Dreamin’

Last week I invited you to state a personal question for the month to explore by reflecting on your dreams, your inner guidance, and outer ‘signs’ or synchronicity (waking dreams). Please review your question again or develop one now. This week, I invite you to reflect on your question by posing your question inwardly to invoke nighttime dreams about your topic, and/or to review and reflect upon your recent dreams that are relevant to your question.

For my part, second week posts will include some dream tips as well as modeling from my own process and experiences.

Dream Tip:  A.C.T. on your dreams! To me this means: 1) ASK for (and then ACCESS or record) dreams that are relevant to your personal question. Then 2) CONSIDER or CONTEMPLATE the messages from the relevant dreams you receive. And 3) TAKE ACTION based on the dream’s message as you understand it, to manifest positive personal growth and development.

Dreams are our personal inner laboratory for exploring any question, principle, or choice we may have as well as being a fertile, unlimited field for exploring the inner landscape of the Cosmos!

Example: My own question for this month is about how I can revitalize my writing activity and move forward with that creative and service oriented process despite being overburdened with responsibilities and necessary new home mortgage procedures (I will be moving again, gradually from Feb 1 til July, and meanwhile moving back and forth between two residences as of Feb 1.) This week I am asking for dreams and reviewing my dream journal (Tip 2: Always keep a dream journal and review it often.)

I have kept a dream journal (within a larger journal usually) since I was twenty.  I know that when I do have a pressing personal question, reviewing my dream journal will always throw light upon that question because I know we mull over our deep questions inwardly sometimes even before we are consciously aware of the importance of a challenge or issue we are pondering.

Some dream journal entries relevant to my question:

8/12/18 [just after relocation]: Dreamed of worry over future employment and service potentials after graduating from grad school [as though I just had left college]. I know this represents my lifelong concern over making a difference: ‘What difference does it make?’ or settling into a life with a lack of creative productivity.

8/18/18: An adventure dream –in story form– Russell Crowe as the older and me as the younger Self. We stop by a room with xmas decorations we have set up, en route to some upcoming activity. I see someone else, a friend from from my past, will be involved with that upcoming activity.

8/27/18: Dream of presenting a partially completed manuscript to  an advisor–thinking it was in good form but open it and it is like a seafood gumbo: a miasma! So, it is back to work.

1/6/2019: See a lady in white going before me and to left along a trail going upwards, carrying a large pine branch. I follow humbly and am grateful.

This morning (1/9/19): Mulling over a question about how to proceed forward and am shown this  “hole” on a white field, that sucks in like a whirlpool drain in a sink…maybe a wormhole! But as I contemplate whether to dive into it (as being proposed inwardly for me to do), I have a fear because I am told the “It goes on forever!” My fear is that everything I have ever been, known, or done will be dissolved, and if it goes on forever, how will I ever emerge to have any solid reality ever again? (on waking, think the message is that this positive, needed leap of faith is to be very deeply TRANSFORMATIVE!)

REFLECTION/ INTERPRETATIONS : 

Two of the dreams show a higher (or elder) and a younger (or outer) Self, or a Guide I am learning from or following. That Higher Self/ Guide is blazing a trail or helping me with my creative and spiritual ambitions. The pine branch means clearing a pathway forward (and now I see the lady in white possibly as my current realtor who has found my next location, a great space for writing!) The future is about transformation and will require dropping the past…plunging into the void of new experience!

images are from pixabay.com

So, dear Better Endings reader, go forth! Review or start a new dream journal for this year’s process and ask/ write out your question inwardly, then review your Dreams.

I welcome YOUR Story, Questions, and Comments!

BOOK LAUNCH! (My Vocation: Live Your Dream, Now!)

Just Released March 6 by Skyhorse Publishing:

Naturally I am thrilled and excited about the release of my book, Your Life Path: Life Mapping Tools to Help You Follow Your Heart and Live Your Dream, Now! It is available from Amazon (including hardback, Kindle and ebook), Barnes & Noble, and Indies; and I see there are now several other suppliers online as well (ISBN-10:1-63144-078-0). This book has been my life passion-in-process for the last 15 plus years, folks. It is the culmination of my entire career as a cognitive/ linguistic and cultural anthropologist yet it is a mainstream self-discovery, personal growth and development book that provides a comprehensive Life Path Mapping process and Toolkit.

