Bud Harris's Blog, page 14

Individuation and the Well-Lived Life, Part 1

Empowering Our Ego: The Ground of Individuation

by Bud Harris, Ph.D.

Imagine how it would feel…

to have the strength to quietly assert yourself…to have the ambition to want to discover new talents and abilities…to find a new sense of confidence, self-respect and self-esteem… and what this could do for your life.

The renewal of hope in difficult times, making significant changes in our lives, developing the will to live with purpose and love – including loving Life itself, begins with empowering our ego. Our ego gets a bad rap in our everyday culture and is identified as being egocentric, as housing our distracted “monkey mind,” as based on superficial appearances, and other negative characteristics.

We seem to think that our religious, spiritual paths and philosophies are either telling us to get rid of or to transcend our egos. But when we are narcissistic, anxious, preoccupied, feeling shame or guilt, and so on, it isnʼt our egoʼs fault. From a perspective based on the work of Carl Jung, our ego has been taken over by a psychological complex. (For more information on complexes and Dr. Jungʼs approach, listen to my lecture, “A Lifetime of Promise: A Jungian Guide to Discovering the Transforming Power in Complexes” and download the lecture handouts from my website, www.budharris.com).

The answer to these problems is to work through our complexes, which will actually expand and strengthen our true ego. Our ego, Jung writes, is that part of our psyche that we think of as our “I.” Until we begin the inner journey in earnest, though, we generally think of our ego as our entire personality. In daily life, it is regarded as our conscious intelligence, our everyday brain that thinks, plans, organizes, and runs the activities of our lives. It is also the part of us that is vulnerable to our complexes, to shame, to guilt, and to a variety of fears. As long as the ego is considered “alone” in our personality and not connected to our center, the Self, it continues to long for safety, security, and control over life and events.

The Self, Jung has informed us, is a greater entity than we realize, and that it contains our ego. The Self, he says, incorporates our personal and collective unconscious and is the home of the archetypes within us. The Self is the creating principle within us, the operating force behind our growth, and the regulating and shaping principle. It contains the pattern or blueprint for our development and is the goal of our personal journey into wholeness and uniqueness. In Jungian circles, we have often heard that the pattern in the Self is like the potential pattern of an oak tree in an acorn. What we have not heard about as much, is the acorn also contains the force to make the tree grow, even in dry and rocky soil.

It is of great benefit to us if we can become open to this force within us to grow, to heal, and to become whole by fulfilling our inner pattern. It takes courage to have this kind of openness, and this courage frequently arises during times when we are unhappy or desperate. Unfortunately, if we are relatively well fed and clothed, many of us are very reluctant to open up to the inner quest for a more conscious realization of our potentials. Yet, somewhere deep inside, we all know that such openness, imagination, and the journey-quest are at the heart of every well-lived life. But it is normal for many of us to keep our teeth clenched or to put on a positive, cheerful, or even seemingly mature face in our efforts to maintain the status quo – and to refuse to change even one little bit.

So, while “hanging on” to our self-image as hard as we can, we also have the capacity to fool even ourselves and claim vociferously that we are open and flexible. That is how afraid we can be of ourselves, our unknown potentials, and of the true realities of life. Real life has a tendency to try to push us to confront our shadows, to question our dearly held values, and the belief systems that have guided our lives. (To find out more about the term shadow, refer to my book, Knowing the Questions, Living the Answers: A Jungian Guide through the Paradoxes of Peace, Conflict, and Love that Mark a Lifetime.)

We call individuation ʻa journey into wholenessʼ because it means the continuous conscious development of “knowing oneself” and the growing awareness of our need to know the greater Self. We come to learn, at a profound level, how to be supported by the Self and how to become the expression of its pattern and potentials in how we live. From these experiences, we learn how to feel at home in life and within ourselves. It also comes to mean that we are concurrently facing the truth about the reality we are living in.

The critical juncture in our individuation process is for our ego to enter into a full relationship with the Self. This relationship means acknowledging that the seat of our conscious personality is actually in the Self. In other words, we need to allow our ego, our small self, to “shift” and be centered in the Self. We must not just make this shift intellectually – we must live it in our active lives. The purpose, values, and direction of our lives that are supporting us now come directly from the Self. This realization of the Self is an acknowledgement there is a power within us that is greater than we are, that has intentions for our lives that may not match our egoʼs goals for success, security, and a “good life.” To deal with this evolving reality takes an empowered ego. In my next blogs, I will outline each of the four psychological areas in which we can take steps to empower our egos and also to heal and tap into the strength in our shadows.

To love our life is to love the pattern and potentials within us that are seeking to be lived. Like any artist, when we devote ourselves to the art of living, we must become empowered to dedicate our lives to it. Our lives then take place in an atmosphere of individuation, and become the context for becoming who and what we truly are. We must then be ready to find all the aspects of human experience through this process of individuation – pain, pleasure, joy, sorrow, inspiration, and yes, at times, despair.

Individuation is a call from the soul, a vocation. It is not a self-improvement program to which we try to devote 15 – 30 minutes a day. A vocation – which is an actual “calling” (from the Latin root, “to call”) – is demanding, consuming, and rewarding. And, as you may imagine, it calls us to go into places and directions we fear. In going into the places we fear, however, we will be following Jungʼs map. To navigate this journey requires strength, ambition of a new kind, imagination, and a love of Life. These qualities are within us and within our shadows, and the support for developing these qualities is within our Self. In my next blog, I will begin discussing the first of the four psychological experiences we must cultivate in order to empower our ego for this journey.

