Soul and Inspiration

Inspiration happens from deep within the visionary world. While reading, sensing spontaneous intuitive flashes, and dreaming with vivid imagery, we experience the world of the spiritual imagination. CG Jung called the soul a vessel filled with grace or spirit, energy dramatized in literary images, intuitive flashes, and nightly visions known as dreams. Dramatic images encountered during reading and spirit-filled dreams while sleeping are inspirations from the visionary world’s wellspring known as soul.

We are soulful beings. When reading, we knock on the door of soul and quietly enter, words and story leading us to nourishment for the day. Daily reading nourishes the mind and heart as much as food does the body. I find that my soul, composed of both my intellectual mind and emotional heart, grows hungry to read. I can read myself full and satiate my literary appetite by taking an hour a day to open my books and savor words, story, and meaning.

Visions while Reading

As we settle into the beat and rhythm of reading, we enter a visionary state. It’s a trance state that ushers us into another world. That world is as real as the one in which we spend our waking hours. Regardless of the story, memories and unexpected images well up and sometimes bring us to tears or passionately convict us. Well-crafted stories open our minds and hearts to new perspectives on old problems or relax us into a sleep populated by spirits in various guises.

Spirits are archetypal, ancient energies that incarnate in the visionary/dream world. In soulful stories, ones birthed from a free flow of images from the unconscious mind, there is a world of spirits at work. They inhabit the images of the protagonist, antagonist, and supporting characters. Reading suspends the ego mind so creative energies can make their way up from the shadowlands of the unconscious and touch our consciousness. Life is better for the time taken to tend the soul with heartfelt words and mysterious narratives.

Spirits Inspire and Transform

When reading and entering the spirit world of imagination, there is potential to feel changed. Sometimes it’s movement into relaxation. Other readings mean shock and necessary unsettledness about how we have seen the world. Soul growth unsettles entrenched states of mind that now need to be examined in a new light.

Inspiration means to be filled with spirit. I remember learning this understanding in my undergraduate days studying ancient Greek. Spirits of the visionary world, what shamans and mystics call the spirit realm, are at work during storytelling and reading. Savoring a story each day is a powerful opportunity to drink from the wellspring of literary life. The soul, a vessel filled with spirit, hungers to read and discover nourishment, inspiration, and transformation out of what has once been and is now gone by, and movement into what lies ahead.

“Live Deeply…Read Daily”

https://www.pauldeblassieiii.com/blog/soul-reading-and-the-visionary-world/

As a psychologist in training, I remember a deeply nourishing exchange with a supervisor that kindled my understanding of hope and healing. “Healing calls for hope. As a therapist, you’ve got to feel it for the patient. If you don’t, it would be best to refer them to someone you feel might be better for them. Maybe they simply would benefit from medication or need a neurological workup. Not everyone is ready for or needs therapy. But, if they come your way, check in with your feeling of hope. Is it there? Do you feel it for them? If so, then there’s potential for healing. Move forward and do your best, and they’re likely to find healing.”

 William James, father of American depth psychology, wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience “let . . . hope be the atmosphere which man breathes in . . . and his days pass by with zest.” There are those who shield themselves from hope. It takes exertion of self to hope. You put yourself into it, the vital emotion of it requiring energy, an investment of self. People are afraid. I understand, but I also get it that to retreat into negativism, cynicism, and despair ends up at the end of a very dark and go-no-where back alley. It helps nothing and no one.

 But when hope is the real deal, you feel it from your core. It’s not concocted. It’s not a fly-by feeling—a wisp of sentiment or superficial thought. No, genuine hope comes from the gut, it grabs hold and digs in then looks to you to give it expression. When we take the step to feel the hope, then it blooms. It provides energy, gray and black clouds lift. We can do things and move ahead.

