: morning until one in the afternoon. Now, that's not reason.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: That's just hard, awful collision with reality, a brutal fact
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: of life.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that you're
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: lifting up there, which I think is really interesting for
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: this discussion, is looking at motivation really highlights the fact
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: that we have an unconscious. Hmm. And I find it
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: fascinating because, you know, some people say, no, there is
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: no such thing as an unconscious. Like there are people
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: that don't believe that there's an unconscious. And I, to me,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, I may have some rather developed views about
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: what the unconscious is. And I could imagine some people
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: might disagree with me, but it's hard to think that
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: there isn't an unconscious. And this is, you know, one
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: of those areas that really kind of proves it because
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: consciously I am very motivated not to eat cake. Because
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: when I eat cake, I want more cake. And then
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I eat so much cake that I don't feel well.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: And it just ruins the rest of my day. And
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: so I have a strong motivation on tea cake. But
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: then what happens is I walk into a room where
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: there's a slice of cake. And literally, I can be thinking,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I really can't eat that cake. It's going to make
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: me feel bad. And I'm not going to be able
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: to stop at one piece. And I'm going to have
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: half the cake. stupid cake and then I'm going to
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: feel terrible and I'm going to be sleepy and I'm
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: going to have the sugar jitters. I am really motivated
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: not to eat that cake. But boy, there is some
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: other motivational factor that is unconscious that pulls me toward
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: that cake. Now, I'm being a little bit facetious. I mean,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: everything I said is true.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, of course.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: But I think we can see this in all kinds
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: of ways. And we're being a little bit flip, but
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I think this can be quite, quite painful. We may
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: have a real motivation, say, to get a new job
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: because our current job doesn't pay enough or we feel
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: really ill-used or we know it's not good for us.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: But there's some other motivational force That is either partly
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: or largely unconscious. Yes. That keeps us from opening up
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: our computer and doing a search for a new job
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: or following through on the applications that we submitted or
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: whatever it is. And I mean, so this can really
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: run the gamut of all kinds of areas in life.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm motivated to be a better spouse and
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: to maybe attend more to my spouse's feelings or needs. Hmm.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: but there's some other motivation. Maybe there's a secret resentment
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: or a kind of unconscious selfishness that means that I
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: don't wind up doing the things that I intend to do.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: So motivation can be conscious and unconscious, and often those
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: two things are not aligned. If you want even more
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: of this Jungian life in your life... consider joining us
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: on Patreon where you can hear bonus episodes. Our bonus
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: episode today involved interpretation of a dream where someone was
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: dealing with anger and the anger visits her in some
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: surprising and unpleasant ways, but we suspect it will have
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: beneficial outcomes in the long term. So if you want
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: to hear that interpretation, check out our Patreon.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: We have mixed feelings. We have lots of different parts
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: to ourselves. And I would like to highlight the feelings
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: part of, oh, God, that cake looks so good. Oh,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: it's going to be so delicious. It's my fave. Oh,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: it's that really deep chocolatey cake. So there are different
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: parts of us, and we often... refer to that as
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: the unconscious. It defies our reason, what we should do,
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: what we know is good for us, and what we
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: are honestly, we do honestly desire to do all kinds
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: of things.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: And we may not know the unconscious motivations.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Exactly. So we are, you know, we're divided against ourselves.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: So, and that can look like self-sabotage, which we've done
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: an episode about, because, you know, consciously we want one thing,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: but unconsciously there's a different motivation that we just haven't
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: reckoned with.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So part of it is we need to get
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: into more alignment with ourselves and be a little, get
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: interested in what our unconscious is saying of like, now,
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: wait a minute, uh, that needs to be given some
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: space to exist, to talk, to be recognized, to be
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: understood so that we can start to sort things out.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: What is holding me back from doing a job hunt?
