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FACING REJECTION · This Jungian Life Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
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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
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Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
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Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
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Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
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Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.
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Speaker 2: Well, I think most of our listeners know that you
0:46
Speaker 2: can support us on Patreon. It helps us keep the
0:49
Speaker 2: lights on. And one of the benefits of being a
0:52
Speaker 2: Patreon supporter is that you get to help us pick
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Speaker 2: new episodes. So today we're going to be talking about
1:00
Speaker 2: rejection and this is an episode that was picked by
1:04
Speaker 2: our Patreon supporter community. If you would like to help
1:08
Speaker 2: us pick future episodes, consider supporting us on Patreon and
1:12
Speaker 2: you can find that on our website. So when we
1:15
Speaker 2: came up with this topic and realized it was the
1:18
Speaker 2: one that was chosen, we were all surprised that we'd
1:20
Speaker 2: never done it before. It's such a salient topic to
1:24
Speaker 2: many people's lives. It happens in all kinds of ways
1:27
Speaker 2: and it has particular significance, I think, in Jungian psychology.
1:32
Speaker 2: So we're going to be circumambulating rejection.
1:37
Speaker 3: It strikes me that the idea of rejection is really
1:41
Speaker 3: at the foundation of our Western cultural mythology. In the
1:47
Speaker 3: myth of Genesis, Adam and Eve are having a great
1:52
Speaker 3: time with God, everything's smooth, everything's easy. They eat from
1:58
Speaker 3: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and
2:01
Speaker 3: then God rejects them. Says, no way, you guys are
2:05
Speaker 3: out of here, throwing them out of the house. You're
2:09
Speaker 3: going to earn your bread by the sweat of your
2:11
Speaker 3: brow and have your children in pain, and all these
2:15
Speaker 3: other realities are foisted upon. And then that same rejecting
2:23
Speaker 3: arc is repeated in the story of Cain and Abel,
2:26
Speaker 3: where Cain's offerings of the fruits of the land are rejected,
2:31
Speaker 3: and he then becomes bitter enough to commit the first
2:36
Speaker 3: terrible crime of fratricide, killing his brother. So being thrown out,
2:44
Speaker 3: being rejected, and the consequences of being rejected are something
2:49
Speaker 3: that is enormously powerful in our culture and in terms
2:55
Speaker 3: of the Judeo-Christian myth. the enormous arc of getting back
3:01
Speaker 3: into the relationship, which is the idea of Christ bringing
3:07
Speaker 3: humanity back into the relationship with God, back into the garden,
3:11
Speaker 3: so to speak, which now is in heaven. So the
3:15
Speaker 3: idea of being despised and rejected, the hope of being
3:19
Speaker 3: called back into the longed-for relationship is everywhere around us, actually.
3:27
Speaker 4: You know, I think you starting us off with the
3:32
Speaker 4: myth of Adam and Eve is great because it really
3:35
Speaker 4: points to what is it that we do when we
3:40
Speaker 4: are rejected. And I cannot imagine that anybody has not
3:46
Speaker 4: had that experience. It's part of... living in families and
3:51
Speaker 4: communities and other kinds of collectives. But Adam and Eve,
3:57
Speaker 4: when they were rejected and booted out, did figure out
4:02
Speaker 4: how to live, how to have children. They had to
4:06
Speaker 4: suffer it. And the hope is that then there is
4:11
Speaker 4: an increase in consciousness, an increase in the personality, as
4:18
Speaker 4: Jung would say. Whereas when Cain murders his brother, it
4:26
Speaker 4: goes in a very destructive and negative direction. He commits homicide.
4:35
Speaker 4: He could not suffer it without retaliating. And it does
4:43
Speaker 4: hurt when we're rejected. And we do get truly rageful sometimes.
4:49
Speaker 2: So there are these mythologems, some of which we'll talk
4:52
Speaker 2: about that have appeared in myth and fairy tale and
4:57
Speaker 2: in film and popular culture, where rejection is the thing
5:01
Speaker 2: that leads to either a kind of transformation and enlargement,
5:07
Speaker 2: or it can lead someone to become retaliatory and destructive.
5:12
Speaker 2: You know, I'm thinking about sort of affective neuroscience and
5:16
Speaker 2: what that teaches us about rejection. And I think that
5:19
Speaker 2: as you were saying, Deb, rejection is so kind of
5:22
Speaker 2: basic that if, you know, because when we were evolving
5:26
Speaker 2: as a species, if we got cast, if we got ostracized,
5:29
Speaker 2: if we got rejected by the group that we were in,
5:33
Speaker 2: you know, our number was probably up. We were probably
5:36
Speaker 2: not going to survive. And so that's why when we
5:39
Speaker 2: get rejected today by, say, a peer group, let's say,
5:44
Speaker 2: you know, you just kind of get Oh, I don't know.
5:46
Speaker 2: They don't want you in the book club anymore. You
5:48
Speaker 2: just get left off the emails. You don't get invited
5:52
Speaker 2: to the book club anymore. But it feels terrible, though.
5:57
Speaker 2: And I think it does evoke a kind of life
6:01
Speaker 2: or death response, because it echoes that original situation that
6:06
Speaker 2: we might have experienced, you know, on the Savannah, where
6:10
Speaker 2: if we got rejected by the tribe, we would die.
6:13
Speaker 2: We would die. So You know, so in affective neuroscience,
6:17
Speaker 2: they talk about three systems that we're pre-wired for that
6:22
Speaker 2: produce negative affect, negative feelings, which prepare us to deal
6:26
Speaker 2: with particular challenges. So rage energizes us to confront threats
6:31
Speaker 2: or competition or injuries. Fear causes us to freeze or
6:36
Speaker 2: run away from danger or bodily harm. But panic and
6:39
Speaker 2: grief is triggered when we are left alone. So I
6:44
Speaker 2: think the feeling that goes along, and it's a very
6:47
Speaker 2: deep kind of cellular experience, when we're rejected, we feel
6:51
Speaker 2: panic and grief. And we try so hard to, like
6:55
Speaker 2: you were saying, Joseph, to kind of restore that connection.
6:59
Speaker 4: It can also trigger, and I think you're alluding to this, Lisa,
7:03
Speaker 4: it's a kind of existential, awful self-state to be abandoned.
7:11
Speaker 4: that can get triggered by rejection. If I'm feeling rejected
7:16
Speaker 4: and I get angry, at least I'm there. It's an
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Speaker 4: ego state and I'm mad and I'm protesting. If I'm afraid,
7:23
Speaker 4: I take action. I run away or I hide, whatever,
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Speaker 4: I freeze, whatever. But if there is real angst, anxiety,
7:36
Speaker 4: and panic, it can really go beyond just an ego-oriented
7:41
Speaker 4: feeling to a self-state of terror, of I'm not here
7:47
Speaker 4: anymore without the support of my fellows, whether it's a
7:53
Speaker 4: hunting band or family or people around the fire. It
8:00
Speaker 4: goes that deep, as you were saying, that in our early,
8:03
Speaker 4: early years, the only way we survived was by connection
8:09
Speaker 4: with others and cooperating with others.
8:12
Speaker 2: This year, my Wellspring Women's Retreat is happening in Italy
8:15
Speaker 2: from the 10th to the 16th of August. We thought
8:18
Speaker 2: hard about where to host our first European gathering and
8:21
Speaker 2: in the end chose Montepulciano near Siena. I first went
8:24
Speaker 2: to Italy when I was 18 and fell head over
8:26
Speaker 2: heels in love, especially with the spectacular medieval city of Siena.
