Latest / This Jungian Life Podcast / The Psychology of Meaning: Keys to Authentic Living

Transcript

The Psychology of Meaning: Keys to Authentic Living · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst on Cape Cod.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Well, we're so pleased to have James Hollis back on
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: the podcast. Jim has written innumerable wonderful books, all of
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: which we recommend, and we will link to many in
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: the show notes. He also was kind enough to write
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: us a forward to our new book, Dreamwise. So thank you, Jim.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: We haven't had a chance to say thanks in person
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: like this. Jim is also one of the original founders
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: of the Philadelphia Association of Union Analysts, where we all trained.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: And as a Philadelphian, Jim is an Eagles fan, as
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: am I, because I'm in Philadelphia, so we are We
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: have our gear on today after an important victory yesterday
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: over the Ravens. But on to the more important stuff.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Jim trained in Zurich. He practices in Washington, D.C., and
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: lives with his wife in Bethesda, Maryland. He's the author
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: of 20 books, and the latest is due out this March,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: and it's entitled Living with Borrowed Dust, Reflections on Life, Love,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: and Other Grievances. And we're super excited for that book.
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: Oh!
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: We thought we would talk today about an important topic,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: which is meaning and the nature of meaning and the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: importance of it and how a lack of meaning can
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: contribute to psychological distress and what did Jung think about meaning.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: So I don't know if you want to jump in, Jim,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: and start us off. All right.
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: Well, I think Jung said very succinctly, the smallest of,
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: and I'm quoting here, the smallest of things with meaning
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: is always larger than the largest of things without meaning.
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: And that gets to the heart of it. And I
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: think we need to understand that meaning itself is not
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: so much a concept as it is an experience. If
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: it were some object, if it had some ontological meaning, identity,
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: then we should go find it somewhere. Is it buried
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: in South Dakota? Is it found in a new house?
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: Is it a new partner that one has to solicit?
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: What is it of there? And I think it's fair
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: to say that we are meaning seeking and meaning creating animals.
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: We live what Jung called the symbolic life, meaning that
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: we're forever in the presence of invisible world that courses
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: through history, through nature, and of course through us. And
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: only from here and there, time and place, you get
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: to see glimpses of those experiences. But most importantly, they
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: are really felt in the bones, as it were. So
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: I can be doing all the right things as defined
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: by my family of origin, or my culture, or my
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: religious history, or whatever, and still feel a deep emptiness within.
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: So you'd have to say, all right, well, then what
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: is the arbiter then of meaning? And it has to
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: be where one's inner life somehow is in accord with
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: the world that one's living, with the experience that one
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: is having. So I think more psychopathology, that is to
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: say more suffering, rises out a different disconnection from meaning
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: than any other single source. We can have troubled relationships,
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: we can have Addictions we're dealing with, we can have
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: disorders of various kinds to contend with. But in the end,
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: the most important thing is, are we living a life
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: that makes sense to our psyche? And when there's a disconnect,
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: why it shows up is symptomatology. And that's what brings
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: people into therapy, as we all know here.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: In this day and age, there's something of a divide
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: as to whether or not the ego can simply ascribe
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: meaning to something. and in that way create its own world.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: It is this way because I say it's this way.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: This word means this thing because I say it means
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: this thing. Or that words and objects have no inherent meaning,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: and therefore the universe is a great big blank slate. Jung,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: of course, thought differently of that. But what is the
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: role of the ego in this process of meaning-making?
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, that was addressed by Hilton, who said
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: the mind is in its own self and in itself
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: So obviously, how we understand or think about or feel
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: about our life experience is going to be germane to
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: our experience of whether or not it's meaningful. The truth is, though,
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: we can also delude ourselves in various ways. I think
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: most of us do. We set off in life seeking
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: to follow our instructions or perhaps run from our instructions.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: We are, by and large, never absent of those instructions.
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: What your parents want from you, what your school teacher
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: wants from you, what your culture wants from you, and
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: we try to create a provisional life out there. But
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: the human psyche has its own agenda, and it will
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: show up sooner or later. So that's why so many
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: people at midlife, for example, having done what was expected,
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: feel betrayed because the map they were following no longer
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: seems to be applicable to the terrain in which they
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: find themselves. Producing a midlife depression, for example, or producing a,
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: you know, discord in one's relationships and so forth. We
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: have to recognize that, yes, our attitudes play a huge
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: role in how we experience our life. And it's certainly
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: true that a person in prison can be freer psychologically,
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: spiritually speaking, than the person who's imprisoning that individual. But
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: over time, no matter how big a castle we built
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: in our psyche, in our brain, If it's not in
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: accord with the autonomous other that we carry within us,
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: called the human psyche, there's going to be a calling
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: to accounts sooner or later. And that happens in the
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: life of most people.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: We do start out with this developmental trajectory. All the
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: things that come about naturally, quote unquote, of peer relationships
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: and falling in love and doing what you need to
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: do to get a job and save money for your
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: first car, a home, and so it goes. And I'm
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: thinking about what a letdown it is at some point
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: when the discovery is made that I played by all
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: the rules. I did all the things I was, quote,
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: supposed to do, unquote. And I'm not satisfied, or perhaps
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: something that feels very unfair has happened, being fired or
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: some other disaster. And that that place in life, I
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: think most people come to where it calls for real
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: reckoning with oneself. And I'm still thinking about your question, Joseph,
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: about the role of ego and how ego can lead
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: the way up to a certain point.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Or distort the way. I think so much of what
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: we do in therapy is that people have somehow ascribed
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: a meaning to something which has pushed them into a box.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: You know, to leave my house means a certain disaster.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: And so I'm certainly not going to leave my house,
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: for instance. So this intrusion of complexes or other kinds
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: of unconscious content can make something mean a thing that
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: can cripple us.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking of how so much from
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: the culture or even kind of mass movements can we
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: can grab onto them and kind of latch onto those
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: systems of meaning and adopt them for ourselves. And, you know,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: sometimes it works for people, you know, I'm thinking of
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: people who, for example, join a cult. Sometimes it works,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: but sometimes it doesn't. And we find we've really been
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: swept along and maybe taken very far away from our
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: individual moorings. And we've, You know, we're so hungry for meaning,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I think, that we will find it wherever we can.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: And when we used to have kind of traditional religions,
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: it was pretty easy to turn there. But for most people,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: that doesn't work anymore. And so we look out at
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: the world around us. And Jim, as you were saying,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: either we find a thing, maybe it's a new house.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: or a new car, a new partner, or we find
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: a mass movement, a political movement, or really anything, and
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: latch onto it and say, ah, they have the answer.