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: There's something going on here. But I'm also wanting to
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: take a little bit of a turn into just energy.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: Conscious energy, unconscious energy, all of our energy of what
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: do I want? What do I want enough to hunker
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: down and go after it? Yeah.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: And Jung's term for energy was libido. And it just
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: meant in Jungian terms, it just means life energy. And
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: of course, this idea of energy, as you've said, Deb,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: is very connected with motivation because in some sense, they're
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: almost kind of synonymous, aren't they? It's like, well, what
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: do I have the energy for? What motivates me? What
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: gives me energy? And to just elaborate a little bit
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: on that, you know, when we were speaking a minute
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: ago about conscious and unconscious motivations, we were giving examples
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: where consciousness wants something and the unconscious kind of holds
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: us back. But sometimes, a lot of times, as a
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: matter of fact, The energy that's in the unconscious is
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: directed toward a mysterious end that we may not be
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: aware of, our ego consciousness may not be aware of
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: or lined up behind. But it's as if some part
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: of us is directed toward something. So to expand your
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: notion of energy, sometimes we have energy for something that
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: we don't think we should, but there it is. We're
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: just drawn in a certain direction, kind of almost against
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: our will.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking about one of the ways that Jung thought
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: about libido or energy was sort of as a quantity.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: And he used the idea of a gradient. So let's
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: think of a slanted path. And then this quantity which
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: is this much or this much, depending on the person,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: the situation, a whole bunch of variables. Is there a
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: big quantity that wants to go down that gradient? It's
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: just there. And it's flowing down. Or is the gradient
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: not angled enough? It's really pretty horizontal, so it doesn't
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: move much. Or maybe we just don't have very much
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: energy for a certain thing or even for life. I
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: think we've all known people that are just, we say,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: you know, this person is just a ball of fire.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Other people have different temperaments. different quantities of energy, different
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: kinds of energy, and gradients that are either steep or
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: not so steep, depending on what really amounts to a
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: lot of very mysterious variables.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: And here's a little bit from Jung on that gradient
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: idea that you brought up, Deb. He says, for the
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: libido does not incline to anything— Otherwise, it would be
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: possible to turn it in any direction one chose. And
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: we all know that that's not entirely true. But that
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: is only the case with voluntary processes and then only
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: to a limited degree. Yes, indeed. The libido has, as
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: it were, a natural penchant. It is like water, which
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: must have a gradient if it is to flow. Yeah,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: so we don't totally have control over where our energy is.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: And where it is, the idea of that gradient, where
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: it's flowing inside us is mysterious, is largely beyond conscious control.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, and, you know, Deb, I think, you know,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: you said something important at the end that, you know,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: people may just be born with natural differences in libido,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: you know. You read about composers like Bach and just
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: like the sheer volume of work that he created. It's like,
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: how did anyone do that? You know? And then there
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: are people who, you know, are, are, are, you know, there's,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: there's the Russian novel, a Blomoff, uh, which is, uh,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: you know, basically about a man who, who has trouble
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: leaving his room. And the first 50 pages of the book,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: I think he manages to get out of bed and
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: move to the chair. And, and we, you know, We
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: all probably have a little of blow-off in us, but
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: there are also people that really do kind of live
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: their life like that, that don't have a lot of motivation.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: But the motivation we do have, to a certain extent,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: only some of it is at our conscious disposition. So
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Saturday morning, I knew that I wanted to clean out
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: a drawer in my bathroom vanity.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: This is all of Saturday morning or just.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Well, wait. Right now, we're just at the stage where
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about it, okay?
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: Ah, I see.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: And, you know, this has been on the list for
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: a long time. But the gradient hasn't really been there.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: But then I was able to finally recruit enough energy
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: to do this task. But it, you know, but it was...
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: But it's, you know, it's like all those things on
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: your to-do list that you know you need to do.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: And then you kind of have to muster the libido
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: to do them sometimes, unless you're the kind of person
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: who likes doing something like that. And I'm not. I
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: was very proud of the finished product, though, I have
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: to say.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness. Congratulations.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. It does take a certain amount of, you're introducing
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: the concept of will.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: And consciousness of that sometimes we do have to take
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: ourselves by the hand, give ourselves a little talking to,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: and do some of the things that nobody has much
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: libido for. Cleaning out drawers, doing the laundry, washing the dishes.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, there are a whole host of things that
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: we do because... We have decided, and we have will,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: and it will be better to do than not. Versus
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: what they talk about these days, I love the term,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: and you're familiar with the research, of seeking. That we are,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: as humans, we are seekers. Yes.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Well, this comes from the research from the effective neuroscientist
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Jak Panksepp and others in the field of effective neuroscience.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And what they've done is they've looked at brain function,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: basically looking at the effect of lesions or brain stimulation
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: or psychopharmacological manipulations to see what different areas of the
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: brain do. And what Panksepp came up with is there
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: are these seven basic emotional and instinctual systems. And there
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: are these kind of parts of the brain that work
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: together in these various ways. So the seven systems are play, panic, care, lust, fear, rage,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: and seeking. And seeking is really the, Panksepp called it
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: the granddaddy of the systems. And to a certain extent,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: it's kind of implicated in all of the other systems.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: And we've known this for a long time. You know,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the seeking system is obviously mediated by, you know, by dopamine, right? It's,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: you know, really our dopaminergic system. And one thing about
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: dopamine is that it gets you up and out and
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: looking for something. But dopamine is really about the pleasure
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: of wanting rather than the pleasure of getting. Yeah. And
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: that is such a, when I was learning about this,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: that was so clarifying to me because there is something
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: so pleasurable in seeking, right? In wanting. And just think
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: for a minute about how fun it is to find
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: out that you need, oh, I don't know. Let's say
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: that you find out that you need a new kitchen appliance.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: And maybe this wouldn't apply to everybody. But if I
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: legitimately need a new kitchen appliance, I'm going to really
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: enjoy Going online and reading about different appliances or going
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: to stores and looking at various ones. It's like I'm
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: on the hunt, right? I'm like foraging. And it's fun to,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: it's fun just to be looking. It's fun to be
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: seeking this new thing, which is why I think shopping
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: is really fun, right? I mean, if you go to
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: the mall, boy, that is a seeking experience taken to
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: a really heightened level, you know?