8:31
Speaker 2: I was lucky enough to be part of the Natruscan
8:33
Speaker 2: excavation project on that trip and became totally fascinated by
8:36
Speaker 2: this mysterious ancient culture and by Italy in general. When
8:40
Speaker 2: I've had the chance, I've tried to keep up my
8:42
Speaker 2: Italian and I've loved reading Italian myths and fairy tales
8:45
Speaker 2: throughout my life. So, for my annual women's gathering, this
8:49
Speaker 2: region felt like the right place. I can't wait to
8:52
Speaker 2: share the local stories and take some trips together to
8:54
Speaker 2: see some of Tuscany's most magical archaeological sites. There will,
8:58
Speaker 2: of course, be all the usual Wellspring offerings too. Fairy tales,
9:02
Speaker 2: daily yoga, dream work, massage, and plenty of time to
9:06
Speaker 2: relax together. I'd love for you to join me. There
9:09
Speaker 2: will be a link in the show notes for you
9:10
Speaker 2: to read all the details and make a booking. And
9:13
Speaker 2: of course, that's true at the level of the species,
9:15
Speaker 2: but also, and I think you were hinting at this, Deb,
9:18
Speaker 2: as infants, we're not going to make it unless we're connected.
9:22
Speaker 4: Right. We are hugely wired for human connection. We grow
9:28
Speaker 4: inside somebody's body hearing a heartbeat. all the time. Donald Winnicott,
9:36
Speaker 4: who was a British psychoanalyst and a pediatrician, says that
9:41
Speaker 4: we have to bring a baby into being. And brain
9:46
Speaker 4: cells get pruned and developed as the mother holds the baby,
9:52
Speaker 4: sings to the baby, smiles at the baby. Even eye
9:56
Speaker 4: contact with an infant has neurological, physiological effects. So we
10:02
Speaker 4: are wired from the get-go for relationship, for basic physiological processes,
10:10
Speaker 4: and certainly for the emotional processes, especially a basic feeling
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Speaker 4: of security, And optimism and trust.
10:21
Speaker 3: So the rejected child, which is more in that darker
10:24
Speaker 3: realm that we're talking about, can be left with some
10:27
Speaker 3: really complicated symptomology as a result of that. Yes. Depending
10:32
Speaker 3: on how total the rejection is, it may be that
10:39
Speaker 3: the child develops this tremendous, intense need to be pleasing.
10:46
Speaker 3: And then the rejecting parent becomes the exciting withholding parent.
10:52
Speaker 3: That they seem to have all of this promise, but
10:54
Speaker 3: they never actually produce very much, or they never really
10:57
Speaker 3: give the child much. So as you were saying earlier, Dad,
11:01
Speaker 3: there's a relentless hope that somebody can get trapped into,
11:06
Speaker 3: which is a result of this rejection. The child can
11:10
Speaker 3: also join into this field of hatred. and the child
11:15
Speaker 3: can feel a kind of splitting hatred towards the parents,
11:21
Speaker 3: and this shows up in Jack and the Beanstalk, where
11:24
Speaker 3: the giant's wife plots his death as Jack shows up
11:30
Speaker 3: on the scene, which is really a story about this
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Speaker 3: idea of loving and hating being so close side by side,
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Speaker 3: but the rejecting can then lead to this mirror of
11:43
Speaker 3: hatred inside of the child, and all of this is
11:46
Speaker 3: in the realm of attachment troubles, where the ability to
11:51
Speaker 3: attach later in life is compromised because the role of
11:56
Speaker 3: being the rejected one has become part of the identity,
12:00
Speaker 3: and the expectation of being rejected is something that is
12:05
Speaker 3: projected out onto other people and even invited to happen.
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Speaker 3: This part takes the scapegoat complex.
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Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
12:14
Speaker 3: Yes, it does.
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Speaker 4: So rejection is easier to handle by the time you
12:20
Speaker 4: hit grade school, let's say, and then all along the
12:24
Speaker 4: rest of your life path. If you're starting from a
12:28
Speaker 4: secure base... of a healthy, as Winnicott says, good enough mothering,
12:37
Speaker 4: parenting experience early on. But the hopeful thing is that
12:43
Speaker 4: a secure base, we can earn it later in life
12:46
Speaker 4: if we didn't have it at the very beginning.
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Speaker 3: The great example of that is the ugly duckling, just
12:52
Speaker 3: to take a quick jaunt into that. The Hans Christian
12:56
Speaker 3: Andersen story of This strange egg is hatched by a duck,
13:01
Speaker 3: which is really a swan, but it's growing, it's gangly,
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Speaker 3: it doesn't look like anybody else. The mother at first
13:08
Speaker 3: is kind of supportive, but then everyone in the barnyard
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Speaker 3: just thinks this baby swan is just terrible and bizarre
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Speaker 3: and hopeless and gross. And then blossoms and becomes something
13:23
Speaker 3: extraordinary and magnificent.
13:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a great story for rejection, Joseph. I'm
13:32
Speaker 2: glad you brought that in. And if you haven't read
13:35
Speaker 2: the original text in a while, I would encourage you
13:38
Speaker 2: to just go do that, because it's quite a profound
13:42
Speaker 2: and heartbreaking story. And if you're suffering from rejection someplace
13:47
Speaker 2: in your life, it provides quite a lens to think
13:51
Speaker 2: about that.
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Speaker 4: So.
13:53
Speaker 2: You know, I wanted to say, I mean, Deb, you
13:55
Speaker 2: talked about having a firm base and a yes. And
14:00
Speaker 2: I do think that there is such a thing as
14:03
Speaker 2: rejection sensitivity.
14:04
Speaker 3: Oh, yes.
14:05
Speaker 2: And that that might just be something we're kind of
14:08
Speaker 2: born with. So you see people who have a kind
14:12
Speaker 2: of rejection sensitivity, apparently it can go along with having ADHD,
14:19
Speaker 2: for example.
14:19
Speaker 4: Yes.
14:20
Speaker 2: And it's very likely to be a component of borderline
14:25
Speaker 2: personality disorder. So without pathologizing it too much, I think
14:30
Speaker 2: that it can be something that we have a sort
14:33
Speaker 2: of set point for managing. Some of us can get
14:37
Speaker 2: rejected and just kind of keep on coming back, almost
14:40
Speaker 2: to a pathologic degree, where sometimes it's like, no, it
14:44
Speaker 2: might really be time for you to give up on this.
14:47
Speaker 2: But others of us over-interpret small things as signs of rejection.
14:53
Speaker 2: So it might be interesting to just think about that.
14:57
Speaker 2: Where do you fall on that? Are you likely to
15:01
Speaker 2: over-interpret things and see things as rejection when they're really not?
15:06
Speaker 2: Or do you sometimes even have a hard time getting
15:09
Speaker 2: the message, or are you somewhat a healthy place in between?
15:13
Speaker 4: There's even an official name for this now, Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria.
15:22
Speaker 4: So doesn't that give it its own standing?
15:26
Speaker 3: It's very official.
15:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Okay, we've taken an ordinary human experience and
15:32
Speaker 2: given it a label now. Yes.
15:34
Speaker 4: So in a way, it's validating. And in another way,
15:38
Speaker 4: one wonders. But it's really characterized by a tremendous amount
15:44
Speaker 4: of shame and self-loathing or self-blame, anxiety or rage. So
15:51
Speaker 4: really strong, powerful emotional reaction. Isolating can be another reaction that, okay,
15:59
Speaker 4: I'm just going to go back up to my room
16:00
Speaker 4: and I'm not coming out for a week. It can
16:04
Speaker 4: also lead to a desire for retaliation, punishing the rejecter,
16:12
Speaker 4: being aggressive, ruminating afterward, going over it and over it
16:18
Speaker 4: and over it. I said this, and then he said that,
16:21
Speaker 4: and then this happened. and not able to let go
16:25
Speaker 4: of it. And if your self-esteem may be over-dependent upon
16:33
Speaker 4: what other people think of us, or just overall generally
16:39
Speaker 4: feeling like a misfit, feeling like the ugly duckling.
16:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that rejection's a part of life,
16:46
Speaker 2: and it might be very difficult to withstand sometimes, but
16:50
Speaker 2: it does fit into that sort of sorry, distress tolerance
16:56
Speaker 2: or affect regulation category, right? It's really awful and you
17:04
Speaker 2: need to try to find some constructive ways to deal
17:10
Speaker 2: with it instead of ruminating on it or kind of
17:15
Speaker 2: writing a story like I'm essentially unlovable or whatever.