 A patient walked into my office, their countenance dark, and their attitude dismal. They were in the grip of despair. They reported this dream: “I was at the edge of a cliff, a black abyss down below. Instead of stepping back, which I should have done, I stepped off and went down. When I woke up I felt depressed.” We explored the power of the symbolism. They were at the edge and the dream said they had a choice—to step off or not. Off they went. “It’s always been easier to go down the tube for me. I just let go and don’t try. I step off the cliff instead of taking the energy to move back and away.”

 What a compelling psychic scenario this dream painted. The patient was more empowered than they had admitted to themselves. They became conscious of their ability to exercise greater control over attitude and self-empowerment. Generative feeling states can be nurtured. Again, they’re not whipped up, they’re not inflated self-talk that comes from baseless notions. No, they spring from genuine inspiration. The soul whispers, You can deal with this. Move on it!

 I noticed when that patient stepped into the consultation office, my hope did not waver. I knew and felt to my core that despite how bad they looked, hope and the potential for healing was present. I felt it deep inside. By the session’s end, the clouds had lifted, their mood lighter. They left feeling self-empowered and that they could fix what they had messed up. So, word for the day is—keep the hope, nourish the hope, and the hope will heal and transform your life and your soul.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2020/4/12/feel-the-hope

Change takes time, months, and years or can happen instantly. It depends on where we are in life. Everyone says they want to heal and change, but the real thing, the stuff of true wholeness, requires a deep breath and a plunge. So, it’s frightening—easy to say, mind-shattering to engage.

A patient reported the following dream. “I was standing on the edge of a cliff. It was a drop down to the ocean. I wasn’t afraid. But I was. The roar of the ocean, winds sweeping across my body, and I teetered. I had to let go, drop. There was no way out. I woke up and decided I needed to get into therapy, do dreamwork, and see what was going on with me.”

Inevitably, today there will be a crisis. It could come in the form of a dream, or relationship conflict, or a sudden turn of events that smack you right where it count. The original Greek meaning of the word crisis is turning point, a crossroads where we have to make a decision about which way to go. We will have choices today that will determine the course of the morning, afternoon, and evening. These are micro-crises, little decisions, turning points.

For the patient I mentioned, they never dropped into the ocean. In the dream, they stood frightened and paralyzed but did choose to enter depth psychotherapy. Then, they dreamt again, and they dropped down and down and down. It’s where they needed to go—into the vast ocean of soul. Over time dream images spoke to them about hidden things, mysteries that couldn’t be fathomed without dropping down and under. Inevitably, they led to a vast overall of perspective, relationships, and life itself.

Crisis is the time for change. Crisis signals a turning point. Crisis times/changing times can be moment to moment, in a single day, or at intervals in the life span. Babies are in crisis at birth, the mother in crisis, crisis hitting in adolescence, adulthood constant shattering old ways. Ahhh….soul evolution is a crisis!

We try to shield ourselves from soul crisis/change. Overly used life stuff — toomuchitis — numbs the pain that could clear the mind and propel the change. Instead, we eat too much, drink too much, exercise too much, do too much and discover a state of no more feelings. Then, emotions return and turn sideways and can go dark and destructive with a vengeance. It’s the psychological day after syndrome, the emotional hangover, from dipping into toxic unfeeling, not feeling, no feeling.

Toxic mind is irritable, negative, depressed and cranky, has no joy in anyone or anything. Thank goodness, we can steady ourselves and listen to that state of mind. It too is a crisis. It too speaks of change. It too has in it the capacity to turn our life around. A change of attitude, a reckoning with a conflicted relationship, a setting about a task we’ve tried to wiggle out of, is a beginning.

What it takes to change is a willingness to open up and begin. Stopping where we are right now, taking stock of the crisis we’re in, and deciding to do something about our life gets the wheels of change going. Listen to the pain, it speaks to you. Trust the pain, it has a message. Take the good but challenging step that pops into mind and forever transform your life.