Confronting Evil Lecture Video

I want to thank everyone who came out to my lecture presentation, “Confronting Evil: A Jungian Guide to Searching for Light in the Heart of Darkness.” If you were unable to attend or would like to watch it again, it is now available on YouTube. In this lecture I speak about the mysterious and dramatic nature of evil and its existence. This lecture is a journey deep into the human and psychological dimensions of evil and how the shadow sides of our personalities are to some extent intertwined with it to shape our personal lives and culture. 

 

Knowing the Questions, Living the Answers: Excerpts and Resources

A Jungian Guide Through the Paradoxes of Peace, Conflict and Love that Mark a Lifetime

Knowing Life’s Questions and Living the Answers Means Accepting the Paradoxes of Peace, Love and Conflict that Mark Our Lifetimes. This book is about learning to hear and interpret the nudging and out-and-out messages of that inner blueprint, which Dr. Harris defines as the “pattern of creation longing to be fulfilled within each of us.” The more faithful we are in working to discern this personal pattern of ours (the Jungians have named this work the individuation process), the less buffeted by fate, of life’s Pattern-at-large, we sill be. That doesn’t mean our awareness can bring immunity from the cataclysms and heartbreaks the Wheel of Fortune has in store for every one of us at some time or another.

The message in Knowing the Questions, Living the Answers is that the more conscious we become of the personal patterns, the better able to we will be to live the answers to life’s questions rather than just suffering through them and learning nothing from them or about them. Accessible and satisfying. We immediately trust Dr. Harris as he reflects on life.

– from the forward by Gail Godwin, author

Resources

Below you’ll find the Introduction from Knowing the Questions, Living the Answers, with excerpts from further chapters coming every two weeks. Be sure to follow along on Bud’s Facebook page to find more resources and follow-up questions to help you integrate the material more deeply into your own life.

Knowing the Questions, Living the Answers: Foreword

Excerpt from Chapter 1: The Spirit of Individuation

Excerpt from Chapter 2: The Search for Identity

Excerpt from Chapter 3: The Passage Into Adulthood

Excerpt from Chapter 4: Encountering Life

Excerpt from Chapter 5: Midlife—Shifting Shadows

Excerpt from Chapter 6: Passing Midlife – Critical Mass

Excerpt from Chapter 7: Intrinsic Essence

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Upcoming Lecture: Confronting Evil

A Jungian Guide to Searching for Light in the Heart of Darkness

Sunday November 2, 2014 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

Unitarian Universalist Church, Asheville NC

The mysterious and dramatic nature of evil and its existence has presented us with one of the most difficult issues we have to face as human beings, personally and socially. The power of evil or darkness, whether it is in our unconscious shadow side or outer reality, has the capacity to create an underlying layer of fear in the foundation of our lives.  Without our realizing it, this fear can entrap us and numb our capacity for initiative, vitality and creativity.  It can rob us of our sense of security and peace of mind.  Yet, we live in an age that is anxiously focusing on security and the good life, while overlooking or trivializing the formidable power of evil.

This lecture is a journey deep into the human and psychological dimensions of evil and how the shadow sides of our personalities are to some extent intertwined with it to shape our personal lives and culture.  We will look at evil from a personal, an archetypal and a collective perspective.

Using dreams, stories and mythical images, the lecture will develop a standpoint that is penetrating as well as personal, and will offer an approach that can help us find our way through the darkness to transformation and enrichment.  The lecture concludes on a note of challenge and hope that invites us into a more profound experience of love and meaning.

Sunday afternoon, November 2, 2014  3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

At Unitarian Universalist Church, 1 Edwin Place, Asheville, North Carolina 28801 (NW corner of Charlotte Street & Edwin Place)

Map and Directions

Suggested donation $10

Special thanks to our sponsors Asheville Reflections on C.G. Jung Meetup Group.www.meetup.com/AshevillereflectionsC.G.Jung

Win a Signed Copy of The Fire and The Rose

      

Many of you have joined our online community and have participated in our exploration of Sacred Selfishness and The Fire and The Rose. In an effort to cultivate our body of participants we are giving away a signed copy of The Fire and The Rose: The Wedding of Spirituality and Sexuality.

To enter, go to our Facebook page and see the details on the first post of the page. The winner will be announced Friday, September 4.

We have more exciting news coming up soon as well. Stay tuned…

The Fire and The Rose: Excerpts and Resources

The Wedding of Spirituality and Sexuality

Our encounters with love, spirituality, and sexuality play a major role in shaping who we are. These powerful aspects of our lives are woven into the pattern that forms our potential for wholeness. Through growing consciousness, sexuality and spirituality can support our efforts to live more passionately and to understand love in all of its forms. In this stimulating and inspiring book, Jungian analyst Bud Harris challenges us to reconsider our views of spirituality and sexuality as opposites and bring them into harmony and creativity. Together, we can heal some of our culture’s great wounds of the soul.

Resources

Below you’ll find the Introduction from The Fire and the Rose and excerpts from each chapter. Be sure to follow along on Bud’s Facebook page to find more resources and follow-up questions to help you integrate the material more deeply into your own life.

The Fire and the Rose – Introduction

Excerpt from Chapter 1: Desire’s Initiations

Excerpt from Chapter 2: Understanding the Past

Excerpt from Chapter 3: The Desire to Transform

Excerpt from Chapter 4: Returning to the Source

Excerpts from Chapter 5: The Contradictions of Life, and Sex and Love

Excerpts from Chapter 6: Metaphors as Bridges to the Soul

Excerpt from Chapter 7: The Shadow

Excerpt from Chapter 8: The Faces of Transformation

Excerpt from Chapter 9: Stagnation of Desire

Excerpt from Chapter 10: Body and Soul

Excerpt from Chapter 11: Love and Wholeness

Click here to buy on Amazon

For more resources from Bud and Massimilla Harris, please visit The Center for Spiritual Resources.