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Speaker 3: So there really are kind of two paths we might
17:24
Speaker 3: One is the rejection that leads to a kind of
17:27
Speaker 3: dark embitterment. And then there's a rejection that leads to
17:32
Speaker 3: a heroic resilience. And there are stories of individuals being rejected.
17:40
Speaker 3: Joseph in the Bible is a great story where his
17:44
Speaker 3: brothers kind of throw him into a pit, you know,
17:49
Speaker 3: as a way of punishing Joseph. him because they're so envious,
17:52
Speaker 3: rejecting him as a brother, he being captured and then
17:56
Speaker 3: sold into slavery. And yet, when he is risen up
18:03
Speaker 3: and becomes this important bureaucrat in Egyptian society, there's a famine.
18:09
Speaker 3: His brothers come, and this is the pivotal moral moment.
18:14
Speaker 3: The brothers that kind of tortured him and rejected him
18:18
Speaker 3: come asking for help. And Joseph needs to decide, will
18:24
Speaker 3: he be a villain or will he be a hero?
18:28
Speaker 3: Not necessarily in his mind, but those are two clear options.
18:33
Speaker 3: And Joseph decides that he is going to help his family.
18:37
Speaker 3: He's going to put their gold back in the sacks
18:40
Speaker 3: of grain so that they don't have to pay for
18:44
Speaker 3: the resources. He then finally embraces his family, even though
18:51
Speaker 3: they had rejected him, and in part because his rejection
18:56
Speaker 3: has led to this extraordinary good fortune for him.
18:59
Speaker 4: You know, that's one option, isn't it, is the forgiveness,
19:05
Speaker 4: the compassion, and becoming bigger than the problem. By this time,
19:11
Speaker 4: Joseph's become bigger. He's been successful. I mean, these are
19:15
Speaker 4: all symbols of of an inner development, right? The status
19:19
Speaker 4: in the world and being high up and having that
19:23
Speaker 4: kind of power is a way of representing that he
19:27
Speaker 4: has become more whole and can then say to his brothers,
19:32
Speaker 4: you know, it's okay, we can let bygones be bygones.
19:36
Speaker 4: But I'm also aware that in fairy tales, I mean,
19:40
Speaker 4: there are some really wonderfully gory, retaliatory scenarios. of Cinderella,
19:48
Speaker 4: of course, is... you know, consigned to the lowly status
19:52
Speaker 4: of sweeping the cinders. And off she goes to the ball,
19:57
Speaker 4: comes back. And when the glass slipper that the prince
20:02
Speaker 4: comes bearing does not fit either of her sister's In
20:07
Speaker 4: one version of the tale, they chop off a sister's
20:09
Speaker 4: toes to make the shoe fit. And for the other sister,
20:14
Speaker 4: they chop off her heel to make the shoe fit.
20:17
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just sort of grisly of like, ooh.
20:23
Speaker 4: So I wonder if it is a question of consciousness
20:29
Speaker 4: as to when it is appropriate or when retaliation is,
20:34
Speaker 4: let's call it poetic justice, ensues when compassion may be
20:42
Speaker 4: the right choice, but that we get to a place
20:46
Speaker 4: where we're choosing.
20:47
Speaker 3: This comes up so frequently during high school reunions, which
20:52
Speaker 3: just comes into my mind. My 45th high school reunion
20:56
Speaker 3: is coming up in June, which is incredible to say
20:59
Speaker 3: that phrase. And Interestingly enough, I have a tendency to
21:04
Speaker 3: show up and I feel really thrilled to see people.
21:11
Speaker 3: And other people won't go to their high school reunion
21:14
Speaker 3: because they felt so wounded, so rejected, so ill-treated, and
21:20
Speaker 3: that they can't find some other orientation to want to return.
21:26
Speaker 4: Or that they will be rejected because they don't measure up.
21:30
Speaker 3: Ah, there we go.
21:31
Speaker 4: They haven't achieved whatever the, you know, whatever the tropes
21:36
Speaker 4: may indicate in today's world. But I know people who
21:41
Speaker 4: have not gone to reunions because they don't feel they've
21:45
Speaker 4: lived up to what they had hoped their lives and
21:49
Speaker 4: careers would be, that you can go back and say, well,
21:52
Speaker 4: you know, I'm the CEO of XYZ Corp. And you
21:57
Speaker 4: drive up in your Jaguar.
21:59
Speaker 3: So if I show up just being a lowly social worker.
22:03
Speaker 4: Psychoanalyst.
22:05
Speaker 3: Psychoanalyst, I could be rejected once again, as I was
22:09
Speaker 3: in high school, for being the guy that's not chosen
22:13
Speaker 3: for the scrimmage.
22:15
Speaker 2: I just want to say, I did go to one
22:16
Speaker 2: of my college reunions recently, and it's like, everyone's like
22:20
Speaker 2: a lawyer or a doctor or professor, and they're like,
22:22
Speaker 2: what are you doing?
22:25
Speaker 3: I'm a young human analyst, and no Yeah, we knew
22:28
Speaker 3: what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:29
Speaker 4: But what I'm thinking is that this ties in very
22:32
Speaker 4: much with individuation. I mean, it's the important part of
22:37
Speaker 4: going to your high school or college reunion, these outer
22:42
Speaker 4: world sort of status achievements of wealth or position or
22:50
Speaker 4: fame or power versus your own individuation of I am here.
22:58
Speaker 4: This is the life that I have led with the
23:02
Speaker 4: life events I experienced, whatever they may be. But my
23:06
Speaker 4: self-esteem is no longer dependent upon those kind of external
23:12
Speaker 4: world symbols and markers. And it's no longer dependent upon
23:17
Speaker 4: what other people think. I'm enough. I'm right here.
23:21
Speaker 3: To me, we're in that realm of self-rejection. You know,
23:25
Speaker 3: that They're all going to be driving their Jaguars. I'm
23:30
Speaker 3: going to show up in my Jetta. And they are
23:33
Speaker 3: probably not going to say a word or not even know.
23:37
Speaker 3: But in my imagination, I'm going to reject myself for
23:41
Speaker 3: being less than inadequate and thus then want to hide. Right.
23:47
Speaker 4: And that goes back to one of the things we
23:49
Speaker 4: touched on earlier with rejection sensitivity, which is, Is your
23:54
Speaker 4: self-esteem overly dependent on what others might think? Or are
23:59
Speaker 4: you comfortable with yourself? And there might have been all
24:02
Speaker 4: kinds of life mishaps and other stuff from an external
24:07
Speaker 4: world perspective, but I'm here. And I'm still this person
24:13
Speaker 4: with an essential sense of worthiness. I'm not identified with
24:19
Speaker 4: my role or zip code or whatever other things might
24:24
Speaker 4: be involved.
24:26
Speaker 2: You know, we've talked about these sort of two formulas
24:29
Speaker 2: where someone maybe gets rejected and then becomes the villain,
24:34
Speaker 2: like Cain, or how a rejection can sometimes bring about growth.
24:41
Speaker 2: And I think I'll just share a personal story. I
24:46
Speaker 2: was kind of trying to figure out what I wanted
24:48
Speaker 2: to do career-wise. I was supposed to start law school
24:53
Speaker 2: at Columbia Law in New York. And I took some
24:58
Speaker 2: time off and I was working overseas. And this is
25:02
Speaker 2: when I started reading Jung and I wasn't sure that
25:05
Speaker 2: I wanted to go to law school. But I got this,
25:08
Speaker 2: now it seems very silly idea, that maybe I would
25:11
Speaker 2: go to law school if I could go to Harvard Law.
25:14
Speaker 2: So I and now I'm sort of like, what on
25:17
Speaker 2: earth was I thinking? But I went through the process
25:19
Speaker 2: of applying to Harvard Law that year while I was
25:22
Speaker 2: overseas and I got rejected. And and, you know, now
25:28
Speaker 2: I look back and I think, well, thank God, because
25:31
Speaker 2: if because if I'd gotten in, I probably would have
25:33
Speaker 2: gone and then I wouldn't have become a Jungian analyst.