That’s what it takes to change.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2020/1/16/what-it-takes-to-change

The thing about living is light. It surrounds us, breathes through us – not in us but through us. The force of it is subtle as the New Mexico breeze I hardly notice under the hot summer desert sun then suddenly become acutely grateful for when under the shade of a hundred-year-old cottonwood tree.

 Light informs my psychotherapeutic work with patients who’ve suffered from complex childhood trauma, a terrible pain stemming from years of chronic abuse. There are horrid memories deposited in mind and body. Stepping out the door of my home each morning to go to my office, early before the sun rises over the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, I anticipate, hope for the light. Yes, there is hope because there is no guarantee that light, insight, will come and help the suffering to see and be a little freer.

Light, the way my patients and I experience it while sitting doing depth psychotherapy in my wood-paneled consultation office, is a subtle movement of energy. They sometimes comment, “The light in here has shifted. Have you noticed? It’s different, not brighter but clearer.” I often smile silently, acknowledging the reality of what I realize as numinous.

In depth psychology, soul-work therapy, numinous refers to spiritual awakening, an energetic force that awakens consciousness. It happens when we have a “big dream,” one that shakes us to the core and leaves a lingering sensation of mystery. Numinous and luminous are partners in life healing and transformation. It’s subtle, a shift we hardly notice, at times absolutely see, but always feel in our muscles, ligaments, and bones. Light, insight into self and others, awakens psychic truth and a sensation that the very luminosity of the room we are in and the world in which we live has shifted, transformed, for the better.

I call the numinous/luminous encounter spectacular because there is an instant, a millisecond even, when my breath stops, heart quickens, and my mind expands. Patients experience it, tears, sighs, and relief palpable. Spectacular light comes in moments of heart-to-heart conversation, a kindling of human understanding. It is subtle, meaningful, and spectacular.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2019/3/16/spectacular-light

We often say we want to grow. The question is are we willing to do what it takes. It’s easy to read books or hear talks or read blogs. It’s hard to look within, take stock of ourselves and quietly apply ourselves to genuine soul work. It requires movement away from what we’re used to, surface, and descent into what we are not, depth.

I’m finishing an article about Freud’s interest in the occult. In many ways, he preferred this area of study to psychoanalysis but was afraid to go further for fear of academic rejection. He stayed on one plane, that of the personal unconscious, and refused to deepen into the transpersonal unconscious, the spiritual dimension of life. I believe this may have contributed to what he termed the misery of everyday life. When we stay on the surface, stuck with where we’ve been and not letting go and changing – deepening - then misery results. The mystic balances and heals the mundane just as everyday realities ground the mystic.

And then there’s Jung – what a prophet of the mystic, and what a disappointment! The man who proclaimed the wholeness of the self yielded to the collective pressure to form an institute bearing his name. The one who said, “Thank god I am Jung and not a Jungian” actually agreed with the ordination of followers who are called Jungians. How silly we can be as a species. We know there’s another way, the way of truth to self and depth of experience, and yet yield to superficial ways that bring acclaim – not even a tepid handclap in the thunderous immensity of the transpersonal universe.

And now we come to our daily life. Surface or depth? When we’re in pain, we’re willing to consider what we haven’t. We’re willing to open up and see so that we’ll feel better, so the pain will stop. But, the telling time really comes in the daily living. To be able to choose depth, truth to self no matter what others say or how they pressure us. This is depth. Surface bids us go for the tepid pat on the back, the weak handclap of those who in the light of the transpersonal universe are wisps in a cold ethersphere, passing and then no more.

Waking up on the first day of the new year, I remembered a dream. It spoke of forces from my past, professional groups demanding allegiance, old family dysfunctional relationships demanding allegiance, friends who demanded adherence to their “liberal” liberal way of seeing things. In the dream, I saw from a distance what had once been so up close and personal. A breath from the transpersonal flow of all things swept through me, and I turned and left the scene, ready to move on with my life and new decisions regarding surface or depth.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/

We often say we want to grow. The question is are we willing to do what it takes. It’s easy to read books or hear talks or read blogs. It’s hard to look within, take stock of ourselves and quietly apply ourselves to genuine soul work. It requires movement away from what we’re used to, surface, and descent into what we are not, depth.

