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How to Develop Your Inner Guidance: Charting a Path Through the Current Chaos with Jung’s Insights · 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 3: Today we're going to talk about inner guidance, which seems
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: very apropos. Right now, particularly in this environment of rapid
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: and unpredictable change in the world in many different domains,
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: it's difficult to know where to look in order to
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: orient ourselves both internally and externally. So as Jungians, this
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: is something that we ponder, something that we work with,
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: and in the larger sense, it has something to do
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: with the relationship with the outer world versus the relationship
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: to the inner world. So we're going to move around
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: this topic a bit because it seems so relevant and
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: I think so useful.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: And of course, one of the best ways to attend
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: to the inner world and to find inner guidance is
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: through dreams. So we would like you to like to
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: invite you to explore Dream School, which is our online
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: 12-month self-paced program that helps you learn how to work
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: with your own dreams, how to kind of harvest that
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: wisdom and that guidance. And it's a wonderful community and
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: there's lots of great material there. And you get to
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: spend time with each one of us every month in
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: live events. So check it out.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: So as part of inner guidance, dream work, of course,
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: is central to that. But I'd like to just start
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: a little bit from the mysticism of the idea of
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: inner guidance, because of course there is a very pragmatic
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: psychological domain. But also the idea that there is some
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: divine spark that is interested in us, that is invested
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: in us and is trying to communicate essential information to us.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: It's something that is universal. We find this in religions,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: ancient and modern. And it is something that we have
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: woven into our culture and our psyches.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: You know, interestingly though, it is part, that is a
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: kind of an idea, I think, in every major religion.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: It's not usually a major idea. in schools of psychology.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: And I think that's what sets a Jungian approach apart
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: is that our worldview incorporates this idea that there is
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: some kind of central motivational guiding center of the psyche
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I think I used central twice in that sentence.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Because it's an important idea.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: And Jung called it the self, and he capitalized the
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: S in those cases.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: You know, before we get too tangled up in that,
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: it is simply a fact. You know, as Jung said
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: over and over again, and sometimes he sounded like he
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: was just pleading, because he would say the psyche is real,
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: but the psyche is real. So whether you think it's
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: out there or in here or under there or somewhere
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: in the back of your closet, the fact of the
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: matter is it's real. There is a source of knowing
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: beyond our ego, cognitive, frontal cortex, so-called rational mind. And
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: we know that from a million examples of intuition and dreams,
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: of course, and a hundred other ways that we grab
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: hold of something that wasn't just us thinking it through.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: On Saturday, May 17th, join me and Deb for a
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Shadow and Dreams seminar, a sneak preview of how we
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: work with shadow and dreams in this Jungian Life Dream School.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Every night our dreams confront us with shadow, what the
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: waking mind doesn't want to know. Our dreams bring shadow
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: close in order to compensate, compliment, or contradict the conscious attitude.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: During the one hour session, we'll dive deeper into Carl
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Jung's concept of the shadow and see how it fits
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: in with dream work. We'll also conduct a live dream
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: interpretation using a dream submitted by an attendee. There'll be
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: time to ask your questions about Jungian dream analysis and
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: we'll reveal a special TJL Dream School offering for Spring 2025,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: exclusive to seminar attendees. There will be a recording available
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: if you book a space and then can't make it. So,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: if you're curious about shadow and dreams or would like
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: to know more about our Dream School, we hope to
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: see you at 12 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, May 17th.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Follow the link in the show notes to book your
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: free space.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: So one way we can think of inner guidance is
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: a way to cultivate in ourselves an ability to extend
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: our senses and our receptivity beyond our own ego experience.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: And so the mystic Rudolf Steiner, who I reference from
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: time to time, he had this idea that the auditory
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: center of the brain is the most evolved part of
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: the human vehicle, most ready to perceive the inner worlds,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: to perceive the extra information that our five senses don't provide.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: And so he had this really interesting exercise to cultivate
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: the certain kind of receptivity that the auditory center provides.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: So in one way, all of us know this, but
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: we may not be cultivating it. If you've ever been
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: asleep and then you suddenly wake up and you think
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: you heard somebody opening the front door of your place,
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: you become very still, very focused. You're casting your receptivity out,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: looking for any information, hearing a floorboard creek, is there
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: any evidence that somebody is actually in the house? But
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: that capacity to cast your receptivity out beyond your own
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: mind is something that Steiner felt you could extend into
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: a rather remarkable realm. So his exercise was to sit
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: quietly and Notice the sound that's easy here. Like, for instance,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: I can always hear my refrigerator, which I have no
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: idea why it's so loud, but I can always hear
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: the refrigerator mumbling, you know, in the background. And then
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: what's the next furthest sound? Like, I can hear the
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: finches just right outside the window because there's a nest.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: And then what's the sound beyond that? What's the tiniest
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: sound that you can hear?
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: And then.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: to focus on whatever is beyond that. And that targeted
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: way of listening stimulates our own capacity to choose to
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: be receptive. So we can listen people. We can listen friends.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: We can listen or be receptive to any number of
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: domains of curiosity and pick up information that our egos
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: previously was not attending to and steiner's suggestion is that
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: there is a whole inner world that is enchanted and
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: uncanny which also would like to communicate to us and
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: does so through this deep cultivation of listening.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: I like especially what you said, Joseph, about extending our receptivity.
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: I'm going to really pay attention to what I can
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: hear right now in my environment versus screening a lot
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: of that out. And by screening, By practicing that, of
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: really tuning in, paying attention, what else is out there?
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: You know, what if we practiced that in a whole
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: array of realms, of listening to people more attentively, paying
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: attention to our dreams, meditation? There are any number of
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: activities that we can get interested in and be receptive to.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: And who knows what you might learn.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: I love framing it as listening to Joseph. I think
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: that that's a really lovely invitation. And I think what
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: we're talking about really is our relationship to the self,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: this kind of central guiding aspect of us that Jung
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: once said might as well be called the God within.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: And in essence, what you're saying is that we could
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: try to really listen to to this part of ourselves.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: And there's an idea in Jungian thought called the ego-self axis,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: which is a pretty unappealing way to describe it. But
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I think what it's getting at is so very important
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: and really central to what we're talking about today is
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: here's my ego, this conscious part of me, my waking personality.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: that does a pretty good job every day. Thank you, ego,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: navigating and negotiating the outer world and to a certain extent,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: the inner world. But how in touch with this guiding
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: center of the personality is my ego? What is that
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: connection like, that access? Can I listen to the self?
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: What are the ways the self, how does the self speak?
