Carl Greer's Blog, page 2

The Poem of Your Life

In ancient times, aging poets in Japan would craft a death poem in acknowledgment that their time on earth was coming to an end and as a reflection on the life they had lived. There’s a story that when the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho was getting on in years, he was asked if he had written his death poem yet, and he responded that every poem he had ever written had been his death poem. In other words, his life’s work was shaped by his awareness that we should live as if our lives might end at any moment—no regrets, no sleepwalking through life making choices unconsciously.

While thinking about death can cause feelings of sadness and fear, it can also help us to become aware of the choices we’ve been making that have led us to a sense of dissatisfaction, purposelessness, or perhaps numbness. The “walking death” of living according to old, stale habits, refusing to replace them with more satisfying ones, can make us feel even more melancholy than we would feel if instead, we faced the truth about the way we are living, let some things in our life “die,” and made way for new things to grow.

You can take the first step in the journey to living a more conscious and fulfilling life by writing a poem about the life you have lived or the one you wish to have lived. Perhaps this poem of your life will be free-form, or maybe it will be a haiku—or a eulogy. You can consider how you would like to be talked about after you’re gone and what you would like to have accomplished. You can put some thought into what the poem of your life would be if you were to write it at the end of your life, imagining what you might experience between now and then.

Whether you look back and write this poem about your life to date or you write it as if it were a sort of eulogy written from the perspective of your future, older self, you can consider whether there’s a new way to think about events that caused sorrow or regret.

The future will likely hold some challenges. When writing the poem, you can think about that and imagine your response: how you might struggle with difficulties yet perhaps overcome them so that they do not crush you.

Can you find humor in what once irritated you and meaning in what once seemed like a pointless exercise in frustration?

Can you imagine finding the courage to make changes even if that means you suffer? Maybe the discomfort will be worth it because you’ll be able to experience something better than you’re experiencing now.

While you are reflecting, you can think about the poetry in your life now and in the past—the beauty that inspired a sense of awe and wonder in you. What moments were exquisite and why?

If life seems dull and without any sense of the mystical, how might you take advantage of opportunities to feed your hunger for poetry and beauty?

What might your life be like someday as a result of any new choices you make now? What will you reflect on and feel good about?

What joys have you yet to experience?

How would you like to have faced any challenges?

As you look at what you have accumulated to this point—friends, accolades, wealth, or material items—you might want to imagine yourself giving it away someday. There’s a legend that when Alexander the Great lay dying at the age of thirty-two, he made three last requests: for his doctors to carry his coffin, for gold and silver from his treasury to be spread over the road during the procession to his grave, and for his hands be positioned to hang over his coffin’s sides. The idea was to show that even the best doctors might not be able to save us, we can’t take our wealth with us, and we arrive in this world empty-handed and leave the same way.

As you think about any treasures you have held onto, identify what you’re willing to let go of: It’s possible to retain the fond memories of how you acquired and enjoyed them yet give them away. You can think about who would appreciate having your treasures after you’re gone.

If you still have things you wish to acquire, you might want to think about the effort it will take to acquire them. Will the work have been worth it when you look back at the end of your life? Is it time to begin shifting your attention from building up security to creating a sense of purpose? If you want more joy in your life and more time with people you love, you can consider whether you’re on the path to making that happen.

In reflecting on the poem of your life, you might see a way to begin a new story, one more pleasing to you and Source, a story that is filled with vitality instead of a list of accomplishments you didn’t truly value. Like Basho, you can choose to live conscious of your mortality. The result might be a life that is more poetic and satisfying.

A version of this article appeared on Elephant Journal.

Ready to reflect on your life? You might want to take a look at the self-reflection questions in my books including The Necktie and the Jaguar .

The post The Poem of Your Life appeared first on Carl Greer.

Practice the Art of Listening Well

In working as an analyst and as a clinical psychologist, I’ve learned that it’s best to listen, listen, listen, and then listen some more before responding. This course of action is especially wise whenever the person I am working with is upset. When it comes to conflict resolution strategies, at the top of the list is the art of listening well.

Listening does not mean remaining silent while being focused on what you want to say next rather than what the other person is saying. Listening means being fully present as you take in what a person says verbally and nonverbally. Don’t think about what you might say next or try to anticipate what they will say or do. Don’t let your mind wander. 

To practice the art of listening well, it’s helpful to keep in mind two important concepts from martial arts: kime and ma. Ma is keeping the right distance, and kime is focus. I have applied ma and kime in my psychological and analytical practices and in business dealings as well.

