Picture Perfect!

As a third method for creating a symbolic, representative TOTEM of your Life Dream Achieved this week, I invite you to, first, contemplate your Life Dream goal once again.  Envision yourself living your dream in deep detail. Where might you be living? What sorts of relationships will be central in your life? What will you be doing to contribute to the world you are inhabiting in this future landscape of your dream fulfilled?

Second, find (or, create) a picture or design a collage of images that clearly represents something central or core to you about your treasured Life Dream. You might find your picture(s) by an online search of images associated with your goal, or search through magazines or through your own photo collection. You could instead draw a blueprint of your dream home or landscape (I did that this morning and it was amazing); or, use your completed Alternate Future Life Path image from last week’s posts (below).

Now then, I invite you to paste your selected LIFE DREAM PICTURE or envisioned plan of action or collage at the top of an at least twice larger page, such as on a poster board. Then on a separate sheet of paper that you will later paste below that picture (or, you can write directly onto the poster board if you prefer), imagine and write a FIRST PERSON, PRESENT TENSE description of YOU, living fully the Life of Your Dreams!

Your First person, present tense account of you, Living Your Dream, could be in the form of a letter to yourself FROM the future of your dream fulfilled. Or, it might read like a postcard story:  (For my  own starting example:) “Here I am, finally living in Bemus Point, just ten minutes from the Chautauqua Institute and 40 minutes from my dear sister, Cheryl! It is April. I have moved into my sweet new little house by the lake with Sophie, Loki and Emily. There is land for workshop retreats; I will build a lodge and place a labyrinth there…”

Got the picture? Well okay then, find one or a set of YOUR Future-Life Dream-Fulfilled images that resonates deeply with you as Soul! Place your “perfect picture” somewhere prominent where you will see it often to remind you of your Life Dream that you are bringing into Being through living the values you relate to your Dream.

I welcome all of your stories or pictures!

Thanks to WordPress and to every  reader and fellow blogger.Yesterday was the one year Anniversary for Better Endings! This next week I will present the final Life Paths for Better Endings topic of Live Your Dream, Now! Then we will embark upon a whole new annual round, with monthly Better Endings Life Metaphors, monthly Archetype Ally profiles, and many more Life Mapping tools!

Jung’s RED BOOK: Using Mandalas to Ground Your Awareness

 

Today I want to discuss Jung’s RED BOOK (or, Liber Novus; 2009) as an example of how to use Totemic Representation to ground and illuminate your personal growth and development.

For a series of evenings starting from November 23 – December 25, 1913, just before the outbreak of WWI,then continuing for 16 years off and on after that, Carl G. Jung, founder of Depth, or Analytical, Psychology and the primary pioneer in the field of archetypal research, undertook an adventurous odyssey; he dived into the netherworlds of his own unconscious depths, and he returned to integrate his dreamlike encounters with the denizens of his unconscious domains within his conscious awareness. Using a form of contemplative practice that he termed “active imagination,” Jung sank willingly into a dreamlike awareness in order to encounter aspects and personae of his own Psyche that he would refer to as Archetypes.

 To Jung, Archetypes exist in a “collective unconscious” dimension; that is, similar archetypal images or forms are found all over the world and often appear in myths and dreams in similar ways and with similar meanings, although the individual appearance of an archetype might have very individual, personal form and specific cultural relevance. Jung identified several collective archetypes in his active imagination scenarios: an Anima (feminine aspect of a man’s Psyche), Shadow forms, and a Mage sort of figure represented in Jung’s experiences as a philosophical guide or guru figure, Philemon. He also experienced many fairly idiosynchratic figures related to his personal relationships and to his academic, religious, and literary background studies.

Some of Jung’s archetypal encounters lasted for several nights at a time, weaving a meaningful story.  Every night after his active imagination session, Jung recorded what he had experienced—including dialogue that had occurred with his archetypal figures—in a special journal he called his Red Book. He would sometimes paint some of the content of his experience in the Red Book, too. Every time a storyline had revealed its full significance to Jung, when he came out of his reveries that night he painted a special artistic image to represent his understanding of that archetypal encounter in the form of a circular Mandala (see link).

A Mandala is a universal sort of artistic image, created in a Circular form within what might be a 4-corner outer frame and with a center image around which the rest of the picture aligns. Tibetan monks and Navajo Indian healers alike use Mandalas in healing and centering rituals. Mandalas represent Balance and the organized coherence and integration of what might otherwise be considered disjoint or even chaotic elements or forces. To Jung, his Red Book mandalas represented the “integration” of archetypal energies within his own Psyche or Soul as he came into greater understanding of their presence and significance.  This process of integrating archetypal energy forms is crucial within Jung’s broader psychological theory of Individuation which he developed more completely after completing his Red Book ‘Descent’ and reemergence.

Jung’s Red Book mandalas—which I can link to only indirectly here so as not to infringe on copyrights—are an excellent form of totemic representation. They served to literally ILLUMINATE the shadowy unconscious forms that might appear in Carl Jung’s dreams and reveries. The process of arranging these archetypal images in Mandala forms revealed the deeper significance of these forms to Jung; it represented the integrationof their MEANINGS within Jung’s holistic understanding of his own Psyche or Self.

I certainly recommend reading Jung’s Red Book (there is a new Readers’ Edition available that makes this precious gem more accessible and affordable). Even more,I encourage you to engage in an ‘active imagination’ exploration of your own archetypal depths. In Life Paths–also in the next year of this blog that will begin in a couple of weeks from now— I’ll be offering an Archetype Dialogue process to help you discover aspects of your own unconscious archetypal influences that can be thought of as your own ensemble cast of archetypal Ally characters.