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Sacred Selfishness: Excerpts and Resources

A Guide to Living a Life of Substance

Bud Harris defines Sacred Selfishness as valuing ourselves enough to develop into “authentic” human beings who give back vitality and hope to the people around us. It is acquiring what Emerson refers to as “character—a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means.”

In his early thirties, Bud was “restless and generally dissatisfied.” He was terrified that the rest of his life would “consist of going to work, meetings, church, soccer games, and vacations . . . simply adjusting to what one’s family or society describes as a ‘good life.’” This full-blown crisis led him into therapy and began a lifelong quest to become a person of substance.

In Sacred Selfishness, he delves into classic quest stories to show that on the path of “renewed personal consciousness,” we must examine all assumptions about ourselves and our lives to uncover our hidden potential. True change must come from within, and no mere outer change can solve our problems.

Attaining self-knowledge both softens and strengthens us, and helps us love and appreciate life and other people. It affirms and enriches our choices of partners, vocations, and life-styles. “When the inner quest brings change, we can be comforted by knowing it’s authentic, has been carefully thought through, and values our past and other people.” This is the path of Sacred Selfishness.

Resources

Below you’ll find the first chapter from Sacred Selfishness, excerpts from further chapters, as well as The Sacred Selfishness Workbook by Bud Harris, Ph.D. with Gail Rogers, M.A.

Sacred Selfishness – Chapter 1: Captives of Normalcy

Excerpt from Chapter 2: The Call to Transformation

Excerpt from Chapter 3: At the Crossroads

Excerpt from Chapter 4: The Hidden Power in the Shadow, and Shadows into Substance

Excerpt from Chapter 5: Paying Religious Attention Through Journaling

Excerpt from Chapter 6: Dialoguing as Interrelating

Excerpt from Chapter 7: Midlife as a New Beginning

Excerpt from Chapter 8: Befriending Our Dreams

Excerpt from Chapter 9: Facing the Dark and Finding Life

Excerpt from Chapter 10: Sacred Selfishness – Learning to Love Ourselves

Excerpt from Chapter 11: Relationships of Substance

Excerpt from Chapter 12: Life Against Death

The Sacred Selfishness Workbook

Click here to buy the book on Amazon.com.

Click here to buy the Kindle Edition.

Interview and Call-ins “Inner Vision” with Dr. Nita Vallens KPFK (NPR Affiliate) 90.7 FM, Los Angeles

Listen to the Interview

For more resources from Bud and Massimilla Harris, please visit The Center for Spiritual Resources.

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Dying into Life

Dear Reader,

This article was written for and recently featured in the Asheville Jung Center e-newsletter. We want to share the writing with those of you who may not have received it.

We would also like to invite you to join our online community. On our facebook page you will find links to excerpts from Sacred Selfishness, follow-up questions, and beautiful imagery to help you reflect further upon the writings. We offer this joyfully as a gift to our community. Please join us and share with those who might also enjoy it.

Sincerely,

Bud Harris Ph.D. & Massimilla Harris Ph.D.

“Does our essence live on after death?” was a compelling question asked during the Asheville Jung Center’s webinar on;”Re-visioning the Dead, Alive in the Afterlife” with Jungian analysts, Murray Stein and John Hill. “Is there an afterlife?” and “How should we face death?” are questions that touch some of the deepest fears and longings in our heart. At some level we all wonder what is this dream we call life, where is it going and does it matter? Jung thought that facing these questions was key to our quest for wholeness when in Memories, Dreams, Reflections(p. 302) he states, “A man should be able to say he has done his best to form a conception of life after death, or to create some image of it-even if he must confess his failure. Not to have done so is a vital loss. For the question that is posed to him is the age-old heritage of humanity: an archetype, rich in secret life, which seeks to add itself to our own individual life in order to make it whole.” Jung goes on to say: “Reason sets the boundaries far too narrowly for us, and would have us accept only the known – and that too with limitations – and live in a known framework, just as if we were sure how far life actually extends.”

The webinar’s provocative discussion generated a lively discussion between my wife and I as we sat with a glass of wine, later in the evening. We soon found, to our surprise, that talking about death became enlivening, as it led us into a more interesting discussion of life. We would like to share some of these thoughts with you.

We began our conversation by asking ourselves what  questions about death and the afterlife mean to how we are living today. By delving into the meaning behind Jung’s description of  “…an archetype, rich in secret life,” we were prompted to more deeply inquire: how does seeking an understanding of death and the afterlife enrich the individuation process and contribute to making our lives more whole. We also realized this kind of in-depth discussion gives us an opportunity to think about individuation and what our feeling of wholeness is from a slightly different perspective than usual.

When we talk about death seriously the first thing that comes up is our fear of death. Our fear leads to denial and an inability to form a perspective on the afterlife. Fear and denial rigidify the defensive stance of our egos and diminishes or inhibits their ability to face the transformative cycles through which we grow, the life-death-rebirth processes that are a necessary part of our individuation process. When denied and repressed our fear of death lurks in the depths of our psyche like a great white shark and its presence is ultimately reflected in our fear of becoming fully alive. This primitive devouring presence of danger can become reflected in the fears we harbor about our own necessary transformations and a future defined by the Self, rather than our values, goals, desires.