By not being too quick to engage someone who appears to be angry or upset, you practice ma. Conflicts can arise quickly if you do not keep some distance from your own emotions, which you don’t want to overwhelm you. You want to remain calm while being sensitive to the other person’s emotions. If you don’t listen at an appropriate emotional distance, and the person you are dealing with is overwrought, you might get swept up into a tornado of feelings. On the other hand, if you are too emotionally distant, you might come across as cold and uninterested, further upsetting the other person. It is challenging to keep your distance from another person’s anger and listen intently without becoming emotionally involved or too analytical and distant.

Listening well also involves kime: paying attention to the conversation that is unfolding. You react to what you are hearing in a timely and appropriate way, offering the right response at the right time, with just the right words. 

Like everyone, you have an aspect of consciousness called the observing self, which can unemotionally witness another person’s sarcasm and aggressive or defensive stance without generating aggressiveness or defensiveness within you. It allows you to see when you are not being threatened and to remember that another person’s behavior and emotions may have little if anything to do with you. As you focus on taking in cues about another person’s state of being, feelings, and thoughts, the observing self keeps you feeling steady on your feet, grounded in the awareness that you may not have all the information you need in order to know what is actually happening versus what appears to be happening.

When I was first learning martial arts, I was taught that if you remain loose until the last moment before making an assertive move, tightening only at that point, your action will have greater impact. If you are tight, you will get tired out and will be slow—and when you make your “move,” it will have less impact. If you are too loose, and don’t tighten up at the right moment, your move won’t have much force. Similarly, when someone seems to be upset with you, remain loose, listening in a focused way. When the time comes to speak, focus: Your words will have greater impact. After you have spoken, become loose again, listening carefully. Then, when the other person is finished, acknowledge what has been said. You might repeat their words back to them, and think or say, “You may have a point there.” Leave a pause before saying what you feel you need to say. Your focus on what is happening in the moment as each moment unfolds before you opens the eyes of your observing self. It restrains your ego, the aspect of your awareness that wants to defend you and fight back.

If you are too distant from the other person, not listening and not focused on what is being said in the present, your wandering mind may miss something important that is being communicated. It is natural to want to step back from someone who is crying or showing emotions that make you feel uncomfortable—or you may prematurely try to comfort them, before they have had the opportunity to fully express themselves. If you can remain present, observing as they speak, you will be at just the right distance to truly hear what they are saying. You will improve your listening skills and be able to pick up on the word, the inflection, the gesture, or the tone of voice that tells you what you might otherwise miss. 

Perhaps your careful, focused listening at the right emotional distance will reveal that behind the other person’s anger is hurt, and behind the hurt is shame. Perhaps it will reveal that you are not hearing all that you need to hear to truly understand what they are feeling and thinking. Maybe you will even come to see mistakes you have made. 

Whenever you are in a conflict, remain present, practicing the art of listening well, practicing kime and ma: focus at the right distance. Be loose and listen, and tighten up to make a point only when the time is right. Remember that conflict resolution is easier when you do not add fuel to the fire of someone’s anger or retreat into defensiveness and shut off your ability to hear what the other person is saying. If you remain patient, and wait, you will see that the force of strong emotions and harsh words starts to dissipate.

Of course, other strategies are available to you as well. You can avoid conflict by speaking with care, choosing words that don’t inflame. Avoid blame and make statements about how you feel and what you are thinking and experiencing. Accusations make it difficult for the other person to listen, to pay attention to all that you are expressing. Defensiveness can intensify conflicts, so let your observing self arise. Then, take care to say what you need to say while leaving room for the other person to listen—and room for the emergence of that person’s observing self. If you practice the art of listening well, you can make it more likely that any conflicts you experience will be productive and less hurtful and lead to resolution and connection.

A version of this article appeared in New Spirit Journal.

You can learn more about kime and ma and how to use it in my book The Necktie and the Jaguar: A Memoir to Help You Change Your Story and Find Fulfillment, published by Chiron Publications.

The post Practice the Art of Listening Well appeared first on Carl Greer.

Treating a Spiritual Illness

Whatever your state of health and well-being, however hard you strive for greater wellness, you might not realize that you’re neglecting your spiritual well-being. You may need to treat a spiritual illness.

Not long ago, I received a strong message in a dream: Death can be a spiritual illness. I understood that what my unconscious was telling me was to explore the relationship between spiritual illness and the type of death we experience when we feel drained of joy, vitality, and enthusiasm for life.

The death most of us worry about is physical death—an end to our mortal existence and the body’s loss of the life force. Yet there’s another death we should be concerned about, a slow death we experience when we don’t fully embrace our lives today. Yearning for the past, wishing for a better future, and being unable to recognize the gift of today is a sort of spiritual illness. If we feel we can’t transform our lives, we might feel so frustrated and melancholy that we fall into despair and hopelessness.