For now, though, I invite you to create a MANDALA to represent your LIFE DREAM. Place an image that represents your GOAL ACHIEVED (how you will feel or what your life will be like when you have fully integrated your Life Dream into your daily reality) in the center of a blank page. Around this Life Dream image, place other images or words and phrases to represent significant aspects of this Dream or representing the steps you can take to manifest your Life Dream.  You can refer to last week’s “Yellow Brick Road” and “Your Next Step” blog posts to find or develop material to use in filling out your totemic Life Dream Mandala image.

 

I welcome your Mandala image or comments!

Anchor Your Dream to a Totem

Goals may come and goals may go, but a worthy Life Dream deserves persistence, patience and flexibility. Because it may take quite some time to manifest your Life Dream fully, as you gradually live into this Dream it is important for you to “anchor” or ground your Dream in mindful consciousness. That means you will want to keep your Life Dream in view, always, no matter where you are at in the process of manifesting this reality.

Anthropologists have long observed that humans around the world and from the very earliest times have learned to ground their goals as well as their primary group values by using TOTEMS. A totem is what Emile Durkheim called a “symbolic representation.” It is a symbolic object or artistic expression that reminds someone of the idea or goal in a meaningful way, thus reinforcing the significance of that being represented.  Religious symbols, such as sculpted icons of religious figures like saints or gods, remind believers of the values associated with that figure and might also be a central symbol around which a congregation will socially bond. Or a rabbit’s foot may symbolize the sort of “luck” a baseball player might wish to have by keeping this talisman in his or her pocket while playing ball.

I believe once you have established a meaningful Life Dream—one that accords with your highest sense of Purpose or Mission in your life—, this can become a focal point for much that is Sacred in your own Life Story.  To center your dedication and focus around manifesting this Life Dream, I encourage you to create a TOTEM (or a set of totems) that represent key attributes of your Dream in symbolic form.

Your Life Dream Totem can take whatever form feels appropriate to you and that form might depend on what features or aspects of your Dream you are wishing to anchor.  For example, if you relate a particular Archetypal aspect of your Self with your Life Dream, you might represent your Dream totemically by creating or obtaining something symbolic of that Archetype. If an archetype you associate with your life mission, for instance, is a Warrior, maybe you could use a Lion, or a sword, to represent that. If it is a Lover archetype you are identifying with, maybe a Heart image of some sort will work; or if it is a Communicator or a Teacher archetype, you can find or create symbolic totems to remind you of these personal attributes important to you for manifesting your Dream.

 

So what Life Dream do you aim to manifest in your life? What is one (or more than one) key value or major ideal that you associate with your goal? You may create or find some object that represents this value clearly to keep as a Totem.

Does your Life Dream relate to strengthening or expressing one or more archetypal aspects of your Psyche? (The twelve universal archetype forms I have identified through this blog site—based on the archetypal psychology of Dr. Charles Bebeau and his consociates—include: Elder Leader, Lover, Warrior, Nurturer, Artist, Idealist, Golden Child, Descender, Teacher, Communicator, Healer, Mystic.) If so, you can represent your archetypal Allies totemically, too. For instance, you could create a pendant or a charm bracelet with charms that represent your archetypal character strengths, and wear this necklace or bracelet to remind you always of these important internal aspects of your identity that you aim to deepen and strengthen as you realize your golden ambitions.

Have fun with this. Imagine and create or obtain the “perfect” Totem for your Life Dream. This can help to anchor your attention so that you always remember what you are aiming to realize in or about your life, from day to day!  Next week–the final week of this Life Mapping series before a new annual round is to begin at Better Endings–is about how to Live Your Dream, Now! So this week I am inviting you to find that perfect Totem you can carry forward with you in manifesting your Life Dream both in consciousness and in the reality of your active life, to express your high values and your meaningful purpose. You can root yourself in your Totem to help to nurture and focus on the beauty and integrity of your unique and fulfilling Life Dream.

I invite YOUR Comments and your Stories!

WHAT IS YOUR NEXT STEP?

Action, like a sacrament,
is the visible form
of an invisible spirit,
an outward manifestation
of an inner power.

~ Parker Palmer ~

(The picture and quote above are from Theresa of Soul Gatherings [click to link].)

This week I have been focusing on tools to help you manifest your Life Dream. First you can envision your Future Goal deeply (see Sunday’s post). Then you can contemplate a pathway that leads from where you are Now to the gradual realization of your Goal achieved (see Tuesday’s post). Today I invite you to focus on discovering your NEXT STEP in the direction of manifesting your Goal. The difference between “magical thinking” and effective implementation of the law of Manifestation can be summed up in the concepts of VISION plus ACTION. Clearly envisioning your goal allows you to create a Plan of Action that will deliver you TO your goal, step by step. The ‘trick’ is to establish a practical yet at the same time a creative and idealistic or value based Process.

I invite you to review the Yellow Brick Road life path image from Tuesday’s post (reprinted here above). Here you were invited to fill in the winding path to a meaningful life goal by envisioning stages or phases you can anticipate experiencing en route to realizing your goal, or your Bliss. If you completed that game board design, you can review it now again. If not, I invite you to create one. Choose a Goal that you truly hope to manifest on your own road to fulfillment of your life Purpose or Mission.

Now then, zoom in on what you have included or described on this game board “life path” as your very next phase or stage of the Life Path journey you have envisioned toward your Goal. Focus only on that next phase itself to explore and expose more deeply. Now then, what ACTION STEPS can you take NOW in your life or in the foreseeable/ plannable future in order to accomplish this one next phase of your journey en route to your more distant, Bliss related Goal? Focussing in what you can do NOW helps you to establish MOVEMENT in the direction of your Goal, to overcome any inertia based on how far away your goal might seem.