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: Well, we just passed through a religious service called Black Friday,
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: where enormous amounts of individuals... spend a lot of time, energy,
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: and of course money in service to doing what? Buying
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: stuff for their houses. And there's a certain kind of
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: sort of mass ritual of people knocking their neighbor aside
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: to get the latest flat screen television or something like that.
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: And what is that about ultimately? It's about feeling a
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: disconnect intrapsychically. It's about feeling empty inside and needing to
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: fill it with something. So obesity is one of those
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: sources of trying to feed oneself. Materialism is another one.
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: Power is another one. All of these are compensatory to
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: a deep ache inside that's in most human beings where
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: they're not feeling a sense of purpose and a sense
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: of connection to something larger than they are. Jung pointed out,
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: he said, we all need to have some story or
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: some value system that is larger than our ordinary ego
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: concerns in order to help reframe our journey, help us
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: make decisions. And when that's missing, we'll turn to surrogates
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: of all kinds. And so that's what popular culture does
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: for people. It's apart from supplying fresh water for your
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: home or paved streets or whatever it does, it's also
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: trying to provide you a sense of connection, a sense
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: of support. But that's obviously not enough. And underneath all
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: that is a very deep spiritual hunger for connection. I
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: use the word spirit in a non-doctrinal sense, of course.
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: It's what quickens the energy within you is where the
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: spirit's found. And many times people... Well, for example, I
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: know someone who is an artist. And when she paints,
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: she's tried to read philosophical texts, religious texts, they just
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: never compute. But when she's in the active creation of
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: getting lost in that canvas, some energy that rises and
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: carries her along, and she'll lose a sense of track
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: of time. And I consider that, you know, that person's
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: spiritual link, some spiritual connection. Too often people thought, as
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: Deborah was suggesting, or Lisa was suggesting, that They founded institutions,
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: and many people still do, but increasing numbers of individuals don't,
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: and therefore what they have available is popular culture. There's
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: a wonderful poem by Tony Hoagland, who passed away a
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: couple of years ago, and it's about a mall in Houston.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: And he takes his young cousin, who's about 14, for
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: the first time with her new credit card, He said
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: she's slashing through all the things she can buy with
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: her credit card. And he said malls were created to
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: teach Americans how to be lonely together.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Oh, God. Oh, my goodness.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: It's really a line that slices right through, you see.
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: And this is what we have. If you're feeling disconnected,
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: then what you have to do is go fasten on
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: some object. And that's why the consumerism is so compelling.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: And again, it speaks to the hunger for a sense
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: of purpose, a sense of meaning, something larger than my
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: ordinary ego concerns.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: You know, Jim, I'm thinking of this quote from Jung
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: that I think sums up this. He says, the decisive
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: question for a man is, is he related to something
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: So it's that sense, you know, when I think of meaning,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I think it's like it's that sense of being related
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: to something infinite. But it's a little fuzzy. It's a
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: little subjective. When someone comes in and they feel a
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: deep sense of disconnect or, you know, anomie, to say, well,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: you need to feel related to something infinite, you know? Well,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: someone might look at me and say, well, how the
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: heck do I do that?
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: Well, again, too often I think people would associate that
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: with joining a particular community or organization or religion or whatever,
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: it's going to be different for different people. That was
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: the point I was making. We each connect to the
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: mystery of life. You know, Jung said once in one
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: of his letters, he said, life is a short pause
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: between two great mysteries. Well, and this pauses the mystery.
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: What are we supposed to do with it? How are
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: we supposed to live it fully? And I think asking
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: that question is part of how we respect the mystery,
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: because it then calls us to account for how we're
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: making choices in service to what value. As analysts, you
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: know that so many of our choices are really driven
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: by complexes or fear-based defenses from long ago and far away.
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: And while it's perfectly natural to have assembled protective systems
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: within us, at the same time, they They own us
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: and they keep us bound to the perspectives of the child.
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: In other words, none of us would turn our automobile,
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: for example, over to an eight-year-old, but we turn our
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: choices over to an eight-year-old virtually every hour, one way
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: or the other. That is to say, the child's understanding
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: of self and the world and what's the transaction going
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: on between. when we begin to look at that, then
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: it's not so much what we're doing, it's what it's
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: in service to inside that makes the difference. And I've
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: often asked people of a certain pattern or a certain
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: choice in their life, well, what is that really in
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: service to inside? And you have to say really because
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: you can't particularly trust your first response. It's going to
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: be the protection of the old system that offered protection
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: at some point. But that's what binds us to our
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: disabling patterns from the past. And as natural as that
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: assemblage was, because from infancy on, a child's looking to
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: the world and looking to say, well, who are you?
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: Who am I? What's going on between us? And how
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: do I get my needs met in my relatively powerless way?