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: We've mentioned dreams already, and obviously that's a huge way,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: and we'll be coming back to it. But there are
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: other ways as well. And can I listen? Can I
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: attune to that and stretch my ear to hear the
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: promptings and the guidance coming from the self?
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: And so often the self communicates in symbolic language, so
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: to speak, that when we are listening to the inner world.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it comes across in words, but more often there
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: are images and feelings, intuitions, hunches, and it's our job
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: to decipher the language of the self, which again is
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: a major part of dream interpretation. And while the dream
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: is guidance from the self, it still requires a certain
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: amount of deciphering. It's like reading a letter that you
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: got from the self. But we don't have to only
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: be unconscious in order to receive impressions, images, feelings from
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: that central intelligence. We can be awake and tending to
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: that ego self access. It's kind of like the bat phone.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: You know, with Batman, you know, you lift that cake.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: The cake. What do you call that thing where you
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: have a dome over your cake? Oh, there's a name
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: for it.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: A cake cover?
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: Something like that. But, you know, the commissioner would walk
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: over and there'd be this glass bowl over it and
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: he'd pick the top off and pick up the red
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: phone and call Batman. But there is this ego self-access
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: and it requires often discovery.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: And tending and like yeah cultivation.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah cultivation which makes sense because the first half of
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: life the ego needs to eventually be less influenced by
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: the inner world so that we can put our awareness
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: into the horizontal frame and which is all the tasks
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: of getting through grade school and middle school and high
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: school and college and launching and having relationships and And
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: that is an appropriate horizontal world, the voice of the times.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: And under great duress, young people will awaken an inner
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: thread that helps them navigate and stay safe. Alice Miller
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: wrote a book called The Drama of the Gifted Child.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: And the gift is that children put under great duress actualize,
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  Speaker 3: prematurely actualize survival capacities to become extremely predictively aware of
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: the environment, tending to all the nuances and suggestions, as
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: well as managing the effect of the environment on the
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: child by shifting in and out of awareness of what's happening.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: All of these survival skills drive a child to an
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: inner refuge. Interestingly enough, many of the individuals who have
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: very high levels of intuition and even psychic abilities had
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: somewhat traumatogenic homes, so that from a very early age,
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: they had to find the inner place in order to navigate.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Thank goodness. most people are not cast into that quite
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: so young. And then they need to either experience an
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: inner awakening amid life, or something else awakens them to
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: this potential of inner listening, which they just haven't needed
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: prior to this.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: I think that kind of hyper-awareness comes from a lot
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: of different places through a lot of different circumstances. And
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: we Some people can also just tune things out. But
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: what it does is to direct our attention sometimes outward of,
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: you know, what's going on, what time, who's in what
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: kind of mood. And where I'm enlarging this is that
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: in today's world, our attention is constantly demanded to be
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: turned outward. To go here, to talk to these people,
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: to answer these emails, to do those errands, to take
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: care of the kids, to listen to the news. It
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: goes on and on. I don't think ever in the
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: history of mankind has there been so much external stimulus.
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: And that I think what you're talking about with Jung's
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: concept of the self, the God within, we could also
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: simply talk about as how do we find our own
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: sort of centered place, our own stance. And sometimes I
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: image it in such a mundane, practical way as sort
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: of like the athletic stance. where your knees are a
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: little bent and you're ready, but you're grounded. You have
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: yourself planted on the tennis court or wherever it might
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: be of I am here. I have access to me
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: because whatever I'm about to do, I'm going to do
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: with myself. So do I have myself available? to respond
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: to another person, make a decision, or even attend to
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: my own confusion about what I should do in this moment,
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: or maybe it's something, a bigger life decision, of how
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: do we get in touch with ourselves?
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and how do we... you know, if the ego
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: is confused, how do we sit with that, like you're saying, Deb,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: and see if there's an answer? Sometimes there is no
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: answer that comes up. You know, sometimes the confusion is
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: just where we need to be. But sometimes it is
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: a case that something kind of speaks to us. I remember,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: you know, and again, this is going back to listening.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: I remember being at a I would say it was
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: kind of a critical point in my life, though. I'm
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: not sure I knew it then. And, uh, I was
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: working overseas and I was contemplating whether or not I
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: should stay there or I should come back and actually
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: go to social work school. Cause I was interested in
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: this crazy project of maybe possibly becoming a union analyst.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: And, uh, and I, and I, um, I was kind
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: of torn and tossed. And there was, of course, you know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: a romance issue in there to just confuse things further.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: And I remember I was standing, I remember where I was.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I was standing in our office right on the Adriatic
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: in Split, Croatia, looking out at the water and the sunset.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: And it literally was, it wasn't exactly like a sort
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: of like a hallucinatory voice where I thought I was
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: hearing it coming from without sight. But boy, was it autonomous.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: And it spoke very clearly. It said, you must just
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: proceed according to what you know now. And that was like, okay,
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: then I guess I'd better get myself to graduate school.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: because that's the only kind of clear path I had.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: And it was a really important experience. Obviously, it sort
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: of directed me at this critical juncture, kind of directed
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: me in what I, of course, now think was the
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: right way But there are other cases that are a
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: little bit less dramatic. We think about listening to our intuition.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: You can often tune into your body when you're making
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: a decision. Just sort of take a second, drop in,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: just kind of do a little body scan and notice, like,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: what does your body think about this decision? Does your
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: body have anything to say? Because you might feel like a,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: tension in your core or kind of a tightness in
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: your throat, or sometimes even just a feeling of agitation
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: in your, in your arms or legs, for example. So that's,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: you know, there's, there's kind of, there's guidance in some
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: of the way that the self speaks is through guidance
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: through the body, just these kind of subtle bodily sensations. Historically,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Socrates had a voice. He called it his daimonin. I
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: hope I'm pronouncing it that right. And most of the time,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: it warned him if he was about to make a mistake.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: But sometimes it was a voice, maybe a little bit
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: like the voice that I experienced in Croatia. But sometimes
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: it was maybe like someone sneezing at a particular moment. Mm-hmm.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: And what we think we know is that when Socrates
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: was faced with the possibility of his own execution by
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: drinking the hemlock, he acceded to that partly because his
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: voice didn't warn him that it was a problem. And
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: he knew that was probably okay.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: So the hemlock was delivered by pouring it into his ear.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: Ah.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: Isn't that interesting?