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's hunting.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's foraging.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Foraging, and we would not have evolved or survived, good heavens,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: if we didn't have that ability to seek where things
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: are growing and what's in season and digging for things
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: that are under the ground. I mean, we really strongly... Yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Installed in human nature.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: It's I think it's really I think it's exactly what
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: we're talking about. It's like it's generalized motivation. Like you
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: get up in the morning and and there's, you know,
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: what what what what am I going to find? Well,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: now this is interesting. OK, this takes me to a
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: little refinement of this idea is that in Freud in
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Freud's terms, right, Freud was positive drive theory. And he
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: said that there's, you know, the life drive and the
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: death drive, but it's about the drive. It's about just
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: a general kind of libido or force to look for something,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: to look for anything.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Physiological.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Yes. But then the object relationists come in and they're
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: very interested in the object. So what are you looking for? Right.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: And it's, I think it is a both and, but
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: the drive people, the drive theory people say it doesn't,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: the object doesn't matter. What matters is the drive. So
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: you wake up in the morning and it's like, I'm
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: going to get out of bed and start my day
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: and what am I going to find? Or, you know,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: that's the drive model. You wake up in the morning
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: and you think coffee, that's the object. You're motivated for
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: the object. Now, I think they're both relevant, but it
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: is interesting to see them as a little bit different.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: And of course, this was initially posited in terms of sexuality,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: but go ahead, Deb.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: But that ties in with, in this other way of
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: looking at it, just a slightly different lens with arousal theory.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: So I really do get up in the morning and
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: I think, okay, I'm going to do this and this,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: and then I'm going to have my coffee. And that's arousal.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: I love coffee, and I really like my morning coffee.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: It is the proverbial carrot, the level of excitement. Now,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: we could make a raincoat. For Deb, it's coffee in
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: the morning, and for somebody else, it's climbing Mount Everest.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: But it is the affective part of us that goes
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: along with the drive of a drive to satisfy a
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: biological urge for food, drink, or my coffee, and the
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: feeling that goes along with it of, that's my carrot,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: of like, oh, I'm up for it. We have to
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: have both of those things. And then we can also
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: add in the need that we have for affiliation. for belonging,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: for connecting with people, relationship. And that is really a
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: deep and universal human urge. It goes to attachment and development,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: but we want to belong and to be connected and
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: in relationship.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Right, so it's very motivating to seek out connection and relationship.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: And parents do this all the time. I mean, for
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: the kid who, you know, doesn't want to do his homework.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: And most kids don't really want to do their homework.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: But the value of the relationship with the parent can
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: override the disinclination to do homework.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Really? Except in your experience?
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I think it happened once. But oftentimes we instill that
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: in our kids of, you know, you have to wash
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: your hands. You have to do your homework. You have
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: to go up and take a bath. You have to
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: go to bed. It's your bedtime. And the relationship is
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: motivating that kid to do something that he doesn't especially
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: want to do at the moment. But mom says, I
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: have to. I have a very powerful relationship with mom
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: or dad or a teacher. there will be consequences to
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: my not doing it that will not only be like, okay,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: you know, I flunked spelling or something, but that there'll
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: be a relational cost of, you know, the proverbial kid
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: who loses his report card on the way home from
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: school because he doesn't want to endure the, you know,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: criticism or scolding if the report card isn't good. We
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: value relationships and we use our relationships, especially with kids.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: To prod them along to do the things they need
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: to do. Yeah.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: And that, I think, slips into this area of like
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: internal versus external motivation or like inherent motivation, you know,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: because I mean, there is that question like you're talking
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: about the carrot and the stick and that's like an
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: external motivation. So. You know, part of how I motivated
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: myself to clean out my bathroom vanity drawer was there
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: was a webinar I wanted to go to. And I
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: was like, okay, I'll go to the webinar. And while
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: I'm listening to the webinar, I'll clean up my drawer.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: So that's how I got myself to do it. And again,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: that was like external, right? Internal, it's like I'm going
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: to enjoy this purge of all these expired things. and
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: useless cosmetics that I accumulated.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Did you?
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Did I enjoy it? I don't know. That might be
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: stretching it. But yeah, I mean, the inherent motivation is
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: we're just doing it because we want to. And I
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: think that ideally, when we think about kids, for example,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: or even us professionally or in a relationship or something,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: it's like, of course, we'd love to have everything that
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: we do come from an internal sense of motivation, you know,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: that you just want to. It's just fun. And little
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: kids start off that way, right? They just are so
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: excited about learning. But then that really kind of dies down.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: And then we're in that carrot and stick. And the
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: carrot might be, you know, mom's going to feel proud
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: of you, like you were saying, Deb. And the stick
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: might be, you're going to have to go to summer school.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: But, you know, I think that... And there's some research,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: by the way, that says that external motivation actually may
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: sometimes backfire. So if I recall, the research was something
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: like they were trying to get... Maybe it was kids
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: to try a new smoothie. And so they offered one
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: group a kind of reward if they would try it.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: And in... Initially, the group that was rewarded tried the
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: smoothie more so than the group who wasn't rewarded. But
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: when they went back later, the group that wasn't rewarded
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: was more likely, was more open. And the group that
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: had been rewarded was like, well, what are you going
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: to give me?