25:37
Speaker 4: Right.
25:37
Speaker 2: So, you know, that was really a place where life
25:41
Speaker 2: closed a door that really should not, like, that was
25:45
Speaker 2: the right door to close, you know. And so, you know,
25:48
Speaker 2: when you think about these rejections that can certainly sting
25:52
Speaker 2: at the time, but it seems like somehow the self
25:57
Speaker 2: is maybe moving the chess pieces on the board a
26:00
Speaker 2: little bit. It's like, that is not where you should go.
26:03
Speaker 2: Let's close that off.
26:06
Speaker 4: It comes back again and again to what do you
26:11
Speaker 4: do with it when it happens? It's going to happen.
26:15
Speaker 4: I can't imagine anybody going through life without that. And
26:19
Speaker 4: sometimes it can be very major, a real wound to
26:24
Speaker 4: the heart when you break up with, let's say it's
26:28
Speaker 4: a fiancé, and it's just devastating. the disappointment of not
26:34
Speaker 4: getting into the college or graduate school of your choice,
26:38
Speaker 4: being bullied, really being the target of awful version of rejection.
26:49
Speaker 4: What do we do with it? Can we put it
26:52
Speaker 4: to use somehow, including just grieving it and accepting it?
26:58
Speaker 4: And this is hurtful painful sorrowful but i think a
27:04
Speaker 4: lot of life comes down to this of what do
27:06
Speaker 4: we do with the things that happen to.
27:09
Speaker 2: Us you know and of course you know i mean
27:11
Speaker 2: we've sort of been naming these different kinds of rejection
27:15
Speaker 2: i mean i think there's the sort of like professional
27:18
Speaker 2: academic rejection and that has to do with um Well,
27:23
Speaker 2: I mean, that can activate all kinds of things, but
27:25
Speaker 2: it's very different than that interpersonal rejection by friends or
27:29
Speaker 2: loved ones or a lover, for example. But just to
27:33
Speaker 2: stay in the first realm for a minute, you know,
27:35
Speaker 2: I think if you, I mean, most of us have
27:38
Speaker 2: had to apply to college or school or graduate school
27:41
Speaker 2: or jobs, right? And what it's like to get rejections and,
27:46
Speaker 2: you know, you can get a lot of, you can
27:50
Speaker 2: really rack up the rejections. I mean, looking for a
27:53
Speaker 2: job can be just emotionally exhausting because you just keep
27:58
Speaker 2: on putting your resume out and putting your resume out.
28:01
Speaker 2: And these days you just get nothing back. I think
28:04
Speaker 2: a lot of times, you know, it used to be
28:06
Speaker 2: that at least sometimes you'd get a rejection letter. But
28:10
Speaker 2: if you're an actor or a writer and you're going
28:14
Speaker 2: on auditions, you keep on getting rejected as a writer.
28:20
Speaker 2: And I know this, you submit stuff and it gets rejected.
28:24
Speaker 2: And Deb, as you were saying, kind of what do
28:27
Speaker 2: you do with it? I think most people in fields
28:31
Speaker 2: where there's a lot of rejection just built in know
28:35
Speaker 2: that you kind of have to steal yourself. you really
28:38
Speaker 2: have to inure yourself against it so that you don't
28:42
Speaker 2: just get undone by it, but you kind of develop
28:45
Speaker 2: a thick skin. And there's some really great, you know,
28:50
Speaker 2: rejection letters to famous writers on, you know, that you
28:55
Speaker 2: can read. And it, you know, it kind of helps
28:58
Speaker 2: give you a little bit of perspective that, yes, even
29:02
Speaker 2: the world's greatest authors have you know, gotten terrible rejection letters.
29:07
Speaker 2: Here's one that was sent to Ernest Hemingway that I
29:11
Speaker 2: quite like. This was in response to his book, The
29:16
Speaker 2: Sun Also Rises. In 1925, someone at the publisher Peacock
29:24
Speaker 2: and Peacock wrote, if I may be frank, you certainly
29:28
Speaker 2: are in your prose. I found your efforts to be
29:31
Speaker 2: both tedious and offensive. You really are a man's man,
29:36
Speaker 2: aren't you? I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you
29:38
Speaker 2: had penned this entire story. So, you know, that's a rejection.
29:56
Speaker 2: And if we're in a field like that, where we're
29:59
Speaker 2: going to have to deal with a lot of rejection,
30:01
Speaker 2: we need to have a strategy for that. And, you know,
30:04
Speaker 2: like you were saying, Deb, I think it was, you know,
30:08
Speaker 2: don't let your sense of self be too caught up
30:13
Speaker 2: in what you get back from other people, which is
30:15
Speaker 2: a really difficult thing to do.
30:17
Speaker 4: Achieve an objective standpoint and as well as a subjective reaction.
30:26
Speaker 4: I often use the analogy to being, if you're in
30:29
Speaker 4: a football game, the difference between being down on the
30:32
Speaker 4: field versus being up in the skybox. And if everything
30:37
Speaker 4: is identified with, oh my gosh, you know, I really
30:40
Speaker 4: got slammed and I really got tackled and everything hurts
30:45
Speaker 4: and that's your only stance, it's hard versus being There's
30:51
Speaker 4: also the view from the skybox that sees a bigger whole,
30:54
Speaker 4: and it helps us not take everything personally. It's not
31:01
Speaker 4: always about you, let's say, whoever the you is. And
31:08
Speaker 4: this was obviously an editor that did not like a
31:11
Speaker 4: book that we all now know to be an American classic.
31:15
Speaker 4: So Hemingway was able, I think, to take an objective
31:19
Speaker 4: stance of, this hurts. The guy certainly didn't hesitate to
31:25
Speaker 4: excoriate him. Although the part about sitting there with a
31:29
Speaker 4: glass of brandy in one hand might well have been
31:31
Speaker 4: the case. But he was, Hemingway was able to say,
31:35
Speaker 4: I believe in this. I like it. I'm going to
31:39
Speaker 4: send it out again. And Lisa, I forget how many
31:44
Speaker 4: thousands of query letters you sent out for your first book.
31:48
Speaker 4: I mean, it, But you knew you'd spent the time
31:52
Speaker 4: and you knew that you could keep trying and that
31:58
Speaker 4: you didn't have to absorb it all as if it
32:01
Speaker 4: were personal attacks. There was some distance there of, no,
32:07
Speaker 4: I think I've got something to take to the marketplace.
32:10
Speaker 4: And you did.
32:12
Speaker 2: So if we move into the realm of kind of
32:14
Speaker 2: interpersonal rejection, which I think calls up a very different
32:18
Speaker 2: set of feelings. I mean, it feels terrible to get
32:21
Speaker 2: a work thing rejected or a rejection letter from a
32:25
Speaker 2: job or a college.
32:27
Speaker 4: You're fired.
32:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:29
Speaker 2: But to be rejected by a friend or a lover,
32:34
Speaker 2: it's something even more visceral, I think. And really, you know, well,
32:39
Speaker 2: there's the loss and there's the grief. And one of
32:44
Speaker 2: the famous literary stories of rejection is Pushkin's Eugene Onegin,
32:51
Speaker 2: where Tatiana is in love with Onegin, and he rejects her,
32:57
Speaker 2: and then he goes away. And when he comes back,
33:00
Speaker 2: she's now kind of the hot thing, and he wants
33:03
Speaker 2: to win her love and affection. And she says, nope,
33:09
Speaker 2: not having it. So the rejection by a lover can
33:19
Speaker 2: affect us very deeply.
33:20
Speaker 4: I think because there it is about the person. There's
33:26
Speaker 4: some hope if you're submitting a term paper or a
33:30
Speaker 4: work project or a book proposal. You know, that it's
33:35
Speaker 4: about it. And I'm not totally in all that. This
33:41
Speaker 4: is a product I've made, but it's not me personally.
