FINDING YOUR TRUTH

The Birth of Empathy

“’For every event in life,’ says the Dalai Lama, ‘there are many different angles.’ There is, perhaps, no greater route to joy than this. Taking a ‘God’s-eye perspective,’ as Archbishop Tutu says, allows for the birth of empathy—the trait that creates joy not only in the one, but in the many.

Empathy opens the door to togetherness, and keeps us from building walls around our individual selves—walls that keep out so many potential friends and allies.

Realizing and accepting the validity of different perspectives turns ‘I’ in to ‘we’. The anger and frustration that comes of living a life of ‘I,’ makes sustained joy nearly impossible. Humans are social creatures in an interconnected world—there is no escaping our fellows.

Opening up to the lives and perspectives of others, and being willing to experience their suffering and hardships, reminds us that we, too, are not alone in our own difficulties. In nurturing perspective and allowing ourselves to see the world in a larger way, we open up the door for joy to come into our lives, and for us to open up that door for others unlike ourselves.”

From “The 8 Pillars of Joy” – Bishop Tutu & His Holiness the Dalai Lama

( https://www.beliefnet.com/…/the-eight-pillars-of-joy.aspx )

The Things We Tell Ourselves

“Every fragment of self-talk is a little story in the head that goes around, and then you look at reality through the lens of the little story.” Eckhart Tolle

I didn’t title this “The LIES We Tell Ourselves” because sometimes those replaying thought-monologs aren’t really ‘lies,’ but are more likely residues of our optimistic ‘wishful thinking’ on the good side, and our pessimistic ‘the world is out to get me’ thoughts on the bad side.

Sometimes we can be so needy for personal contact that we delude ourselves into believing that the situations or the people that we encounter are more beneficial and meaningful to us that they actually are—or we buy into the ‘I know everyone has my best interest at heart’ personal fallacy for all associations and relationships. (Hey—I’ve been there. I still like to believe that people are basically ‘good’ before something/someone turns them more toxic and self-focused.)
Sometimes we are so cynical and battle-worn that we go in the opposite direction and inadvertently sabotage ourselves and any future relationships by leaning toward the belief that ‘ALL people are naturally deceitful and you can’t believe what anyone tells you—ever’. (And yes, there is also the more experienced and ‘learned’ part of me that now reacts to any new acquaintance with a self-imposed ‘neutrality;’ or in effect doing a pre-strike non-sequitur: “Uh-uh. I don’t just hand out my trust and acceptance to anyone expecting it, let alone demanding it from me. First SHOW ME who you are—then I’ll believe it.”)

But no matter which tendency you lean towards in your own personal world-view of relationships and group settings, what in effect occurs is that whatever we often tell ourselves about ourselves (or about our lives in general) becomes the filter through which we assess the rest of the world around us. (In a way it’s a bit like the difference between viewing yourself through the ‘victim’ vs. the ‘survivor’ perspectives; while it might seem like a very subtle distinction between those two ‘self-belief’ attitudes of woundedness, it’s the basis for how that person’s body then ‘interprets and responds’ to all future interactions, i.e.: Are we ‘open and engaging’ with others, or do we naturally ‘tense up’ around them—ready to ‘fight or flee’ at the slightest facial twitch that we encounter?)

When “… you look at reality through the lens of the little story” that is spinning in your noggin about whatever situation that you might be currently facing, then it will be very hard to form a non-biased opinion on what the true options for you might be in that situation.

I am a firm believer that opportunities in LIFE are less about being suddenly blessed with ‘Good Luck’ and ‘Good Fortune,’ and more likely about better recognizing the broader scope of what your choices might be in any situation before actually ‘choosing’ one; but in order to adhere to that ‘broader scope’ mindset requires us to constantly self-monitor WHY we think what we do when we are faced with two or more options. And that takes considerable ‘self-awareness’ to master it.

We have to ask ourselves, ‘What is driving my decision in one way or the other?’

What is your TRUE motivation for this particular choice—not just what you might be telling yourself at the time?

“Every fragment of self-talk is a little story in the head that goes around, and then you look at reality through the lens of the little story.”

So when you DO view your reality through the lens of that ‘self-talk story,’ what are you really telling yourself about who you are and what you value? Is your decision made primarily ‘love-based’ or ‘fear-based?’ Is it for an ‘immediate reward’ or a ‘longer-term reward?’

And most importantly: ‘Are there other options here that I’m not considering?’ Then ask yourself: ‘ WHY can’t I see those other options?’ Or, ‘Why don’t I WANT to see them? Am I blocking them out for a particular reason? If so, what IS that reason?’