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just transactional.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. And that's the danger with too many external
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: rewards is it just becomes transactional. And then the person
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: doesn't have any ownership over it. It's not like I've
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: decided to try this movie. You know, it's not. It's
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: my volition. It's my interest. It's my curiosity or hunger.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: That's me. It's like I did it because you paid me.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: So I'm only going to do it if you pay me.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: So it can it can backfire. And yet I do
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: think it's naive to think that that we can't get
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: through without any external motivation. I mean, it's just like me.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: I had to kind of. I don't know, convince myself
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: to take that time by like, oh, I'll listen to
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: this really juicy webinar.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: But I'm also guessing that what you experience, which leads
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: into the internal satisfaction, that we do internally enjoy a
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: sense of accomplishment and mastery.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Yes. I have mastered my drawer.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: It raises our sense of self-esteem. Yeah. We're proud of ourselves.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Yes. I'm laughing. I'm laughing because a couple of times
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: I opened the drawer, I was like, oh. So I
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: am proud of myself. Exactly.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: And there's something about, I mean, we see this with
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: little kids all the time. I remember my kids growing
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: up and they would have a certain toy and it
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: could be something so, so simple. like stacking rings on,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: there's one where they have different rings, or putting the
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: little shapes into a box where the cutouts are a triangle,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: a star, a square, etc. And one of my kids
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: was just absolutely obsessed with this task. And then he
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: mastered it. And then he did it every now and then. Now,
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: there was no extrinsic or external reward. Right. that I
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: was supplying to get him to do this, but he
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: wanted the sense of mastery. I think we've all experienced it.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: Here's one that I did not master, but many years ago,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: I was really interested in being the good mother of
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: young kids and a homemaker, and I set myself the
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: task of learning to make risotto. It eluded me, and
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: I But isn't it interesting that this is years and
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: years later, and I really tried. I really wanted the mastery.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: I really like risotto, and I couldn't do it.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: It's not that hard. I think you could do it.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Never had that special sort of little crunch inside that
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: risotto is supposed to have. However, it's a very strong
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: urge in most people. as a source of agency, self-sufficiency,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: and being okay with ourselves in the world. It's sort
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: of an I can attitude that comes from little things
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: of I can. I can do that. You know, it
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: carries over to, you know, I can do this new job.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: You know, I can travel cross-country.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think that ever really goes away, right?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: The desire for mastery and the sort of whole personality
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: effect of mastering something new, how it just creates, it
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: heightens our sense of self-confidence when we can take on
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: something new and master it. And there is just an
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: inherent pleasure in that.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Yep. It goes, I think, to a sense of wholeness
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: to tie it into a Jungian concept of that. It's
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: not about the risotto or, or your vanity drawer or
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: any of those things that it adds to us. Now
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: I feel more complete. I met a challenge. And now
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: I am a little bigger. Yes. I'm, A little less,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: I want to veer into the fear, panic, anxiety part
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: of all this. research that you mentioned earlier, but I'm
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: a little less fearful about can I do it if
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: I've got a good stack of experiences telling me that
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: I can master things and that I can take on
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: a challenge.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, you know, Jung was very interested in this.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: He didn't use the same language that we're using, although
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I will say if you read Panksepp, and I'll put
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: this book in the show notes, you know, he winds
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: up sounding very Jungian in many places in his book.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: But Jung was very interested in the energy that gets
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: us out of this kind of infantile state. And he
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: had some kind of firsthand experience with that. And kind
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: of what happens if we don't find that libido, that energy,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: that motivation to move us?