Accept this moment, whatever it holds.

Doing so can help you to shift your perception of your situation and appreciate what you have instead of what you don’t have. You can free up the energy you are currently spending in longing for a quick and easy cure to your unhappiness—or in distracting yourself from it. Distractions only keep emotional discomfort at bay temporarily.

Choose to find the beauty in some aspect of your life today.

You might focus on the health you have instead of any ailments that reduce your mobility or cause you pain. You might draw your attention to an area of your life that is going well instead of an area of your life that you tend to obsess about. Why are you successful in that area of your life? What can you learn from your successes that can be applied to other “chapters” in your story?

Spend some time in nature and tap into its wisdom.

Nature offers spiritual lessons if we are willing to slow down and observe what it is communicating to us. A scarred tree with a few dead or dying branches doesn’t give up creating nourishment from the sun and sending it through its trunk and surviving branches. It keeps the life force moving through it, through every cell and every leaf and twig. As you think about a tree that may have suffered some damage but continues to grow and thrive, can you identify any areas in your life that are growing and thriving despite your having suffered or been hurt in some way? Do you need to prune something away? Can you let something “die” and not give it any more attention? Is it time to focus instead on some aspect of your life that is working for you and giving you nourishment?

As I grow older and have to deal with physical challenges, I’m much more aware of my mortality than I was years ago. It’s easier for me to focus on my vitality and the potential for continued growth, healing, and thriving if I remember to accept what is, shift my focus to where my life is satisfying, and spend time in nature absorbing her wisdom. I reconnect with nature in any way I can. Time in nature can be a spiritual tonic, strengthening your spiritual immune system that you can draw strength from when life is particularly stressful.

I also relate to death differently from how I would have years ago. I see that endings—things dying—are a part of the cycle of life. I let go of anything that reduces my enthusiasm and vitality, such as focusing too much on medical problems or the limitations I have right now as one of billions of people dealing with a pandemic. Consequently, I feel a sense of vitality despite having health challenges and being aware that while we can do our best to delay physical death, it will eventually claim us.

I believe that where we put our attention in the river of life will determine what we experience. If you want to feel a sense of vitality, optimism, and enthusiasm for your life, lay the foundation for all of that by consciously choosing to focus on what gives you spiritual nourishment. Are there practices that help you feel connected to your spiritual self and to the cosmos and the love and wisdom of Spirit? What are they, and why aren’t you using them more often?

What if you were to make the time to engage in those practices instead of doing what you know drains you of vitality?

What if you were to spend more time in nature and observe it as it observes you? What if you were to ask it to share its wisdom with you?

What if instead of struggling to distract yourself from your sadness, and feeling that your life should be different, you looked at how you frame what you have experienced and are experiencing and consciously chose to change the story of your life?

There are some things we have little or no influence over. However, we don’t have to be mired in hopelessness, helplessness, and inner turmoil. We can reclaim our vibrancy by appreciating what we have and the potential to transform our lives if we’re willing to let go of some things—resentments and attachments, for example, or rigid ideas about what we have to have in order to be happy.

You have control over the meaning you make of the experiences you have had and are having right now. If cynicism and moroseness seem like they’re your birthright given what happened in your past and the family in which you were raised, question that. Maybe you have inherited a spiritual illness that is robbing you of the energy to be adventurous and explore the possibilities before you and that are as yet unseen.

Every time you wake up to another new day, you have the potential to transform how you perceive your life. Make a conscious choice to focus your awareness on what gives you vitality and see if the circumstances of your life don’t shift. In doing so, you may be remedying a spiritual illness that has kept you from living fully for too long.

A version of this article appeared in Eden magazine and Oracle 20/20.

You can learn more about spirituality and personal transformation in my books.

The post Treating a Spiritual Illness appeared first on Carl Greer.

Connecting to Spirit in Nature

When I was not yet old enough for kindergarten, I would often leave behind my baby brother, who was still in cloth diapers and in need of my mother’s watchful eye, and wander off by myself to explore the town and countryside near my home in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Neither of my parents realized that my sense of adventure bordered on the foolhardy. Oblivious to the possibility of being hit by a speeding streetcar or falling onto the road below, I played on a dangerous trestle that spanned a nearby road. Confident I could navigate using only my homing sense, I didn’t announce when I was going out for a walk that might take me far from our house. Since I always showed up in time for lunch or supper, my distracted mother apparently didn’t worry about whether I was somewhere in the woods or upstairs in my room.

Among my discoveries was a stream that ran through a valley about a mile away. Thickets lined its banks, and I picked my way through them to stand and watch the water leaping and lifting over stones in its path. The trunks of the trees were covered in lichen that to my eyes seemed like maps from an ancient world. The buckeyes yielded a prized harvest of nuts that I would collect and carry home.