These are tough questions to answer. I know.

It takes a lot of work on self-awareness to identify that inner story we tell ourselves about our lives.

But it’s well worth doing.

Transformation

To describe ‘transformation’ is like asking a butterfly to write an autobiography tracing its journey from egg larva to crawling caterpillar to the colorful ‘winged-goddess-in-perpetual-motion’ of today.

THAT complete structural metamorphosis epitomizes ‘transformation’ in so many ways—biochemically, physically, and behaviorally; because the living being that it once was is suddenly no more, and what it has become instead is quite different.

In many ways we expect a similar metamorphosis of ourselves—to take whatever raw materials LIFE (and our biological parents) gave to us at birth and then alchemically ‘BECOME’ something far greater than our initial potential might have suggested for us.

Our earliest intention might have been to TRANSFORM ourselves into the “magical creature” that we as children once believed that we could be. We just had to figure out how to do that.

Was that a realistic attitude, and was that magical transformation likely?

I don’t know the odds on either count above, but I do know that self-determination has far less to do with your bio-chemical/genetic makeup and far more to do with how strong your willpower and your endurance levels can be—how far can you push yourself toward accomplishing your distant dreams or goals?

Can you make yourself ‘transform’ into a higher version of yourself, capable of maximizing your fullest potential for greatness?

Of course you can.

But how badly do you want that transformation to happen and how willing are you to drive yourself toward that distant future with single-focused determinism?

The butterfly has an advantage over us in that respect, because it has no option but to follow its genetic programming for stages-in-life changes. But for those of us in the human species, it’s more a matter of individual CHOICE to make such a life-changing transformation.

Can it be done? Sure—of course.

Can YOU do it?

Well maybe that’s a matter of how badly you want to change your life in some way.

Never assume someone else is a lost cause or doesn’t have what it takes to change their own life for the better. Incentive/motivation and personal determination are the key ingredients for a major life change. All it really takes is the burning desire to transform ourselves and the unwavering persistence to accomplish it.

An actual example: During my young adulthood, I’ll never forget a gangly, socially-awkward, local kid—constantly ridiculed by the bigger bullies because he was all height—all skinny arms and long legs, and visually dependent on tape-repaired, horn-rimmed glasses that he had to constantly push higher on his slender nose. This constantly ‘peer-battered’ kid who once he turned 18-years of age suddenly bucked his parent’s wishes for a safe, boring future on a local industrial plant’s assembly line, and instead joined the Marines.

A year later he returned to our area in his crisp Marine ‘enlisted-service uniform’ as a composed, self-assured and confident young man standing tall and strong in his own self-defined abilities and calm demeanor.

His complete physical and behavioral transformation was absolutely jaw-dropping and admirable. He had somehow become who he had most wanted to be—a respected Marine; and his mere presence commanded attention and admiration for such a complete metamorphosis from his once-awkward youth.

Would I have ever believed back then that ‘Brad’ could have transformed himself so dramatically? No.

But Brad believed it. And that made ALL the difference.

Self-help Techniques for Healing PTSD and General Life Trauma

After rereading the previous posting I thought it might be helpful to mention again the techniques that I’m most familiar with to help deal with our own PTSD and lingering emotional trauma energies that we can’t seem to move past.

In no way do I dismiss anyone’s emotional/psychological trauma residues. I’ve dealt with plenty of my own so I know how life-altering they can be when you are stuck in the throes of their full effect. But what I DO want to provide is a few ‘self-help options’ that worked for me while I climbed out of my own dark hole to come back into the light of day.

This extensive quote below was from my posting on June 29, 2020 called “Beyond the Walls of Belief”. In it I list some books and techniques that actually helped to ‘bring me back’ to a semi-normal life again from the pits of my worst despair and torment.

O’Hanlon’s book is very good and an easy read; and the techniques that he mentioned, particularly the Eye Movement Desensitization and the Tapping techniques helped me the most to process the unresolved trauma stuck in my mid-brain that kept the worst of my horrific experiences constantly fresh and perpetually affecting my life.

That ‘breath energy-release technique’ I still use daily to counter any emotional buildup—like anger, resentment, fear, etc.. It helps far more than you might think it would. Hope these techniques help you in some way.

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From “Beyond the Walls of Belief”, June 29, 2020 :

“…I mentioned previously I would list a few techniques that are ways to release fear and anger energies, or to better deal with unresolved trauma issues, or to just get a better handle on our lives in general—things I’ve learned over the years or mention some books that might help to read….