I’m finishing an article about Freud’s interest in the occult. In many ways, he preferred this area of study to psychoanalysis but was afraid to go further for fear of academic rejection. He stayed on one plane, that of the personal unconscious, and refused to deepen into the transpersonal unconscious, the spiritual dimension of life. I believe this may have contributed to what he termed the misery of everyday life. When we stay on the surface, stuck with where we’ve been and not letting go and changing – deepening - then misery results. The mystic balances and heals the mundane just as everyday realities ground the mystic.

And then there’s Jung – what a prophet of the mystic, and what a disappointment! The man who proclaimed the wholeness of the self yielded to the collective pressure to form an institute bearing his name. The one who said, “Thank god I am Jung and not a Jungian” actually agreed with the ordination of followers who are called Jungians. How silly we can be as a species. We know there’s another way, the way of truth to self and depth of experience, and yet yield to superficial ways that bring acclaim – not even a tepid handclap in the thunderous immensity of the transpersonal universe.

And now we come to our daily life. Surface or depth? When we’re in pain, we’re willing to consider what we haven’t. We’re willing to open up and see so that we’ll feel better, so the pain will stop. But, the telling time really comes in the daily living. To be able to choose depth, truth to self no matter what others say or how they pressure us. This is depth. Surface bids us go for the tepid pat on the back, the weak handclap of those who in the light of the transpersonal universe are wisps in a cold ethersphere, passing and then no more.

Waking up on the first day of the new year, I remembered a dream. It spoke of forces from my past, professional groups demanding allegiance, old family dysfunctional relationships demanding allegiance, friends who demanded adherence to their “liberal” liberal way of seeing things. In the dream, I saw from a distance what had once been so up close and personal. A breath from the transpersonal flow of all things swept through me, and I turned and left the scene, ready to move on with my life and new decisions regarding surface or depth.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/

It’s one thing to get well; it’s quite another to stay well and thrive. The psyche is such a confluence of negative and positive dynamics. One day we’re set on healing, the next instant we’re working against ourselves.Self care, its stabilization and furtherance, I’ve come to believe after nearly forty years as a depth psychologist, is the most challenging aspect of psychotherapy and personal healing and growth.

Dream images play out the necessity of self care especially when the dynamic has been impaired by adult or childhood chronic trauma. We learn to not take care of ourselves when we’ve been injured over and over, first by others or terrible situations, and then by the dark side of self. I dreamt of a patient showing me the rolls of fat on his abdomen, pointing to them as evidence of needed body sensitivity to the lingering aftereffects of trauma. Therapy needed to continue being sensitive to encouraging, within the context of empathic care, diet, exercise, time of appropriate relationality, and overall body sensitivity. He came to me at night, within a moving dream, and told me how much he needed support when it came to self care and his body.

This patient came into my office first thing the next morning and asked (right off), “Do I really need to follow through with everything we’ve talked about - diet, exercise, and all the rest? It seems like a bit much. This is psychotherapy, not body therapy.” Remembering the dream, I answered, “Of course we need to follow through. And, remember as we’ve talked about, the psyche is body and body is psyche. The psychological work we’re doing affects your body, helps it to heal. We need to follow through with everything that helps you to heal, including all the body work.”

Over time this insight settled in, self care becoming more habitual, not perfect but certainly good enough. In essence, our care of self is reflected in the care we provide for our body. Engaging in far-flung esoteric understandings of images, symbols and dreams are unnecessary if we but tend to the immediacy of self care, especially sensitivity directed toward the body. Self care, body care, will teach us all we need to know about well being of body, mind, and soul. Such body care is imminent, chthonic, inner, deep and tangible - the true reflection of how well we are caring for psyche, the treasure that is our soul.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2017/10/25/self-care-and-the-psyche-

I usually break for lunch around noon after a morning of depth psychotherapy. There’s time to quietly read, reflect, and have a period of rest and meditation. Not infrequently, a vision surfaces. In a liminal state, my brain downshifts from beta waves to alpha and theta, images and symbols from the psyche emerge.