One of the main questions then becomes how does individuation, the dream of a life that fulfills its unique potentials, both help us and require us to forge a perspective on death and the afterlife. Our religious heritages are closely connected to death and they tell us in their own ways that death should inform life and how we live in this life will affect how we live in the afterlife. For these ideas to be reflected throughout history and, in some form, in almost every religion, makes them archetypal. That is why Jung thought it was critical to our wholeness to consider them. Jung knew that our ideas about death and the afterlife can either inform or cripple how we live, can limit us to the bounds of our intellects, or open us to the inspiring and healing powers of our emotions and the expanses of our mythopoetic capacities. We have an inherent longing to come up with our own conclusions about these mysteries. Our same religious history, Jung thought, reflects an additional longing, that is often buried so deep that we may not even be aware of it. This longing is to have our lives connected to something greater than ourselves, something infinite, so we can embody something essential to insure that our life matters.

Let us not forget that in Jungian psychology our inherent needs reflect powerful instinctual energies that call for psychological channels to contain and direct them. Jung likened the flow of instinctual energy to a river and the archetype as the deep channel in which the water of life has flowed for years, creating a riverbed (C.W. 10, para. 395) that directs this energy.

I was dropped into the vastest of these mysteries as a child, when my mother died. Her death left me feeling abandoned in a hostile world and shattered my childhood image of God. Sadly the Protestant church of my childhood had forsaken the religious symbols and rituals that could have carried me along its archetypal riverbeds through those “deep water” emotions of shock, pain, grief, sorrow…and helped me heal, and find life anew.

Throughout history we have had rituals for preparing for death and the afterlife. But, as Massimilla and I often see in our practices, many of us have outgrown our religious containers when they fail to transform along with us and our needs. All too often, they no longer give us the mythic or symbolic riverbeds to carry us through these crucial human experiences. As a result of these failures, we find that Jung is right. We must deal with these needs as part of our efforts to become whole.

Massimilla and I find that our individuation process, the guiding focus of our lives, challenges us to begin facing death in two special ways. The first one is when we fully realize that we grow psychologically and spiritually by the process of transformation – the cycle of life, death, and rebirth – that is facilitated by our emotional healing and growing consciousness. As we are continuing to transform, we are facing another symbolic death, an encounter with the Self, the Transcendent, the Divine within us. This encounter which necessitates a death and a rebirth of our ego also leads us toward thoughts of the Beyond.

Jungian psychology is frequently so challenging to understand that we often have to remind ourselves that individuation is not an intellectual activity. It is based upon our ability to engage in life actively, reflect on our experiences, listen to our unconscious, and develop the emotional capacities that enable us to fully engage in life. The events in the individuation process are there to push us beyond the ways our histories, families and culture have defined us. In this process, we must be willing to face ourselves, confront the complexes in our shadow, transform their archetypal cores and thereby transform our lives. Here, again, is the transformative cycle, the symbolic life – death – rebirth process. As we live this process, we must continually help old parts of us die, and be willing to live in the betwixt and between state of not knowing who we fully are, until the new parts of our personality have emerged. In this way, if we fully pursue individuation, we will consciously and intentionally encounter death as part of an archetypal format of growth that is an integral part of life.

So this journey through self-knowledge initiates the possibility for us to have an encounter with the Self. This second aspect of the individuation process takes us into a more profound experience of transformation and death in life. The Self is the natural source of life energy and vitality within us. It is also the inherent drive within us to live a life with meaning, to seek, accept and realize our unique potentials and our totality…and to be connected to something larger than ourselves. If this creative force within us stays frustrated too long, then its appearance often catches us unaware and is a formidable experience. When this happens, we may find our hopes, dreams, ambitions and the way we want our lives to be – blocked. We may feel like life is drying up or we may be having to contend with a major illness or other predicament that we can see no way out of. Our visions of the future and our hopes may fail us. In a sense, encountering the Self is like dying. Jung articulates it like this: ” The experience of the Self is always like a defeat for the ego.” (C. W. 14, para. 778 ) Clearly, this experience is life-stopping, and well beyond having just “a bad day”. It is when the structures that support who we are – that give value and meaning to our lives and hope for our futures – have disappeared. We may feel like a shipwrecked Odysseus tossed naked, alone and exhausted onto a lonely beach; or a humiliated Inanna stripped of all that was valuable to her and then left hanging deserted and alone in the darkness of the underworld.

It has been very helpful to us to have some idea of the archetypal pattern we are going through when we experience these events. Edward Edinger in Encounter with the Self (p. 9) explains that if we know the archetypal process, if we can accept our defeat and persevere in the work of individuation, then we will meet the Self, “…the ‘Immortal One’ who wounds and heals, who casts down and raises up, who makes small and makes large – in a word, the One who makes us whole.” This experience is, in his words, ” a crucifixion of the ego.”  Our sense of I-dentity dies and is reborn smaller, and paradoxically, stronger. As our awareness of the Self and the part it has played in our lives grows, it becomes very comforting to know that we are no longer alone within ourselves and life. Edinger goes on to say, “The vicissitudes of life take on new and enlarged meaning. Dreams, fantasies, illness, accident and coincidence become messages from the unseen Partner with whom we share our lives.” Edinger, here, assures us that if we persevere through this psychological death, there will be a very interesting afterlife.

Massimilla and I have found that realizing the Self is a powerful experience of “living through death” which significantly changes our attitudes toward life, eternity, and the Beyond. As we have come to know the presence of the Self and learned to relate to it and accept it as the guiding spirit in our lives, this entire process has brought comfort to the way we feel about approaching death. In religious terms, it is like saying: “God Is with us.”