One of the most amazing books I’ve run across is the Connirae & Tamara Andreas book on Core Transformation: Reaching the Wellspring Within. It’s a great read on how to transform our personal beliefs—particularly the unconscious ones that run our daily scripts on how we view our lives. It’s one of those drill-down exercises on getting to the heart of the matter of how and why we are doing whatever we are doing in our lives.

Another good info source on how to view and treat trauma, comes from Bill O’Hanlon, called Quick Steps to Resolving Trauma. Lots of good material to consider in that book, and it’s an easy, to-the-point read on how to view traumatic experiences—‘how to successfully move through traumatic experiences and come out the other side of them’ sort of read.

From O’Hanlon as well as others, I’d read about EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) which were effective techniques developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro for releasing stuck trauma energies/memories from the mid-point of the brain so they can be fully processed by the higher brain. It involves a form of bilateral brain stimulation where you bring up the uncomfortable situation/memory and then move your eyes quickly left-to-right-to-left, etc. back and forth for 15 to 20 times, which forces the brain to shift the stuck energy out of the mid-brain region and reduces the emotional impact of the memory. It is very effective, especially on many forms of PTSD. Another good book on this is by Jamie Marich, EMDR Made Simple.

O’Hanlon also mentions ‘Tapping,’ which I’d heard of through other sources as well, and similar to the bilateral brain stimulation of EMDR, has similar ‘lessening the emotional intensity’ effects of memories and emotions. Here’s a book that I have on it: TAPPING IN: A Step-BY-Step Guide to Activating Your Healing Resources Through Bilateral Stimulation, by Laurel Parnell. PhD. It’s pretty straight forward and easily followed.

One helpful technique that I use repeatedly (sometimes daily) is the energy-release statements combined with 3 strong exhalations to blow out the intense energies and emotions. Sounds too simple to be effective, but it really is helpful to shift a strong emotion that has a grip on you like sadness or anger. You simply say, “I release the energies of ______ (fear, anger, resentment, sadness, anxiety, guilt, etc.), over this situation with __________ (name the person or situation). I release those energies now. They do not serve me.” And blow out hard 3 times. Keep doing it until the emotion lifts or you are in better control of it.

And one last thing I will mention on this subject: What I’ve found with my REIKI clients is that people tend to hold a certain intense emotion/energy in specific locations of their body (likely depends on what was physically happening to them at the time that this emotion first cemented itself into their body). And that unreleased emotional energy can over time create physical issues like intense pain or illness in certain body parts.

When I had a client who held pain in a certain area of their body, and when I was working energetically over that area, I would often get visuals in my mind of a possible unresolved issue with someone or something, so I would ask the client if this particular person or situation I was seeing meant something specific to them because the source of their pain seemed to have some direct correlation to that person or thing.

If the client could recognize the correlation and could do the energy-releasing statements and blow outs, I could often feel the energetic block release from that location, and then shift out of their body. So the body tends to hold emotional trauma as well as does the mind.

These are a few techniques that I’ve discovered over the years that have helped me personally as well as helped my clients. Hopefully they can benefit you as well.”

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Woundedness

Yes, “wounds”—we all have them—physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual.

We all have felt the sting of rejection or humiliation in our lives, or we still have unresolved issues that stem from previous childhood or relationship traumas. That inner wounding aspect is simply an unpleasant but necessary part of this experience called LIFE.

If we are caring people at all, it isn’t that we can avoid being “wounded” by others in our lives. The real trick for us is to NOT let the ‘wounding’ itself define us as to whether we are worthy of even existing in this world; because the circumstances or situation of the ‘wounding incident’ are meant more so to simply challenge us to see how quickly we can learn to more creatively respond to those unpleasant emotional/psychological confrontations. And likewise how well we learn to behaviorally adapt in whatever way is necessary to then rise above the lingering residues of that particular LIFE challenge.

This is part of our LIFE curriculum while in this plane of existence. It’s WHAT we do—it’s WHY we are here: to fully experience the highs and lows—the good experiences and the bad ones that LIFE offers us.

Yes, it’s likely that we’ve all known love lost and emotional devastation. Or we are at least very familiar with having our dreams dashed or our hopes for a ‘better life’ dissolved away in the wash cycle of the moment’s harsher realities.

But those deeply-felt ‘emotional wounds’ that we hide somewhere inside us are often harder for others to detect than physical wounding unless you are intently looking for them in someone else’s reactive behavior and/or in their social-interactions.