Explore and more fully develop this one next phase, only. Create a Plan of Action that will manifest this next step. When you focus on “one step at a time,” before you know it you will be well on the Road to YOUR GOAL!

I invite and welcome all of your Comments and Stories!

Your Yellow Brick Road

The more clearly you can envision your Life Dream or a future goal, the more you can collapse the space-time, so to speak, between yourself Here and your goal Now. That is, the better you can visualize and embrace the reality of your worthy end achieved, the more evident will become the path that connects you to the place or set of conditions your goal represents to you.

Last week I invited you to imagine a set of Alternate Future Scapes as a mode of “Future Casting”.  If you established two or more of these Alter-Future visions, choose one now. (If not, go ahead and cast an alternate future scape; nothing is cast in stone so feel free to imagine a desirable set of future conditions that feels good to you Now.)

Have you played the board game LIFE recently? My favorite recent version is the Wizard of OZ rendition. Dorothy and other characters wend their way from Auntie Em’s farm into the Land of the Munchkins, the Land of OZ, the Witch’s castle, and ultimately back Home, to Kansas. The image of a Life Path as a winding spiral, with bridges to cross, rewards to collect and obstacles or setbacks to overcome along the Way–like Dorothy and her Archetype Allies’ adventure along the Yellow Brick Road–is a classic mythical image of an Epic Journey or of a labyrinth pathway of self-discovery.

Below is a rather rough sketch of a Winding Path motif.   I invite you to fill this in (or draw your own and fill that in) with incremental steps or phases that lead to the realization of your Alternate Future!  Use your creativity and your mindful awareness of your Goal to represent time frames or the processual stages you anticipate experiencing along the Yellow Brick Road of your own exciting Adventure to the manifestation of your Life Dream. You can share this with a loved one, friend, or children, too. Then you can each talk about what you have projected about your own Life Path.

Have fun with this. You can create as many of these Life Path pictures as you like, to one or to several alternate futures. But take your time with each one, too. Focus inwardly on recreating–as it were, from the ‘end achieved’–the actual steps you CAN take to bring your Life Dream to fruition.

When I have filled in my own envisioned Pathway to a meaningful Life Dream, I have later been amazed to look back at this mapping some several months or even years later to find that I have been actualizing these stages pretty much in the sequence envisioned.

I invite your Comments and your Stories!

P.S.: Thank you for reading and for your Likes!!! Stay tuned for Friday’s post : Your Next Step

 

Setting Sail

Once you have established a Life Dream, a meaningful personal Goal that will fulfill your Purpose or Mission of this lifetime, What Then? (see Yeats poem, linked).  How are you to bridge the seeming gulf between where you are Now and where (and how) you wish to Be? What holds you back from pursuing or from realizing your Dream?

Before you can set sail to the destination of manifesting your fulfillment, your Bliss, you need clarity about the process you can take to bring your goal within the grasp of realization. That means you need to have a clear view of your destination and a good awareness about how you will manifest your goal. When a Dream or Goal seems too remote or unrealistic from where we are Now, we are less likely to take practical steps in the direction of ever realizing this goal.

  

I have found in working with life mappers over the past decade that it can help to conceptualize where we are at in relation to a Goal by viewing the situation from a broad overview perspective. One basic technique for ‘zooming out’ far enough to see the whole is a basic form of mind-mapping called a CLUSTERING technique.  I will present a very tailored version of this technique in Life Paths; for now, though, I invite you to use a very general approach to help you to frame parameters of your Life Dream that are relevant to developing your motivation around your Dream. For an example of his method, I recommend Mary Carroll Moore’s excellent book, How to Master Change in Your Life, as she presents a similar clustering approach there in relation to bringing about a desired change.

You may start this clustering practice simply by placing a word or phrase representing your Life Dream in the center of a blank, unlined page. Then start reflecting on this Dream. What benefit will you gain from realizing this goal in your life? Write something describing this benefit somewhere on the page (above the center to express a positive aspect) and draw a line from your Dream to this benefit. Are there outcomes or consequences from this benefit to also consider? Draw a line from the benefit to this other consideration. Are there negative sorts of challenges (e.g. cost or time limitations) that you associate with your Dream? Draw a line to a space below the center and write these considerations. For every branch extending out from the center that you connect with the considerations that arise as you reflect more deeply on this Dream, you may draw sub-branch limbs to clouds of related considerations around these. You can also connect considerations over the whole page to one another.

For every negative challenge or fear, etcetera, that you expose with this mind-mapping technique, do aim to also place a positive ‘antidote’ or solution to this challenge, as well. After you complete the clustering session, you may wish to envision and to journal or write about the insights you have gained. Has a plan of sorts revealed itself? What steps can you begin to take now in your life that can help you to overcome obstacles to your manifestation of this valuable Life Dream?

I welcome your Comments and Stories!

Magical Thinking or Manifestation? Seeing, Knowing, Being

Is the future (or many possible futures simultaneously) a parallel reality? On Tuesday I linked this blog to physicist Brian Greene’s YouTube airing of The Illusion of Time (check it out!) If time is ultimately an illusion, then different time frames—e.g. yesterday, today and tomorrow—can be considered Parallel Realities. That means when you learn how to shift perspective, the future is perceived as an Alter-Now, as is a past moment or “memory”; for everything is Now.

What imaginative and practical implications might we draw from regarding “the Future” as an array or matrix of Alter-Nows? Personally I believe this opens a pathway from the actualized Present to the to-be-actualized Future that we desire to manifest by conscious intention. You can set a specific future condition as a destination; not to be arrived at, but rather to “manifest”. This is what the credo “Live Your Dream, Now!” within the approach I’ve been presenting of Life Mapping is all about. Set a course, Cosmic NOWness Sailor, and Go (Just BE HERE)!