I also felt the urge to investigate the small farm that bordered the hillside at the end of our street.

Interconnected in Unity

One day when I was five, I stepped onto the property and suddenly, a glowing, ethereal light appeared to encircle the apple tree in front of me. Time seemed to be suspended as my mind struggled to grasp what was happening. The tree, the sky, the land, and I were one, connected by the light. Was I alive? In a world of dreams? The light seemed to weave together everything in the field, including me, unifying all that existed. There was no separation, no aloneness. All were intermingled in a field of energy, every tree aware of its every leaf and every leaf aware of every insect, bird, and ray of sunlight. I had never felt anything like this before.

Then, just as abruptly, the light around the tree faded, and I was back in the ordinary world. Before me was just a tree like any other. The magic and sense of safety, comfort, and love had completely evaporated. Where had it gone? How could I get it to return?

I had no idea what had just happened or why, but to this day, I can recall that undeniable feeling of being interconnected with all living things. This awakening would be the first of many such experiences, whether invited or spontaneous, that would break through into my ordinary, everyday life and remind me that there is so much more to our existence than what the eye can see.

Shamanism, Mysticism, and Nature

In a traditional culture, the elders might regard a child who consistently wanders alone into nature as receiving a call to the shaman’s way. They might start such a child’s training at an early age. But how does someone today hear a shamanic calling and respond to it if they do not live in a culture that has a tradition of shamanic training and lineages? Where can one find opportunities to learn more about the mystical? It’s difficult, but not impossible, to have what you need show up for you—as my story shows. And I think it often happens more easily when we’re immersed in nature. A Jungian would say that when we are ready, our unconscious will help us to see a path forward. It might be that time in nature is one way to cue our unconscious to awaken us to our interconnectedness and spiritual nature.

As you look back on your life, do you remember having any mystical experiences? What is the memory? What do you make of that experience?

Connecting with Spirit in nature is an experience many have had. Do you feel closer to Spirit when you are outdoors in a natural space?

Do you seek out nature as a refuge and a place for restoration? Are there particular places in nature where you have felt that you are being healed simply by being in them? What are they, and why do you think they have been such healing places for you?

If you are not inclined to seek out nature as a refuge, how do you seek solace in your life? What spiritual practices help you connect with your spiritual self?

You might want to consider spending time in nature to see how it affects your mood and sense of well-being—and later, write about your experience. Why not visit nature intending to experience an awakening to the interconnectedness of all things and see what unfolds? You might want to go there with the intention of feeling unity with all that exists and see if that affects what happens there while you are alone in the woods, by a lake, or in the desert.

Open to the possibility of an awakening.

This article is adapted from my book The Necktie and The Jaguar: A Memoir to Help You Change Your Story and Find Fulfillment and previously appeared in Evolving Magazine.

The post Connecting to Spirit in Nature appeared first on Carl Greer.

Playing with Metaphors to Help You with Transformation

Is your story not working for you? Does it seem to be influencing what you’re experiencing and causing you unhappiness? You can change your story–and your life. You might want to work with metaphors so transformation is easier for you. Play around with them to better understand what you have experienced and the different ways of looking at your past, present, and future.

Maybe your current story is zapping you of energy, enthusiasm, and optimism because it’s a story like one of these:

 I’m getting nowhere fast. People like me can’t expect too much out of life. If I take a risk, I’ll fail miserably, so I’d better stick with my life as it is even though I feel unfulfilled.

With a story like that, it’s hard to be hopeful about transformation. However, you can regain your optimism about your power to change your life for the better by playing with metaphors, exploring their meanings, which can yield insights that you might not have been aware of otherwise. Then, you can take what you’ve learned and consciously craft a new story.

A Metaphor of Transformation

For example, a metaphor from my own life and work has helped me better understand myself and the changes I have gone through. I majored in metallurgy in college and later took a job heading up an oil and gas company, so I’ve often thought about how the transformational process of turning organic matter into oil and refining it into gasoline relates to my own story of change.

Oil was formed when organic matter—long-dead plants and animals—became crushed by layers upon layers of sediment that eventually turned into oil. It can eventually make its way up toward the surface of the earth, making it easier to spot and access. Once it’s been drawn out of the earth, it can be refined through high temperatures, cooling, and various chemical processes to form gasoline and diesel oil, which fuels engines.

Looking back on my journey from businessman to clinical psychologist to Jungian analyst and shamanic practitioner and finally, to a stage of life in which my focus is giving back in service to others, I’ve asked myself questions you might want to ask yourself, playing with this oil-and-gas metaphor:

How have pressure and time influenced and transformed you?