And speaking quite frankly here, in today‘s world how many folks go around looking for someone else’s tell-tale signs of being severely psychologically traumatized or of having been emotionally abused?

I mean it isn’t that we’re all so intentionally insensitive to another’s pain. It is more likely that we’re all just dealing with our own “stuff” at the time and didn’t take the effort to acknowledge someone else’s unpleasant emotional residues when they suddenly arose in that moment.

That may sound a bit defensive or even cynical of me, but this isn’t meant to be offensive in any way—it is simply a realistic and pragmatic attempt to address what I see occurring in our current world; and even in some of my peripheral friends at times. You know, sometimes we can take things a bit TOO personally.

Example: This morning I’m just browsing through my Facebook page and see yet another post from a person I follow on ‘how oblivious and cruel people can be to unseen emotional trauma in others’—meaning, particularly in that person posting it.

And while patiently reading through this because I am a peripheral friend, I’m thinking, “Well, yes, perhaps that overall ‘blatant ignorance and uncaring attitude about others’—and particularly about YOU in this case, may be true; and yes, perhaps most folks we encounter aren’t that concerned about our personal mental health especially IF it doesn’t affect/involve them; BUT…..WHY are you posting this publically for YOUR ‘followers’ unless YOU want sympathy for the woundedness that you still carry; and WHY are trying to make others feel shame/guilt for treating you so callously, especially since that ‘oblivious and cruel’ person probably isn’t even on your ‘friends list,’ so he’ll likely never see this?”

In other words—why make the rest of us ‘witness’ this cry for sympathy and acknowledgement of your old wounds?

While there isn’t much else I can say about my friend’s public condemnation ‘on the insensitivity of others’, I do want to state this:

There are times in LIFE when nothing goes right and everything seems stacked against you. And if LIFE subsequently knocks you flat one or more times during this process, then you may struggle a bit, but eventually you must stand back up as best you can and face the world again.
There will be unfortunate moments in LIFE when those you care most about will disappoint you—hurt you—or flat-out demolish what was left of your self-esteem. Cry if you must, but never stop believing in yourself. You are the best friend you will ever have—the one you can always rely on the most. Never forget that.
When it seems that all the good-breaks in LIFE go elsewhere and what’s left on your doorstep are crumbs or cast-offs from someone else’s good fortune, then start thinking about your life differently—start looking in different places for opportunities to test your resourcefulness—to let you excel in LIFE with a positive attitude and a strong work ethic. It’s truly hard to find someone in today’s world who isn’t afraid to work hard, get sweaty/dirty, and get that difficult job done—and done well. Be that person! You will be in constant demand.
When you feel like your LIFE no longer has meaning and your friends have all abandoned you, then maybe it’s time to meet new friends. Maybe it’s time to volunteer to help others in some way. Maybe it’s less about feeling sorry for yourself in your own predicament and seeing how unbelievably bad others really have it just to survive day to day. Nothing like a little ‘reality check’ with those even less fortunate than you are to shift your own attitude to recognizing the abundance that you may already have but didn’t previously consider.
And finally, eventually you will learn that much of LIFE is based on being ‘relative’ to what you see, feel, know, and do. Advantages in LIFE are often relative to your current situation and how you intentionally view them. It’s all about PERSPECTIVE and how you ‘frame things’ in your life. What is important to you? What means the most to you? Could things be better for you? Sure. But they could also be a whole lot worse, so make the most of what you have and keep moving forward day by day toward that vision of how you want your life to be. Never give up. Never give in. And never stop pursuing your dreams.

‘Woundedness’ is just a word that describes a ‘weak spot’ in our current mode of daily operation—physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. We may never make sense of the reason for the ‘wounding’ itself. All we may ever know is that the ‘wounded area’ may still hurt because the initial pain never really left us. Sometimes that ‘wound’ may seem as fresh as the day it actually occurred; and other times it just nags at us when we try to move forward in life—a constant reminder of our vulnerability.

Perhaps the real problem here lies more in how we view ourselves. Are we the perpetual ‘victim of a bad situation/incident’ that occurred sometime in our lives, or are we more likely the still-living survivor of a difficult time for us that occurred in our past, and that’s where we left it—in the past.

LIFE doesn’t encourage us to be its ‘victims’ because victims don’t last long in the real world out there. Evolution in LIFE is all about being a ‘survivor’.