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: And how do I stay out of harm's way? How
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: do I earn your approval and affection? And those are
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: existential survival questions, really, depending on the circumstances. And therefore,
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: the story And I put story in quotes. It's not
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: a conscious story as much as it is a kind
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: of learned set of reflexes, which is what a complex
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: is to a degree, that then becomes a provisional operative
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: sense of self. And we carry that into the world.
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: So you can look at contemporary relationships and say, well,
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: what's the approach avoidance system going on between these two people?
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: And where does it have its origin? And most of
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: the time, it will have its origin long ago and
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: far away. So again, underneath that, the need to adapt
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: to and to fit in, to stay out of harm's
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: way is essential. On the other hand, it can lead
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: us away because we're adapting to that set of circumstances,
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: that family of origin, that particular cultural experience. And it
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: takes us away from our own center somehow. So when
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: you think about socialized roles, for example, that provided stability
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: and marching orders for people historically, at the same time,
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: they're constrictive. They were justified as either being, you know,
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: divine by nature or by divinity, as the case may be.
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: So it was very hard to go up against that
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: kind of institutional authority. And yet how many people have
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: suffered a disconnect from meaning because of what it meant
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: to be a woman or what it meant to be
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: a man or what one was supposed to do with
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: one's life energies and so forth. So again, we're having
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: a conversation here that people have thought about through the millennia,
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: but seldom has there been such an opportunity for people
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: to question those received authorities and start through the traffic
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: that we all carry and to find one's own calling there,
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: one's own voice, and perhaps find the courage then to
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: live it in the world. It doesn't mean it's going
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: to be a simple life. It may well be a
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: conflictual life, a life of suffering, but it's purposeful. One
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: of my heroes, so to speak, was the pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: who was safe in America teaching at Union Theological School,
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: New York. And when the Hitlerian regime took over, felt
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: it was his duty to return to Germany and stand
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: up against the regime. And ultimately led him back to
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: martyrdom in 1945 when he was executed by the Nazis. And,
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: you know, what he said in a letter that he
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: smuggled out of the prison camp he was in was
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: he said, I had to ask myself, this is a
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: cleric speaking, did God will me to be here? Did
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: God create this concentration camp? And he said, no, humans
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: did that. But he said, what I have to do
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: is find the will of God for me in these
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: circumstances in which I find myself, over which I have
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: no control. And I think that's really threading the needle
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: pretty thoroughly to say that comes to each of us
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: at some point to ask the question, how now am
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: I to live my life in the fate that over
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: which perhaps I have no control? I've gone through a
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: lot of medical issues in recent years and was perilously
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: close to dying. I've certainly had opportunity to be clarifying
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: what was most important for me, one of which is
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: the relationship with my wife, one of which is the
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: relationship to this work that we share. It's not that
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: I had any doubt about that theretofore. It's just the
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: importance of those as sources of meaning to me became
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: clearer and clearer. And again, a felt experience rather than
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: just a cognitive decision.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: I think it is the great transition here for me.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: with a lot of people who come into my office
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: and probably all of our offices, is how to get
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: off that conventional and relational plane of doing what one
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: is expected to do, being in accord with the culture,
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: and finding all that you have just talked about, that
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: sense of meaning, real values, what's my purpose, what am
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: I in service to? of finding that part that is
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: between me and me or you and you rather than
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: external world exigencies and pressures. And how do we do
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: that without hopefully having to suffer a life crisis, you know,
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: like you've been through with health or Bonhoeffer endured?
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: Well, It requires a discernment process. First of all, we're
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: not denigrating the importance of relationships. We're not denigrating the
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: importance of being accountable to our world, showing up to
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: work on time, carrying through on our commitments. This is
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: not about isolation. It's not about narcissism by any means.
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: It's actually a kind of humbling process, mindful of outer obligations, yes,
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: but at the same time to recognize I have to
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: keep asking myself, what are my choices in service to really?
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: And is this a summons to engage this mystery that
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: we each carry? Or is it, you know, an old
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: pattern reinstituting itself? I use that word discernment. It's a
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: proper English word, but it was more important in the
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: past because it rose out of people's recognition that it
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: trying to pull a certain thread out of a carpet.
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: It's very hard to do. Of the many, many messages
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: that we receive in any given 24 hours, which of
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: the threads come from your own depths? Which of those
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: threads come from the soul, so to speak? It's not
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: an easy decision. It requires sorting and sifting, sorting and
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: sifting over time, and that's what discernment is. And then
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: one has to find the courage and the consistency to
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: live it out. In a letter to Olga Ferber-Captain, who
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: was a founder of the Eranos Conference in Switzerland back
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: in the 30s, Jung once wrote, he said, the opus,
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: that is to say, the work of personal growth and development, individuation,
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: he said, consists of three parts of which psychology can
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: only help with the first part, and that's give insight.
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: He said, then come the moral qualities of the individual.
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: And that was the phrase he used, the moral qualities.
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: Second is courage to address, to take on this burden
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: and opportunity. And thirdly, he said, is endurance, sticking it out,
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: persistence over time, insight, courage. And with that, I mean,
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: who's responsible for that in our lives? Well, obviously we are.
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: But there are a thousand ways to defer that responsibility.
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: You know, tomorrow's another day. I'll take care of this
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: in the future. Well, there comes a time when there
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: is no future, you know. Underneath all of this is
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: a summons to individual accountability, and I often think that
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: that's the purpose of insight, courage, and endurance. I think
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: it's the purpose of psychotherapy, and that's to become accountable
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: for my own life. Freud talked about a young man
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: who didn't like the content of his dreams, and he said,
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: I didn't endorse those values, and it's not my dream.
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: And Freud said, whose dream do you think it is?