33:45
Speaker 4: But if somebody breaks up with you in a romantic relationship,
33:49
Speaker 4: it's about you.
33:51
Speaker 2: Well, I also think it activates all that attachment stuff
33:54
Speaker 2: that you were talking about before, Joseph. You know, that's
33:59
Speaker 2: the difference. We're in the realm of that attachment stuff,
34:01
Speaker 2: which is so primal.
34:03
Speaker 4: Is there anybody that has escaped that kind of wounding?
34:07
Speaker 4: That comes our way too.
34:10
Speaker 3: And I think that rejection is part of being human.
34:13
Speaker 3: That children, for instance, every trait, if it's welcomed into
34:22
Speaker 3: the family, if it's welcomed into full expression, will create
34:26
Speaker 3: this kind of monstrous, narcissistic, mess of an adult that
34:32
Speaker 3: the culture has to decide these are the rules of
34:36
Speaker 3: engagement and these other things are going to get set
34:39
Speaker 3: aside this is how we are as a family this
34:42
Speaker 3: is what we value and these other things you know
34:46
Speaker 3: we're going to get put aside so the whole process
34:49
Speaker 3: of winnowing is is a form of selecting and every
34:54
Speaker 3: time something is selected something else falls by the wayside
34:59
Speaker 3: By the way, this is very typological. In the Myers-Briggs typology,
35:05
Speaker 3: I'm an ENFJ, so they added these last two letters.
35:12
Speaker 3: You're a J-type or a P-type. J-types are much more decisive.
35:17
Speaker 3: And if you're decisive, you have to make peace with
35:22
Speaker 3: the thing you're not choosing. There are many, quote-unquote, rejected opportunities.
35:29
Speaker 3: in order to be decisive. Consequently, our friends that are p-types,
35:36
Speaker 3: they find that torturous. Like, I've had analysands who've dated
35:40
Speaker 3: somebody for 15 years, and they're like, well, but if
35:43
Speaker 3: I marry them, then all these other options somehow are
35:47
Speaker 3: being rejected, the doors are closing, and I'm in an
35:50
Speaker 3: agony about it. Even though they've only been with this
35:53
Speaker 3: one person for 15 years. So the idea of taking
35:57
Speaker 3: a stance, Taking a position anywhere means I'm not doing
36:04
Speaker 3: something else. I'm not choosing something else. And that is,
36:10
Speaker 3: at the very least, an implicit rejection, if not an
36:13
Speaker 3: explicit rejection. This goes to, I think, also a recent
36:20
Speaker 3: book that many people, I think, are aware of called
36:23
Speaker 3: The Courage to be Disliked. which has caused an upwelling
36:28
Speaker 3: interest in Adlerian psychoanalytic thought. And this capacity to know
36:37
Speaker 3: who we are immediately creates a field around us of
36:45
Speaker 3: people who are going to accept or reject, or going
36:48
Speaker 3: to like or not like, who we are when we
36:53
Speaker 3: are authentic. And if everyone likes us, if everybody approves
36:59
Speaker 3: of us at all times, it's because we don't have
37:03
Speaker 3: a clearly defined personality. We've never taken a position. So
37:08
Speaker 3: there is something about being a discrete and clearly delineated
37:14
Speaker 3: human being that automatically sets up a field around us
37:21
Speaker 3: of what's rejected, what's accepted. which is also called having
37:27
Speaker 3: boundaries in the subtle and everyday and ordinary way of that.
37:33
Speaker 4: Right.
37:33
Speaker 2: So we have to be able to reject things both
37:37
Speaker 2: in ourselves and in our environment and also be willing
37:43
Speaker 2: to be able to withstand being rejected because not everyone's
37:47
Speaker 2: going to like us.
37:48
Speaker 3: I have type 2 diabetes. I have to rebuke the
37:51
Speaker 3: carrot cake. Get thee behind me, carrot cake. I have
37:58
Speaker 3: to reject certain things for my own well-being.
38:01
Speaker 4: Although what I would call that is a choice. And
38:07
Speaker 4: choice is in consciousness. And it requires ego strength.
38:13
Speaker 3: Yes, it does.
38:14
Speaker 4: It really does. I'm just not going to eat this
38:20
Speaker 4: kind of thing. And I am... big enough, strong enough,
38:25
Speaker 4: sturdy enough that the carrot cake doesn't exert that strong
38:30
Speaker 4: a pull on me because I'm bigger.
38:33
Speaker 3: Speak for yourself. Eat me.
38:37
Speaker 4: I was trying to act as your alter ego, Joseph.
38:41
Speaker 3: Angel on my right shoulder.
38:42
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. But being in choice is a hallmark of
38:49
Speaker 4: ego and a value system and morality. which includes my
38:55
Speaker 4: basic body and taking care of it and not eating
38:58
Speaker 4: or drinking or drugging, things that are clearly not good,
39:03
Speaker 4: versus reacting. And sometimes the reacting can take the form
39:09
Speaker 4: of just imposing rules on ourselves. But that's not really
39:14
Speaker 4: a choice. I will never do this. I have a
39:19
Speaker 4: strong stance about this. And maybe I can defend it
39:23
Speaker 4: from the perspective of a religious doctrine or cultural normalization.
39:30
Speaker 4: and rules uh but that's not quite the same as
39:35
Speaker 4: choice and then there's just falling into the soup which
39:38
Speaker 4: is oh my god look at that piece of carrot cake.
39:43
Speaker 2: Absolutely you know if If we're going to move this
39:47
Speaker 2: into a very kind of psychological and Jungian frame in particular,
39:52
Speaker 2: rejection is a big idea for Jung, because there is
39:57
Speaker 2: a way that consciousness usually rejects the values of the unconscious,
40:04
Speaker 2: and that what is required for psychological growth is to
40:07
Speaker 2: restore those values, kind of going back to where you
40:10
Speaker 2: were a while ago, Joseph. So it brings to mind
40:14
Speaker 2: the biblical verse, The stone that the builders rejected has
40:19
Speaker 2: become the cornerstone. And again, you know, that's in the
40:24
Speaker 2: book of Matthew. But if we think about it psychologically,
40:28
Speaker 2: that which our ego consciousness has decided is of no
40:31
Speaker 2: value and has tossed away actually becomes the thing of
40:37
Speaker 2: supreme value. And this is a very alchemical idea as well.
40:42
Speaker 2: So the alchemist said that the philosopher's stone is found
40:45
Speaker 2: in the dung heap. It is the thing that has
40:48
Speaker 2: been rejected. And there's a really beautiful passage from Jung's autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections,
40:56
Speaker 2: because he kind of acted this out. But I just
40:59
Speaker 2: want to take a minute to sort of talk about
41:01
Speaker 2: what that looks like. So if you've gone through your
41:04
Speaker 2: whole life deciding that what really matters is that you
41:10
Speaker 2: dress really well and you have a nice car and
41:12
Speaker 2: you have a beautiful home and you've never really paid attention,
41:16
Speaker 2: for example, to this little tiny voice in you that
41:20
Speaker 2: cries out for, I don't know, spending more time in nature.
41:25
Speaker 2: That's the thing that's been rejected. And that is often
41:28
Speaker 2: the secret to psychological renewal. When we find ourselves at
41:33
Speaker 2: midlife or at some other point in our life, feeling
41:36
Speaker 2: that life is devoid of meaning, that life is flat
41:41
Speaker 2: and colorless. It's often because we've let that thing of
41:44
Speaker 2: supreme value, we've rejected it, and it's fallen into the unconscious.