So to my Facebook ‘friend’ mentioned earlier, I would suggest that she get some professional help to move out of that ‘victim’ mindset she seems to be still clinging to, and move intentionally into the much healthier ‘survivor’ mindset. It’s the only way to truly move forward with your life, for her or for any of us.

We can do this because it’s what we ALL have to do. We learn to ‘survive,’ before we can thrive.

The Vortex

Tao & Zen

“I seem, like everything else, to be a center, a sort of vortex, at which the whole energy of the universe realizes itself.. Each one of us, not only human beings but every leaf, every weed, exists in the way it does, only because everything else around it does. The individual and the universe are inseparable.” ~Alan Watts

“I like to experience the universe as one harmonious whole. Every cell has life. Matter, too, has life; it is energy solidified. The tree outside is life… The whole of nature is life… The basic laws of the universe are simple, but because our senses are limited, we can’t grasp them. There is a pattern in creation.” ~ Albert Einstein

Artwork: Spiral Speaks by Sam Brown Art

https://www.fineartnewmexico.com/sam-brown

(Just passing this along…..)

Nature-Speak

The Garden Of Pensiveness

“Mother Nature is always speaking. She speaks in a language understood within the peaceful mind of the sincere observer.”
~ Radhanath Swami ~ Art by Johanna Wright

The beauty of language lies in the interpretation of it. So how do you translate meaning from a bird’s lilting song or the haunting rustle of leaves in late October?

How do you ‘feel into’ the musty heaviness of freshly-tilled earth or the sweet aromatic scents of a thousand wildflowers waving in the summer breeze?

I know exactly what Radhanath Swami refers to here, and yet the depth of his message diffuses through spoken-word translation.

So I suggest that the only way to fully understand nature’s primordial language is to immerse yourself into it and learn first-hand the Earth’s indigenous roots of Nature-Speak—with ‘indigenous’ here meaning not a group of people, but an originating energy of the Earth.

However it is often the indigenous people of many lands who are the best translators of Earth’s most poignant messaging; likely because they have truly listened to it the longest.

Whispers

For some time now I’ve been contemplating how to describe my ‘flowers theory’ of how Nature or ‘Spirit through Nature’ communicates to all other life on the planet.

For example with flowers in general, there are the ‘geometric aspects of petal distribution’ that I’ve previously mentioned. There are the ‘wide variety of colors’ aspects per plant and how powerful that a color (a particular light-wave frequency perceived by the photoreceptor cones of our retina) can be.

Then there are the ‘flower-size-per-plant’ aspects; and because I usually go more for the magnificent, large blossoms images, this picture was one that I initially passed over, then came back to review for some unknown reason, then passed on again, then was drawn back to it until I finally got the ‘message’ that the image was suggesting to me: “Whispers”.

Whispers?

With large blooms of vibrant colors we are awed by how gorgeous the flower is—how magnificently it is often petaled—how symmetrically the flower’s petals are dispersed and aligned, because flowers as a whole are often bright, bold expressions of nature’s shouting to ‘other-life-in-motion’ to “Stop and look at this!” (Or to at least ‘Stop and smell this—because you might like it.’)

But when only considered visually, with these smaller petal clusters on slender stalks or on ground covers, nature is more so ‘whispering’ her messages to other life forms—whatever those messages really are, of which I have no idea other than “LOOK AT THIS!”

That ‘capturing other life form attention to the importance of the plant’ part, is one aspect that I think I do understand.

And likewise, those insects or avian species that feed from these vibrant natural expressions of love and life—who exist solely because of the plant’s flowers providing them the nourishment that they require, may view them differently and more essential to their continued existence than we humans often consider them.

So maybe for just a moment during your normal busy day, you might glimpse a distant waving-in-the-wind wildflower or perhaps even chance upon a lowly dandelion peeking through the sidewalk crack, and reconsider for a short moment the value or worth of their presence on the Earth here with the rest of us; and then imagine how stark our lives would be without those beautiful expressions of nature’s love and devotion to us all.

Or in another sense, what are the tiny flowers in the image above whispering to you?

Called or Uncalled

This quote was hand-carved over the archway to C. G. Jung’s study: “Called or uncalled: God is present.”

Which as Ken James, Ph.D. described during his session of the Jungian summit is to consider that whatever calls us to our supposed ‘purpose in life’ is always around us, ever-present; we just may not notice it being there for a very long time, until when we actually awaken to our true sense of life purpose.

Or in another sense that God Consciousness, or Grand Consciousness as I refer to it, is continually around us, embracing us, engulfing us, even if we fail to recognize it as such, because: “Called or uncalled: God is present.”