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: That is interesting. Wow, I didn't know that.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Jeez.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: But I think that this wisdom, whether it's Socrates' voice
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: or the little voice I heard or tending to your
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: body or your intuition or these other ways that we're
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: going to continue to talk about, they are quiet. So, Deb,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: going back to your point, if your phone is constantly
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: pinging with notifications, it is harder to tend to them
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: because it's a little voice.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: That's why I like so much your example, Joseph, of
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: extending your listening. That is a useful, doable exercise in
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: quieting down and being receptive. And I like that a lot.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: And I think it's a lot to know, too, if
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: we quiet down. And as you were saying, Lisa, pay
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: attention to our bodies of what do I notice of
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: something kind of hurts or I'm jiggling my foot or
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: whatever that might be, of getting still so that we
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: can tune in to ourselves, what our bodies might be
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: saying to us, that our receptors are open to ourselves
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: rather than we're in response mode. checking our phone, listening
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: to the news or whatever it might be. First, you know,
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: my mantra might be is, first, just sit down. Just
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: sit down. Job one. Stop. Redirect. Listen. Listen to your body.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: Listen to the environment. Be there.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: So when I think about listening to the body, I
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: think of the wisdom of the instincts. Jung has given
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: us a map of the psyche and defined some of
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: the various domains, which I think can be helpful to
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: us in terms of where are we directing our listening
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: and what are we beckoning to. So if we think
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: about the body, I mean, the body has millions of
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: years of wisdom in your bones. This body that you
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: are sitting in right now is the fortuitous confluence of
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: some thousands and thousands of beings that have successfully navigated
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: all kinds of very, very difficult times. you know, your great, great, great, great, great, great,
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: great grandfather and grandmother were probably had to be pretty
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: canny to kind of survive in a world with none
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: of the amenities that we enjoy in this life.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Or not to mention the fish that were related to
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: millions of years ago.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: So the body, if we are not in a terribly
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: neurotic state, if the body is free enough to to
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: respond to reality is giving us very important information. And
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: in fairy tales, it is often the talking animal that
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: gives the stark, clear, unsentimental advice. You know, it's the guys,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: you know, riding along and the wolf says, if you
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: let me eat your horse, then I will give you
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: everything that you need. And then the young man says, oh, okay.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: And then the wolf gives him very, do this, do this,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: don't do that, try this. And almost always, it seems
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: to work out for the hero. So there is an
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: inner guidance that comes from your cells in your body,
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: ancient and wise. That's one place to go for something
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: other than ego assessment of things.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: I'm also thinking that it can help to pay attention
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: to what you're feeling. And our bodies often tell us that.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: If my foot is jiggling, wow, what's that about? What
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: am I feeling? Am I feeling confused, stressed, agitated, interested?
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: in a hurry, how am I doing? And to get
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: curious about that. So, you know, I think what we're
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: exploring here is that the self can talk to us,
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: you know, in pretty big ways, like happened to you, Lisa,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: but it can also talk to us in small ways
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: that help us stay in touch with ourselves. Physical exercises
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: like listening that we can do, sitting still, all systems stop.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: What's going on inside? How am I doing? How are
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: we doing? Hey there, inner self. Hey there, body, emotions, heart, gut.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: Let's connect here for a minute.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: When you describe the particular, cultivating this particular state, Deb,
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: it It reminds me of just the state of readiness.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: Finding our stance.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Which is what a healthy, non-neurotic ego does. And by non-neurotic,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I mean in touch with the realities around us. We're
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: not distracted by something painful that happened when we were
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: in fourth grade, which then interferes. It kind of coats
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: the lens of vision with information that doesn't belong there.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: So a state of clean readiness means that we're awake,
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: we're poised, our senses are clean, we're taking in information
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: as what you were saying, Deb, and then I am
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: noticing what I do with the information around me and
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: making the best response to that that is possible. And
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: I think that that is something that is available. to
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: any of us and something that human beings have relied
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: on to just stay alive in this ever-changing environment. I
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: do think that putting the ego into a healthy state
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: of readiness, which is different from hypervigilant anxiety, readiness is
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: actually a state that is very free. It's not... a
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: clenched state where you are anticipating you're about to punch
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: life in one way or another. Readiness, to me, has
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: to do with an open, fluid, grounded stance where then
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: we can respond effectively to one thing or another. For me,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: I don't associate that... particular state as having to do
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: with the ego self-access, but I do think it is
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: something that from the level of ego we can do
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: and is in our hands and is helpful in terms
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: of coping with an ever-changing environment. So there's a very
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: pragmatic orientation to the world, and then there is that
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: slightly mystical capacity which all of us have access to
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: if it's interesting and it's not interesting to everyone but
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: if it's interesting there are hundreds thousands of years of
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: experiments regarding this ability to transcend ego states and catch
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: glimpses of other things, whether it's emergent patterns that give
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: us a sense of quote-unquote the future, that the unconscious
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: is processing billions of bits of information and is capable
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: of noticing emergent patterns far earlier than the ego could
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: possibly do that. And so if we can open that
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: door to the unconscious, By decision, and that's the difference between,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: let's say, the training towards inner guidance versus the psychotic break,
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: is that we have some methodology to open the door
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: and also close the door so that we're not flooded
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: with material.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: So let's talk about some ways to open the door
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: and close the door, but how can we operationalize more
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: of this?
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: In most traditions, it begins with the decision that I'm
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: going to set aside, just as you said, Deb, I'm
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: going to turn the phone off. I'm going to get
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: away from the kids. I'm going to get somewhere quiet.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: And I'm going to start with setting an intention. Like
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: this is the opening to inner guidance part of my day.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: And so there is something about the ritual. of deciding,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: and that may be you, you're alone, there's a journal
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: and a pen. And as you begin to expand that
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: sensitivity and receptivity, that you take the impressions you receive
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: seriously enough to at least jot down. As small a
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: step as that is, and I've done this for many years,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I will go back into some of those impression journals,
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: and I'll find something. One, I'm thinking, who wrote that?