How have you managed releases and eruptions from your past?

What has seeped through into your awareness?

What did you do with what you discovered?

What used to live within you that became transformed into something else? Did it die before the changes began? Did something useful come about as a result of that death and transformation? What did you have to do for that death and change to bring about something new that benefitted you?

What have you learned from the efforts you made and the emotions you experienced while in transition?

What transformation would you like to experience next?

How can your past experiences of change inform and help you during this next transition?

Whether you’re planning a career or relationship change, making a move to another location, or switching your focus to goals you have neglected recently, playing with metaphors can help.

Too often, when change is thrust upon us or we’re unhappy with our current stories and want to change them, we forget the lessons we learned in the past about what we can do to manage transitions well and make positive changes stick. Think about a metaphor regarding change that has always spoken to you and play with it. Ask yourself some questions that the metaphor suggests.

If you have trouble thinking of a metaphor, use the one I just gave you or another—maybe from your work or that your life experiences suggest to you. Transformational metaphors can be especially helpful if you’re dealing with the desire or need for change. Think about:

The transformation from a caterpillar into a butterfly

The transformation from a tadpole into a frog

The transformation of flour, water, salt, and yeast into bread

Ask yourself, what happens during the steps of transformation?

What parts of the transformation might make you feel uncomfortable if you were the oil, caterpillar, tadpole, or ingredients for bread?

Would the discomfort you would undergo be worth the results you would achieve? Why or why not?

Understanding the Messages Metaphors Can Teach You

While asking yourself direct questions about difficult changes you’ve had to deal with has value, too, playing with metaphors can yield insights you might miss if your self-reflection were only literal.

What’s more, you can play with metaphors by imagining yourself as inhabiting what you would like to learn from: the plants and animals that died million years ago, the caterpillar, the tadpole, or the wheat that would become bread. Imagine you are this creature or plant. How does it feel to be you? How do you feel about the transition you are about to undergo?

Then, imagine you are transitioning—you are a dying sea urchin, a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, a tadpole losing its tail, or wheat being combined with other ingredients and kneaded into dough. Imagine the entire process of change with all its steps.

When in your imagination you have transformed into your final form, pay attention to any thoughts, images, sensations, and emotions that arise. Try to identify what happened. Did you discover your creativity? Feel anxious about what the future held? Remain curious and open to what was happening? What words would you use to describe the transformation you just experienced?

Now, think about transformations you’ve undergone in real life. Do you see any connections to what you just experienced in your imagination? What if anything have you learned about yourself and change?

After you have ended the exercise, you can journal about this experience and any insights it has offered you as well as answer the questions I’ve posed to you. Then, try to write a more satisfying story about your life, your experience of transitioning, or both.

You might come up with a story that inspires hopefulness, such as:

I’m still in the dark, but the cocoon is warm and safe, and I trust in this process.

I’m always evolving, and changes can take time. I can be patient with myself.

The more you play with a metaphor using your rational mind and your imagination, the more likely it may be to yield insights that can help you with whatever changes you’re facing now. Give it a try and see what happens.

You can learn more about how to change the story of your life and experience personal transformation in my books.

The post Playing with Metaphors to Help You with Transformation appeared first on Carl Greer.

Tap into Transformative Power

Many people put aside their dreams and set new priorities that are out of synch with their authentic selves in order to be practical and gain approval from others. In midlife or during crises such as experiencing health problems or losses (jobs, loved ones, marriages, and so on), we often will awaken to how much we have constricted ourselves and compromised our values. Exploring themes of authenticity and transformation can make us feel frightened as we face truths about ourselves that we have tried to ignore. Yet, these themes can also lead us to breakthroughs and positive changes.

I was able to reclaim my mythopoetic self—my spiritual nature—and gain greater satisfaction as a result of doing inner work: I saw how I had repressed my desire to explore the realm of psychology and how the mind works. By tapping into transformative power available to me, I became able to live more authentically.

If you are thinking about making changes in your life, you might want to reflect on the compromises you have made. You can start by working with your unconscious and what it knows, making it conscious so that you can be honest with yourself about choices you have made and why. This work can be unsettling yet rewarding. Doing dreamwork, Jungian sand tray work, and taking shamanic journeys that allow you to access your unconscious and its beneficial insights and energies can bring into your awareness the answers to questions such as:

What compromises have I made that I regret?

What are my deepest desires?

How could I live more authentically, in sync with those desires?

What do I need to let go of?

What do I need to bring in?