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: These energies are embodied in you in some way. Now
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: you have to be accounted for them.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: So, Jim, I'm going to use this as an opportunity
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: for some supervision, if that's okay. But I think it's
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: a question that I sit with because it comes into
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: my consulting room. There are some people who come to
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: see me and they have this sense that the meaning
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: is missing from their lives. They're aware of it. They're
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: looking for meaning. They're looking for the thing that will
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: give their life purpose. And they feel like it might
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: be in there, but they don't know how to find
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: out what it is. And I, you know, I was
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: working with someone just the past couple of weeks who
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: does have a very clear sense of sort of why
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: she's here. And she said, I know I'm really lucky.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: And I concurred. Yes, I think you are really lucky
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: if you just, you have that daimon who says you
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: need to become a school teacher or whatever it is.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: But for those of us who don't have that, who
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: have that sense of malaise or ennui, like we want
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: to find that. We know we should be here for
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: a purpose. We have a sense that there is one.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: But we look and look and can't find it. You know,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: sometimes it seems to me that sitting with that question,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: one can begin to think that, as you said right
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: at the top here, that That, okay, I just need
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: to find this thing, you know, and that there's sort
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: of an answer. And I mean, sometimes maybe there is
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: an answer. It's like, well, I didn't know I needed
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: to do this, but I really need to, I don't know,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: start writing music, making it up. But maybe sometimes it's
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: not about finding a particular thing. Maybe it's about shifting
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: one's attitude. I don't know if you have any thoughts
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: about that.
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: Quite a few thoughts about it. that's our daily work
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: in a way. For one thing, you know, initially the
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: project of the first half of life is to try
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: to meet what the world asks of us and forming
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: an ego and stepping into the world and creating a
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: provisional life, relationship and career and so forth is part
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: of growing up and being a functional member of our
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: time and place. However, The real question in the second
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: half of life, I think, is what is wanting expression
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: through me? That's not about my ego at all. That's
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: about what is, again, worthy of my service. Because if
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: I don't ask that question, I'm going to be serving
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: things that are not worthy, ultimately, of the expression of
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: the soul. And again, it's not about making you comfortable
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: or helping you fit in. It's about helping the seed
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: of life grow within you in a way that contributes
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: to the world around you. And fortunately, we're armed with
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: various systems that help us in that discovery process. First
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: of all, and this is going to be so obvious,
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: it's the fact that we overlook it, is the feeling function.
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: I can do all the right things, but if it's
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: not right for me, the feeling function is not going
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: to endorse it. I can tell myself I'm being successful
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: because I'm promoted or whatever, I've earned income here or whatever. Inside,
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: the feeling is an autonomous other. It's how the psyche
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: qualitatively evaluate how your life is going from its perspective,
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: not your ego perspective or your culture's perspective. And you
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: can do all the right things. And that support inside
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: of that energy that is there for you is not present. Secondly,
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: we can will our energy. That's how we get up
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: and three in the morning to change the baby's diaper,
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: for example, and that's important, and to earn a living
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: and take care of ourselves, et cetera. But if you're
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: pushing your energy in the wrong direction, it ultimately, as
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: we all know, leads to burnout and then depression and
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: self-medication and all sorts of things. So when you're doing
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: what's right for you, the energy's there. That's why I
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: was giving you an example of the artist who loses
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: herself in the act of creation. It's like her ego
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: then is submitting itself to something that's wanting expression through her.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: And she's not doing it to earn a living. This
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: is something that is inherently of value to her. Thirdly,
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: we have dreams. And as we know, we dream up
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: to six times per night. And I mentioned in that preface,
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: I think, that if you live to be 80 years old,
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: you will have spent, according to sleep research, six years
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: of your life dreaming, which is extraordinary.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: That's not sleeping.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: You could spend up a third of your life sleeping,
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: but at six years spent dreaming, nature does not waste energy.
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: So it's in service to some fundamental And I think
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: it's processing and metabolizing the raw data of sensory experience
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: we get any 24 hours. But it also is in
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: service to some sort of purposeful solicitation of a conversation.
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: If over time you pay attention to those dreams, they
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: give you a deeper sense of internal direction, it's compensatory
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: to the power of the world outside of you. You know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: and we're children, we're infants. We're connected to our instincts,
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: as Jung said, but because we're tiny, vulnerable, dependent, we
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: have to compromise, of course, and meet the expectations of
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: the world around us. And so we slowly lose contact
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: with that source of guidance. You said all of our
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: troubles stem from having disconnected from our instinctual directives. And
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: some curbing of that is important to live in family
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: and culture and so forth. However, underneath all of that,
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: if we're off center, it's going to pathologize. So fourthly,
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: we have symptomatology. Analytic psychology, rather than ask the question
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: of how quickly do we get rid of the symptom,
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: we say, rather, why has it come? What change is
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: it asking of us here? How am I to look
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: at this, say, autonomous withdrawal of energy from the place
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: in which I wish to invest it or my world
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: wants me to invest it? And that's what led me
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: to my first hour of analysis a long, long time
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: ago in Philadelphia, by the way. And to ask the question, why,
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: having done all the right things and achieved those goals,
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: has the psyche autonomously withdrawn its approval and support from it?
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: That was a profound question. Little did I know it
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: was launching the second half of life right on schedule.
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: And then, of course, fifthly is that question of meaning.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: If what you're doing is meaningful to you, the inherent
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: value of it will make itself clear along the way.
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: You might get rewarded for producing X number of widgets
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: in your productive life, but over time, if that's the
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: wrong place, for you to be spending your energy, it's
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: not gonna be meaningful to you. And that's the most
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: qualitative distinction of all of those. Of course, we learn
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: to override all of these internal systems that we have
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: for reasons of adaptation to the world around us, for
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: fitting in, pleasing people around us, getting their approval, earning
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: a living, et cetera. You know, legitimate issues, to be sure.