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: That sounds better than anything I would have come up with.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: But also, it wasn't really relevant until quite further down
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: the line, and I couldn't see that at the time.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: And we can also write down our dreams, even if
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: it's a so-called snippet. And it comes up for me
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: with people all the time. People will say, well, All
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: I have is a dream snippet. And it's really sort
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: of the world in a grain of sand oftentimes. It'll
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: come down to two sentences. But sit with yourself and
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: write them down and muse upon them. I know for
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: myself that the mornings that I start with myself and
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: a journal, make all the difference in how the rest
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: of my day is going to go. It makes all
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: the difference. And then I don't do it.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: Because I have places to go and things to do
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: and I want my coffee.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: So it takes a certain strength to make it happen.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: It's like, there's like an issue. I always think about
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: it like it's a discipline. It's a discipline, you know,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: and And, um, you know, starting the morning by journaling
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: or writing down your dreams can really help with dream recall. Um,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: some of the, the resources that we have in, in
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: dream school will help you to recall your dreams better.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Once you start working with your dreams, you're likely to
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: recall them better. And, and of course, kind of talking
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: about that intention. I mean, I think that, you know,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: some people have remarked that, um, They joined dream school
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: and that's when they started remembering their dreams. So it's, it's,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: you're making a commitment, right? You're, you're really making a
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: commitment to do this. And we have some exercises and
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: assignments that kind of help with that.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: And I think that's important that the unconscious is like
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: a person. It's not like a machine. It's not like
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: a car. You stick a key into, you make it
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: do things.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: That, that just as Lisa was saying, that respectful beckoning
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: to the unconscious, it responds to that because it is
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: alive and is conscious in its own way.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: Yes. And we call it the dream maker, you know?
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: So it is another, it's a person, an energy of whatever. But,
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: you know, Jung says over and over, The unconscious is
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: autonomous and it has direction.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: It is autonomous. I really would like to dream about
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: this because I have this big decision. And then I
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: dream about my third grade teacher, Mrs. Hummerson.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: Because the unconscious thinks that's where the gold is.
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: That's the important thing.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: You, Deb, may be interested in whether to do A
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: or B. But I am interested in something else. But
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: another way to have a moment with yourself is you
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: may have a little snippet of a dream image. Make
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: up a story about it. You don't remember the dream, but,
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: you know, my fictitious dream about my third grade teacher.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: What was it about Mrs. Hummison? What do I remember?
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: What do I take? What is the feeling? Or a
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: tarot deck. Some people draw a card every day. What
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: will that give you? There are images that are archetypal images,
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: a wonderful system of symbolism. You can read a little
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: bit about it and go, I wonder why I drew
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: this card. Right.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: And just even like it's an image, right? Tarot as
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: a divinatory tool is particularly interesting because it's so image-based.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: And so it's like explicitly symbolic in that sense. And,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, any, you know, Xi Qing or
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: the runes or whatever, they're all great. But tarot in particular,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: you can do this thing where you can just like
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: be with that image, you know? So really, I think
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: what we're talking about again and again is opening up,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: like bypassing the purely rational mind to make room for
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: the non-rational and create a relationship with it. Yes.
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: And it's not like, oh, I'm just going to go
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: off and find my non-rational mind and then totally act
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: on that. No, you have to, you have to stay grounded.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: You have to sort of like let everything pass the
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: common sense test, you know? So, uh, when I was,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know, making my decision there at that window
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: and split, do I go home? Do I stay here?
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Do I, you know, it was like, all right, yes,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: I have this impulse to want to go back to
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: the States and enroll in a graduate program. Does that
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: pass the common sense test? Well, it's a risk, but
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: it's not off, you know, it's not completely off the range, right?
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not, you know, I don't know, I'm not going
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: to buy a bridge in Brooklyn or something, you know,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: you do have to kind of, I think, like, run
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: things through that filter a little bit. But you are
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: looking for what does the unconscious think right now? What
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: does the unconscious think about my plan? I may be
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: very worried about my retirement savings, but maybe the unconscious
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: has something else that it's noodling on. And the unconscious
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: has a very different sense of time than consciousness does.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: So we're consciously we're very worried about what's going to
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: happen today and next week and next month. The unconscious
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: kind of partakes of the world of the eternal. And
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: in many senses, it's preoccupied with sort of ultimate concerns.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: So it's really good to check in with it and
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: see what it might have to say, because it's probably
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: going to have a very different perspective about what's important.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: than our waking conscious mind.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: And Jung gives us an additional way of tracking this
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: unconscious movement, and he talks about a gradient forming inside
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: of himself down which libido flows towards an inner object.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: And so... Jung, in his biography, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections,
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: and he wrote that or dictated it when he was
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: very elderly, and he says that people have been asking
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: him to write autobiographies forever and ever, and a gradient
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: never formed, and so he just couldn't do it. All
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: of a sudden, his secretary, Inayla Jaffe, says, you know,
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: how about this idea? And he checks inside himself, not outside.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: He checks inside and he says, ha, a gradient is
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: forming and my libido is flowing in the direction of
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: an autobiography. So, this is subtle in one sense and
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: then not otherwise. So when we check inside of ourselves
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: and we notice where is our life force flowing? Where
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: is our desire accumulating? Where is the magnetic image inside
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: of us? And Jung tells us that libido or life
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: force is intelligent. It has its own wisdom. And it's,
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: in a sense, providing guidance to the ego in as
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: much as it's making its own decisions and announcing them
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: to us by providing or withholding vitality regarding any particular venture.
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: that we are engaged with.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And that's so... It's such an ordinary thing to say,
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: and it's so big, what you've just said, is, wait
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: a minute, where's my vitality? Yeah. I really should, and
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: that's often a clue as well, do X or Y
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: or Z versus... Something gets lit up inside me. I
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: want to. And that is a wonderful thing to sit
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: with yourself in just a very daily way of what
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: does my day look like? What am I up for?
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: How am I feeling about this? Where's my energy? Where
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: is the libido flowing? Where's the gradient? And there are
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: plenty of things that we have to do whether we
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: want to or not. or whether we're up for it
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: or not, but it will tell you something about yourself
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: and where your inner world is. And that can often
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: help me get through an outer world series of stuff
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: that I just have to do. It's like, well, let
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: me just take care of this, this, and this, these errands,
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: that chore, various other kinds of things, because I'm in
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: touch with Looking forward to tonight when I can settle
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: down with a book or some quiet time or talk
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: to that friend that I really miss. At least I
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: know where my energy, what it's thirsty for.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that, Deb. I like the idea of thirst.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: And we can even ask ourselves, you know, like just
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: like sometimes we get so busy that we miss physical
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: cues for hunger or thirst. I mean, that happens to
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: me all the time.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I wish it would happen to me.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Right. But we can miss our own thirst for this
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: connection with something larger than ourselves. And so I like
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: that word.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: Now I'm going to enact that.