Overall for his part in the summit Ken James was elaborating on “Synchronicity and the Personal Journey” and how we tended to immediately interpret and declare in our minds all events, situations, experiences in our lives as meaningful to us or not before we even allowed them to completely unfold and to show us how significant they might actually be to us.

In a broader sense we make life-defining judgments primarily from the ego perspective about how we want our lives to progress or to advance, rather than allowing our intuition (our higher connection) to guide us in the most beneficial and natural direction for our true soul growth.

But no matter which direction we do choose in life, our lives will play out in that one chosen direction for only so long before we may start to feel a dissonance with that path direction. Then if our ego continues to ignore the discomfort, ‘hints’ may arise around us that might suggest we try a different direction in our lives; and if we still ignore those ‘hints’ then our Higher Self can become more insistent to capture our straying life focus and can create more obvious ‘turmoil’ in our lives until we finally stop and DO pay attention to what is happening to us at a deeper level—to how we are resonating (or not) with our current life situation.

Meaning: Do we feel harmonious with the direction we are heading or do we feel dissonant with it—out of sync, off the beat, uncomfortable enough to want to ‘change the tune’ in some way?

James says that we should try to stay more non-judgmentally aware of everything around us, and to stay more in harmony with what life is freely presenting to us rather than disregarding the sudden synchronicities that may pop up before us daily.

Those ‘synchronicities’ are far from being coincidences—they are instead our soul’s intentional ‘stagings’ for enhancing/shifting our stagnant or our stressful life experience in some way to help us more beneficially learn from our situations/relationships and to ultimately advance our consciousness.

In truth while we may think that we must search high and low to discover our true calling in LIFE, all we actually need to do is to simply be quiet enough to hear it as it calls to us.

The Jungian Online Conference 2021

Hm-m-m, maybe I am more Jungian than I realized. I’m currently listening to James Hollis, Ph.D., and he is already talking about most of what I write in this blog…about Finding Your Truth: determining who we are, what we stand for, and WHY we believe that we are here at this time, and how we share that with the world around us.

“If what I’m doing is not meaningful, then why am I doing it?…Something in us knows what is right for us, we just have to find it and listen to it.”

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I’ll give you the 1^st speaker’s video, James Hollis, Ph.D., but it will only be FREE for another couple hours. However others will follow for another two days to view within 24hrs for free.

Day 1 | Session 1 — The Call & Purpose — Jungian Summit

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“…Despite our best intentions, sooner or later, we find ourselves in an emotional swampland. Exploring these swamplands help us to identify where we need to grow up, where we might be stuck in our lives, and where we need to act on what we believe to be true.
In this talk, James Hollis describes how we can make sense of our experiences by way of discernment and resonance. We have to sort what’s going on inside us, the present voices, and we need to recognize when we are unconsciously driven by our psychological histories. We have to sit with it, pay attention to what resonates in us on a deep level, and do what is meaningful for us. Relevant questions that we can ask ourselves are ‘Why am I here?’ and ‘What is wanting to enter the world through me?’

During this session you’ll discover

How the internal guidance system supports what is right for us,
That our ultimate calling is to be in service to our soul, and
Why courage, patience, and taking risks is part of our journey.

About the Teacher

James Hollis, Ph.D., is a world-renowned Jungian analyst in private practice in Washington, D.C. He has written and published extensively and his works have been translated into numerous languages around the world. He is a core faculty member at Jung Platform.”

On Personal Change Before World Change

Mystic Path to Cosmic Consciousness

“Changing the world begins with the very personal process of changing ourself, the only place you can begin is where you are, and the only time you can begin is now.” – Gary Zukav

WOW, …seeing the Gary Zukav name sent me back to my earliest period of externally expressing what had been internally fermenting away during most of my young adulthood. Zukav had a way with words—a clear, concise manner of sharing heartfelt spiritual principles that few prior had been able to popularize. And of course having Oprah Winfrey latch on to him as a personal guru, certainly helped to spread his fame and fortune.

It was probably the first time I’d heard the word “New-Age” expressed about a type of philosophy or literature, and I liked the term—NEW-AGE. It was a good way of optimistically viewing the world around us.

If you have no idea who he is or why you should be interested at all, here’s a little bio from Wiki:

“…Zukav’s next book, The Seat of the Soul, published in 1989, was a No. 1 New York Times Best Seller for 31 weeks and remained on the list for three years.^[6] In an interview by Jeffrey Mishlove, for the popular Public Television series Thinking Allowed, Zukav summarized the concepts presented in The Seat of the Soul.