This past Sunday I read an engaging, passionate blog from Rachel Mankowitz in which she discusses Hope as potentially merely a matter of “magical thinking.” Hope, though, can be channeled effectively via the “law of manifestation,” which may only sound like “magical thinking” by those who do not believe in the power of their own intention and imagination. I know Rachel does so believe; in tandem with her dear dog companions she continues to apply her intentions with skill and hopeful steering.

I have invited a fellow writer, Denise Naughton,to share her insights with us today about the spiritual Law of Manifestation. I have been in helpful writing classes with Denise as the teacher where we have studied this “law” as a definite, dynamic process. In my own life, I have always been strongly motivated by the almost magical-seeming process of moving a project from the point of conception/ideation through gradual implementation into outward manifestation. Nothing compels me more in life than to facilitate this Law of Manifestation in everything I have “set my heart upon”.

So, as a gift to you all, here are insights from my good friend, Denise:

The Law of Manifestation

What is the difference between manifesting and magical thinking? As I heard one person describe it: magical thinking is here’s my plate where’s my dinner, while another begins by imagining what dinner will look like, how it will come to her, what it will taste like, etc. Think about the little girl in “The Little Princess”. When she and her friend were hungry and cold, the little girl sat down and described everything from tea in a cup to a fire in the grate. She tasted it, even pretended to eat and drink, and what happened? She and her friend woke up to a transformed room. In the story we know how it came to be, but that’s also part of manifesting—not devaluing the gift because it didn’t fall out of the sky.

I’ve been studying two books titled The Flute of God, by Paul Twitchell, and The Science of Being Rich, by Wallace D. Wattle. Both are similar in describing the principle of manifesting. It’s not important why I’m studying this principle per se except to say that I just love seeing how it works. By “studying” them, I mean when I finish the books I begin reading them again because manifesting is not about what I think consciously, it’s about what I believe unconsciously.

Both books bring out three principles about manifesting—seeing, knowing, being. This translates into, first, imagining what I want. Second, having confidence in the universe, Spirit, or however one wants to term that which is larger than we are, that this will come to me. And third, living as if I already have it, I have accepted the gift, etcetera.

One day I was walking a very busy street in San Francisco. I was having a daydream about receiving an Oscar for a terrific screenplay that was made into a film. The film was up for an Oscar as well as the writer and director (this is all imagination). I imagined the gown I was wearing, and the speech I was going to give. I walked up the street carrying my newly received statue. I was there, not on the street where I was walking. Before I knew it cars were honking. I couldn’t understand why. Traffic was flowing smoothly, and then I realized that I had put myself so into the moment of my Oscar acceptance that drivers were seeing me that way. There was no doubt that’s what was happening.

I end this with something that I also read to myself every day. It’s a composite from aspects of both the books I mentioned. I don’t need to be worthy of any experience in this life. I don’t have to earn it or get it as a reward. I just need to accept it. I simply learn to accept my good and that good comes to me here and now. I learn to collapse time and remove the barrier between my desire and me. Life is nothing but a series of experiences, and whatever I want I can have. After all every person is having right now what they subconsciously expect to get.

Denise Naughton is an author, a public speaker, and a Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) at Union Institute and College. She is completing her dissertation on Jungian archetypes related to stock characters in Australian film.

 

 

******   ******

Thanks, Denise!

To all, I invite your Comments and Stories!

Future Casting

I would like to introduce the notion of Future Casting as a mode of creative visualization. Consider you stand before a blank canvas that represents your future. In fact, imagine you have a stack of empty canvasses, of various sizes, available to you. Take one and put it on an easel; this represents the blank screen of your mind (unless you prefer a physical canvas and paint or other artistic media).

Now then, focus inwardly on a desirable future scenario. Represent that scenario on your empty canvas or blank page.  Draw, paint, place text, finger paint, place collage images, or do anything to ENVISION your future scenario. Consider this is but one of several possible futures.  Complete one and put it to the side (so you can see it, though). Now, start another.

Your Alternate Future-scapes can be similar to one another, with tweaks or special features with each one; or, they can be very different, representing radically different future conditions or options. The only guideline is to allow yourself TOTAL FREEDOM in your imagining. This is a FANTASY adventure, not necessarily a practical one at this stage.

After casting two or more of these Alternate Future-scapes, review them, one at a time. Contemplate their message to you. Then, take a walk! Or, do something you enjoy to relax and allow these ideas to percolate or to “incubate” in your consciousness. When you come back, try writing about (or simply use active imagination/ contemplate) any of these alternative futures. You can journal about this over several days, refining ideas, and you can ask yourself what kernel of future reality have you implanted here.

Be mindful with this practice. Intend to clarify some aspects of the direction you may go in order to realize your Best Case future scenario. Nothing is written in stone nor should it be. Allow Your future envisioning to remain flexible, yet allow some coherent ideas to form around which the rest may flow.

I did this a few months ago and the results were profound. I now know where I am likely to retire and what that will be about.  Having a clear idea of where I am heading helps me to now prepare in that direction, always remaining open to further information.

 Quantum physicists like Brian Greene now tell us that the future may reach back to us as we reach back to the past; that is, there may be “waves” of probability coming to us in the Present from the Future as there are also memory waves to and from the past.

Future casting, then, is a matter of perceptual exploration.  If the future is an array of unlimited possibilities more narrowly framed as a set of probabilities connected to present conditions, we can project a future in keeping with our creative intention to move in a direction of our choice. To move beyond the threshold of the Present leading inexorably into consequences or a chain of events outside our control, we only need to stop, look, and Imagine!