I have developed and taught from the fun, creative techniques provided with the book with large scale classes, individual coaching programs, and workshops (which I will continue to offer).  This is a potentially life changing, “rites of process” approach that lets the reader/ life mapper review your Life Story to Now; reflect on where you are at currently in relation to your values, life interests and goals; and then (re)claim, envision, and plan a practical yet energizing pathway to set a course and go (Live Your Dream, Now!).

I really do highly recommend this approach to anyone facing any sort of life decision or transition or who simply wants to discover and reflect upon the amazing potentials of your own Life Story.  I have witnessed many individuals who have achieved transformational insights from life mapping. The very process of reviewing your Life Story AS A STORY to now, with meaningful Shaping Events, Life Themes, Life Chapters bounded by key Turning Points as chapter turners, and an awareness of the parallels of YOUR story with classic myths and popular epics brings the life mapper to an overview Joseph Campbell called being a Dweller at the Threshold, able to look back and also forward.  Then the Life Path Mapping Process guides you to effectively CROSS THE THRESHOLD to truly manifest the vitalizing yet flexible life of your dreams.

As well, with this book’s Tools you will be able to Meet & Greet (truly) your very own “ensemble cast of mythic/archetype characters.” Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, you too have an inner unconscious cast of often submerged but always influential “inner” parts of Self that each needs your help to strengthen and to integrate/ come together with your greater Self to help you manifest your highest potentials for this lifetime.

Envisioning and realizing this book as a Personal Growth and Development book and life mapping handbook has been my VOCATION over the past fifteen years. I published a scholarly book (The Life Map as an Implicit Cognitive Structure Underlying Behavior, Mellen Press, 2010) with articles about my research studies that led to the development then of the self-discovery Tools presented for the first time to the general public with Your Life Path. So of course this is very exciting for me but more than that I really do recommend this book highly to any reader!

Your Life Path will be in indy consignment stores around the country and I will be doing signings in several local stores (yay) to try to get the word out. If you know of friends (and yourself of course) who might benefit from a fun and innovative approach to learning more about your Self and how to go forward to live your best life… please check this book out and share this post or the ISBN number with others in your blog or Facebook or email groups. I honestly don’t mean to sound boasting or overly “selling” of anything…that really is not who I am (an introvert in general, and not prone to self promotion). But I do want this book that I have nurtured and developed for so long find Its own deserving audience so others can benefit from the approach I myself have been blessed to pilot every step of the way. It is in fact my own Life Dream coming into full fruition, Now!

images are from pixabay.com

I am grateful for the opportunity to serve Life and thank YOU for reading!

PLANTING SEEDS

Sunday’s post introduced the Life Path Mapping weekly activity of “Seeking a Vision”.  The journaling or contemplation post, WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE…, invites you simply to plant a seed about the values you desire or aim to realize in your life from the perspective of how you wish to unfold your Personhood. Of course, this is only metaphorically a form of Vision Quest…which as an authentic practice would involve a ritual ceremonial context and an arduous physical as well as psychological and spiritual ordeal. But it is vital to look inwardly to envision that which you are aiming to unfold in your Life Path in order to Plant a Seed that sets the goal that you wish to nurture and manifest.

Ellen Langer, a PhD Harvard psychologist and author of a book titled Mindfulness, was interviewed this week on National Public Radio. She is interested in how the way we TALK about possibilities influences our attitudes and behavior. She distinguishes between whether we ask “CAN I?” when we approach a goal, versus “HOW CAN I?”  to accomplish that same goal. Planting a Vision Seed sets up something we CAN unfold to; then our mind and spirit are free to discern and to facilitate the Means.  Although we might have the faith of a mustard-seed that all that is in our highest nature and interest WILL manifest, when we consciously shine the Light of Attention upon a worthy goal, this allows us to mindfully and flexibly steer our process in the direction of nurturing that seed and realizing the Growth we are aiming to unfold.