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: There we go. The self is ordering you to drink.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: But it's interesting. I mean, you just touched on something
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: that made me aware, and that was great that it
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: happened interactively.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: If we sit with ourselves for just a second, how
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: quickly an awareness can pop up.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: When we begin to trust turning within, that kind of pausing,
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: suspending the magnetic relationship to the outer world, or our
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: Zen friends talk about the 10,000 things that pull us
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: into desire, pull us into the outer world. We have
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: to create a little secret temenos around us, and then
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: we turn in. We're going to notice all kinds of things.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: When we turn within, there's memories, there's associations, there's the
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: chatter of our waking mind, the chatter of memories. There's
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: all kinds of things inside. So there's a sorting process
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: that has to go on. And this is, again, where
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: journaling can be very helpful, where we begin to kind
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: of notice the flotsam and jetsam. That's also just on
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: the surface of consciousness. And one of the ways to
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: kind of brush that aside is to just write it down.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: I'm a great list maker. When I have thoughts that
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: come in, I just write them down. But part of
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: that is I'm writing them down so I can relieve
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: my ego of trying to remember it because it's important.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: Because I kind of want to get that, you know,
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: the leaves off of the top of the pool. so
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: that I can look a little bit deeper down. And
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: that's true for all of us. That's a natural sifting
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: down process. When you begin to notice things, and for me,
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: this is a process that I was able to pull
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: together when I was about 19. This way of reaching
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: upward in a particular fashion, having a sense of impulses
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: and images that were descending down into me, I would
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: notice that I was being influenced and tapped in certain
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: directions and that certain images and ideas and impulses I
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: would become aware of. What age has afforded me is
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: that there are many possibilities that will descend into us
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: that can even seem rather remarkable. But I take each
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: of those ideas and I put them in a discreet
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: little nest inside of my awareness. And I wait to
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: see where libido is going to accumulate. Because early in
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: my life, an idea might seem marvelous, but if the
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: unconscious didn't give me enough energy to bring it to
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: a conclusion, it was just painful and useless. So now,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: and I've been doing this about 15, 20 years, I
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: will tend the many nests, like the chicken coop in
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: my head, check on them every so often. But if
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: that egg's not chirping from the inside, or this idea
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: over here isn't capturing any libido, nowadays, I am not
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: going to keep trying to make life force flow towards
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: something that is either not ready or perhaps is not
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: something that is meant to be born in my world.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: Maybe it's just meant to be something that sails by
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: and I take a glance at it, but it's not
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: actionable in all circumstances. So the actionable inner guidance for
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: me is the thing that begins to build a vortex
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: around it. And then I kind of wait until it
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: gets to a critical moment. And I've made this deal
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: with my unconscious and with the self. I said, listen,
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: I'll do it. I'll do whatever you want me to do,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: but you have to provide all the vitality for me
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: to bring that to a conclusion. And if you won't
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: do that, I won't act on it. Like that's the
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: bargain that I've made with wherever this stuff comes from,
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: because I am tired of just left hanging the bag.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and it's like, it's like in some sense,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: you know, the, the, the source of the vitality is
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: the self and it's going to sort of power you through,
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: you know, if it's the right thing. So, you know, you're,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: you're mentioning that this is kind of a way of
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: listening to the self. I mean, I think my experience
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: is often that I don't know what I know for
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: a while. And it can take me a long time
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: to hear it. I think of that, you know, sort
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: of still small voice quote from the Bible that, you know,
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: God appears to Elijah as a still small voice. And boy,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: it is sometimes really hard to hear. So when I'm
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: feeling confusion, my emotions can get in the way. Maybe
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: I'm really dysregulated and upset. And that leads me to
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: kind of catastrophize at times. And then I can't see clearly.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: So for me, it's like there's a process. I like
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: your image, Joseph, of sort of like taking the leaves
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: off the surface of the water. You know, it's sort
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: of like I have to, once I'm aware that there's
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: a question, even if I can't formulate it yet, I'm
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: just like, okay, there it is. And then just make
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: room for it. You know, just like, okay. It's not
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: offering itself to me as a clearly defined and well-formulated
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: question right now. So I'm not going to push it,
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: which I think is sort of similar to what you're saying.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: I'm going to let it hang, but I'm not going
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: to forget about it. And then maybe in a week
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: or two, there's a dream, a scene in a movie,
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: something happens and something kind of crystallizes for me. And
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: then I'll have the question. And then it's like a
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: little rock you can hold in your pocket because it
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: has words. And then I might journal about it. And
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: then I might pull a tarot card about it. And
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: then I might go for a walk. Sometimes going for
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: a walk or like a run, it just sort of
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: clears the air. And you just, you know, sometimes if
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: I'm really distressed or confused, I'll go for a long walk.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: And I think that when I come home, you always
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: go through some small transformation whenever you go for a walk.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: You come back in a different mood. You come back
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: with a different perspective. And so that for me is
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: a big way. And then like sometimes there can just be,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, I remember that. I remember I'm thinking of
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: a specific time when I was in college and I
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: had been dating this guy. Should have broken up with
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: him a long time ago. But, you know, I was
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: young and stupid. And I remember I used to jog
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: a lot back then, which was so great. I wish
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: I could do that now. But I went out for
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: a jog and I and I just came back and
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: I just knew I just knew that I had to
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: break up with them. And I did. And it was
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: just like, you know, that that that. So for me,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm rambling. But for me, I can remember
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: this other time I was trying to make a decision.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: I was like, I will know what to do when
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I wake up from this nap. And I did. But
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: for me, it must be something about sort of dropping
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: it in and then just seeing what comes up. And,
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: you know, sometimes you go to the unconscious with a
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: question or looking for guidance, and it doesn't offer anything.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, that happens. But a lot of times it
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: is just like, yep, you got to break out the window. No,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: you shouldn't take that job. You know, whatever it is,
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: that's something I've relied on throughout my life.
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: You know, my way of thinking about what you've just said, Lisa,
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: is two things. One is the process of just notice.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: Just notice what's going on inside. Pay attention. Maybe like
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: you said, Joseph, have a basket somewhere of there was
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: this idea or that possibility or what should I do about.
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: So I'm going to check those baskets. or in the
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: chicken coop of my mind and see if those eggs
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: are starting to hatch. But the other thing you're talking
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: about is change the channel. And I find that an
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: incredibly useful thing to do. Go take a walk, take
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: a nap, make a meal, anything that gets you involved
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: in something else so that you step out of it,
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: whatever the it is, into a different mood or into
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: something different to think about or getting out of that
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: dead end of confusion or anxiety or whatever it might be.
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: Just change the channel and then come back to it later.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: Right. So I think that's a really good advice about
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: understanding that our habits often can trap us and lock
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: us away from that state of receptivity and readiness, which
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: would allow potentially something new to emerge, something novel and
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: something more useful. I do want to come back to
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: the biblical quote that you had mentioned briefly, which is
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: in 1 Kings 19, verse 12. And I want to
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: set this up a bit because we can analyze this
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: as a bit of a dream because it is giving,
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: I think, very interesting archetypal advice. So I'm just going
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: to read these just a few paragraphs and we can
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: jump into it. Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done,
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: including how he had executed all the prophets of Baal.