University of Pennsylvania research in sleep and chronobiology reports, "Humans are biologically programmed to sleep at night, and to take a nap in the midafternoon, though scientists aren’t sure why. “There is no melatonin triggering the sleep, it just seems to be this harmonic phenomenon,” Dr. Dinges says. The consensus among his colleagues, he says, is that human civilization evolved mostly in equatorial climates, where it got very hot later in the day, and napping during the extreme heat optimized work performance. "(A Window of Opportunity WSJ 9.1.9.17)

Without a regular time for an afternoon rest and meditation, I’m not quite myself. To take the descent into the unconscious, simply put—to nap, permits not only physical replenishment but psychic healing and balancing. When we have a vision, it’s different than a dream during sleep. It’s a single image or scene that informs, inspires, and helps set us right for the rest of the day.
http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2017/9/19/lunchtime-vision-anyone

So often we look at how relationships trip us up. It’s easy to overlook how they also sustain us. If we are isolated, without meaningful connection and intimacy, we’re tripped up in life. If we have that one other person who knows us and wants to continue to know us, we’re wealthy and very much in the midst of finding our way.

Dreams speak to us of relating. Our inner life is reflected in the quality of our outer relationships. A person dreamed of having sex with a foul human being. Another had an erotic encounter with a lovely individual, sensitive and satisfying. Both dreams spoke to the quality of their relationship with self and other. When our inner life is humming, we understand and respect ourselves, the nature of our outer relating reflecting this.

An old mystic said you only love god as much as the person you love least. In more contemporary terms we might say that we only have our act together to the degree that our relationships are dealt with or being dealt with. We part ways with what is not generative and loving, leave behind chronically negative and destructive situations and people. We nourish creative and loving encounters, potentials in life and relationships. This is our challenge life—to always be in the process of cultivating relationships that sustain.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2017/8/15/relationships-that-sustain-

Last night my wife, Kate and I were watching a television series we've come to enjoy, Jack Taylor. He's an Irish detective, a rogue rough-and-tough guy. He lives hard, barely gets by, but has some real depth to him He quoted Emerson saying that what matters most is not the past or the future but what's inside a person.

Kate and I spoke about this Emerson essay on self-reliance. It's a soulful piece, one that brings psychic reality down to earth and into everyday life. We are surrounded by the wisdom of the psyche and of life itself. We needn't travel to Zurich or New York or immerse ourselves in the heady volumes of complex theories about depth psychology.

Life speaks to us each moment of every day some of the finest wisdom available. It can come through a television show. It happens when we allow ourselves to enter into conversation, a feeling exchange, one true and heartfelt, with someone we care about and love. Wisdom comes from what daily surrounds us and is inherently within us. We need only tune in, listen, take to heart, and consider what matters most.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/

Unexpected life circumstances, synchronous events, hold seeds of growth. Opening our eyes to the possibilities that surround us daily can startle us as events and encounters take us by surprise. They soulfully speak to us. They, in a split second or over time, tell us something we need to know. And, it all happens without planning or expectation.

Once we're aware of this, we can tap into vital experiences. They nourish the soul. Answers to problems can come our way in seconds if we're open and willing to see.

Yesterday I wondered about an upcoming publication. It was a concern that lingered in the back of my mind. Midway through the day, someone mentioned that "times are changing in the publishing world and it's critical to change with it." This person's comment resonated with me and answered my question. She didn't know I was struggling with this issue. 

This morning I was thinking about writing this post on synchronicity and also developing the theme into a chapbook. I turned on my NPR podcast and up came Hidden Brain on meaningful coincidences. It struck me as a meaningful coincidence, suggesting that I proceed with my inspiration. I had been pondering whether or not to move ahead with this chapbook project for a number of days, and I decided to go forward.