I also invite you to reflect on how you would have answered the prompt: When I Grow Up I Want to Be… both when you were young and then Now, and then to reflect on how and why those answers might differ as well as how they are similar. When I ask this in Life Path coaching, people often tell me they are necessarily more “realistic” and more “practical” today than they were as a child, or that their increased responsibilities preclude earlier idealistic ambitions. What I find though is that what they wanted to be as a child has archetypal aspects to it which might still be part of their adult desires, if less obviously idealistic. For example, “I want to be a Superhero” might be a child’s reply. That could be expressing the desire to develop the potentialities of a Warrior or Healer or Communicator archetype (I will introduce a special set of 12 primordial archetype images later in this process).  So, if you now still do wish to be a soldier or Guardian of some sort, or a doctor/healer or a writer/communicator, you may yet be intending to realize these same important aspects of your unconscious interests and potentials. I will say these archetypal impulses define aspects of who you ALREADY ARE, so it makes sense and is very realistic that you can develop and more fully materialize these essential components of your intrinsic Self.

So, WHAT/ WHO DO YOU WISH TO BECOME; WHY; and later you will be invited to focus on HOW CAN you germinate and fully manifest your natural potentialities? Do feel welcome to share if you like!

SEEKING A VISION

                                                      

 

A Vision without a Task is but a Dream,

A Task without a Vision is mere drudgery,

But a Vision with a Task can change the world.

–          Attrib. to Black Elk (Sioux)

Last week I invited you to explore some of the Formative Influences that have shaped or affected Who You Are Today. This can help you to identify some sources of your greatest strengths as well as recurring challenges that have been important in your life.

Now then, what are your Goals for all that you might wish to Become?

As Peoples around the world establish Origin Tales that define their values and history, so too, people in any culture will seek to unfold and fulfill their highest potentials. As an individual in your own patterned life experience, you can choose to go beyond self-limiting conditions to pursue your “Bliss”, in Joseph Campbell’s terms.  Once you recognize what your goals are and what your greatest strengths and most persistent challenges (i.e. “Dragons” or ‘Guardians of the Threshold’) are, you can aim to work through those apparent limitations and chart a course—as it were—to Live Your Dream. This is where life mapping becomes of value. It is a flexible, creative approach to envisioning where you have been, where you are and where you are going or desire to yet arrive; more like interacting with a dynamic GPS device than a fixed, ‘linear’ map.

In a  Life Path Mapping activity posted for the original Better Endings blog, I asked a question I would like to repeat for this week’s Life Mapping prompt:

What (or,Whom) Do You Want to Be When You “Grow Up”?

To respond, to seek your Vision, first it will be helpful to consider, what might it mean for YOU to “Grow Up?” From wherever you are Now, what can evolving into the Person you desire to fully Become possibly look like? In terms of VALUES, how shall you be living in full expression of your deepest Fulfillment?

So okay then, folks, I am inviting you to PLAY! to freely envision your future Self emerging from who you are Now yet without unnecessary limitations that might hold you back now to any extent.

It is good if you feel you already ARE expressing all that you wish to Be. Some may feel there is little reason to project a different future from extending your already satisfying Now. But even if you might say today, “I am Living my Bliss, already,” I encourage you to stretch a bit further. How can you unfold the present potentials of your fulfilling life to MAXIMIZE living Your Dream?

And why? Not just for you alone…but for all who will benefit from your gifts and who might be inspired by your personal/spiritual fulfillment to achieve their own!

 

Your Origin Story

[Welcome to Better Endings for Life Paths. I invite you to visit the Weekly Topics page to see the series of Life Mapping topics and tools we will be engaging here. I will introduce a topic on Sunday, then present the weekly activity tool on Tuesday, then entertain further discussion and share responses to the life mapping practices on Fridays. You are welcome to share your Comments, insights and stories at any time. Feel free to review earlier weekly topics and tools in order to practice the sequence of Life Mapping activities you can sample with this site. Better Endings to You!- Linda Watts]

As a cultural anthropologist, I am quite familiar with Origin Tales. Every cultural group has an Origin Story in the form of a cultural legend or “Creation Story” that serves to define where they “came from” as a People and what their Core Beliefs and Values are all about. The Navajo (Dine) Peoples, for example, tell of emerging from underground worlds and that their Holy Ones (Yei Bichaii) built their Creation Hogan within the protection of four sacred mountains. This sacred geography is their Dinetah, their sacred Place.