I once undertook a shamanic journey to engage the energy of jaguar, an archetypal energy that Andean shamans recognize as a powerful ally for transformation. I and a shaman I know who was doing the work with me entered nonordinary reality, and as everyday awareness gave way, I entered a realm beyond the limitations of my senses. In my hand was a jaguar stone that the shaman had given me—a stone said to hold jaguar energy and carved with the face of this feline that roams the rainforest. Suddenly, the stone began to pulse and throb as if it were breathing.

“It’s alive! It’s alive!” I shouted to the shaman.

“Feed it! Feed it! Before it feeds on you!” he exclaimed

Quickly, he pressed into my other hand my bottle filled with Florida water, used for blessings, ceremonies, and cleansings. “Feed it! Hurry!” he cried. Knowing what he meant, I took some of the liquid into my mouth and sprayed it out int a mist toward the jaguar before it could devour me.

Instinctively, I knew the beast hungered for me just as I had hungered for its essence—the alchemical potential I had yearned for as far back as I could remember. I waited, transfixed. Had my offering been accepted? Then, the jaguar’s threat lifted like a fog and floated away into the night air. I felt the wet stone in my palm, sinister no more yet still alive, warm, and breathing. My heart still pounded, but I realized the danger had passed.

Feed it. So simple.

My soul had craved nourishment, yet I had denied it again and again in the interests of practicality. Life was hard work and responsibility, not a poem or a mystery—that’s what I’d learned from my family and the midwestern culture in which I’d been raised. Conforming to these values, I suppressed my yearnings for many years.

 My experience with the shaman and the jaguar did not just offer me the insight that now was the time to feed my soul before my longing for nourishment ate away at me, making me even more restless than I had been already and perhaps even causing me to develop an illness or disease. I believe this experience also offered me the elixir of jaguar energy that fueled actual changes I made in my everyday life, changes that set me on a new, rewarding path to becoming a shamanic practitioner, integrating shamanism into my everyday life and work, and eventually, becoming an author and philanthropist. As an ally to me, the Jaguar has helped me to change the story of my life to be more satisfying—but it took quieting the activity of my conscious mind and engaging my unconscious to access this source of transformative power.

What might you be able to change in your life if you were to tap into your unconscious and explore the wisdom and energies for change available to you there? You might be underestimating the transformative power available to you and the insights available in your unconscious.

This article is excerpted from my book The Necktie and the Jaguar: A Memoir to Help You Change Your Story and Find Fulfillment and appeared previously in Conscious Community magazine and The Life Connection magazine.

The post Tap into Transformative Power appeared first on Carl Greer.

Your New Story of Happiness Starts Today

“I really should call my old friend.”“I forgot how much I enjoyed this!”“What took me so long to get around to doing this when I love it so much?”It’s easy to forget to schedule activities you enjoy. When that’s a habit, you might never get around to doing what you love.If you simply forget because you are busy all the time, you might want to think about what you enjoy doing and how you can start doing it more often. What’s Missing and Why? Have you assumed that you don’t have enough time to spare for activities you love? Question that assumption. Maybe the problem is simply that you’re not prioritizing what you like to do. As an exercise, think of two or three favorite activities you would like to engage in more often. Then, identify any obstacles to doing them.If you can’t do an enjoyable activity in the usual way, maybe there’s an alternative way to make it happen that you haven’t identified yet. For example, maybe you can see or talk with the people you love using technology instead of traveling to visit them. Don’t Settle for “Happy Enough” If it doesn’t seem important to do what makes you happy because you’re “happy enough,” you might want to question that belief. Do you have a happiness story such as, “It’s selfish to take time for myself,” or “Other people’s needs are more important than what I’d like to do with my time”? Maybe you were taught that what you enjoy isn’t all that important.Thinking about what your happiness story is might make you discover that you resist making time for what you enjoy because growing up, you regularly received the message that good people work hard all day long and are constantly productive. That internalized message of “all work and no play” can color your perception of how much time you should devote to simply having fun. You might have adopted a story about happiness that was written by someone else. You might have felt you didn’t deserve to be happy. Does that hold true today?Identify your current story about happiness and well-being and ask yourself whether it’s working for you. If it isn’t, write a new one. Writing a New Story of Happiness Start imagining what a new, more satisfying happiness story might be and how you can bring it about. For example, you might want to adopt and live according to a happiness story called, “I deserve to be happy and that means making time to have fun,” or “Doing things I love is good for my health and well-being, so I make sure to do them.”When it comes to opportunities to feed the soul, the doors to happiness and fulfillment may not be locked after all. Meditate on what is blocking you from feeling happy and thereby accessing your inner wisdom. Commit to changing any old story of happiness that is no longer working for you so you can let go of any guilt about doing what you enjoy. Then, you might find you are making time for the pleasures that contribute to happiness and well-being, living according to a new story of happiness you wrote consciously. A version of this article appeared on the Conscious Shift Community website.