Death, the end of this life, should continually serve as a reminder that we need to face our “deaths” in this present life. Facing them carries us into the archetypal patterns of death, “…rich in secret life” which will open us to the support of our unconscious as we approach the end of our lives. Whenever we have to face a complex or an Encounter with the Self, it is important not to take the easy way out – by simply attempting to rebuild our lives and return to normal – without trying with all of our strength to understand the deep dimensions of what we have encountered or of what has happened to us. Jung refers to this taking the easy way out as “the regressive restoration of the persona”. (C. W. 17, para. 254) We’ve heard countless stories, like the one about the successful man who had a heart attack while on the golf course, and whose life was barely saved because a passer-by had a cell phone. In the hospital, he vowed to change his life. A few weeks later though, he was back at work and back on the golf course, having forgotten his vow.

In other words, we must go forward by “dying into life,” facing the deaths needed in our individuation in order to fulfill and live the broader potentials within us, to open our capacities to love more completely, and to be sure that when death finds us, we are fully alive. Individuation means accepting the reality of our unconscious, sacrificing our ego control of our lives and, with discernment, listening to the superior intelligence of the Self to guide us through life. We wonder, in the long run, how often we are like the man mentioned just now, who was more afraid of facing himself, of questioning his values, ideas and complexes, of “dying into life,” than he was of literally dying. As part of the journey, it is helpful if we can take this line of questioning a step further, and ask ourselves if our fear of dying into life is really our fear of living fully.

While Jung was writing The Red Book, during the darkest and most transformative period of his life, he understood from a dream that he had to “kill” the Parsifal within himself. For us, in psychological language, this means he had to transform the core of the Parsifal complex within himself and redirect its instinctual energy into avenues more in harmony with his Self. Of course this was no small realization. The goals and values of this complex, which we would call his central or dominant complex, had carried him out of childhood and into a very successful adult life. While he realized it had become a prison that he needed to break out of, it also meant sacrificing the drive and ideals of success and the good life that had guided him so far.

Think for a minute about the enormity of this realization. We are called on to sacrifice the psychological structure and the dominant characteristics that may have made us feel safe, successful – that formed our adaptation, defined our personality and is a cornerstone in who we are. This is what “dying into life” really means and it is what becoming fully alive really means. Massimilla and I have also discovered, through our decades of work, that dying into life doesn’t mean that we have to devalue or throw away any of our competencies or things we have accomplished. But they have to come into the service of life in new ways.

As we think about such radical shifts, it is helpful to remember that the basic goal of Jungian analysis is the transformation of the core of complexes. (The Symbolic Quest: Basic Concepts in Analytical Psychology, Edward Whitmont, p. 67) In a personal conversation with us, Marie-Louise von Franz emphasized the importance of transforming our dominant complex. This transformation is the most significant death and rebirth in our lives and opens us to the future inherent in our Self. One might say that this transformation opens us to our true afterlife in this life.

Every complex that develops within us as we grow up carries the wounds and experiences of our childhood, the wounds and the effects of the unlived lives of our parents and ancestors, and the values and expectations of our society. Jung concluded from a dream in which he encountered “distinguished spirits” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 307) that as we work through our individuation, we are also carrying the individuation of our ancestors forward. In this way we are connected to the afterlife as we are often facing and addressing unresolved, unhealed and unredeemed issues that may have gone on in our families for generations.

Massimilla and I are very moved by the opportunities we have to transform our psychological legacies into healing and growthful directions. We have also found that just as a real death is harsh, every period of transformation has its grief…and experiencing it is part of being human. As Jungians, we must guard against the temptation to intellectualize life and Jungian psychology. It is too easy to deny our almost day by day experiences of grief and bury them in busyness or sublimate them in searches for momentary pleasures. It is also too easy to step aside and intellectualize death and our need to mourn for our own death. We can say it is just another passage, or as Hermann Hesse said, “To die is to go into the Collective Unconscious, to lose oneself in order to be transformed into form, pure form.” (C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse, Miguel Serrano, p. 35) To some extent, this is a comforting thought, but no such thought ever came from Jung. He continued to search into life and its mysteries as long as he was alive.

Dying into life though individuation and knowing that the Self is supporting us has lessened our fear of death, perhaps even eliminated it. At the same time, it has greatly lessened our fear of life. Most of us don’t even know we have a fear of life, or how great that fear is, until individuation leads us into the full acceptance of life’s horror and beauty, its wholeness and our wholeness, our true strengths and our real weaknesses, our ability to love, our capacity for rage, our experience of ecstasy and our despair. Dying into life continually increases our ability to stop living in denial, and to see how integral a part of our lives death truly is, and how thoroughly it is woven into the fabric of our existence. Death and the afterlife are still mysteries, but we can be very in touch with them and informed by them.

A life fully lived brings peace, in the face of death. In our professional practices and in our personal lives, Massimilla and I have the security of trusting the archetypal processes we have experienced, to support our lives. In addition, we can see the possibilities of becoming spiritually and psychologically stronger, while we weaken physically. Most of all, we can feel the support of the Self when individuation is our task and, from all we can see, this is the best preparation for the afterlife.

We love the passage in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (p. 306), where Jung says: “But while the man who despairs marches toward nothingness, the one who has placed his faith in the archetype follows the tracks of life and lives right into his death. Both, to be sure, remain in uncertainty, but the one lives against his instincts, the other with them.”

“Revisioning the Dead, Alive in the Afterlife”has reminded us of the importance of these living energies and their presence in our psyches and in our lives, and how important it is to honor them. We are glad to have shared our thoughts with you.

– See more at: http://ashevillejungcenter.org/dying-into-life/

The Cross as a Tree of Life

This article was originally published in the Fall 2013 edition of The Atlanta Jung Society newsletter.