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Exactly. If we don't find it, it's really destructive.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Because the more we don't do or feel like we
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: can't do, you know, it turns into a sort of
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: a vicious cycle. But the story you're referring to about
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Jung is that he was 12, and he had a
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: classmate who surprised him with a shove, and he hit
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: his head against a curb. And he was dazed for
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: a while. But then he had the thought, aha, this
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: will give me an excuse not to have to go
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: to school anymore. So he laid there for a little while,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: longer than was strictly needed. And then he had fainting
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: spells whenever he had to return to school or whenever
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: he had to do homework. And he says, for more
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: than six months, I stayed away from school. For me,
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: it was a picnic. I was free. I could dream
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: for hours, be anywhere I liked in the woods or
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: by the water or draw. So he did all of
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: his own personal recreational pursuits. But he was also growing,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: as he says, growing more and more away from the world.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: and had all the while faint pangs of conscience. So
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: it's not unalleviated vacation time. We kind of know this
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: isn't quite right. He says, I frittered away my time
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: with loafing, collecting, reading, and playing, but I did not
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: feel any happier for it. I had the obscure feeling
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: that I was fleeing from myself. So meanwhile, his parents are,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: of course, worried, and they consult doctors, one of whom
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: thought Jung might even have epilepsy. His parents got more
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: and more worried. And then one day, he says, a
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: friend called on my father. They were sitting in the
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: garden and I hid behind a shrub for I was
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: possessed of insatiable curiosity. Who doesn't have that experience? I
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: heard the visitor saying to my father, and how is
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: your son? Ah, that's a sad business, my father replied.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: The doctors no longer know what is wrong with him.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: They think it may be epilepsy. It would be dreadful
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: if he were incurable. I've lost what little I had,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: and what will become of the boy if he cannot
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: earn his own living? Jung says, I was thunderstruck. This
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: was the collision with reality. Mark that phrase. It's a
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: great phrase. Why then? I must get to work, I
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: thought suddenly. So little by little, he approaches his books.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: He has some fainting fits. He almost fell off a chair.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Then he talked to himself back onto the chair and said,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: come on, try again. And still I did not give up.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: And suddenly I felt better than I had in all
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: the months before. And in fact, the attacks did not recur.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: And back to school he goes. He says the whole
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: bag of tricks was over and done with. That was
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: when I learned what a neurosis is.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: So great. I love that.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: I love that story.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: I love that line.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: But I think what's interesting is that if you chicken
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: out on yourself and life, it's really not all that pleasurable.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: You don't get enjoyment.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: It's tinged. Well, yes, and it's dangerous psychically.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's very dangerous.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: And he knew it. He knew it from firsthand experience.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: So later he writes, it is not possible to live
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: too long amid infantile surroundings or in the bosom of
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: the family without endangering one's psychic health. And I want
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: to come back to that in a minute. life calls
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: us forth to independence. And anyone who does not heed
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: this call because of childish laziness or timidity is threatened
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: with neurosis. And once this has been broken out, it
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: becomes an increasingly valid reason for running away from life
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: and remaining forever in the morally poisonous atmosphere of infancy. So,
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think this is particularly relevant because You know,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: we have this phenomenon, certainly in the United States, and
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: this is also a thing in Italy, where young people
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: are sort of not launching. We, the parents, are implicated
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: because we've made things a little too easy for them.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: They can stay in the bosom of the family.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: And it feels good and it feels like we're helping,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: but really we're working against that inherent need To go
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: out there and seek. And if we make it a
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: little uncomfortable here, then that seeking drive gets engaged. And
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: then the person can get out. But if things are
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: a little too comfortable at home, life is too easy,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: it kind of dampens that seeking drive. And I think
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: that then there's something that really gets lost.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: And I like Jung's phrase that I've borrowed of the
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: collision with reality, of that this is just the way
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: it is. You do need to figure out how to
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: budget when you get that first job, no matter what
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: it is. Then you won't have enough money to go
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: to the movies or something at the end of the week.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: There are all kinds of collisions with realities, and some
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: of them are very, very harsh. But we don't do
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: our kids or ourselves any favors if we cushion the
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: blow too much.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: So, you know, I'm just aware, and I think I
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: just want to muse on this a little bit with you, Deb,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: that we've been speaking about motivation like it's always good.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: it's better to have motivation than not have it. And
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: I'm even aware that there, you know, I mean, maybe
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: it's okay to not be super motivated, right? And, but,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: and there can be very strong motivations for very bad things, right?
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: People are incredibly motivated by, by greed, for example, or power.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Not that it's always bad to want money or want power,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: but we, we know that those, those motivations can, can, can,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: take on a life of their own and sometimes drive
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: things to dark places. I mean, all you have to
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: do is, you know, just look at some of the
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: reprehensible things that have happened because corporations have been too
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: motivated by profit, for example. So I guess I just
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: want to toss that in, you know, that motivation is not...
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Always good. It's kind of a neutral force, this drive.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: It's interesting whether that is, well, we've been talking about
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: arousal and drive. I'm sorry, but I'm back with you
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: and cake.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: It's sort of like turning me on, too. It's like, wow,
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: that does sound good. Maybe I'll take a look around
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: the grocery store. when I get there this afternoon. But
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: it is a really good point. What are we motivated by?
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: What are we headed toward? And there are real risk-taking
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: behaviors that don't necessarily serve us. I think about people
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: that have tremendous athletic prowess who are rock climbers and
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: scale that wall at Yosemite University. National Park. And part
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: of me goes, oh my gosh, I can't watch a
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: stranger do that. I cannot watch it. I can't bear it.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: So we're talking about drive and arousal once again. And
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: the seeking and the desire for mastery. And so we
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: have to be discerning. Is this a healthy drive? Is
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: this something, this excitement that I feel is really in
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: my best interest? And how do we maybe elevate that?