The post Your New Story of Happiness Starts Today appeared first on Carl Greer.

Listening to the Call of the Jaguar

Each of us has a life about which a story can be told. When coming up with the title for my memoir, I settled on The Necktie and The Jaguar because the contrast between the two images reflected the arc of my story: It began in the Midwest in the postwar era, continued through my ventures as a successful businessman in the oil and gas business, and then found my soul crying out for nourishment. I needed to get in touch with the self that was crying out for expression and a sense of connection to Source.

The jaguar was calling.

In Andean shamanism, which I studied and eventually taught workshops on, the jaguar represents the wild, mysterious self who is unafraid to explore unfamiliar landscapes. A jaguar can swim, so it can be found in the water, on the land, and in the trees—and is seen as a spirit animal that can travel between the visible and invisible realms, between the worlds of the living and the dead. I needed to connect with the archetypal energy of the jaguar so I could live more fully and authentically, free of the constrictions of a story of success that was written for me by my family and the community I was raised in.

Are you living according to a story written by someone else?

While I was doing a shamanic journey high on a mountain, using a ritual with the intention of calling the jaguar to come to me, the jaguar appeared—a powerful archetypal energy that demanded that I feed it. Somehow, I knew if I didn’t, it would feed on me. If I didn’t answer to the call of adventure, if I didn’t begin exploring the big questions of life—including Who am I? What am I? What is my purpose?—and feeding my soul, the constrictions of my life might lead me to develop health problems beyond the heart issues that my doctors had already discovered.

I needed to open myself up to a new destiny, to a life of moving more easily between the worlds: the hidden and the visible, the unconscious and the unconscious. By working with jaguar energy, I would transform my career and change my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined as a young man starting out on a traditional path to success as society defines it. I would discover aspects of myself I had no idea were there, waiting to be claimed.

My hope is that through reading my story in my interactive memoir The Necktie and The Jaguar and pondering some of the journaling questions in it that were inspired by my story’s themes, you can start to loosen your own proverbial necktie and connect with that part of yourself that wants to step off the familiar path.

Who might you become if you let go of fears and constrictions?

What would you free yourself to do differently?

How might your life change if you developed a different and closer relationship with Source?

What would happen if you listened to the jaguar’s call and your soul’s yearning to explore who you are and why you’re here?

Dare to ask the adventurous questions, to self-reflect and explore the invisible, transpersonal realms we all share in what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious. The wisdom, strength, and healing and peace you find there can lead to a personal evolution that brings you tremendous satisfaction.

The post Listening to the Call of the Jaguar appeared first on Carl Greer.

Reflecting on The Necktie and The Jaguar

What is the value of self-reflection? I have thought a lot about that lately as I’ve completed and just published my newest book The Necktie and The Jaguar: A Memoir to Help You Change Your Story and Find Fulfillment. It’s what I call an interactive memoir: In addition to writing my own story, I have included questions for the reader to inspire self-reflection.

When I was growing up in the Midwest in the years after World War II, contemplating why you were who you were and acted as you did was not highly valued. Pondering the big questions of life such as, “Why are we here?” and “Did we exist somewhere, before we were born?” that spoke to what I call my mythopoetic self would make you seem impractical, even odd. Spirituality wasn’t a topic of conversation, even though most people I knew, myself included, attended church. Like many people, I chose a practical path and walked it steadily, that is, until my mythopoetic self—my soul, you might say—was so frustrated by the starvation diet I’d kept it on that it cried out for nourishment. My transformation from businessman to clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst, shamanic practitioner, and philanthropist began in midlife, as so many transformation stories do. I had achieved success according to how my family and the people around me defined it, so why was I so restless and dissatisfied?

In my memoir, I challenge you to look back at your own life, the choices you made, and the way you’ve framed your experiences. The stories we tell about what our lives have been, are, and probably always will be are often hidden from our awareness and powerfully influencing our lives today. People often declare that they’re seeking to make changes but wonder why it’s so difficult to discard old habits and break way from old patterns. It was undergoing Jungian analysis, which was required for me to become a Jungian analyst, that first nudged me into looking at myself and my life honestly. Dreams, some shamanic journeys I undertook at the time, and work I did in analysis opened my eyes to much that I’d been unaware of until then. I’d figured that undergoing analysis would be helpful for my future work with clients and had no inkling that I had unresolved issues of my own. Analysis wasn’t always comfortable, but I could see it was helping me find a new path for myself and to feed my soul before it began to feed on me. I came to understand that repressing my deepest desires to live a life of meaning and purpose, leaving unexplored the questions that had intrigued me in my youth, was constricting me emotionally. In the years to come, I would discover that I had been energetically constricted, too, and would wonder if the heart troubles I developed were influenced by years of denying myself emotional and spiritual freedom.