Monastery of St. Anna, Tree of Life, John of Corraduccio, circa 1430

 

Life is difficult“… Scott Peck’s famous book, The Road Less Traveled provocatively opens with this assertion. Continuing, he says, many are called, few are chosen and that those who are chosen are dragged through the door kicking and screaming. Oh, how I identify with these words when I think about the individuation process! As we know this is the process of becoming whole and who we are meant to be. It is also the process of having our ego come into an increasingly close relationship with our Self until it becomes an expression of it in life. Such a coming closer is uniquely personal and brings a confrontation with our old identities and thus becomes life changing.

Jung told us clearly that every step closer to the Self is a defeat for the ego with its old ideas about who we are and who we can become. This struggle is meant to transform us and if we understand this process it should make our ego more balanced and stronger. To take up this struggle of transformation reminds me of the symbolism of “taking up my own cross”… and in the Individuation process, the cross becomes a symbol of our transformation, a symbol of Life.

As a symbol, we can see the cross representing, as Edinger proposes, what our ego – our self with a small “s” – must go through in the dynamic journey of transformation that marks the path of its increasing relationship to the Self. Scott Peck is right about life being difficult. Each step in the journey of transformation includes dying to some part of our ego. The Individuation process is marked by learning that life doesn’t conform to who we think we are or want to be, or how we think life should be or we have dreamed of it to be. As we give these things up it feels like a crucifixion, themortificatio stage in alchemy, and we suffer as we are symbolically scourged, hurt, torn apart, depressed and lost. Understanding and embracing this process, enduring it, submitting ourselves to its passion leads to a fuller life. If we accept the challenge of the confrontations with the dark aspects of transformation – instead of fighting it or avoiding it, then something extraordinary happens. Our cross becomes the “true” Tree of Life and we experience the new life and creativity that the Self has to offer.

I love the fresco by Giovanni di Corraduccio detto Mazzaforte in the Monastery of Saint Anna, also called the Monastery of the Countesses which is in Foligno, Perugia, Italy. The fresco, circa 1430, gives us a wonderful visual representation of each step in the Individuation journey. Mazzaforte, a great artist, devoted his life to religious symbolism. Here in this image he represents Jesus Christ hung on a tree. At the base of this tree, there is a skull and next to it a scroll that says “Unless a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.” (John: 12,24). Psychologically, this statement can be interpreted as describing the moment when we reach a certain point of desperation/determination and say, “Enough, this is it” and from that moment we are able to take a new direction in life. This symbolic tree of life shows both our own life’s journey and the journey of each of our periods of transformation. I have found it especially meaningful that this image is in a sacred space dedicated to a woman saint and that it has been a refuge for women over the centuries. This fact seems to ground this cross/ tree of life in the feminine just as the cross is grounded in the earth.

Since our space is limited I am only able to give a brief description of each scroll and a psychological parallel to each one of them as a turning point in the Christian myth and in our periods of transformation.

1. The first scroll is about the Incarnation of Christ. It also includes Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the Annunciation, Visitation and Nativity of Christ.

The birth story of Jesus can represent both the birth of our conscious ego and the potential for the incarnation of our Self in life. There is also the reminder that as King Nebuchadnezzar, if our ego reaches too far in its belief that we can control our psyche, we will lose touch with our humanity and fall into a dangerous regression.

2. The second scroll contains the Circumcision, the Adoration by the three Kings, the Presentation of Jesus to the Temple and the Slaughter of the Innocents.

In the Hebrew tradition, circumcision comes eight days after birth and symbolizes God’s promise of the future to Abraham. In psychological terms, this ritual act can symbolize the promise of a fulfilled life if the path of individuation is faithfully followed. The promise represented by circumcision can mature into the circumcision of the heart, a symbolic purification of love. Psychologically, this can mean that Individuation can carry us into experiences of love that are not contaminated by complexes. In every transformation there is a slaughter of our own innocence, our old identity, pieces of our old self concept, old values, how we see old obligations, sentimental values, even what have been our strongest ideals.

3. The third scroll has the Baptism of Christ, Christ in the desert, Christ tempted by Satan, Christ giving Sight to a Man Born Blind, and the Transfiguration.

Our ego is accepting the journey of individuation which brings both a sense of loneliness and temptation. We are easily tempted to identify with the Self, become inflated with the power of our new journey, and have old complexes try to usurp the vitality and creativity of the Self. Staying authentically in touch with the Self teaches us how important it is to “open our eyes and see ” the true nature of our reality. Transformation, rebirth and renewal implies a change in our former nature.

4. In the fourth scroll we have Christ in the garden of Gethsemani, the Resurrection of Lazarus, Christ’ Entry to Jerusalem, Washing of the Feet and the Last Supper.

In these scenes our Ego is facing the death, agony of an old orientation, that precedes the birth of a new one. It is a moment of despair, where there is no comfort or support. The Self, though, is shown to be able to bring new life to the dead. Many people today have difficulty understanding the symbolic life, yet in order to grasp this higher understanding, it is essential to understand and actually live the deep life which takes us out of our heads and illusions of safety and into the blood, sweat, tears and exuberance of life. Such earthiness always results in humility.

5. In the fifth scroll Judas receives his Compensation, Christ is praying in the garden of Gethsemani, there is the Kiss of Judas, the Death of Judas and the Capture of Christ.

From a psychological point of view we can say that at some point in our Individuation we discover that when we betray ourselves to please others, to gain approval, or meet social and cultural expectations, what we are doing will lead us to bitter consequences. Jesus praying at Gethsemani and being captured shows the powerful tension we are caught in between collective values and obligations and our sense of responsibility to the Individuation process.