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah. She said, may
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: the gods strike me dead if by this time tomorrow
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: I don't take your life the way you took the
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: lives of Baal's prophets. Frightened, Elijah fled to save his life.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: He came to Beersheba in Judah and left his servant there.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: Then he traveled through the wilderness for a day. He
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: sat under a broom plant and wanted to die. I've
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: had enough now, Yahweh, he said. Take my life. I'm
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: no better than my ancestors. He then lay down and
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: slept under the broom plant. An angel touched him and said,
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: Get up and eat. When he looked, he saw near
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: his head some bread baked on hot stones and a
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: jar of water, so he ate, drank, and went to
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: sleep again. The angel of Yahweh came back and woke
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: him up again. The angel said, Get up and eat,
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: or your journey will be too much for you. He
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: got up, ate, and drank. Strengthened by that food, he
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: traveled for forty days and nights until he came to Horeb,
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: the mountain of Elohim. There he went into a cave
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: and spent the night. Then Yahweh spoke his word to Elijah,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: and he asked, What are you doing here, Elijah? He answered,
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: Yahweh Elohim Sabaoth, I have eagerly served you. The Israelites
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: have abandoned your promises, torn down your altars, and executed
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: your prophets. I'm the only one left, and they're trying
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: to take my life. Yahweh said, Go out and stand
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: in front of the mountain. As Yahweh was passing by,
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: a fierce wind tore mountains and shattered rocks ahead of him.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: But Yahweh was not in the wind. After the wind
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: came an earthquake, but Yahweh wasn't in the earthquake. After
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: the earthquake was a fire, but Yahweh wasn't in the fire.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: And after the fire, there was a still, small voice.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his coat,
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: went out, and stood at the entrance of the cave.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Then the voice said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah?
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: And it goes on from there. So there's something so
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: appropriate about this that Elijah is in a panic. I mean,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: he is fleeing for his life. He has done something,
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: by the way, very provocative. He's like killed all of
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: the prophets of Baal. I mean, he is a criminal
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: based on that system and he's on the run. And
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: he's getting messages that these people are going to come
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: after him. He's also in total despair. He's suicidal. He's saying,
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: I don't even want to live anymore. This is too much.
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: And then he goes to sleep and things happen in
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: his sleep. One could interpret the visitation of the angels
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: as dreams. That something transcendent talks to him. And strengthens him.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: As that continues forward, his senses open up very widely.
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: As we were saying, there's wind and earthquakes and fire.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: The outer world is churning and rumbling. He's staring at
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: all of it. But upon reflection, I imagine, he realizes, oh,
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: that's not where the guidance is going to come from.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: The guidance isn't going to come from the winds. of
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: the culture that shatter the mountains around me. Guidance isn't
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: going to come from these earth-shaking tweets that I read.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: And the fire that's set in motion in everybody from
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: that TikTok influencer, that's not going to do it. None
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: of these things are going to help me, although the
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: world is on fire and shaking and blazing. But he's
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: able to know that the self isn't in those things
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: although they are happening and his senses are reporting them
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: and then because he's in a cave by the way
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: he's able to then listen and then he hears the
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: voice of inner guidance and then he wraps his face
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: in his coat and he steps out of the cave
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: because one cannot behold the face of Yahweh and live.
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: That there must be some kind of respectful barrier between him.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: And then there's still a small voice that says something
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: that's just so pragmatic.
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: What are you doing here, Deb? What are you doing here, Lisa?
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: What are you doing here, Joseph? Like, what are you doing?
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Well, it's pragmatic and so kind of quotidian, but on
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: the other hand, it's a very profound question.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: What is any of us doing here? Absolutely. And in
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: some sense, each of us is called to answer that question,
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: which kind of wraps it up in a way that
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: the inner guidance is about the ego receiving something from
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: the self, but it does also make a demand on us.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: And we are answerable to that still small voice. We
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: are answerable to that guidance. What are we doing? What
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: are we going to do with it?
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: In the next paragraph, he gets some pretty explicit instructions,
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: which would daunt most of us. Yahweh then tells him
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: what he should be doing, because he doesn't seem to
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: be understanding what he's doing there. Go back to the
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: wilderness near Damascus the same way you came when you
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: get there, anoint Hazael, the king of Aram. anoint Yehu,
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: son of Nimshi, as king of Israel, and anoint Elijah,
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: son of Shabbat, from Abel, Mechola, as prophet, to take
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: your place, and on and on. The first question is,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: what are you doing here? And then all of this
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: instructive material after that I think I want.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: To make the point here, too, that this is a dialogue.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: And ultimately, our waking minds, our egos, have to decide,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: does this ring true? How do I really deeply understand that?