So I encourage you to go Future Casting!

I welcome your Comments and Stories.

HOLD FAST TO YOUR DREAM

These next four weeks will complete the present six month cycle here at Better Endings for Life Paths, after which we will embark on a whole new, exciting yearly cycle.  As a culmination of the process represented by the sequence of topics we have been exploring, we will finish the next four weeks with a flourish to help you contemplate a major Goal: Your Life Dream, Your Plan of Action, Your Dream Totem, and Live Your Dream, Now!  

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die,

Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

– Langston Hughes

For this week, I want to help you to deeply ‘excavate’ or to (re-) claim a Life Dream.  What is your understanding of your Purpose for being in this life? What is your unique personal Mission and how might that you realize that as your Life Dream?  Earlier I asked you to consider: “What do I want to be when I Grow Up?” Envisioning your answer to this is a way of picturing your Life Dream. How did you answer that question when you were a child?  What was essential about what you wanted to ‘grow up to be’ then that still applies to where you’d like to be in, say, five years from now or when you have fully manifested your Dream?

Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go,

Life is a barren field, frozen with snow.

— by Langston Hughes

This week I invite you to ‘excavate’ your dream from childhood and then to elaborate on where It stands for you Now.

When I was in high school for awhile I wanted to become a physical education teacher, because I became fascinated with gymnastics through an obstacle course program in high school, around 9^th grade. I couldn’t get enough of that obstacle course; it was challenging and exciting to every fiber of my being. I wanted to achieve a level of perfection at every task, from parallel and uneven bars to the pommel horse. That particular dream developed later into my activity in college as a member of an intercollegiate fencing team.

Even younger, I wanted to be a musician (a violinist) or, a little later and ever since then, a writer. I wrote a novella when I was 12 which I called The Fate of Kuwait. It had some oddly prophetic parallels to events of the first Gulf War. Then when I was 18, my best friend Barbara and I snuck out to ‘run away’ to New York City, for her to be an artist and for myself to become a poet and a fiction author. It was time, we both felt, to leave our childhoods and to begin our awaiting artistic careers. We had met some young men from New Jersey in Niagara Falls earlier that day who said they would drive us to The City. My dream was of writing creative works in smoky coffee houses in NYC; a bohemian artist’s way of life.

Barb and I snuck out from her house and actually we could have made it to Niagara Falls, but at 6AM after Barb and I had successfully scaled an escarpment cliff en route to our bohemian futures, I realized my Grandmother was visiting; she would be so upset if I ran away while she was there! We slid back down the escarpment on our seats (it was February near Buffalo, NY) and made it back to Barb’s by 6:45; 30 minutes before her mother called us to breakfast. Oddly enough, two summers later while I was ushering at a performing arts center in Lewiston, NY, a famous symphony conductor and his wife invited me to come be a nanny for their children in New York City; I would just have to quit college and leave the next day! I let that dream go by, but I have nurtured the deeper dream by gradually developing my writing; publishing continues as my life’s Dream which I have already had some success with and am yet en route to fulfilling.

So, what did you dream of becoming or of growing up to Do or to Be in your childhood? How does that relate to your current Life Dream? What are you doing now or what can you begin to do that will allow yourself to arrive at this destination of your Heart and Soul?

Nurture your Dream this week. Write about it, dream about it, talk about it inwardly and outwardly. Draw it; imagine your DREAM coming forth into fruition.

I invite your insights and stories!

A Constellation of Your Archetype Allies for Better Endings

 

 

For those of you following this blog or who have at least read last Tuesday’s post here, I can report that the dialogue with my Healer archetype (which I continued in greater depth in privacy after posting the excerpt) proved very helpful. I was able to take a small but meaningful step in the direction of my own Life Dream! So, I am thankful to the blog, and to you all as a collective “someone” (and as individuals) to share this WITH, for the opportunity to explore my own archetypal reservoir.

This week I have been contemplating the idea of a CONSTELLATION in relation to an ensemble cast of archetypal character modes. Look at this image of Orion, for instance. What makes a stellar constellation more than a random arrangement of stars observed in the night sky? Although it is true that people of different cultures may recognize different constellations more or less, and though of course they will attach different connotations even to shared constellation images, still there is something about a constellation that is like a gestalt, whereby “the sum (total pattern) is greater than the sum of its parts.” I have noticed this in written word forms, too. Think about it; once you rearrange a scrambled word, as in a word game like Scrabble or Words with Friends, doesn’t it just feel better to see the word in its meaningful form?

For example:   NAMGAITION becomes “IMAGINATION”; doesn’t that just FEEL “right” and “better” than the scrambled letters?

So then, let’s turn back to our weekly theme of Your Archetype Allies. The example I usually give to help people understand the concept of a “mythic ensemble cast of Archetype characters” is Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz with her ensemble cast of unrealized or non-integrated parts of Self in the form of the Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion (and with Toto as her Animus companion). Notice how as the story unfolds, each of these character shards, as it were, gain strength individually while also gradually forming a coherent unit of archetypal Allies, manifesting fully in the scene in which the 3 (plus Toto) literally don Warrior uniforms and act as a collective, harmonious unit to rescue Dorothy from the Wicked Witch’s castle.  Once this well integrated unit is fully assembled, with Dorothy in the Center again, they have the combined strength needed to accomplish their Mission: to dissolve the energy of the negative Witch. Dorothy can then assimilate and convert that negative power to a positive energy, first by taking the broomstick of the Witch of the West and then ultimately by learning to ‘stand in her own power,’ symbolized by the ruby slippers.