6. In the sixth scroll Peter denies Jesus, Christ is in front of Caiphas, Christ is in front of Pilate, and there is the Scourging.

How often do we deny our true self in the face of conventional wisdom and social pressure? How often do we betray our true self in response to the pressures of collective ideals, obligations, responses? Our question is: can we remember and build on these events, and have them become the “rock” in our foundation and not fall into discouragement self-criticism and abandonment of the journey.

7. Christ is mocked in the seventh scroll and we have Christ Ascending Mount Calvary, Christ nailed to the Cross, Soldiers Quarreling for his Tunic, the Crucifixion, and Christ is given vinegar.

When we pursue Individuation, we become easy victims of negative projections and we are often accused of being inconsiderate, selfish and self- centered. It appears that we are not the person we used to be by the people closest to us, whom we have relied on for love, support, and friendship. In this journey in which we thought we would find fulfillment, we may first find the pain of rejection and loneliness. This adds to the challenges and pain of our transformative periods.

8. In the eighth scroll we have the Death of Christ, Longinus piercing the side of Christ, God the Father and Two Angels showing the bloody tunic of Christ and Christ in the Sepulcher.

There is a paradox in this image that shows both the death of an old part of our ego, the agony of that process, the finality of that process, and also that the strength required to suffer and endure this process had been attained.

9. The ninth scroll contains the Descent of Christ to Limbus, Noli me tangere , Christ holding a rod that is blooming and Christ resurrected appearing to the Apostles.

After the crucifixion of our ego, there is a period of darkness and despair when everything seems lost. It is what the mystics call the Dark Night of the Soul when our life seems totally alone, without vitality, purpose, meaning and future. But the rod that is blooming reflects the hope in the tree of life and the new transformed ego.

10. The tenth scroll has the Ascent of Christ, Christ seated at the Right Hand of the Father, Pentecost and Christ forgiving the Sins of the Elected.

The ego has become integrated in its relationship with the Self. The Ego is now in its proper relationship to the Self and is receiving new vitality from the Self. The value of the Shadow has been recognized and accepted.

11. The eleventh scroll contains the Resurrection of the Dead, the Last Judgment, the Fall of the damned and the Coronation of the Virgin Mary.

Now, forgotten parts of our personality come back to life. Through reflection, through the act of cognition and judgment, we strengthen and enlarge our consciousness. Thus, the Self becomes manifested in the human acts of reflection and living. As healers, or simply as conscious human beings we must accept and transform our dark side and honor the feminine within us if we desire to be of a positive influence in this world, and accept and deal with the dark aspects in others.

12. In the twelfth scroll Christ is surrounded by the Virgin Mary, Apostles and Angels, Christ is at the Right Hand of the Father with the Apostles, Christ fons vitae.

The feeling of wholeness that we attain in Individuation connects us with eternity in this life. Only if we are capable of truly accepting ourselves including our most undesirable aspects, we will be able to accept others with their own troubles and miseries. In this way, we become true fountains of life.

Like the grain of wheat, we have fallen on the ground and died, and now we yield a rich harvest of wholeness and renewed life.

In the Individuation process, “embracing our cross” means accepting the transforming power of suffering or as Jung says accepting that “every psychic advance of man arises from the suffering of the soul (CW 11,497). It means that Individuation brings about a passion within the ego that is necessary for us to come into relationship with the Self. When the Self becomes the center of how we live our life, it is a humbling defeat for the ego and often threatens the foundation of our self-esteem during our period of transformation.

Many people are interested in Jung and Jungian psychology but, as Scott Peck pointed out, not all of them are willing to pay the demanding price of Individuation. Some people are willing to do the work up to a certain point but are unwilling or unable to threaten their prized, convictions, values, old establishment thoughts, or obsolete positions that are asking for renewal. In terms of images, they opt for a normal tree as their representation for the Individuation process. Their development is acceptable, open to life, but not truly fruitful or truly life-giving because their standard is in some aspects still a collective or complex dominated one.

There are other people that do understand what Individuation is about – they know and accept that life is difficult and humbling. They are willing to honor that recognition with their own sacrifices in order to completely fulfill their destiny. It is not an easy path because we are all called to face our fear of life, fear of failure, doubts, insecurities and to face and transform our major complexes. But along this path we are accompanied step by step by the Self which gives us the tools to create Our Tree of Life – something beyond what we could have imagined was possible.

Jung himself went through his own crucifixion. In “Memories, Dreams, Reflections” he writes that “the daemon of creativity has ruthlessly had its way with me”. Before he died, Jung had a dream in which he saw a square with trees growing in it, and the roots of these trees were intertwined with green and gold. It is as if the unconscious was saying, “Job well done. Your life has developed into something life-giving and precious.”

 

Massimilla M. Harris, Ph.D. is a Jungian Analyst in private practice in Asheville, N.C.. She is also a licensed Tomatis practitioner level 2, author and lecturer. You may read more about her at www.budharris.com and contact her by email at mxmilla@budharris.com.

The Danger in Our Unlived Lives

Our unlived lives take their revenge through our restless feelings of dissatisfaction, guilt over failing to live up to our hopes and dreams, emotional pain that undermines us, destructive habits, and even in our illnesses. The roots of the things that often disrupt our lives, drain our energy and thwart our intentions lie in the conflict between our longings for growth and freedom, our longings for peace and safety, and our reluctance or refusal to pay the price for our authenticity through a special kind of suffering. In his “The Age of Anxiety”, W. H. Auden says: “We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”

The special kind of suffering I am talking about comes when we try our best to acknowledge the complexes that drive our lives, to seek to transform them and to live the unlived portions of our lives that have been left in their wake. We call this “transformative suffering.” (See my lecture, “A Lifetime of Promise: A Jungian Guide to Discovering the Transformative Power in Our Complexes.”) This venture will quickly teach us that to love life and to be fully engaged in it will threaten the walls supporting the identity we have so carefully constructed.