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: or sublimate it so that we could turn our desire
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: for just an exciting time into some kind of learning
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: or hard physical work that accomplishes something. I know a
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: man who, right about Jung's age, at age 12 to 14,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: was having a lot of problems. And you know what
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: he did? He built a boat. He laid the keel.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: He did all of it. And that's a great example
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: of sublimating something that's sort of a basic, instinctual drive
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: and turning it into something, applying that energy for a
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: good result. Right.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: And that goes back to that Jung's idea that, you know,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: libido can't It's free-floating in a way, and it's sort
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: of going in potentially any number of channels, but it
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: is also driven by this kind of unconscious force that
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: we can't really master entirely. I promise that if I
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: ever come to the point where I get total mastery
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: over my desire for cake, my motivation for cake, I
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: will share that with you. But in the meantime, I
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: think we have to say that there is something that
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: is ultimately mysterious about motivation. That we can want to
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: be motivated for this, this, and this, but sometimes we
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: can't muster it. And at other times, we may find
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: ourselves inexplicably motivated in a very surprising direction that doesn't
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: make any sense to consciousness.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Where this takes me is, this is something I love
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: to go to from time to time, is the five
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: basic instincts that Jung posited we have as humans. So
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: there's hunger, help me out here, hunger, sex, we need activity,
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: just physical activity. And then the two others were creativity
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: and self-reflection. And as humans, we have a huge capacity
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: to reflect and say, no, wait a minute. Should I
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: really do that? Is that a really good idea? Or
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: how can I help myself do it? Like you let
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: yourself listen to a webinar while cleaning out the bathroom drawer.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: How can we reflect, bring consciousness to bear? on what
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: we want to do or should do and don't want
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: to do, or the whole range of things. How do
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: we help ourselves? How do we understand ourselves of what's
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: going on here? And I think our capacity for self-reflection
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: and consciousness is a huge key. And it may wind
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: up that we should just, sometimes we should just abandon
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: this project I abandoned risotto. You know, I needed more
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: resources than I obviously, I and the recipe I was following,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: various recipes. I obviously needed something more. You know, so
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: why keep repeating something that after some number of tries
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: was not coming to fruition? Right.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Which is an interesting thing of itself and something that
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: I think we covered in another episode. If not, we should.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: It's like, but I think we did. It's like, how
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: do you know when to stop, right? Because that seeking
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: drive can sort of like, I'm going to try and
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: try and try. And you see people like try and
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: try and try. And sometimes you're like, I wonder if
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: it's time to withdraw the libido from that desire. You know,
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: I wonder if that motivation is kind of leading you
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: to beat your head against a wall. But again, you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: but then, I mean, and that is the nature of dopamine, right?
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Like it makes you keep going back if there's any hope.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: And that can be a really great thing because that
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: can be perseverance. But when does perseverance start to come
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: at too high of a cost or really almost become destructive?
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: It's not always easy to say, but again, I think
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: motivation is part of that because there's time when it's
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: right to withdraw motivation, like you're saying with your risotto.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: Because we have reflected and said to, in my case,
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: to myself, this isn't working. Something's missing here that I
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: can't get from these recipe books. How important is this
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: really in the grand scheme of things? Or another time
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: I withdrew from what I had thought I would do
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: in college. I had thought that I would take a
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: number of foreign languages and that that would be my
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: special thing. And I'd been complimented on speaking French and
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: Spanish in high school. So I get to college and
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: I pursue that and I add Russian.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, God.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: I do not have. the capability of learning all these
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: languages well. It's just a fact.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: But on the other hand, I want to say, you know,
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: you can sometimes self-reflect and redirect. But again, because it's
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: an unconscious process, you can't always affect it with consciousness.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking of, you know, my motivation to get
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: a doctorate. And I would have these conversations to myself, Lisa,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: that's utterly ridiculous. You know, there's no need for it.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: What would you do with it? Why would you do it?
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: What a waste of time and energy and money. But
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: I didn't go away. And so here I am getting
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: a doctorate. And by the way, I'm totally loving it.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: So great. But this is the nature, though, of motivation.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: When I'm saying it's mysterious and, you know, it's almost like,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, this goes to Jung's idea of the self
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: or Jung's idea of individuation is, you know, maybe there
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: was something in me that's like, no, I don't care
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: what ego says. Ego may say it's ridiculous. But something
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: else in me knew that this was an important experience
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: for me to have. And the libido kept pushing me
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: in that direction. So I just want to leave it,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: if we may, and say it's a mystery and we
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: can't totally master it. And maybe that's a good thing,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: at least some of the time.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: And sometimes there will be that collision with reality and
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: we'll have a comeuppance. But more often... I think we
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: find the things that enhance us. The drive to individuation
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: and wholeness is undergirding our entire life. So, yes, it's
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: a mystery. And in some ways, it's very accessible to us.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: We want to go places and do things. We are seekers. Yes.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: We are mammals, and mammals are seekers. So before we
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: switch to a dream, I just want to take a
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: minute and invite you all to check out Dream School.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Dream School is our 12-month online self-paced program that you
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: can participate in. And you get many things when you're
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: part of Dream School. And one of the things is
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: you get the possibility every single month to meet one-on-one
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: with Deb for 15 minutes. That's motivating. It's very motivating.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: I do a kind of master class with a dream interpretation.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: I work one-on-one with a dreamer and a whole group
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: of other participants. And Joseph always does a Q & A.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: So we hope you'll check out Dream School. You can
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: go to our website, thisunionlife.com.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Our dreamer today is a man who's 38 years old,
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: and he works as an illustrator. The title of his
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: dream is Alien Invasion. Here's the dream. I'm in a
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: city and aware that an alien invasion is imminent. There's
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: panic in the streets. Somehow, the leader of the aliens
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: seeks me out and asks me to take a walk,
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: although I'm fairly certain I don't have a choice. They
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: look human, but they don't have any fixed appearance or
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: gender and change throughout the walk. They tell me instructions
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: for humans to prepare for the encounter. telling us to
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: live underground. They act as if allowing us to live
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: is a true benevolent gift to our species, and I
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: say it is as if I should be thanking them,
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: but I can't decide if we should be grateful because
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: it feels quite cruel. We walk through city markets and
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: shops and the alien leader says we should get some wine.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: They say they will teach me a trick to get
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: free wine. They lift my shirt and start slashing the
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: skin on my right side, marking it with a color
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: that looks like red wine. Then they proceed to break
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: a case of bottles in the store, and I imagine
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: the trick is to pretend I've been injured and expect
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: to be given the wine for free. I tell them
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: that the wine bottles they broke isn't the same color
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: as the gash on my side, and they are unfazed
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: and just start looking for a case with a closer match.