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: but over-learned at some level, so we further the separation,
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: the estrangement from ourself. So this is about recovering a
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: sense of conversation, if you will, with those autonomous functions
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: within each of us that we knew as children, but
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: had to trade off for fitting into the world over
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: which we had no control. And so this is about
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: a recovery effort and also a sense then of accountability
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: to that as well.
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: I like the idea that it's a recovery, that we
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: came with that. We had it once. It's not unknown.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: It's not something we're completely unfamiliar with. We've lost touch
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: with it. But there it is, just waiting to reemerge.
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: into lived life once again. And I find that often
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: with people, just your dreams are there. Your creative impulses
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: and yearnings, and it might be something as simple as
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: trying a totally new recipe, but it is there waiting
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: for you.
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: Oh, it's a homecoming in a way. That's why I
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: use the word estrangement. You know, we've turned ourselves into
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: strangers in some way. In doing so, it's about recognizing
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: this familiar other has always been there, and it's about
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: reconnecting with it. That's why it's ultimately a healing process.
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: And I think it's a work of a lifetime. It's
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: not something that just happens overnight. You can make some
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: substantial changes in your life, but it's an ongoing conversation.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: You know, how you age, how you die, how you
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: parcel out your energy. Those are questions that life will
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: take you to along the way. So it's not just
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: about relationship and career. It's about the various challenges and
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: stages that life brings to you.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Can I just.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Share a dream from someone who was definitely depressed you know,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: trying to find this sense of meaning and purpose. And, uh,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I think it really speaks to what Deb, both you
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: and Jim, you were just talking about. Um, and I,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I can share the dream because she very kindly gave
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: me permission to write about it in my book, The
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Vital Spark.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: So, and.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: I just think it's so eloquent and really touches on,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: on what we're discussing. So she had grown up in
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: such a way that she hadn't had a lot of
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: ability to focus on kind of her own needs and desires.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: So then in our work together, she had this dream.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: There's something wrong with my house, maybe an electrical issue.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: A man comes to help me. Maybe he is an electrician.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: We are walking around outside the house and there are
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: several construction vehicles there entirely blocking my street. The workers
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: are all women and they have dug up the sidewalk
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: in front of my house. I look into the trench
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: that they are digging. I see pipes and some standing water.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: They explain that there is a woman who has been
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: missing and they are looking for her. One of them
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: tells me that I might think that the issue with
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: the house is a big deal, but the real issue
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: is here. I think to myself that the woman must
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: be dead if she has been buried underground, but they
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: tell me that they've heard her so it's clear she
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: is alive. I offer to help them look for her.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: They tell me I should first see a picture so
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: that I will know what she looks like. To see
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: the picture, I need to go see my friend Gary.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: I find him, but he explains that he doesn't, in fact,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: have the photo. I will need to go somewhere else
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: to find it. I wake before seeing the photo, but
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: I somehow know that when I see it, it will
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: be a picture of me.
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: Oh, my goodness.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: How orphic.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: Melbourne, did they get that clear? I wonder if that
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: could mean anything, you know?
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, what a silly thought that dreams have meaning.
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: Yes, exactly. Well, we see there's recollection, recognition, remembrance. Plato
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: argued that those moments of insight are always about recollecting
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: what we already knew in some archetypal sense heretofore. Not
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: in terms of ordinary data, but in terms of the
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: framing of it as a kind of assemblage of energy
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: and purpose in life. So that's why it's strange but
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: familiar at the same time.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: There's a lovely, there are many lovely details in that dream.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: One of them is that the construction vehicles that are
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: there digging up, looking for this woman, have totally blocked
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: the road. She can't go anywhere yet. She's kind of
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: cut off because this issue is so pressing. It's keeping
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: her from moving forward and that's probably a good thing.
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: Sounds as if digging deeper is going to be obligatory.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: Jim, I wonder if you could comment a little bit
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: on the role of despair in the discovery of meaning.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: I think of Dante's Divine Comedy, and it seems that
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: there is a requirement at a certain point to go
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: into despair, to be stripped of meaning, and to suffer
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: that adequately in preparation for the revelations. of that autonomous meaning.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: So I'm wondering if you, your thoughts about that, how
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: might one embrace or tolerate these great arcs of despair
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: as a teleological process?
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: Well, I've often thought that part of the purpose of
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: analysis or extensive psychotherapy is to hold one's fragments together.
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: maybe carry on a functional life while one disassembles the
• 38:31
  Speaker 5: old false self and the despair of the bankruptcy of
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: the previous understanding of self and world and coping system
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: is necessary, even as one tends to that baby at
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: three in the morning, that one also has to realize
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: that from this something has to or will come or
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: occur or emerge. But you have to be able to
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: tolerate that in between. We all know that therapy is
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: a kind of liminal experience, which means a threshold. You're
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: no longer able to live in the old world or
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: the old understanding, the old map of reality. And you
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: hold the tension of opposites here as long as you
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: can until the new appears. And it will, ultimately. That's
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: our experience. But You know, it's very hard to do
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: that when you're in the middle of it. Those are
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: the dark nights of the soul of which we've heard
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: for so many millennia. And, you know, history is also
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: full of people who went through that and experienced a
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: new lease on life, a new vision, a new understanding
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: of stuff in the world, or a new mission, if
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: you will. So I think part of the role of
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: the therapist there is to offer that structure, that support,
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: that constant context of care that helps one in that process,
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: but we can't do it for another. I can remember
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: being in the fourth year of my analysis in Zurich
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: and having had one more dream say essentially the same
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: thing that a whole host of dreams have been saying,
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: and It finally sunk in. It moved from that moment
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: from a concept of the brain to which I was
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: committed to a felt experience of the heart. And that's
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: where I had a complete conviction of a sense of
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: something inside of me knowing what was really right for me.