41:49
Speaker 2: And what we need to do is make contact with
41:53
Speaker 2: it again and restore it. So the part from MDR,
42:00
Speaker 2: Jung is talking about the building of his tower. So
42:05
Speaker 2: he built this tower. He largely did the physical labor
42:09
Speaker 2: with some help to the towers called Bollingen. And here's
42:13
Speaker 2: a passage from it. In 1950, I made a kind
42:17
Speaker 2: of monument out of stone to express what the tower
42:19
Speaker 2: means to me. The story of how this stone came
42:23
Speaker 2: to me is a curious one. I needed stones for
42:26
Speaker 2: building the enclosing wall for the so-called garden and ordered
42:29
Speaker 2: them from the quarry near Bollingen. I was standing by
42:33
Speaker 2: when the mason gave all the measurements to the owner
42:35
Speaker 2: of the quarry, who wrote them down in his notebook.
42:39
Speaker 2: When the stones arrived by ship and were unloaded, it
42:44
Speaker 2: turned out that the cornerstone had altogether the wrong measurements.
42:48
Speaker 2: Instead of a triangular stone, a square block had been sent,
42:52
Speaker 2: a perfect cube of much larger dimensions that had been
42:55
Speaker 2: ordered about 20 inches thick. The mason was furious and
42:59
Speaker 2: told the bargemen to take it right back with them.
43:02
Speaker 2: But when I saw the stone, I said, no. That
43:07
Speaker 2: is my stone. I must have it. For I had
43:10
Speaker 2: seen it once that it suited me perfectly and that
43:13
Speaker 2: I wanted to do something with it. Only I did
43:16
Speaker 2: not know yet what. The first thing that occurred to
43:20
Speaker 2: me was a Latin verse by the alchemist Arnoldus de Villanova,
43:24
Speaker 2: died 1313. I mean, that just occurs to him, right?
43:27
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, yeah.
43:29
Speaker 3: Oh, that guy.
43:32
Speaker 2: I chiseled this into the stone. In translation, it goes,
43:36
Speaker 2: here stands the mean, uncomely stone. It is very cheap
43:41
Speaker 2: in price. The more it is despised by fools, the
43:46
Speaker 2: more loved by the wise. The verse refers to the
43:50
Speaker 2: alchemist stone, the lapis, which is despised and rejected. And
43:56
Speaker 2: I will tell you that Deb and I visited Bollingen
43:59
Speaker 2: in 2019, and there is a photograph of us in
44:02
Speaker 2: front of the Orphan Stone, and maybe we'll put it
44:07
Speaker 2: on our social media or perhaps include it in the
44:09
Speaker 2: show notes.
44:11
Speaker 3: So, this idea of the prima materia, the parts of
44:18
Speaker 3: our personality that we cannot abide or we have been
44:22
Speaker 3: taught that we should not abide with, that is useless
44:28
Speaker 3: or worse, comes back to us often in midlife, but
44:32
Speaker 3: long before that it comes back to us in dreams
44:35
Speaker 3: and projections. That the rejected parts of ourselves are projected
44:42
Speaker 3: onto the people around us. And so the people that
44:45
Speaker 3: we have a disproportionate negative reaction towards, that they are
44:51
Speaker 3: hiding our prima materia inside of them. And in the
44:56
Speaker 3: same way that we'll say, oh, let's never have that
44:59
Speaker 3: person over for dinner again. And yet in our perception
45:05
Speaker 3: of them, there is something valuable that we need in
45:11
Speaker 3: order to take the next step psychologically. And generally speaking,
45:17
Speaker 3: the more hot and intolerable something is in a given moment,
45:22
Speaker 3: the more urgent it is for us to take a
45:24
Speaker 3: big heaping spoonful of that.
45:29
Speaker 1: The carrot cake?
45:31
Speaker 3: The carrot cake. I wish it all was like carrot cake.
45:34
Speaker 3: I think it's much less savory than that often.
45:38
Speaker 4: So we're shifting and have shifted, if listeners haven't flagged it,
45:46
Speaker 4: from the interpersonal world, which I always think of as
45:51
Speaker 4: a horizontal plane to the intra-psychic world, which is between
45:56
Speaker 4: me and me or you and you, of the inner world.
46:01
Speaker 4: And what we're talking about is working with shadow. What
46:04
Speaker 4: do we do with those parts of ourselves that we
46:08
Speaker 4: have rejected? How do we integrate them and reclaim them?
46:15
Speaker 4: which does not mean that we're going to act them out,
46:18
Speaker 4: but that we are aware and able to accept those
46:24
Speaker 4: dark parts of ourselves, analogous to the way that Jung
46:29
Speaker 4: accepted the stone. It wasn't right. Couldn't be used for building.
46:34
Speaker 2: Nope.
46:35
Speaker 4: The mason says, take it away. It doesn't fit the structure.
46:41
Speaker 4: And Jung says, yes, but I have to have it.
46:44
Speaker 4: I'm going to work with it. And he carved it
46:48
Speaker 4: with a homunculus and some words, and the words that
46:52
Speaker 4: Lisa read and all the rest of it, of how
46:55
Speaker 4: do we work with it? How do we work with ourselves,
47:00
Speaker 4: whether it's a relational wound, and how do we work
47:06
Speaker 4: with ourselves for some of the unclaimed shadow parts of ourselves?
47:12
Speaker 3: The lapis exiles. The exiled stone of the wise. And
47:17
Speaker 3: it starts with a philosophical position, actually. We decide we're
47:21
Speaker 3: going to seek out these exiled parts of ourselves.
47:25
Speaker 2: And a lot of times those exiled parts of ourselves
47:27
Speaker 2: are really doused in shame. It's something, it's some part
47:33
Speaker 2: of ourselves we really don't like and we want to hide.
47:36
Speaker 2: We want to hide it away. We want to send
47:38
Speaker 2: it back to the quarry.
47:40
Speaker 4: And one of the touchstones in all that I read
47:45
Speaker 4: is don't hide. Don't get rageful. Don't take it all
47:51
Speaker 4: too personally. Get back out there. Self-blame is not useful.
48:00
Speaker 4: It's just condemnatory. Very different from understanding something and taking
48:07
Speaker 4: some responsibility or having some awareness. of the part I
48:10
Speaker 4: played in it. And continue to put yourself out there.
48:17
Speaker 4: And I think that works, whether it's us dealing with ourselves,
48:23
Speaker 4: am I going to be aware of and at least
48:29
Speaker 4: willing to engage with my shadow? And am I going
48:32
Speaker 4: to try out again for the next school play?
48:35
Speaker 3: It occurred to me years ago when I was thinking
48:38
Speaker 3: about the Garden of Eden story, that the first sin
48:42
Speaker 3: was not eating the fruit. The first sin was hiding.
48:45
Speaker 3: Because if Adam and Eve were just still frolicking around
48:49
Speaker 3: the garden as if nothing had happened, God might not
48:53
Speaker 3: have said a word. But God shows up and is like,
48:56
Speaker 3: you know, where are you? Where are you? And then
49:00
Speaker 3: they're hiding behind a bush and they say, well, we're
49:02
Speaker 3: hiding behind a bush. And that, of course, sets all
49:06
Speaker 3: the bad stuff in motion. So actually, the original sin
49:11
Speaker 3: is hiding, which speaks so strongly to what you were saying, Deb.
49:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, the guilt. They say... you know, we can't come
49:20
Speaker 4: out because we're not dressed, we're naked. And God says
49:24
Speaker 4: something like, who told you that? Where did you get
49:27
Speaker 4: that idea? Because they'd been innocent of that before. Now
49:34
Speaker 4: you know better. And that's a hallmark of development of,
49:39
Speaker 4: you know, when When you hide your report card or
49:44
Speaker 4: deny that you had anything to do with those cookies,
49:49
Speaker 4: we feel guilty.
49:49
Speaker 3: I did not eat that entire carrot cake last night.