"Personality is a seed that can only develop by slow stages throughout life," wrote CG Jung (Analytical Psychology and Education (1926/1946), CW 17, 288.) Soul seeds are planted via life circumstances. They provide inspiration for which direction to take, what to do or not do. It takes time or it can happen in a second. But, what is sure and genuine, is that throughout life the overall weaving of our development has taken place in deliberate stages, furthered by the planting of synchronous soul seeds.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/

Dream images of having a child, a newborn, are familiar within depth psychotherapy. Also, symbols of haunting spirits, poltergeist, come at a certain point. We either do inner work and birth new developments and potential, or we suffer from haunting in the inner world and outer reality, archetypal energy turned dark and destructive.

When we hold back, don't permit ourselves to experience new things, we thwart our growth potential. It is best to live in the conscious world with full confidence. Then, at night, our dreams help to keep us in balance. 

"Doctor, I dreamed of a ghost haunting me. Then I got up and swore I saw flickers of the same presence out of the corner of my eye. Going into the bathroom, I noticed the rug along the floor was wrong side up. I went back to my bedroom, and the pillows were tossed on the floor."

He looked at me wide-eyed and continued, "Strange thing was I dreamt it all. When I got up, saw the flickers in my bedroom, went to the bathroom and then back to my room, shocked at what I saw, I'd been dreaming the whole time. I was haunted in my dream so I wouldn't be haunted in waking life. It's happened before, and I know it could happen again.

We explored the presence of the ghost in the dream within a dream. He admitted to emotionally "clutching up," holding back out of fear in his professional life. He needed to take a risk, be more expansive. Dreams may have been those of having a newborn to care for, tending to the creative dimension of his psyche. To pull energy inward, without purpose or reason, was dangerous. It became a haunting in his dreams that could have turned into a haunting in his daily life.

Ghostly dreams and synchronous meetings of inner and outer energy happen when we need to pay attention, and when it comes to spiritual haunting in dreams it's best to listen, so they don't become outward problems, mischief making from the unseen world of creative energy gone south. Ghosts are unseen potentials calling for attention, tending, nurturing so that our life might flourish. 

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2017/4/6/dreams-births-and-ghosts-

William James in The will to believe and other essays in popular philosophy asserted, "our science is a drop, our ignorance a sea" (1897, p.54). What we do not know, our ignorance, extends into science and everyday life. Relationships, especially, hold witness to what we know and what we do not know. Truth is reflected in the quality of our relating, an imminent and mystic fact.

Through decades of dream tending the symbol of the sea comes to me when I'm most in need. The quality of the sea reflects my everyday relating. Turbulent waters in dreams signal that my relationships are having troubles. Calm waters point to peaceful relating. 

The sea is a mystic image reflecting self and unplumbed depths. Conflicted times and peaceful enjoyment are both parts of being human. We get along with some and not with others. On a particular day at a specific moment dealings with a person may be positive or negative.

At night our dreams open up and comment on what happened with this person or that. "I knew I was right in feeling the way I did. My dreams said the guy was out to lunch. I doubted my feelings so the dreams came and confirmed what I felt down deep." This insightful person's dream led to greater trust in self and consequent relational enlightenment. 

The positive and negative aspects of relating form a mystic whole. We learn from both good times and bad. Dreams light up the relational sea, that imminent mystic dimension, and add a drop more truth to the always evolving soul.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2017/2/14/the-mystic-sea

If we require an answer to a problem, we need to go no further than our dreams. They speak to us; they spill the beans about what the concern is really about and what we need to consider or do about it. I was at a psychoanalytic conference in which dreams were discussed in highly technical and empirical ways. Raising my hand I offered, "Let's cut to the quick here. Dreams spill the beans. They tell us what's going on in situations, in relationships, and what people are about as opposed to what they seem to be about." They are the revealer of secrets.