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: I was trying to adjust my inner promptings with the
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: world as it was rather than recognizing at some point
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: I had to surrender to that presence that had always
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: been there, as we mentioned before, but which had been
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: obscured through the thousand adaptations and projects that life takes
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: on for us. So in those moments, one has a
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: deep sense of, I don't know if I want to
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: say the word comfort, but maybe reassurance is the right word.
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: I've often said to folks, You need to know there's
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: something in you that knows you better than you know yourself,
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: that has your well-being at heart. It's not here to
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: make you comfortable, but it is here to support you
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: through your own process of healing and finding and living
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: purpose in your life as it comes to you. And
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: until one knows that, one's forever looking to the outer
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: world for clues and for guidance. And it ultimately comes within,
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: through the vehicles of, as I said before, the feeling
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: folk and the energy system, so forth.
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: But in a way, it sounds like what we have
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: to do is sort of dig a trench for it.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: What you mentioned was that you had a commitment in
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: your brain prior to the really wonderful experience of a heart.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: And that that is the part that ego can do.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: That is the part we can do. We can really
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: dig a trench through which our despair and our suffering,
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: because it's hard work, and we wonder if this is
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: really going to come to a good end, lead us
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: somewhere or not. But that is the part I think
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: we have to do, and it can be lonely, despairing,
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: and sometimes agonizing. Full of suffering. I think of Bonhoeffer
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: or more recently Navalny, the Russian dissonant who went back
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: to Russia and was imprisoned and died there.
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: Yes, murdered there.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: Not an easy life, but one that has enduring power
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: far greater than the dictators who put him in the camps,
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: What strikes me, Jim, for some reason I keep thinking
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: about Dante, that Dante had to find Virgil first before
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: he went into hell. So I'm wondering if part of
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: that descent into despair, the disassembling of all the wrong
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: proxies of meaning, happens after we first discover that Psyche
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: is autonomous, so that something is with us before we
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: are disassembled. I don't know if that's too formulaic, but
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: it strikes me.
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: Well, of course, virtual was the embodiment of classical learning,
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: and that was what I was implying by a commitment
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: of the intellect to the process, but it's insufficient in itself.
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: You know, you can't just read another book about this
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: or whatever. It has to be something that you feel
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: deeply within you and changes something intrapsychically. And ultimately, it
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: was Beatrice who was the embodiment of the anima, the
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: inner soul force within him that leads him out of
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: the underworld into a larger vision. So he has a
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: larger vision at the end than when he went into it.
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: Of course, we have to remember, too, he was, we
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: might say, inappropriately banished from his home state at the time,
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: which is really his nation, and separated from his family
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: for many, many years and never really got to return
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: in his lifetime to Florence. So he was living a
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: life of privation and exile. So that was in addition
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: to a loss of family. in addition to his own
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: spiritual journey. So there was much to grieve and much
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: to lament. And Jung said once, we can resist this
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: process of self-discovery because it can invite us to a
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: voyage into Hades. That's the phrase he used. And at
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: the same time, until you go through that, you don't
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: come out on the other side. Unfortunately, we can't give
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: that to other people. We can be present with it
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: and support it. But we've all had the experience somewhere
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: in our personal lives and or in our therapeutic practices
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: to witness that process within individuals and to see them
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: come out on the other side of something. And that's
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: the short route through despair as you go through it.
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: As Churchill said, when you find yourself in the dark wood,
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: keep walking.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: Very wonderful, salty truth right there.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think part of the hard part is
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: when we're in that dark wood, we don't absolutely, or
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: when we're watching someone else be in it, we don't
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: absolutely know how long it's going to take to get out.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: If we're actually going to get out, what the other
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: side is going to look like. So, you know, we
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: think there's a pretty good bet that it'll be better.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: But part of the nature of being in that dark
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: wood is you actually don't know.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: Well, and better by what perspective? It may not make
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: your life easier. You think of Bonhoeffer and Balney as examples,
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: you know, and you admire them because they had a
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: story larger than their personal security, ultimately. And it's something
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: that became a kind of example for so many of us,
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: you know, where One serves the soul rather than the
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: ego at that point. And, you know, that's a familiar sacrifice,
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: but it's a painful one regardless.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: And it's not a deal, you know, that if I
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: go through this dark wood and if I really, you know,
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: slog my way through the swamp and meet the dragon
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: and whatever else, then I will be rewarded with something wonderful.
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: We don't know. It's not transactional.
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: No, that's right. That's right. And the quote, the knowing,
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: is intrapsychic in any case. You know, another person, Mandela,
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: to me his triumph was that he kept his spirit
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: while his body was imprisoned unfairly for those decades. And
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: when he came out, he could be consumed by revenge.
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: vengeance when he came to power, like some politicians we know.
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: And he.
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: Instead chose to govern with a larger story in mind.
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: The nation was more important, and unity and peace and
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: human feeling was more important than his personal revenge. And
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: I think that is why he will go down in
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: history in a way that the tin horn dictators never will.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: Jim, I find myself also thinking about Viktor Frankl and logotherapy.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: And particularly in this narrow question of how does one
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: tolerate despair? What bulwarks can we put in our hands
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: as we must go through these states of despair? And
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: I think I remember In man's search for meaning, that
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: it was important that no matter what condition he was in,
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: to be able to identify at least one choice that
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: he could make, and that that choice should or would
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: in some way reflect his deepest values. So if the
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: only thing one has is a crust of bread, there's
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: still a choice of whether I'm going to break it
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: in half and offer it to the ill fellow. next
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: to me and that that would be meaningful. based on
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: my own values. Finding the choice, and finding no matter
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: how small the choice is, to demonstrate that we are
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: the person we believed ourself to be gives us some
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: refuge against the great arcs of despair that we can
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: find ourselves in. Yeah, absolutely.