Carl Jung once wrote, “Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.” I studied shamanism in my sixties and became trained in shamanic techniques. That led me to climb high into the Andes to perform rituals with indigenous Q’ero shamans and be transported to a hut on the banks of the Mother of God River, where the Amazon begins, to ingest sacred plants that facilitate shamanic journeying. These activities would not have met with some of my physicians’ approval. But I felt a strong calling to explore my spiritual nature and my relationship to what I call Source. I had no trouble with my heart despite the physical rigor of the journey, and now, two decades later, I continue that exploration and apply the lessons I’ve learned to how I live my daily life. I’ve had bypass surgery, and radiation treatment for prostate cancer, but I continue to benefit from years of doing martial arts to manage stress and keep fit—and I also believe my forays into spirituality, shamanism, and hidden realms where I’ve encountered healing energies have helped me to thrive into my 80s. Now I’m in a stage of giving back—through funding and working with charities, many of which serve people who haven’t had some of the advantages I have.

Maybe all those years of trying to burn out my mythopoetic self and be practical had a payoff: I’ve felt the need to consider the real-life value of my shamanic adventures and my explorations of my unconscious and the transpersonal realms that Jung would say were part of the collective unconscious. I’ve looked at what happened to me while undergoing shamanic journeys, and inexplicable synchronicities that happened in my everyday life, and asked myself, how can this help me live a life of greater health, well-being, fulfillment, and purpose? I’ve looked, too, at challenges I’ve faced and painful experiences, such as losing my mother unexpectedly when I was a young boy, and asked myself, how have these events affected me? And are there ways I can change how the memories live within me so I am more conscious of the story of my life I’m writing today that may shape what I experience tomorrow?

I hope that by reading and working with the questions in The Necktie and The Jaguar, you’ll start to free yourself from any unnecessary constrictions that have kept you from living a more satisfying life. My wish is that my memoir will help you to nourish that adventurous inner self that yearns for more and is willing to dream a new dream for yourself and bring it to life.

The Necktie and The Jaguar was published by Chiron Publications in hardcover, paperback, and eBook editions and is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and bookstores everywhere.

The post Reflecting on The Necktie and The Jaguar appeared first on Carl Greer.

The Art of Listening

Hitchhiking across the U.S. as a young man, spending countless hours in strangers’ cars, I began to develop my listening skills. I heard stories of broken hearts and lessons learned. A Catholic priest shared his experiences of the religious life with me, and in my next ride, a Protestant minister shared his different perspective. The man who picked me up after that said he had served time for murder. He didn’t offer details, and I chose not to press him. As a captive audience in the passenger seat of a car or truck, I learned to give people the freedom to tell their stories in their own way, at their own pace, without judgment. It was good practice for becoming a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst years later.

Listening skills are perhaps more valuable than ever in an era in which there is great divisiveness and many people find it difficult to avoid conversational conflicts. I define sacred listening as listening patiently without judgment while recognizing the inherent worth of the speaker. It’s in listening that we learn more about the people around us while developing an essential relationship skill. We help people to feel heard, respected, and valued. Sacred listening can be a spiritual practice and a gift to others. Years ago, when I was on the path to become a Jungian analyst, I was required to undergo analysis myself. I asked my analyst what he felt was the most important thing he did for his patients. “I guess I just hang in there,” he said. In other words, he would keep listening to a patient even when they seemed to hit a plateau in their efforts to change.

You might find it challenging to listen without being poised on the brink of advising, criticizing, or correcting the person who is talking. Sometimes, too, you might want someone to hurry and finish so you can speak. A conversation that’s a competition for who has the better story tends to feature very little sacred listening. You might want to show off your knowledge or tell the other person how they ought to think, feel, or act, but these self-centered motivations can get in the way of the kind of listening that fosters healthy relationships and emotional intimacy. You might want to think about how it could benefit you and others if you were to become a better listener.

Practicing sacred listening can build other people’s trust in you. It can also help them discover their own inner wisdom: Pauses in the conversation and your gentle questions and observational comments can encourage them to go deeper into their self-exploration. I have found that remaining silent and listening, listening, and then listening some more has led to some of my patients coming up with solutions to their problems and insights into themselves that they might not have discovered otherwise.

Sometimes, listening is simply a gift of kindness that honors the other person. Despite any impatience or frustration, you might be feeling, why not explore what could happen if you were to work on your listening skills and start practicing sacred listening?

(You can learn more about how to achieve personal transformation in my books Change Your Story, Change Your Life and Change the Story of Your Health.)

The post The Art of Listening appeared first on Carl Greer.