Whenever you think of The Wizard of Oz, you think of the ensemble assembly, right? Dorothy does not act “alone.” Even after she returns to Kansas (her “Conscious” domain; I just realized how similar those words are!), we know that her Allies will always be available in her Unconscious (“not in Kansas anymore!”) Land of Oz.

So let’s return to YOUR QUEST: a meaningful goal you aim to achieve that you feel a need to develop Strengths for in order to ultimately pursue and attain it fully. Reviewing the Twelve Universal Archetypes I have presented this week, I invite you to consider what COMBINATION of these Archetypal characters, in either Strength or Shadow trait modes (see Sunday and Tuesday’s posts this week for brief descriptions of their character traits), might form a proper CONSTELLATION of Archetypal Allies which could, by serving together as co-workers with You as the central Self, help you to go after and to realize your Goal?

Below I include an Archetype Wheel. This shows the same Universal 12 Archetypes developed by Dr. Charles and Nin Bebeau (and Debra J. Breazzano, M.A.,LPC) that I will be introducing more formally in LIFE PATHS and that appear in descriptions within Sunday and Tuesday’s posts this current week. This Wheel represents how these 12 primordial archetype figures relate to the four elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water) and to the three stages of any process (I=origination,II=maintenance and III=dissolution).

 

What CONSTELLATION or combination of the above Archetype Characters could YOU unite with to form a strong ALLIANCE GROUP that can help you achieve your specific Goal? Please see if you can identify a subset of these 12 Universal Archetype figures that you can enlist to accomplish your goal.

I invite you to journal about, talk about, and engage in active imagination with the individual members of your Archetypal Constellation! Get to know each one, their strengths and weaknesses, hopes and fears, and what they bring to the Assembly that can help you to realize your Goal. You might wish to write a narrative STORY about you and your Archetypal Constellation–like in the Wizard of Oz–that envisions your goal and how your ensemble cast could act together as an ensemble cast to realize your goal or Life Dream!

 

I invite your Insights and Stories!

Your Helpful Archetype Allies

When I was a senior in high school in New York state (Lewiston, NY), our English professors came up with a great idea for that year.  Called “Universal Man”, the study year was segmented into a series of 3 or 4 week modules each on a different theme. Man the Lover, Man the Prisoner, Man the Seeker, Man the Adventurer, Man the Thinker, etcetera (now it would be Man or Woman…), was the basis of the themes. For each module we would choose relevant literature to read and we would write about it, plus we would reflect on that aspect of our own lives as well. Only many years later would I come to appreciate that these themes were “archetypal” in nature.  I really enjoyed that year’s English program. It helped me see how all these threads or energies interweave within everyone, giving us special qualities from each perspective.

Each archetypal character MODE has a unique viewpoint and stance in our overall Psyche. Some are more active and others are more suppressed, depending on the situation or context. This week I am inviting you to choose one of your own archetypal sub-selves to get to know better and to enlist in your adventure toward achieving a meaningful life goal. Since goals are usually related to some active role or career that we are already engaged with, let’s begin by selecting a goal associated with a role with which we are highly identified at this time. (For example, for me right now, it is my Writer/Author role that carries the most poignant goal; that of publishing LIFE PATHS.) So, after identifying your ardent goal related to some active role in your life, you can then identify an archetypal member (or more than one) from your unconscious ‘ensemble cast’ that could be most helpful aligning with you as you advance toward realizing your goal.

I will repeat Sunday’s lineup of archetypal character modes below. Which of these is most closely connected with the Role and Goal you are interested in strengthening?

Elder Leader: Strength mode—strong authority figure, self-confidence, director, leader; Shadow mode—harsh authoritarian, strict, imposing

Lover: In Strength—romantic intimacy, self-sacrificing, passionate; In Shadow—over-attachment, selfish desires

Warrior: In Strength—fighter for a good cause, courage, blazing new paths; In Shadow—attacker, domination or exertion of power

Nurturer: In Strength–Caregiver, gentleness, supporter, giver of consolation or understanding; In Shadow—stingy, over-protective, undue worrier

Artist: In Strength—expressive, talented performer/artist, creative, innovator; In Shadow—blocked creativity, inhibited, introversion, negative fantasy

Idealist: In Strength—High ideals, far-ranging vision, traveler, manifesting change; In Shadow—frustration, feelings of persecution, criticism, over-perfectionism

Golden Child: In Strength—charismatic, mover and shaker, destined for success, generous with largesse; In Shadow—overly controlling, vain, needs to be onstage or center of attention, fickle

Descender: In Strength—introspective, reflective, thoughtful, cocooning; In Shadow—depression, self-restriction, hiding, avoidance, introversion

Teacher: In Strength—imparts knowledge with enthusiasm, studious researcher, reader, notetaker, patient instructor, coach; In Shadow—overly didactic, my way or the highway, micro-manager, overbearing

Communicator: In Strength—public speaker, writer/author, workshop presenter, interpersonal communicator, promoter, a good listener; In Shadow—tight-lipped, withholding viewpoint, holding ideas close to chest, suspicious, or overly extroverted, “rabble rouser”

Healer: In Strength—doctor or nurse, concern with diet and exercise, natural energy, implementing positive change; In Shadow—masochism, perpetuating pain or sense of fatalism

Mystic: In Strength—seeker, prayerful, contemplation or meditation, dreamer, focus on cosmos, monk-like, alchemy; In Shadow—addictive personality, dwelling in Darkness, isolated hermit, withdrawn

Have you identified one or more potential character allies? Next then, I invite you to engage with this archetypal aspect-of-Self in an active imagination and/or in a journaling DIALOGUE. Get to know this energetic part of yourself. What are his or her own goals for you? What are their greatest loves, fears, worries, hopes? How and when do they show up for you? How are they part of the ROLES you enact day to day? When and why do you sometimes suppress them or why do they sometimes retreat?