‘My objective was not to make the soul legitimate in terms of science. The soul is legitimate, period. It doesn’t need validation. At least that was my perception and so I wrote The Seat of the Soul to share the things that were most important to me. The Dancing Wu Li Masters was designed to open the mind and The Seat of the Soul, is a book designed to open the heart. And this is often the sequence that many people encounter as they move into an expanded awareness of who they are and why they are here.
Our evolution, until very recently, has been as five sensory humans evolving through the exploration of physical reality. That is the same thing as the pursuit of external power. Now we have crossed the threshold, we’re in new territory, a brand new domain. We are now becoming multi sensory. That means we are no longer confined to the five senses. Now I use these terms because the five senses together form a single sensory system and the object of that sensory system is physical reality. That’s what it is designed to detect. As we become multi sensory, we move beyond the limitations of the five senses and we now are evolving to a different mechanism in the exploration of physical reality. We are evolving through responsible choice of and with the assistance and guidance of non physical guides and teachers.
We are spiritual beings, we have always been spiritual beings and we will always BE spiritual beings. The difference is that now we are becoming aware of ourselves AS spiritual beings and that is making all the difference.’

In 1998 Zukav began an ongoing conversation with Oprah Winfrey, appearing on her television show 35 times – more than any other guest.^[7] Oprah, who keeps a copy of The Seat of the Soul at her bedside, proclaimed: “The Seat of the Soul is my favorite book of all time, except for the Bible.”^[8] Her favorite quote from The Seat of the Soul: ‘Every action, thought, and feeling is motivated by an intention, and that intention is a cause that exists as one with an effect…. In this most profound way, we are held responsible for every action, thought, and feeling, which is to say, for our every intention.’”

And that is HOW you change your current situation and eventually the world around all of us—with your every intention to make that more positive change.

See,….NEW-AGE isn’t such a bad term when it has such good intentions.

Ghosts In the Attic

“Intergenerational Complexes in Analytical Psychology: The Suffering of Ghosts …This book shows how the cultural unconscious with its multiple group dynamics, identities, nationalities, seething differences of conflicts, polarizations, and individual personalities are organized by cultural complexes and narrated by archetypal story formations, which the author calls ‘phantom narratives’. …” (Amazon.com)

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Background: Since signing up for a FREE Jungian online conference soon to occur, I’ve been flooded with Jungian ads for books, training, etc., most of which I find interesting but not overwhelmingly so.

However when this book and blurb came through about Samuel Kimbles’ The Suffering of Ghosts book it triggered my memories on similar key experiences, from my Shamanic training for alleviating ancestral curses and for providing soul retrievals for clients, as well as ‘ghost removals’; combined with my first-hand witnessing of Past-life hypnotic journeys for clients to personally address ancient ancestral issues still festering in their current lives.

I know that’s a lot of stuff to process, but as strange as it often appears to be, no matter whatever medium of healing or techniques that you might employ, you all are still working with the same cosmic-soup, energetic layers of consciousness—just in different ways as framed through many different ‘healing’ perspectives.

And this “unconscious ancestral open-wounding underlying current social unrest” subject matter seemed to be what the book was alluding to: “…It shows how the cultural unconscious is narrated by archetypal story formations, which the author calls ‘phantom narratives’ …”.

Or a simpler way to say it is that we ALL have ghosts in our attics—and we are still haunted by those long-dead ‘phantom narratives’ that are stuck in both our personal and our collective unconscious which makes us reactively ‘act-out’ individually and collectively around the globe.

But even without being a Jungian analyst addressing this, the ‘phantom narratives’ social disruption causation is such a complex subject that to give it proper context here would be to write pages and pages of explanations on how even these two different training techniques that I’m most familiar with deal with similar client issues but in different ways by comparing those alternative perspectives on the subject matter of dealing with our known layers of consciousness: the sub-conscious (shamanic lower world), consciousness (s. middle world) and the super-conscious (s. upper world).

And because that ‘ghosts in the attic’ theme is such an important topic to consider as social unrest grows around us, I can only explain what little I know of it through my own previous training:

Sequentially I had the Shamanic training first and learned how modern shamans dealt with clients who desired help with alleviating personal issues that physically/mentally presented as possible ‘soul loss’, ‘ancestral trauma’, or ‘other-being occupation’ (often called ‘possession’, but it doesn’t have to be demonic…it could simply be Aunt Susie who upon her death didn’t leave this plane of existence and thought you would be good to ‘hang with’ for awhile.)