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: but I'm worried because the bottles they broke are in
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: the baby section of the store, and I'm afraid a
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: baby may hurt himself or eat the broken glass. I
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: petition this concern to the leader, but they laugh it off,
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: replying with something about how there's no time for beings
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: like them to care about such small things. The city
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: becomes engulfed in giant waves of thick water that the
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: aliens control. and I'm trying to keep my youngest daughters
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: safe as we hustle through the streets and the aliens
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: ransack the place. For context, he says, I was raised
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Christian and went deep in my faith as a young
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: adult to clean up my life a bit, but walked
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: away completely in my 30s for all the typical reasons
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: you might expect. I've tried to keep a somewhat symbolic
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: view of life and tried not to completely lose my
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: spiritual side. But without a faith or an organized religion,
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: this has proven difficult. For the past few years, I've
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: read books like The Awakened Brain by Dr. Lisa Miller
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: of Columbia University, with her studies of the powerfully positive
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: impact spirituality can have on mental health, especially for teens. Also,
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: on your recommendation, I started reading Religious But Not Religious
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: by Jason Smith. I'm hopeful but frustrated in my pursuit
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: to pass on some kind of spirituality and community to
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: my kids, but it feels like an impossible task in
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: modern times. I see a few biblical symbols in this
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: dream and it makes me wonder if it's related. The
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: main feelings in the dream, he says, were fear of
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: the invasion, intrigue with the alien race, awe of the
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: waters they control, concern, and responsibility for his child. And
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: then he adds, elements of the aliens reminded me of
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: sci-fi books and movies. I think of my daughter as
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: my very silly, fun-loving side, as well as the feeling
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: of the emotionally intelligent but not academic side of me.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: We have tons of silly fun together, and she can
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: be super empathic, and I can relate.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: So this is a little bit of a harder dream
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: for me to move into. But here's an initial thought.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: Is that oftentimes the figure in the dream that seems
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: challenging to the dream ego is often actually misunderstood and
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: is a helpful energy. But occasionally, I think that's not true.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: And I wonder if this is one of those dreams.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: And what I might say is that it's possible that, okay,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: so the big question is, what the heck do the
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: aliens represent in the psyche, right? That's what we're all wondering.
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: Something alien.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm wondering. Something alien, something other. That's good.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: But could it represent a kind of complex that has
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: this dreamer somewhat in a stranglehold? and is endangering some
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: aspects of him that are really important to him.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: I want to take a quick little loop back just
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: for listeners of where you said this was a hard
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: dream for you to enter into. And it is for
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: me too. And I think I just want to validate
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: that if it seems like we can just sort of
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: launch into a dream without ever feeling sort of perplexed
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: and stuck. That's not true. This is part of working
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: with dreams. It's like, oh my gosh, where do I
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: go with this one? I really don't know. Of course,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: we've got the aliens. Yeah. But then we have all
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: of this stuff, and I really wondered about it, of
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: all the stuff about what they want to do is
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: to teach our dream ego A Trick to Get Free Wine.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: Then we have Half of the Dream is about a
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: red gash, a wound on his side that looks like
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: red wine, breaking open bottles of wine, wine bottles that
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: are in the baby section of the store. That is
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: a good half of the dream.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: And so were you going the same place I think
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: the dreamer was going with that imagery, Deb?
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: Well, I really wondered a lot about wine. And what
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: is wine? What is wine to this dreamer? Of course,
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: in the Christian context, there's the famous story of the
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: wedding of Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: But at the Eucharist, wine is the blood of Christ.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: So that's interesting, though, that you picked up on. It's
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: a trick to get free wine. So that's interesting, Deb.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: That helps me that you highlighted that sentence because it's
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: a trick.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: It's cheap.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: And so maybe there's been, and I'm just spitballing here,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: but maybe there's some kind of profound religious truth that
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: has been cheapened and turned into a cheap trick. Yeah,
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: I think I'm liking that because You know, I think
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: that's part of the difficulty of like kind of the
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: religious wound that I think many people who were raised
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: in strict religious environments experience is that they may know
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: somehow that there's something there, but they can't access it
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: because they've only experienced it in this very rigid way,
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: in a way that may look like it's a cheap trick.