How can they help you to realize your Goal?

As a sample, while I find many of the 12 archetypes have qualities essential to my current goals as a writer/author, I want to get to know The Healer better this week, because I think that is a part of myself to which I do not give enough room overall in my life. I catch from the character description that Healer can be helpful with “implementing positive change” and has a quality of “natural energy”. I feel the need for a second wind lately to help circumvent some of my own habitual self-limiting attitudes. So I seek out HEALER as an ALLY on this leg of my journey.

First then, dive Down into the Deeps of your personal unconscious realms. Do not expect your archetypal sub-selves to necessarily come “up” to your world of consciousness to meet with you. You can use an active contemplation or meditation mode to “sink” into an imagistic realm that you share with your archetypal cast.

LW: Is one I can call Healer present here? Can we talk?

H: I am here.  How are you?

LW: Worried. I feel like I’ve been sabotaging myself lately; I need a dose of some positive self-confidence for taking the next big—or small—step. I am scared.

H: Why then is it me you seek help from? Why not some of the Others? Elder Leader or Artist, or Descender even?

LW: I feel I need your Healing energy to help me assuage self-doubt in order for me to be more empowered to communicate from a greater strength of awareness.

H: Who injured you? When?

LW: Wow! You are right, this goes way back to my father and others who led me to inhibit or to subdue my sense of confidence in life overall. Better to stay in the shadows they would tell me. Be silent; don’t make waves. The world will beat you down if you stick your neck out, they would say.

H: There is more. What did your father say that inhibits you so deeply? He is down here still you know, both as what you call Shadow and as Strength. Do you want to see him?

LW: …not right now. I remember several disparaging remarks, most of which I don’t want to include in the public blog…so I’ll reflect upon them privately instead.

H: What do you need a healing for then?

LW: For hiding from him all these years—or the Shadow side of him. I am still grateful for the rest and I know he ‘meant well’ and had his own dragons affecting him.

H: What do you need from me?

LW: Just to be with me as I forgive him. To be my Ally as I take a step to communicate ‘forward’ this week. I need you to acknowledge the purpose I aim to fulfill with this goal.

H: Many others can benefit; the time has come to release this child of yours into the world.

LW: Will you mid-wife then?

H: Yes if you will allow me to.

LW: Please.

H: Then remember to BREATHE, okay? Breathe and review where things are at. Breathe and communicate forward.

Enough from me. I hope that the process is clear for how you can engage with your own archetypal parts of Self. I invite you to do so. Identify a goal that matters to a role you seek to strengthen in your life right now. Identify an archetypal part of Self that could help you. Get to know that archetypal persona and invite that one to serve as an Ally.

I encourage and look forward to YOUR insights and STORIES!

YOUR ARCHETYPE ALLIES

Make a list a few of your most central roles in life (e.g.Mother/Father, Lover, Teacher, Son/daughter, traveler, mystic, business person, etcetera).

Next, look at the following set of 12 “Universal Archetype” Figures with their basic descriptions as character types (Note: These are informal descriptions.):

Elder Leader: Strength mode—strong authority figure, self-confidence, director, leader; Shadow mode—harsh authoritarian, strict, imposing

Lover: In Strength—romantic intimacy, self-sacrificing, passionate; In Shadow—over-attachment, selfish desires

Warrior: In Strength—fighter for a good cause, courage, blazing new paths; In Shadow—attacker, domination or exertion of power

Nurturer: In Strength–Caregiver, gentleness, supporter, giver of consolation or understanding; In Shadow—stingy, over-protective, undue worrier

Artist: In Strength—expressive, talented performer/artist, creative, innovator; In Shadow—blocked creativity, inhibited, introversion, negative fantasy

Idealist: In Strength—High ideals, far-ranging vision, traveler, manifesting change; In Shadow—frustration, feelings of persecution, criticism, over-perfectionism

Golden Child: In Strength—charismatic, mover and shaker, destined for success, generous with largesse; In Shadow—overly controlling, vain, needs to be onstage or center of attention, fickle

Descender: In Strength—introspective, reflective, thoughtful, cocooning; In Shadow—depression, self-restriction, hiding, avoidance, introversion

Teacher: In Strength—imparts knowledge with enthusiasm, studious researcher, reader, notetaker, patient instructor, coach; In Shadow—overly didactic, my way or the highway, micro-manager, overbearing

Communicator: In Strength—public speaker, writer/author, workshop presenter, interpersonal communicator, promoter, a good listener; In Shadow—tight-lipped, withholding viewpoint, holding ideas close to chest, suspicious, or overly extroverted, “rabble rouser”

Healer: In Strength—doctor or nurse, concern with diet and exercise, natural energy, implementing positive change; In Shadow—masochism, perpetuating pain or sense of fatalism

Mystic: In Strength—seeker, prayerful, contemplation or meditation, dreamer, focus on cosmos, monk-like, alchemy; In Shadow—addictive personality, dwelling in Darkness, isolated hermit, withdrawn

 

 

Now then, which of these archetypes or archetype Qualities “show up” for you in relation to each of your primary roles?  You may refer to either Strength or Shadow modes, and all twelve of these archetypes could appear in masculine or feminine modes as well. List the QUALITIES of the Archetypes that you associate with your life roles:

MY ROLE   Archetype    Qualities

(E.G. Teacher role / TEACHER archetype/ coach, knowledgeable

Pet Mom / NURTURER Archetype/ caregiver, grooming, over-protective

 

This week we will be focussing on learning about and cultivating your own Archetype Allies. What makes an Archetype an Ally? It isn’t necessarily automatic; archetypes need to be acknowledged, nurtured, recognized and interacted with and listened to. They need to be encountered and INVITED to collaborate with you in reaching your goals and expressing your highest qualities every day.  They need to be included consciously as important aspects of your identity that contribute greatly to your enactment of your roles. Then they are available, with all their strengths, to step up for you to help you be “all that you can be”!