For modern shamans, the shamanic practitioner is the agent who deals directly or through Spirit Guide help with whatever ‘original wound’ is found in the past where the soul-part might have fragmented off, and restores the ‘cleansed-and-purified lost soul-part’ back to the client to help them feel more whole again.

Please keep in mind that as weird as this sounds, it actually is effective, but what that ‘work’ entails is all on the practitioner and NOT on the client to research the initial problem, to journey to the true source of the current-life problem in whatever past-life time-period that it first originated for them, and to then create the proper healing situation for all of those involved at that time, especially for the client so that the healing of the problem area then cascades in proper order from origination point in the past-life through all the generations and into the present, etc. (Sorry, but it’s a really complicated procedure.)

However once I learned the hypnosis techniques to take a client through those ‘issue situations’ for themselves that were “seemingly past-life, but are eerily similar to the present”, I could quickly see that having the client see for themselves how the problem had first originated in a previous lifetime, and then talk them through shifting their personal perspective on what was happening at that time to allow for the emotional energy of those old woundings to release to allow for the healing of those past traumas, was far more empowering to the client than the shamanic techniques that I’d been previously trained in.

It seemed to me that the huge difference in healing techniques between the ‘shamanic methods’ and the ‘hypnosis methods’ came down to this: From the shaman ‘telling’ the passive, non-interactive client what was happening to them in that past-life situation and then at the end, explaining to them what I, the practitioner, had done to help alleviate the traumatic situation; to my instead using hypnosis and helping the client journey to the originating wound-creation time period and to the specific situation during that time so the client could see it first-hand and actually feel the emotion at the time of the wounding for themselves. And then let the client energetically heal the original wound themselves by releasing the fear and trauma energies that had accrued back then, and then by forgiving all the participants involved in the client’s past-life personal drama.

In short, from me telling them about it to them seeing/feeling it/healing it for themselves—it was a no-brainer. I quickly determined that using the hypnosis techniques were exponentially greater for shifting higher a client’s overall issues because it self-empowered them to partake in their own healing.

And the other beauty of it was that the way that I did it—how I conducted the session and the past-life explorations was that the client never had to tell me what those personal “issues” were because they silently told their own High Self what those issues were that they wanted to better understand that were creating the problems in their current life; and their High Self then provided the 3 past-lives and the like-wise pertinent situations for the client to review and to examine.

It was simply a magical experience to watch unfold, and I loved doing it when I had the office at the time.

But the prime point here is that I had focused more so on just providing the healing space for clients to discover their cross-generational past-life issues and to show them how to resolve those deep woundings for themselves, without my interference or direct intervention in their past or current lives.

In that role I was strictly the facilitator for helping them in healing themselves rather than the direct healer of their issues. It was a far healthier and more self-empowered healing situation for the client.

And the other important point I wanted to make in this latest epic is that I think that our current social disruption and confrontational political/social environments are directly attributed to what this book describes as ‘phantom narratives’ or “…how the cultural unconscious is narrated by archetypal story formations…”.

And THAT is what needs deep healing for ALL of us!

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Book REFERENCE—

Amazon reviewers:

“Sam Kimbles has once again substantially deepened our understanding of how unconscious dynamics operate in political, social, and cultural and group processes. In this book, he pulls together histories of violence, oppression, and social injustices to present to the reader an emotional field in which psyche generates its own responses and creates conditions for subjectivity grounded in the cultural unconscious. … – Andrew Samuels, former professor of analytical psychology, University of Essex, and author of ‘The Political Psyche’

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“If your ghosts were stolen from Africa, sold into slavery, or were indigenous peoples deprived of their lands, or immigrants fleeing poverty, famine, and war or Jewish refugees from the Nazis, Central American refugees from gangs, all of you have terrible stories to tell. How do those of us who work with human suffering treat your pain? How do we heal the severed feeling of kinship in our culture, our recognition of each other as fellow citizens, all of us carriers of ancestral trauma? These are among the questions Samuel Kimbles addresses in his wise and compassionate book. . . . The Suffering of Ghosts is a major contribution to Jungian thought, a profound and hopeful call to bring what Jungians know about working with the unconscious into the social and cultural realm. If your ghosts are agitated, moaning and muttering, rolling over in their graves, read them this book. They will thank you for it.” – Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, author of ‘The Rabbi, the Goddess and Jung: Getting the Word from Within’