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: Of like, what am I doing here? That just because
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: something comes up as an intuition or A voice, a vision,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: a dream. Yeah. It doesn't mean that, oh, you know, well,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: now I have to do that. You know, my dream
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: took place in Idaho, and that means I have to
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: move to Idaho.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: No, no, no. Let's stop a minute. Not so fast.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: What does Idaho mean, let's say, to me? We have
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: to keep on talking. that inner voice and I. And
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: then ultimately, it is our egos and our administrative minds
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: that have to make the call.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: That's a good way of putting it, Deb. I like that.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm wondering if any of you are hearing a
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: still small voice, which could be my voice, still and small, saying, Become.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: Our patron on Patreon.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: Pay no attention to the fierce winds of the stock market.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: Don't worry about your failing marriage.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: Just because the earth.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: Is shifting underneath you, come to Patreon. And there, deposit
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: some of your So we do have a Patreon page.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: If you go to thisunionlife.com, right in the banner at
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: the top, tap on Patreon. It'll take you to our page.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: And you can help us continue to provide depth, Jungian insights,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: and continue our mission, which is to travel through this world,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: this cyber world, and introduce people to ideas like inner guidance.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 5: Ideas like the self, understanding who we are, how to
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: navigate difficult things.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: But we need you. You need to come and help
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: us out. And the way you can help out is
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: just making a monthly donation set up through Patreon. And
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: as part of our appreciation, we will field questions that
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: you ask us. We will choose dreams that you submit
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: and exclusively interpret them and provide that only for you.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: So please listen to my still small voice and at
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: least navigate over to our Patreon page and just take
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: a look at it. And hopefully a gradient will form,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: the beetle will flow, and you will feel incredibly inspired
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: to give us a hand.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: You know, I just want to say that, you know,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: our podcast is free. More and more podcasts are going
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: subscription only. But, you know, I'm always impressed because I'm
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: usually the dream picker. You know, I know who's listening
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: because you send in your dreams and there are, you know,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: there are there are lawyers and doctors who send in dreams.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: But there are also bus drivers and kindergarten teachers and
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: waitresses and unemployed people and, you know, students. And I'm
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: always moved to see the the. kind of wide variety
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: of walks of life of people who are attending to
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: their dreams, listening to the podcast, bothering to click on
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: that form and send in a dream. And so it
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: feels important that we are making this offering for free.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: But we do need something to sustain it because it's
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: actually pretty expensive to produce. So I do want to
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: say when you go to our podcast, unfortunately, it doesn't
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: say Patreon right at the top. You have to click
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: on podcast and then you'll see the drop down menu
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: become our patrons. So we probably need to fix that.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: But for right now, that's how that's how you find
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: our Patreon.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: So just decide you're going to have two fewer Starbucks orders.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: mocha latte almond milk macchinos macchiatos just decide you're not
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: going to do two of those and take the funds
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: from that and just toss it over the fence into
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: the this union life on patreon so that we can
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: then use that to do some good stuff Our dreamer
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: today is a 49-year-old male who is an airline pilot,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: and he titles this the abattoir. I had a post-apocalyptic dream.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: I was trying to find safety in a bombed-out town,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: overrun with death squads working for a dictator. I was
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: being hunted along with many others. Past a mass grave
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: on the side of the road, young men had dug
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: their own graves. They all have a patch of their back.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: cut out, exposing their liver or kidney, and in a
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: synchronized manner, they all shot themselves in the head and
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: fell into the graves. At some later point, I think
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: I was captured and led forcibly through an abattoir happily
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: run by a guy that looked like Walter White. It
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: was a human meat processing plant and there was ground
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: human flesh everywhere on the ground. Walter White said that
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: it was for turning people into dog food. He said
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: dogs were great for destroying people's identities. I had to
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: hide somewhere at some point, and I was in a
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: tiny house. There was some sort of curfew, and I
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: couldn't be outside. I wanted to look for my partner,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: but I couldn't leave. My mother was there, and she
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: tried hiding me behind an old stove, but there was
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: no space. There were tiny newborn kittens wandering around. At
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: some point, I moved to the basement and there was
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: a computer, and I was trying to look up what
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: was happening in the world. For context, he writes, like
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: many people right now, I've been spending a lot of
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: time worrying about the world and my future. The main
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: feelings were dread and horror, and a few associations he offers,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: general horror at the situation and fear of capture, I
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: was relieved when my late mom was trying to hide
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: me but frustrated that the hiding place was too small.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: That is an apocalyptic dream.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: And these are not that uncommon. I mean, this is
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: one that has, I think, some particularly disturbing and gruesome elements,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: but I'm sure we've all heard dreams that are kind
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: of like this. We've probably all had dreams that are
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: like this. It can be so disturbing to have a
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: dream like this. And it is always tempting to see
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: it as a sort of a commentary on the outer world,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: but I think it might be helpful to focus on
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: what it might mean in the inner world. And, you know,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: the person has this association to the uncertainties in the
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: world right now. I think it's making all of us very,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: very anxious. But, you know, I am more interested in
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: what this dream says about the dreamer psyche now He
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: didn't tell us a lot. There are not a lot
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: of associations. There's not a lot of context. So I'm
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: just going to have a fantasy with it. And what
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: I notice is that, um, he is, and I'm just
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: going to check the age again. I think he's 49.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: Is that right?
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: Um, he's 49 and he's an airline pilot, which I'm
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: assuming is a pretty, um, is a pretty stressful job,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: I would think. And at 49, um, Yeah. I mean,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: are you, is one, I'm just speculating here, is one
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: potentially getting a little burnt out? You know, is one
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: worried about what comes next? It's kind of like a
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: midlife spot. The thing that struck me about the dream,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, well, there's many, many things that struck me
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: about the dream, but one of the first things that
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: made something ping for me was that, well, first of all,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: I love that Walter White shows up in this dream
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: because he's such a great character and we could talk
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: a lot about him. But he says that dogs are
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: great for destroying people's identities. that you're going to get
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: human flesh just ground up. It's kind of an image of,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: it's a violent image of the alchemical process of soluteo, dissolution.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: You're going to get ground up. You're going to get
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: dissolved into a vat of battery acid. You're all going
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: to come apart. Your identity is going to be devoured.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: And what is that going to leave? I mean, and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: you know, the shamanic visions, the visions that shamans have,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: especially when they're kind of going through a sort of
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: inner initiation into their shamanic role, almost always have these
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: images of dismemberment and gruesome, gruesome images, kind of like this.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, it might be interesting if this dreamer wanted
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: to do this to look at some of these accounts
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: from shamans about what their kind of inner process was like.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: It is like being ground up and, and, uh, you know,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: just completely obliterate it so that you become reconstituted. And,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: and when you do so, you have access to both realms.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you, you, you, you've gone through
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: a process whereby your ego has been really relativized and,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: and now you can, I mean, very, very much like
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: what you're talking about in this episode, you can contact
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: the inner world too. So I have other things to say,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: but I'll let you guys take a nibble at it too.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: Well, one of the things that I always find interesting
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: about the word apocalyptic is that the word apocalypse means revelation.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: And because the process of revelation in that mythopoetic telling
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: is so intense, it's so frightening, it seems so destructive,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: but also it is the natural process of birth, death,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: and resurrection, salve et coagula, which we can say so
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: cleverly and so easily, but the actual subjective experience of
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: feeling that maybe a central guiding attitude in your life