C.G. Jung wrote of the dream as the "harbinger of fate, a portent and comforter, a messenger of the gods. Now we see it as the emissary of the unconscious, whose task it is to reveal the secrets that are hidden from the conscious mind, and this it does with astounding completeness" (On the Psychology of the Unconscious 1917/1926 CW 7, 21).

A while back I thought of attending a conference on the soul in clinical practice. I thought it would be a very good time to meet others with whom I've had a virtual relationship for years. That night a dream spoke. It showed me with a tightly-knit group of conference attendees. Everyone was drinking Kool-Aid. I thought in the dream, Oh no, they're drinking Kool-Aid. I stopped just before placing the glass to my lips.

The dream told me that I'd weaken or lose my individual perspective by attending the conference and engaging in professional schmoozing. I listened. I didn't go. A dream revealed what I did not know, saved me time, energy, and recovery. There was no question in my mind what the dream was saying. It said it directly and with "astounding completeness." 

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2017/2/7/dreams-revealer-of-secrets-

Dreams take us to a certain and more intense point of consciousness where higher energies filter in. William James wrote, "The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that whose other worlds must contain experiences that have meaning for life also, and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points and higher energies filter in" (The Varieties of Religious Experience 1902/1929, p.509).

At night, during dreaming, we find that our conscious mind is suspended. This happens so that our defenses are lowered. We then cross a threshold into another dimension. What we learn there, via images and symbols, alters our conscious state of mind.

Patients, when first entering depth psychotherapy, are often shocked that dreams have such profound meaning. "They're telling me how I can live so I can be a better person," commented one sincere soul. Another stated, "It's like I have a hotline to incredible wisdom. I tap into it when I sleep."

Sensitizing ourself to the reality that dreams can speak to us, a hotline to another dimension of profound wisdom, often causes them to become more real and intense. "As I've been writing down my dreams, I seem to be dreaming more. They're speaking to me right away." These words are the hard-won knowledge of one who discovered that our conscious life is only one of many worlds and that dreams offer transport to quite another world of higher energy and wisdom. ~ bit.ly/2jn3zkD

Colleague and NYU psychoanalytic scholar, Michael Eigen writes in his book Under the Totem, "Are you ready for a therapy journey? . . . We are a repository of age-old trauma, catastrophic happenings and fears. Good feeling competes with bad, a balance that shifts and sometimes places us in jeopardy. One thing therapy can do, depending on luck, circumstance, and skill, is shift the balance for the better. Even a little can go a long way" (p.27).

In between patients, I often pick up a volume in depth psychology and read an excerpt. Today it was this passage that nourished me. It struck me that depth therapy is truly a journey into the unknown. Of course, as a seasoned therapist of over thirty-five years, I know this. But today, its reality became clearer and more vibrant. Life is journey and, for many of us, deep therapy helps along the way.

Dr. Eigen comments on luck, circumstance and skill as vital in shifting the balance in life for the better. I would add, the chemistry between patient and therapist to this mix. There is a mysterious healing force activated between a therapist and patient who are in sink. The patient feels understood, that things are moving along and being worked through. They couldn't have done it alone. The therapeutic relationship is the catalyst for healing and growth.

To be ready for the therapy journey is no small thing. It requires knowing that good is competing with bad. It requires admitting that we are in jeopardy. It requires trusting that the balance can potentially shift for the better, and that even a little can go a long way. 

The body speaks truth. We often try to mentally escape truth only to discover that our body becomes symptomatic. We feel anxious, depressed, come down with one or another medical diagnosis. Our psyche is trying to tell us to listen to what it has to say.

Jung wrote, "Only if you first return to the body, to your earth, can individuation take place, only then does the thing become true" (Visions: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1930-1934, Vol. II - 21 February 1934 , p.1314.)