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and Jesus, of course, was gashed in the
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: side too.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: So that's the wound. So I think we're both really
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: wondering a lot about what he does say in his
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: comments about religious, reading the book, Religious But Not Religious,
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: wanting to pass on spiritual and community to his kids.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: The way that he was raised Christian is, didn't give
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: him what he was really asking for. And I know
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: if I were working with this dreamer, I think I
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: would want to ask about drinking. I would want to know,
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: you know, is there also something there? Because, you know,
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: as Jung, when he worked with Bill W. to found
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: Alcoholics Anonymous, I will never get this quote right, but
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: what is it? It's spiritus in something else, but it's
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: the spirits that are alcoholic spirits in an effort to
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: have a more spiritual change in state, which is what
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: happens when we get inebriated. So we are looking for
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: a kind of uplifting in, of course, exactly the wrong way.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Well, right. And I think, you know, when you're exploring
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: religion and you're looking to religion, you are looking for
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: that connection with the transcendent. And if you've only ever
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: been offered it in a way that looks cheapened and tawdry,
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: it's like that kind of gets blocked. But I'm curious
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: about the fact that the dreamer gets gashed in the side.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: So the dreamer is kind of standing in the place
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: of Christ in the dream. And of course, Christ was sacrificed,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: and sacrifice means to make sacred. So I wonder if
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: there's something about this dreamer's process, you know, his own
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: process of suffering, that he's kind of able to approach
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: this in a funny way, even though it feels like
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: he's not. But there's something about the fact that these
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: wine bottles have to be broken, leaving glass all around,
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: which endangers the babies. So something about that the way
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: the aliens are offering spirits is destructive.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we would, you know, we expect, you know, aliens
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: landing in the sci-fi stories that our dreamer references. You know,
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: they obviously have great powers. And yet these aliens, instead
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: of educating the dreamer or, any of that stuff, they
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: resort to sort of basically just being hoodlums. Yeah, break
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: into a store, break open the bottles.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: Gash the dream ego in the side. They laugh it
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: off that they don't need to pay attention to such
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: little things as that. So our aliens here are really grandiose,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: egocentric vandals.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: So there's two other important things here. The aliens are
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: going to make humanity live underground. So something's going to
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: have to go underground. So I want to just hold that.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: And then the final scene, too, is there are all
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: of these engulfing waters. So I want to say this.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: I think we're trying to kind of circle around what
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: exactly the aliens might be in the psyche. They are powerful.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: There's some real power here. And and in the end,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: it's this kind of engulfing power, perhaps maybe of big
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: waves of emotion. So whatever is whatever has been kind
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: of split off from consciousness and is being held symbolically
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: by these images of the aliens. It is really powerful.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: And it could really kind of eclipse consciousness and kind
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: of make it go underground. So what I'm sort of
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: floating around right now is that the aliens represent in
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: this dreamer's psyche something like the religious function. But they're
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: not in a kind of healthy, right relationship with the
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: ego because, first of all, that is a really powerful
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: part of the psyche. But this dreamer has a kind
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: of religious wound that, again, I think many people who've
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: been raised like this have. So he both has to
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: kind of, he has to kind of deny its importance
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: because he doesn't have a way, he doesn't have like
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: a channel to relate to it constructively. And then it
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: comes in and it threatens to be destructive. But it's
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: important to remember that You know, as just about anything
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: in the psyche, it's appearing in a destructive form. And
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: I think that's legit. I think it is legitimately, there
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: is legitimate destructive potential in it. But if it could
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: be related to differently, it could be, I think, profoundly transformational.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: That's where I'm going to land.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: I see it maybe from a, this is just a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: possibility because we don't know the dreamer. But I think
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: I would want to know more about where that alien
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: energy is in the dreamer that ransacks a store that,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: you know, sort of if all of the parts, everything
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: in the dream is a part of the dreamer, you know,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: where is that? Is there some tendency to sort of
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: run amok to do something destructive or And impulsive. That
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: is suppressing a part of the personality that the aliens
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: want you to live underground, keep something in the unconscious.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: And then he also says, I went deep in my
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: faith as a young adult to clean up my life
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: a bit. So I would be very curious as to
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: what happened as a young adult. Is there more here?
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: There is a religious or spiritual kind of crisis that
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: is certainly being outpictured in the dream. And I also
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: wonder if there's something more here in the dreamer's history
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: or personal life now that is represented by these aliens
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: that are very, very powerful, as you said, but in
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: really destructive ways. And they do things that are so superficial. And,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: you know, you're an alien race and you have to
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: go ransack a wine store.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: So I would be curious on both of those levels.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisjungielife.com. Thank you.