49:53
Speaker 3: I did not do that. The crumbs are falling off
49:56
Speaker 3: of my beard. The great rejection also that psychoanalysts have
50:03
Speaker 3: been interested in since the very beginning is the rejection
50:08
Speaker 3: of the unconscious. and one just quote which you can
50:12
Speaker 3: find versions of all throughout Jung's writings, the rejection of
50:16
Speaker 3: the unconscious usually has unfortunate results. Its instinctive forces, if
50:22
Speaker 3: persistently disregarded, rise up in opposition. The more negative the
50:26
Speaker 3: attitude of the conscious towards the unconscious, the more dangerous
50:31
Speaker 3: does the latter become. And so the real piece of
50:36
Speaker 3: inner work is again the rejection of the unconscious, and
50:40
Speaker 3: that shows up in innumerable ways. Refusing to write down
50:46
Speaker 3: your dreams is a rejection of the unconscious. A refusal
50:52
Speaker 3: to take feedback from people that you love and trust
50:57
Speaker 3: is a rejection of the unconscious, because often our friends,
51:00
Speaker 3: our loved ones are seeing something that is true about
51:04
Speaker 3: us that also may be problematic. that is unconscious to us.
51:09
Speaker 3: And when we say, I'm not having that, that's a
51:14
Speaker 3: way actually of rejecting the unconscious, because we refuse to
51:19
Speaker 3: know something, to bring it into light. And as Freud said,
51:26
Speaker 3: and Jung said, and all the post-Freudian and Jungians, the
51:31
Speaker 3: thing that we reject, it's the stone of the wise,
51:35
Speaker 3: but until it It becomes the stone of the wise.
51:39
Speaker 3: It becomes the coils of the dragon. It becomes the venom.
51:53
Speaker 3: So our dreamer is a 32-year-old male data scientist, and
51:58
Speaker 3: he titles this short dream, The Song. We were in
52:03
Speaker 3: a large concert hall with a big yoga community. The
52:07
Speaker 3: hall was dark, only the stage was lit by a
52:09
Speaker 3: few dim spotlights and the faces of the audience shimmered
52:13
Speaker 3: like faces in a movie theater. Our guru was on stage,
52:19
Speaker 3: which was quite high above the crowd, almost like a balcony.
52:22
Speaker 3: He wanted to teach us a song and needed someone
52:25
Speaker 3: to play the piano. Since no one seemed to be motivated,
52:29
Speaker 3: I offered to play the piano, or perhaps it was
52:32
Speaker 3: an organ. I went up and the guru showed me
52:36
Speaker 3: how to play the chords. However, the whole choral singing
52:41
Speaker 3: didn't seem to work well. The crowd didn't seem very motivated,
52:45
Speaker 3: and some people were leaving the event early. Still, the
52:50
Speaker 3: guru seemed happy and friendly. For context, he writes, One
52:56
Speaker 3: month before the dream, I was having a yoga crisis
52:59
Speaker 3: and decided to take a break from going to practice
53:03
Speaker 3: in the shala. It was a difficult decision, especially since
53:08
Speaker 3: I felt bad about leaving the community behind. Besides my
53:12
Speaker 3: yoga crisis, I am also becoming self-employed currently. I'm in
53:16
Speaker 3: a phase of not knowing where this will lead me.
53:19
Speaker 3: My finances are getting tight and existential fear is on
53:22
Speaker 3: the rise. I feel like I've supported a lot of
53:25
Speaker 3: things in my life, but I'm having a hard time
53:27
Speaker 3: finding and receiving support for myself in this world. He
53:32
Speaker 3: writes that the main feelings were, disharmony, and a feeling
53:37
Speaker 3: of lack of common understanding, also anger that the singing
53:41
Speaker 3: does not work, but also some joy about the rhythm
53:44
Speaker 3: of the song and the playing of the song. He
53:47
Speaker 3: describes a few associations. When writing down the dream, the
53:52
Speaker 3: chords started coming back to me. First the rhythm, then
53:55
Speaker 3: the melody, then I started to know the song and
53:58
Speaker 3: the band. I'd listened to this band a few years ago,
54:01
Speaker 3: and this song was actually one that I really liked.
54:05
Speaker 3: but I had never consciously listened to the lyrics. Now
54:08
Speaker 3: I looked up the lyrics and the context of the
54:11
Speaker 3: song on the internet. The song deals about the religious
54:14
Speaker 3: freedom and acceptance of faults. In 1517, the church started
54:21
Speaker 3: to sell some documents in exchange of the divine forgiveness
54:24
Speaker 3: of every sin that the buyer committed in his life,
54:28
Speaker 3: and they were named indulgences.
54:31
Speaker 2: I think it's so interesting the way this song works
54:33
Speaker 2: in the stream. And this does sometimes happen where the
54:36
Speaker 2: unconscious speaks to us through songs. Sometimes, you know, you'll
54:41
Speaker 2: just find that you have a song in your head
54:43
Speaker 2: and you're not sure why. And then if you think
54:45
Speaker 2: about the lyrics, like the lyrics will often sort of
54:48
Speaker 2: exactly pinpoint some not as of that, you know, before
54:55
Speaker 2: that not quite conscious aspect of the situation that you're in.
54:59
Speaker 2: It'll kind of give you the unconscious perspective on it.
55:02
Speaker 2: And that really happens in this dream.
55:05
Speaker 3: In many of the Eastern traditions, the guru is explicitly
55:10
Speaker 3: and implicitly the living image of the self. And so,
55:17
Speaker 3: in some ways, the dream is talking about, I think,
55:22
Speaker 3: the ego in its relationship to an image of the
55:26
Speaker 3: self and how The ego is at times tasked by
55:32
Speaker 3: the self to do things that the larger community will
55:36
Speaker 3: not reward, but which pleases the self. And so he's
55:41
Speaker 3: invited up on stage, he's given some chords and music
55:45
Speaker 3: to play. The self seems happy and friendly, but the
55:49
Speaker 3: great community seems disinterested, perhaps even a bit irritated in
55:56
Speaker 3: leaving early. So then we're left with the question of,
56:00
Speaker 3: who's important inside of us? And where do we look
56:05
Speaker 3: for guidance about what we are or are not going
56:10
Speaker 3: to lend our resources towards? Is it the inner guru,
56:15
Speaker 3: the atman, the self? Or is it the community's response
56:19
Speaker 3: to whether or not it likes what we are producing?
56:22
Speaker 3: And that is the great venture of individuation and analysis.
56:28
Speaker 4: I wish this is one of those where I really
56:30
Speaker 4: wish the dreamer was here. But here's what I'm circling
56:34
Speaker 4: around is the theme of the song. This person entitled
56:39
Speaker 4: his dream the song. And in the dream, our dream
56:46
Speaker 4: ego basically volunteers to go up and play the piano.
56:52
Speaker 4: And it doesn't really work. The choral singing doesn't work well.
56:59
Speaker 4: The crowd's not motivated. And then our dreamer associates the
57:04
Speaker 4: song with the song title 1517. And it's about religious
57:11
Speaker 4: freedom and acceptance of faults and the Catholic Church's decision
57:17
Speaker 4: in 1517 to sell indulgences. The other life event is
57:27
Speaker 4: that he has taken a break, at least, from practicing
57:34
Speaker 4: in the shala. So it's a question of, you know,
57:39
Speaker 4: what is going on here? Is he buying indulgences somewhere?
57:46
Speaker 4: What is the decision based on inside himself to go
57:52
Speaker 4: his own way? and in his career he's going his
57:56
Speaker 4: own way also to being self-employed, versus this guru who
58:04
Speaker 4: is way up on a balcony, exalted. And this could
58:12
Speaker 4: be an image of the self, and it could also
58:17
Speaker 4: be an image of a certain kind of rising above something.
58:23
Speaker 4: And the dream ends with everything is basically okay, but
58:33
Speaker 4: this yoga and choral performance, nothing bad happens, but it's
58:40
Speaker 4: not well received either. I am very curious about indulgences
58:47
Speaker 4: and spiritual bypasses. Because that's how you could bypass the
58:52
Speaker 4: consequences of your own wrongdoing. I'll just buy my way
58:57
Speaker 4: out of it. Here's 50 bucks and I'm off the hook.
59:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something there. I really like that, Deb, that
59:04
Speaker 2: you're sort of picking up on that notion of indulgences
59:07
Speaker 2: and that that's very akin to a spiritual bypass. I'm
59:09
Speaker 2: off the hook. I'm a little stuck on something. He
59:12
Speaker 2: provided some of the song lyrics, and some of them
59:16
Speaker 2: are really pretty evocative. The last line is, freedom is
59:19
Speaker 2: a possibility only if you're able to say no. And
59:23
Speaker 2: it just strikes me that he seems like he's at
59:26
Speaker 2: this point in his life where he's trying to figure
59:27
Speaker 2: out what to say no to. And in a way,
59:31
Speaker 2: in the dream, he just kind of says, well, no
59:33
Speaker 2: one else is doing it, so I'm going to offer
59:36
Speaker 2: to play the piano. And I'd be curious, like you said,
59:41
Speaker 2: it's too bad we don't know more about the dreamer,
59:42
Speaker 2: because I'm wondering if it's difficult for him to sometimes
59:46
Speaker 2: just say, you know, I want this, I don't want that,
59:52
Speaker 2: to kind of find that firmness in him in somewhere,
59:56
Speaker 2: to find the freedom to say no.
1:00:01
Speaker 4: He's actively rejected the yoga shala. I'm not sure what.
1:00:09
Speaker 4: He's rejected his past employment. But in the dream, the
1:00:13
Speaker 4: dream ego is going along with the program. He doesn't
1:00:18
Speaker 4: say no. But I think you're right, Lisa, that the
1:00:22
Speaker 4: song lyrics from this 1517, the religious freedom and having
1:00:33
Speaker 4: to cope with freedom, and we've just been talking about rejection.
1:00:39
Speaker 4: What are your values? What are your values? What do
1:00:44
Speaker 4: you accept? What do you reject? What do you choose?
1:00:48
Speaker 4: And in the dream, our dream ego does not, nobody
1:00:52
Speaker 4: signs up, nobody volunteers to go up and our dream
1:00:55
Speaker 4: ego somehow kind of goes along with, well, all right,
1:01:00
Speaker 4: I'll give it a shot for the sake of community harmony,
1:01:03
Speaker 4: if I can put it that way.
1:01:06
Speaker 2: There's another curiosity I have about this image of like
1:01:09
Speaker 2: the crowd doesn't really like it. They don't seem very motivated.
1:01:12
Speaker 2: They're leaving early. That's a little bit maybe, or one
1:01:15
Speaker 2: way to understand it is an image of our own
1:01:18
Speaker 2: psyche when we're trying to do something, but we don't
1:01:22
Speaker 2: really actually have the libido for it. We don't actually
1:01:25
Speaker 2: have the energy for it. It's like our internal audience
1:01:29
Speaker 2: is like, eh, I'm done. I don't want to do
1:01:33
Speaker 2: this anymore, you know? So I wonder if some of
1:01:35
Speaker 2: the things that he's doing, and this would kind of
1:01:38
Speaker 2: tie in with what you and I were just saying, Deb,
1:01:41
Speaker 2: about the ego. the dream ego saying, I'll play the piano,
1:01:44
Speaker 2: is consciousness saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to do this.
1:01:48
Speaker 2: But internally, you know, his internal audience is like, no,
1:01:53
Speaker 2: that's not what we have energy for.
1:01:55
Speaker 4: There's a whole contrast here with the collective versus individual
1:02:02
Speaker 4: choice of what's a concert hall? Well, it's a place
1:02:05
Speaker 4: where all kinds of people come, obviously, to hear a concert,
1:02:09
Speaker 4: a yoga community. Again, image of the collective, a guru,
1:02:16
Speaker 4: a leader for this community, especially a yoga community. And
1:02:22
Speaker 4: now we're going to do the next collective activity, which
1:02:25
Speaker 4: is to play a song and have it be accompanied
1:02:29
Speaker 4: by music. piano or organ music and going along with it.
1:02:35
Speaker 4: I think there's a polarity here between the life and
1:02:41
Speaker 4: sort of the demands of the collective and what it
1:02:44
Speaker 4: takes to go along and get along versus what is
1:02:48
Speaker 4: it that you choose that you want to do and
1:02:52
Speaker 4: when do you step out of that to claim your
1:02:56
Speaker 4: individual values and your individual choices. And I could see
1:03:02
Speaker 4: that that's appropriate as somebody goes into being self-employed and
1:03:09
Speaker 4: choosing not to go to the yoga community for a while,
1:03:13
Speaker 4: working out that tension between me and social expectations.
1:03:20
Speaker 3: I think that we may not be appreciating the role
1:03:25
Speaker 3: of the gurus. I think for any of us that
1:03:28
Speaker 3: are not raised or don't participate in that paradigm, we
1:03:34
Speaker 3: can think of the guru as a kind of leader
1:03:37
Speaker 3: or like the CEO of maybe an organization. But to
1:03:41
Speaker 3: dream of the guru has much more of a religious
1:03:46
Speaker 3: dimension to it than a leader dimension. In an ashram,
1:03:51
Speaker 3: there are certainly leaders and administrators that or running the ashram,
1:03:56
Speaker 3: often which could be an enormous enterprise, but the guru
1:04:01
Speaker 3: is minimally involved often in those things. That the guru
1:04:05
Speaker 3: is the sequestered one who is believed to be God-realized,
1:04:11
Speaker 3: the one who is fully himself inasmuch as he is
1:04:16
Speaker 3: fully aligned with the self, and then consequently, becomes the
1:04:22
Speaker 3: example and also the guide for others to have that experience.
1:04:27
Speaker 3: So I think that that religious dimension is important in
1:04:34
Speaker 3: the dream. So therefore, I do think that there is
1:04:38
Speaker 3: something about the self versus the collective and the tension
1:04:43
Speaker 3: between those things. And just as you were saying, that
1:04:46
Speaker 3: the ego is standing there and is making a decision.
1:04:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting.
1:04:52
Speaker 3: What is he going to align with? That the guru
1:04:55
Speaker 3: has no power to force him to do one thing
1:04:59
Speaker 3: or another, and the crowd doesn't have the power to
1:05:02
Speaker 3: force him to do one thing or another. That he
1:05:06
Speaker 3: is observing the responses around him, and then what he's
1:05:13
Speaker 3: going to decide remains to be seen.
1:05:15
Speaker 4: So it's a question of what is he in service to.
1:05:19
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
1:05:20
Speaker 4: And what is the guru for him? And it's archetypal,
1:05:26
Speaker 4: so it has a positive side. But it also has
1:05:30
Speaker 4: a negative side of these are people who are human beings.
1:05:37
Speaker 4: And it depends upon the relationship and a whole host
1:05:42
Speaker 4: of other variables. But we all know people who have
1:05:47
Speaker 4: surrendered their own choice-making functions and individuation process and outsourced
1:05:57
Speaker 4: it to a guru. And the dream, as you pointed out, Lisa,
1:06:03
Speaker 4: there's not much libido. Everybody's friendly and happy, but there's
1:06:07
Speaker 4: no big energy for the choral and organ playing part
1:06:14
Speaker 4: of this whole enterprise. So we leave that to our
1:06:18
Speaker 4: dreamer to talk to himself about.
1:06:23
Speaker 3: And the dream doesn't have a lysis. So that's another
1:06:26
Speaker 3: thing that's difficult is It may be that the dream
1:06:30
Speaker 3: did go on longer and the person just didn't happen
1:06:32
Speaker 3: to remember it. But taken as it is described, we're
1:06:37
Speaker 3: left with a kind of tension. He's still trying to
1:06:40
Speaker 3: play the chords. The chorus isn't singing. The guru is
1:06:43
Speaker 3: smiling and people are walking out. So there's all of
1:06:47
Speaker 3: this vortex of what is he going to do? What
1:06:51
Speaker 3: is anybody going to do? And how is this all
1:06:53
Speaker 3: going to pan out in the final analysis?
1:06:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good, that's a really good point, Joseph.
1:07:01
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
1:07:05
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