Most of us want to define ourselves as some version of a person that wants to think positively, be nice, good, caring, handles money well, takes obligations seriously and generally acts responsibly. In fact, to even begin questioning how we have defined ourselves and to begin seeking to become more conscious of our wholeness creates a fear that we may be only dimly aware of, but that is strong as our fear of death. In addition, far too many of us feel so overwhelmed by our obligations and the pace of our lives that we only long for peace and balance. To be in this position makes Jung’s statement that “…he could not imagine a fate more awful, a fate worse than death, that a life lived in perfect balance and harmony…” baffling and scary.

The creation story of our unlived lives starts soon after we are born and we begin shaping ourselves to avoid shame, punishment, harm and embarrassment. Little daily decisions and bargains with ourselves help us become collaborators in the demise of our spirits. Choosing how we will be good, what we will rebel against, the desirability of certain playmates, bribes for grades, or good grades to earn love, help us “sell out” our integrity and undermine our self-worth, even though some of this is necessary to actually form our identity and grow up. Embracing practicality, being sensible, the promise of a “good life” with success and the avoidance of pain keep us off the byways that could add depth, meaning and vitality to our lives. The inner voices of integrity, conscience and authenticity weaken against the pressure of conventional wisdom, busy and demanding lives, and the fearful appearance of the world. Before long, we are so embedded in our identities that, without knowing it, what we have considered our best characteristics may have become expressions of our major complexes. Yet, questioning ourselves has become difficult and threatening as we fear that it may disrupt our lives.

To reverse this process, in order to become more whole and authentic, we must find the courage to face the parts of ourselves we have denied. The process actually begins with confronting our ideals, values and obligations. In the long run, our option may be to confront them or die from them. I have seen more than one person sacrifice their life to an illness rather than give up their persona of a positive attitude and take the perilous journey into their grief, rage and history. It is no easy matter to consider that our melancholy, despair, rage, and fear may be the gateways to new life, creativity, love, and awe.

I remember working with a woman brought up as the youngest of four children with a cold mother and an angry father. She survived her childhood by doing well in school and later by pleasing her superiors. But in midlife, her denied needs and potentials rebelled leaving her overweight and depressed. The answer for her was not in the mainstream treatment of her depression. It was in getting to know the negative complex that kept her so self-critical and self-belittling that an important part of her was paralyzed in passivity. Working through this complex freed her animus, her inner masculine strength that could support her having her own voice. Psychologically, it was like Cinderella breaking free to meet her prince. This prince helped her recognize her denied capacities and gave her the strength to devote her life to bringing these abilities into her living reality.

I also recall a middle-aged man who had been raised to be a pleaser, to repress the strength of his own desires and to sublimate his needs into finding approval by satisfying others. But after two failed marriages, he realized that his relationships had been formed on a lie, a version of himself that wasn’t deeply real and on an idealism that would make any relationship hopeless. To begin with, he had to find the courage to face disapproval, to take the risks of first standing up to the voices of his indoctrination in his psyche, and then confronting the people his new identity disturbed. This group also included the people he had unconsciously trained to expect him to be a pleaser. Then, in order to free his anima, to allow his inner Cinderella to come to the ball, he had to explore his moods, the ones he had tried to conceal even from himself, along with the blocked emotions they represented.

In these two oversimplified examples, both people had to face the fear and loneliness that had pressured them into their roles, and then their anger and grief over their early reality. This vital work released new, potent energy within them and increased their feelings of strength, competence, and hope in the future.

Our unlived lives – the values, visions, talents and longings we haven’t admitted – are actually necessary as part of our wholeness, and essential to support our true purpose, meaning and trust in life. Unlived life will begin rebelling when its repression becomes a toxic part of our makeup, and when our failure to love ourselves is failing our future.

This rebellion will test us in the halls of the most sacrosanct and vulnerable parts of how we value ourselves, the foundations of our identity. Facing ourselves and our unlived lives isn’t easy work. We call it “confronting the unconscious,” but the need for it shows that we are being called by the life force within our depths, the Self, to become, to truly experience a second birth, to become a co-creator with the Divine and to live beyond our conventional ideas of the “good life” in order to help heal and redeem ourselves and our part of the world.

Our greatest spiritual traditions are based on the themes of self-knowledge, growth and transformation. The mystical traditions raise our journey into wholeness to a journey into holiness. This lifts our lives into a realm that is far more profound than simply trying to be good and happy. The call of our unlived life is a call from our Self. The Self in Jungian terms represents our instinctual drive for consciousness and wholeness. Archetypically, it is the supreme ordering system in our psyche and is continuously focused on trying to develop us to fulfill the highest potentials within us. The real struggle is between our willingness to participate in our transformation and our often unconscious yearning to stay safely grounded in our old selves.

The failure to search for the calls of the Self in the midst of my struggles or to avoid the encounters that reveal them are a risk I am no longer willing to take. Whether these events fail to enrich my life or bring it new hope, joy and love along with life’s suffering is up to me. The cross of the moment may require me to overcome my dread or lethargy with passion and if I do so, the moment of the special suffering of transformation will give birth to hope, confidence and the renewed experience of being fully alive.