I remember sitting in a depth psychotherapy session with a patient and my stomach clenching. The patient was relating how well they were feeling and doing. I asked, "Is there any chance there's more going on than meets the eye?" They didn't get it at first, looking at me quizzically, then admitted, "Well, I am a little off I guess, a bit uptight." As we explored their tension, it turned out that they were highly anxious and suppressing the feeling. My body picked up on the suffering of their psyche and related to me so we could process it together. 

Similarly, when we experience authentic transformative insight it's felt in our body. If we don't feel the message of a dream down to our core, in our bones and tendons and muscles, then we're missing something. The truth of the psyche moves into the mind and body and we feel it as a flow of good, vibrant, and grounded energy.

The body speaks truth, intimate to the psyche, and always getting to the heart of the relevant matter at hand.

http://www.drpauldeblassieiii.com/soulcare/2016/12/1/the-psyche-is-a-bodypsyche

Paralysis strikes. People feel paralyzed by problems. Relationships become stuck. Dreams become those of being paralyzed, unable to move, unable to wake up. Paralysis is real in life and in dreams. It often strikes when we least expect. It's the voice of the unconscious mind trying to get through to us.

Jung wrote, "The fight against the paralysing grip of the unconscious calls forth man's creative powers. That is the source of all creativity, but it needs heroic courage to do battle with these forces and to wrest from them the treasure hard to gain. Whoever succeeds in this has triumphed indeed" (Symbols of Transformation, 1912/1952 CW 5, 523).

People inherently desire to dip deep into their creative powers. But to do so requires that we listen to our paralysis, our sense of stuckness. It is the voice of the gods offering us a chance. Without it, we'd just go along merrily not growing, not loving to our potential, not living.

We're stuck when we're feeling out of sorts for long periods of time. We can can get out of this psychic morass only by engaging in the heroic battle of asking ourselves what it is that we need to face. There's always something lurking, at the ready, for us to be shocked by. It comes as a dream symbol, a life event, a simple phrase a person uses that cuts to the quick.

Paralysis strikes so that we can strike back, so that we hear the call and respond to consciousness, to face new vistas of awareness in life, in love, and in the discovery of inner and outer treasures hard to gain but potentially within reach for those of heroic courage.

Sometimes (all right all the time) I'm stunned by the psyche's attunement to life and lifestyle issues. Dreams pick up and comment on diet, exercise, quality of relationships and work habits. They want to get our attention so that we can be more attuned to self, health, and consciousness.

The psyche is holistic. It strives toward wholeness in body, mind, soul. A person related a dream about being sandwiched, near death, in between to slices of white bread. They knew their diet needed attention. It was killing them, injuring and snuffing out physical and psychic life.

A business owner  related, "I dreamt of being deluged by mud. My employees stood around and watched. It was going to kill me." Work habits and attitudes needed to be addressed. The psyche, via wondrous dream symbols, spoke to the need for balance.

A dream dramatized a beautiful, prized, horse that could no longer run; but it could walk and did so well and proudly. The dreamer knew that she was given guidance. She was a runner who was continuously subjecting herself to injury. It was time to stop, to walk for exercise, and to move into a more sensitive attunement to body and psyche.

C.G. Jung wrote, "It is madness to fall out of one's conscious world into an unconscious condition. Insanity mean just that, being overcome by an invasion of the unconscious. Consciousness is swept over by unconscious contents in which all orientation is lost. The ego then becomes a sort of fish swimming in a sea among other fishes, and of course fishes don't know who they are, don't even know the name of their own species" (Nietzche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934-1939 Vol. II pp. 1088-89).

In each of the above dreams, the dreamer had been overcome. The had lost their orientation in life. One was stopped from running by injury, another's diet suffocating their physical and psychic life, the other discovering that too much work could ruin an otherwise good life. The psyche is holistic and requires balance.

Tending to soul and tending to mind and body are one and the same act. It is a healing devotional when we take the time to listen to our needs and respond in a conscious manner to body, mind, and soul. The psyche is holistic, and to realistically and truthfully gain a sense of one's own self means tending to all facets of life.