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: And that's a place for consciousness to play a role
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: in accord with the depth of the soul. The way
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: I've expressed this question for individuals is, how now am
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: I to live my life in the face of this
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: situation over which I have no control? There's still a
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: summons to accountability, to our value systems, to discernment, to courage,
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: and to awareness of one's value, because they are ultimately
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: who we most are. How now am I to live
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: my life in the face of these circumstances over which
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: I may have no control? You know, and that comes
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: to us sooner or later in life. Everyone, if you
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: live long enough, and that's a place for egos cooperation,
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: I think, in the process to help discern. But then
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: to give assent to that is what gives that sense
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: of purpose and meaning. Our outer powers may diminish, but
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: the more they diminish, the more the summons then is
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: to develop a richer inner life. And in doing that,
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: you know, it's compensatory to the outer diminishing. So one
• 51:01
  Speaker 5: of the things that we always have to be saying,
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: you know, of any choices I have in my life,
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: which path is a path of enlargement as opposed to
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: diminishment in my life?
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: And usually we.
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: Know the answer to that question. If you don't know it,
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: you just ask it long enough and it will reveal
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: its purpose to you.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: I feel drawn to return to Jung with this passage
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: about whether or not life has meaning. At the end
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: of Memories, Dreams, Reflections, he writes, the world into which
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: we are born is brutal and cruel. and at the
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: same time of divine beauty. Which element we think outweighs
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the other, whether meaninglessness or meaning, is a matter of temperament.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: If meaninglessness were absolutely preponderant, the meaningfulness of life would
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: vanish to an increasing degree with each step in our development.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: But that is, or seems to me, not the case. Probably,
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: as in all metaphysical questions, both are true. Life is
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: or has meaning and meaninglessness. I cherish the anxious hope
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: that meaning will preponderate and win the battle. Yes.
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: And the paragraphs before that, I've always been moved by
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: when he's asked as he's dictating his memoirs, what are
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: the grand truths? And he says, well, I have no
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: grand truths. I can only say two things, that the
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: person I was as a child is the person I
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: still am today. Much has changed, but it's the same core.
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: Much abides. And secondly, he says, I also feel I've
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: been carried by some energy. He doesn't name it. I've
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: been carried by some energy all this way. And I
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: think that's true, that in the end, those are the
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: only things we can say for certain. And that is,
• 52:56
  Speaker 5: you know, the person we were, the child we were,
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: with our personality and our curiosity and imagination and so
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: forth is still within us. And secondly, some life force
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: is carrying us. And we have to honor that, pay
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: attention to that, and live as best we can in
• 53:14
  Speaker 5: harmony with that. And that's as good a trip as
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: you'll ever get out of it.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Jim, before we let you go, I do have
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: just one very important last question. Mm-hmm. Do you think
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: the Eagles are going to go all the way this year?
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: You know, I lie awake in the middle of the
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: night thinking about that. I have the potential. I depend
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: on if they don't have key injuries. I think they
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: are quite possible. I think we have to get through
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: Detroit before we get to the Super Bowl. I think
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: they can beat Kansas City Chiefs. I think they can
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: beat Buffalo. Detroit's the team that you have to beat
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: this year, and they're in the same league, so... That's
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: the real Super Bowl for us. So we'll see.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: Well, I cherish the anxious hope that the Eagles will preponderate.
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: Well, I concur. I sat many a time with a
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: friend or a child in the uppermost frozen regions of
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: old Veterans Stadium at 7th level and froze my tush off. Yes.
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: So to see them winning is a great joy to me.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: That's great, especially from the warmth and comfort of your couch.
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, and that is the note we're ending on, is
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: the joy. These relatively mundane things, if I may say,
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: like who wins the Super Bowl.
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: There is also meaning and delight and joy, and we
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: really shouldn't miss it as long as we're on this
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: trip called life.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: That's right. We love the Eagles with a wink, you know.
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: We know better, but it's a delightful fiction.
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I like the thing that the people in the
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: stands do with their wings.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Jim, that was spoken like a true Philadelphia sports fan.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: We never really get our hopes up.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: That's right. Okay, Jim, thank you so much for joining us.
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: You're welcome.
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: And I wish each of you well and carry on.
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: We look forward to your new book coming out in March.
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: Thank you very much.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Our dreamer this week is a woman. She is 54
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: years old, and she's a psychotherapist. And she's entitled her dream,
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: The Grandeur and the Pain. And here's her dream. I
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: was walking through a rehearsal of high school stage production
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: with two friends from high school, one of whom is
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: still a best friend. The sets and costumes were truly amazing,
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: very atmospheric and beautiful. I wanted to enjoy it, but
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: my hips were aching terribly and it hurt to walk.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: I lagged behind them, but they didn't notice. They were
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: excited about the production and were in some way involved
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: in it. I was impressed by it all, but jealous
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: and a little bitter to be just an observer and
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: injured at that. At one point, I asked for a
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: hand to step up from a lower level to walk
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: with them, but they could not get me up, and
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: my aching hips wouldn't allow it, and my best friend
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: walked ahead not noticing. Later, we arrived at the outside
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: of my house. My best friend pulled up a chair
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: and washed the windows, which were dirty. I felt touched
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: that she was taking care of my house. For context,
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: she says, I was at my 87-year-old mother's house the
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: day before the dream, and she wouldn't take a short
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: walk because she just got news of a lung condition
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: that she believes is terminal. I felt she was being self-pitying.