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: is being sacrificed or has died is and now requires
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: a totally different orientation to life, it's a big deal.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: And it's difficult and scary and unsettling and can take
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: a couple of years where a lot of old ideas,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: old feelings, old orientations get drowned, sacrificed, dissolved, killed off.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: And if we look at the the revelation is that
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: then the self descends, which is called the new Jerusalem
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: descends from heaven. And in the center of new Jerusalem
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: is the lamb that illuminates the new Jerusalem, which is
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: an extraordinary mythic presentation of a new personality where the
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: self is the illuminating guiding center that replaces the terrible, um,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: destructive aftermath.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: I'm paying attention to a couple things here. One is,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: I hope everybody remembers who Walter White is. We haven't
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: said that. He is the protagonist, the main character in
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: the series Breaking Bad, where our sort of Walter Mitty
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: type of high school chemistry teacher becomes basically a drug
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: lord and meets with no good end. But what I
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: also wanted to pay attention to was the presence of
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: dogs and cats. So dogs are great for destroying people's identities,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: and you've touched on that, and that the dog food
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: will feed the dogs to effect this transformation. Our dreamer
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: is 49. He's right at midlife. when external world focus
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: starts to turn to the inner world, and as you said, Lisa,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 4: you both said in different ways, that things come apart,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: sometimes in pretty gruesome ways. And so there's going to
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: be food for dogs. So I'm like, turn to my
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: symbol dictionary and think about dogs and what are dogs.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: Of all things, there are dogs that are going to
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: be fed on the remains of people. And then at
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: the end of the dream, when he finds refuge in
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: this tiny house, it's too small, he cannot hide behind
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: the maternal hearth, the stove. Sorry, you can't do that either.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: But there are newborn kittens wandering around. So I might
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: again think about this as another expression of new life
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: and innocence of all the animals that the dream maker
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: has access to, from platypuses to Here are two images
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: of instinctive life that have been chosen. And then I'm
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: curious about the ending of the dream. So all these
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: things happen, and then what? And I think of these
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: things as sort of the kicker of the dream. We
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: like to call it the lysis, but I think of
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 4: it as the kicker. from all those O. Henry stories
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: where all of a sudden at the end there's a twist.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: So here's the twist. I moved to the basement, and
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: there was a computer, and I was trying to look
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: up what was happening in the world. So there's a descent,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: and that's often kind of good news of going down,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: but not paying attention to the kittens or your inner life.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 4: but turning on the computer as if the answer will
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 4: be found out there instead of what we've just been
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: talking about on this podcast, that the answer is in here,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: not out there.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I noticed that about the last line, too, that
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: there's sort of a withdrawal from the conflict. So he's
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: in a psychic conflict that's very active. And I think
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: you're right, Doug. I think those kittens are extraordinarily important.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: That's kind of where the telos in the dream is,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: the kind of surprising new thing. But then there's a
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: withdrawal from the conflict and a removal from the immediacy.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: Like he's going to find out about it by looking online.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: I want to bring up one other element. We haven't
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: talked about the dictator. So the whole thing is run
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: by the dictator. And there's a couple different ways one
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: could think about that. But I'm... I'm thinking about it
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: in the sort of Calshettian way, that this is sort
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: of a persecutor-protector kind of dynamic here. So the dictator
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: looks like a bad guy who presumably is presiding over
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: this scene of terrible destruction. But it's possible, and I
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: do think there's more than one way of looking at this,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: so this is just one possibility. It's possible to say
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: that this entire apocalypse... that he's looking at, you made
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: the point, Joseph, that it's sort of a revelation, is
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: just the revelation of the new attitude that at this
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: point to the ego looks, well, it looks apocalyptic. It
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: looks like a bloodbath because maybe it is going to
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: be a bloodbath for his former values and his former attitudes.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: But it might be that that dictator who is kind
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: of forcing him into a very difficult position where there's
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: the potential for extreme suffering, that that's exactly what the
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: psyche needs, only it looks negative to the ego because
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: of the ego's orientation to the problem, if that makes sense.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: I'm aligned with all of that. The thing I keep
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: indexing on and would talk to this guy about is,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: in what ways are you shooting yourself in the head?
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: You know, we make mistakes. We keep doing something over
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: and over like a repetition compulsion. It's like, God, you know,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: I set up this whole miserable circumstance for myself. I
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: shot myself in the foot, you know, that whole thing.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: So there is something about that. And because there are
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: many young men shooting themselves in the head, you know,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: it's this iteration. This multiplicatio of the same image over
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: and over and over again to make sure that the
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: ego is really thinking about how he may be participating
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: in a self-destructive choice or is pondering it or has
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: been doing it. And if one could really think it through,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: is that really what you want to be doing? Is
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: this a thoughtful thing?
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 4: What is interesting here is that What is going on
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: is all these young men who are about to die
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: have a patch on their back cut out exposing their
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: liver or a kidney. And then they shoot themselves and
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: fall into their graves. But the liver and the kidney
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: are symbolic instructions, I think, to the dreamer to listen up.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 4: You know that it's not the bladder that is exposed.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: It's not your lung that is exposed. So what is
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: your liver and what is your kidney? Well, they are
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: the body's purification systems. They rid the body of toxins.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: And so it's very meaningful that the dream maker has
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: selected this. And I might ask this dreamer of where
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: is your symbolic and where is your symbolic kidney? Overtaxed,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 4: not working, exposed? What about that? And often, I just
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: want to make clear that the answer at these, what
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 4: I'm assuming is obviously a midlife occurrence, maybe in a
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: much bigger context, It doesn't mean that, oh, you need
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: to change careers and become a kindergarten teacher, but what
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: about your orientation, your attitude towards your life, yourself, relationships?
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: Where is that draining you instead of working properly?
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the kidney in kind of a lot of
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: kind of mythological systems or symbolically, it's associated with the
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: seat of life. And so it makes me wonder about,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: you know, your vitality and your energy for life.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: I'm also thinking about that sentence, which I think is great,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: is that dogs are great for destroying people's identities. And
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: when I think of the identity, I think of the persona.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: So if I think of what's being ground up is
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 3: his persona and that dogs are great for destroying persona.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: And when I said about that, having been a dog
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: owner much of my life, dogs will do a lot
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: of things that would embarrass you. They'll poop right in
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: front of you, pee right in front of you, lick
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 3: their bodies, they'll jump on you. that dogs are these
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: kind of enthusiastic creatures that don't experience embarrassment. They are themselves.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 3: Unless they've been traumatized, a dog is himself and is
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: right there with you and next to you and is
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: deeply loyal and connected, etc. So I think about the
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: dogishness inside of him that is working to break down
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: his persona. And when this appearance of the dogs that
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: can gobble up his persona, then he wants to hide,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 3: hide from that, hide away. And then the hiding leads
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: him into a regression. And then he's looking for mommy
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: and mama cats and baby kittens. And then he's kind
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: of like leading an incel life in the basement with
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: a computer, trying to look up what's happening in the
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: world somewhere else while he's in mom's basement. And that
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: often happens that when there's a big change inside of us,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 3: sometimes we do have to go through a regression. And
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: I like something you've said, Lisa, that a regression is like,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 3: unraveling a sweater that you've been knitting to pick up
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: a missed stitch and then to move forward again. So
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: sometimes we just do. We just have to go back
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: in time in order to reconstruct something that didn't go
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: right at the beginning.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: And we wish the streamer the best.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 5: Of course.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisunionlife.com. If
• 1:23:48
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• 1:23:51
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