For example, many years ago during some therapy I was undergoing to help own some of my own ‘buried’ strengths, my therapist, Janice, helped me identify an “older brother” part of self. I named him Jonathan.   Janice invited me to let Jonathan “take me out” sometime where he would take care of his little sister. So I went to a drive-in movie, letting Jonathan as the older brother drive and take care of me, as Little Linda. We went to see Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood, that had just been released. A pillow in the passenger seat represented me as Little Linda, but I was really more in the role of Jonathan. I bought popcorn and soda for Little Linda and made sure she felt safe at the drive-in.  I got to feel the strength of my ‘older brother’ part-of-self as a Nurturer and Elder Leader. Afterwards, I felt that this Jonathan energy was more a part of me overall. Jonathan (that Nurturer-Elder Leader energy that I had been suppressing) was happy to step up and be included; See?

Try it yourself, in your own way! Is there an archetypal part of self you would like to acknowledge and invite to step forward with you this week?

I welcome your insights and stories!

How to Build Your Strengths

When I was an undergraduate at SUNY College at Buffalo (1972-1976), I majored in English and minored in Philosophy and Creative Studies. Creative Studies was unique to this college, with faculty led by Sidney J. Parnes and Ruth Noller, pioneering experts in the creativity field.  Dr. Parnes (Sid) went on to later co-found the International Center for Studies in Creativity at SUNY Center at Buffalo.

Every summer the Center for Creativity Studies at Buffalo State College held a Creative Studies Conference, inviting the brightest innovators in this field to present their study findings and to present workshops about the creative process. I attended one in 1974 that I shall never forget, as I acquired a simple tool there which I have always remembered and still utilize and about which I share with my own university students—and now, you!—to this day. It was offered in a workshop titled something like “Strength Building: A Creative Process.” Unfortunately I do not recall the name of the presenter. I believe he was a CEO of a creative corporate consulting firm.

“Take out a piece of paper and a pen. Now I would like for you to write down 10 of what you consider to be your Greatest Weaknesses.”

That is how the workshop began. The workshop presenter, a well groomed man in his early 40’s, gave us around ten minutes to compile our list of weaknesses. I don’t recall at all what I wrote down then; which is good, according to the insights he shared over the rest of this exercise.

“Now then, on a separate piece of paper, please write down a list of what you perceive to be your 10 Greatest Strengths. I’d like for you to rank order these strengths of yours from one to ten, with ten being your highest, greatest strength of all.”

I seem to recall a few of these even today, forty years later. “A good listener” was on the list (I don’t think at the top); “persistent” was probably there, too; “a Friend” I am guessing I would also have included on my self-perceived list of strengths at that time.

“Now then, please take out your page with the list of your perceived weaknesses. I would like for you to TEAR THIS UP.  Please throw the paper scraps away in the waste basket that I will now pass around the room.”

Hmm! I was surprised. I thought for sure we would be focusing on those weaknesses to learn how to “build our strengths.”

“Never focus on your weaknesses,” the creativity consultant stated. “If you were ready to deal with them, they probably wouldn’t  be on your list of weaknesses anyway.  Instead,” he invited, “ ALWAYS CONCENTRATE ON DEVELOPING WHAT YOU ALREADY FIND TO BE YOUR STRENGTHS.  IF YOU DEVELOP YOUR STRENGTHS FURTHER, SOME DAY YOU WILL LOOK BACK TO FIND THAT SOME OF WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE COUNTED AS WEAKNESSES ARE NOW AMONG YOUR STRENGTHS, TOO!”

This man explained about how developing our greatest strengths has benefits that expand all of our skills or talents along the way. I could relate this to fencing at the time, as I was on an intercollegiate fencing squad that placed within the top 10 in the nation at the the following year’s national tournament.

I applied the workshop KEY to fencing all that next year. ACCENTUATE STRENGTHS! Develop those skills or fencing moves and attacks that I liked most and could do the best. Don’t dwell on weaknesses, and all will improve. I must say, he was so right! They did! I learned that when I focused on a weakness in fencing, a move or skill I had not yet been able to master, I became self-conscious on the fencing strip, and any athlete knows that is never a good thing! When instead I focused mainly in practice and coaching lessons on honing particular moves and attacks I already felt naturally good at, I developed a portfolio of strengths, a repertoire of successful strategies which I found I could rely on “without thinking” during a bout. That is what fencing absolutely requires is the fluid capacity to ACT and to CREATE strategy in the immediacy of the Moment. This approach was highly successful. That next year I defeated many of the best fencers from the best university teams throughout the country. I was focussed on what I COULD do, and DID that!

So, I invite YOU to write down a list of what you perceive to be your ten greatest weaknesses. Put that aside and on another sheet of paper, write down what you perceive to be your ten greatest strengths. Rank order those strengths to compile a final list of your strengths. Now then, please tear up your list of weaknesses and throw that away. What you are left with is the list of Your Greatest STRENGTHS! Place that list somewhere so you will see it often. Contemplate your strengths. DEVELOP them. Then go about your business, whatever it might be, and APPLY these Strengths mindfully. This is a win-win scenario for all!

I welcome your Comments, Your Insights and Your Stories to Share !