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: In the past few years, I've had a lot of
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: creative ideas for my career as a therapist and teacher,
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: but I haven't acted on them. The main feelings in
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: the dream, she says, were awe at the grandeur of
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: the production, envy and some judgment of my friend's involvement
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: in it, self-pity seen and cared for by my friend
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: but a little ashamed at the dirty windows. And she
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: also adds, my best friend travels a lot and has
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: recently gotten serious about her painting. She has a sort
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: of fabulous life that I've envied at times. My friend
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: has always had a hard time keeping her house tidy,
• 57:55
  Speaker 4: and the last time I was there, her windows were dirty,
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: and we talked about that.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: So this is a lovely, lovely example, I think, of
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: a shadow dream.
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: Aha.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: A sort of positive shadow figure. She has a best friend,
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: and as we know, best same-sex friends can often carry
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: shadow and And here she is. And it seems like
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: the theme that the dream maker is trying to point
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: her attention to is, do you have a tendency to
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: be self-pitying? Could you reach for something more fabulous? Yeah, sorry.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: Go ahead, Joseph.
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: Which seems like a compensation for her disdain of the
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: old woman's seeming self-pity. So that's another thing. The dream
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: maker is like, oh, a little judgmental about self-pity. Let's
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: just put all that, spin you around in that and
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: give you an experience of this. Yeah.
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: Yes, here our dream ego is the one who has
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: aching hips and difficulty walking. So the parallel between being
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: at her mother's house the day before and then the
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: dream ego having difficulty walking is different. pretty hard to miss.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: And she's clearly made that connection herself because she provided
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: those details for us.
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: And then we also had the relationship with the best
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: friend of that here's stage production, so enter persona. But
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: everything is wonderful. The costumes and the production is atmospheric
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: and beautiful. And our dream ego can't keep up with
• 59:40
  Speaker 4: the two friends who don't help her.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: They're not feeling sorry for her.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: No.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: They're not enabling her, we could say. I think the
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: setting is really interesting. We're back in high school and
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: we're with some high school friends. So I'd be curious
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: about that. What was, what was high school like for
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: this dreamer and where does that theme of maybe nursing
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: your self pity instead of turning back towards life and
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: taking hold of it? We did that, you know, was
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: that someplace in high school and especially the theater imagery is,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: is interesting. I mean, I, as someone who did theater and,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: high school, you know, that's, uh, that's, that's, it's quite a,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: it's quite a thing, isn't it? Joseph, I'm sure you
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: I was in the drama club. I was a drama
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: kid for sure. When we look at the, uh, the
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: section about the windows, it reminds me because they're talking
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: about the dirt on the windows, being able to see clearly.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: And then in the gospel, Matthew seven, five, there's a
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: famous saying, uh, Quote, thou hypocrite, first cast out the
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: see clearly to cast out the moat of thy brother's eye.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: So clean your own windows. Get the beam out of
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: your own eye.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Yep, that's great.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: And then you can wonder about whether other people are
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: being self-pitying or whether they're up to snuff.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: You know, I thought the windows thing was really interesting.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: interesting because windows are such a potent symbol in a
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: way because they're how we perceive the world they're how
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: we see out so i'm thinking of there's that phrase
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: cleansing the doors of perception um which you know it
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: it's like you've got to clean your window so that
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: you can see clearly that feels really important there's some
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: there's some way that she's not seeing things clearly And
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: it's so lovely. Like her friend didn't wait for her
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: when she felt like she couldn't keep up. But now
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: the friend is doing what's actually needed. It's like you
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: didn't really need help shuffling along, you know, just like
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: maybe her mother could have taken that walk. You know,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: maybe she could have really kept up if she hadn't
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: been stuck in her self-pity. But you do need some help.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: And I'm going to help you with that thing.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: I'm going to help you clean your windows, you know?
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: So a lot of times when we're struggling with something,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: we think we know what's wrong. Our ego thinks it's,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: it knows what's wrong, but really there's some other part
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: of us that it's like, Oh no, no, that's not
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: the real problem. Let me help you with a real problem.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: I was just talking with a friend the other day
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: who's in recovery and she told this great story about
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: when she finally got sober, she was, you know, stuck
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: and she was doing this job and she was telling
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: people in the program, like, well, I've got this job
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: and it's, I can't, you know, I'm really stuck in
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: it and I'm not making enough money. And, and the
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: people in the program were like, huh, why don't you
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: just come to a meeting? She was like, how is
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: that going to help? But of course that, you know,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: so it's a little bit like that in the dream.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: It's like, she thinks she needs someone to help her,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: you know, walk. No, really, you need your windows clean, actually.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: And I will actually help you do that.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: We're having a conversation with, with our Dreamer, who is,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: of course, anonymous, I pick up these two friends were
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: excited about the production and were in some way involved
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: in it. So there's a creative endeavor here about a play,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: and we could have, you know, introduce all of the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: nuances of what it means to be in a play,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: to have a spirit of play, all of that kind
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: of stuff associated with play. And then in her comments,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: she says that her best friend has gotten serious about
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: her painting and has a sort of fabulous life, but
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: her windows were dirty. And the last time she visited
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: her friend's house, they talked about it. But I would
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: be very interested for the dreamer in, you know, what
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: is your production? What are you involved in? What are
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: you in love with? What Where is your fabulous life?
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: Well, and she says, I've had all these creative ideas
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: and I haven't done anything with them. Yeah.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: You're not producing them.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: Right. You know, what kind of production do you have
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: in mind that is your creative endeavor?
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what the dream is inviting her
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: to explore. Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: an episode topic, or join our mailing list, visit our
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: website at thisunionlife.com. If you enjoyed this episode, give us
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: five stars and a good review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to our YouTube
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: channel and make sure to click the notification bell to
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: be alerted whenever we upload videos. And keep up with
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: all things TJL by following us on Instagram, Facebook, X,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: and TikTok.