 

Individuals also have Origin Stories. Where do you begin to tell the dramatic story of your own Life History?  Our lives are MYTHIC; they are the very stuff that Myths are made of (and vice versa). Therefore, as you embark on a Life Mapping adventure, a Quest of self-discovery that can help you to define or to reclaim and manifest your Life Dream, it is important to begin by expressing your Origin Tale. You may use the weekly Life Mapping Tool shown in the right panel.  I encourage you to journal or to actively think about or contemplate, or discuss with a loved one about your OWN Origin Story. You may do this by simply completing the following prompt:

I AM WHO I AM TODAY BECAUSE: …

 

When I looked up “origin stories” online yesterday, I found an interesting, quite different twist on this universal idea.  Many of the online accounts I found refer to Origin Stories of popular Superhero figures, like Superman, Spiderman, the Green Lantern or Captain Marvel (see the Weekly Quote in the bottom panel, below).  This has a lot of relevance for Life Path Mapping, because this approach will equip you to regard and to celebrate yourself as a heroic protagonist in your own Life Story!

What special powers did you attain because of your Origin Tale? Are you ready to release and nurture your unique insights and talents for the betterment of yourself and the world at large? Your unique Life Story has brought you to your vantage point in this Present Moment. From here you can go forward to Realize Your Dream. But first, you must reflect on the journey you have travelled to Here, in order to recover your Strengths.

The Life Maps Process, which I am inviting you to sample over the next six months with this blog, is a Rites of Passage journey. Rites of passage universally include three stages: Separation, Transition, and Reintegration.  Telling Your own Origin Tale is a rite of Separation; it helps to lift you from your daily routine so you can look back upon your life. It is the beginning of a “time out” of sorts, an opportunity for self-reflection.

So start a Life Mapping Journal, as you please, which may be in the form of a record of your contemplation, dreaming, and/or active imagination experiences as you engage with some Life Mapping tools. And please, you may begin by taking time out to reflect:

I AM WHO I AM TODAY BECAUSE …

What insights open to you about who you are as an Epic Adventurer based on YOUR Origin Story?

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I welcome your insights, Comments and stories. I will share your insights if you wish for me to (use Comments or see Share Your Story tab), or you can send your insights privately (see Contact tab).

Living Your Dream!

This week we’ve been exploring the value of a Life Dream. It is your Bliss, in Campbell’s terms; your North Star in terms of which you may realize your truest potentials and fulfill your Mission or Vision.

As a life mapping activity to help you to ‘flesh out’ your Life Dream, I invite you to describe a desired Future Scenario in which you have fully realized your Dream. You may envision and explore this virtual, parallel reality—which you are living into as you take actions to realize your goals—in great detail. (BTW there is a similar technique to this one in a book by Mary Carroll Moore, called How to Master Change in Your Life.)

Where are you living in your self-realized future life? What is your daily life about? What positive values are you expressing that fulfill your greatest sense of life purpose?

Be as descriptive as possible: e.g., you might include colors, foods, family and relationship qualities, daily activities, your car, your home, hobbies, services you deliver, books you publish, art or music you produce, walks you take.

Now then, how did you get Here?

Let me play a bit in the Moment with this practice:

I’m living with my sister Lee on farm property in New York state, about a mile—walking distance—from the Chatauqua Institute and about 45 minutes away from our sister Cheryl in Ellicottville. Our house is a converted barn, and I have my three cats and my dog Sophie living with us. Lee and I are both very engaged with writing and public service activities. We have a bunkhouse, trails, and an outdoor labyrinth and ampitheatre on our farm property that serves as a spiritual retreat center where we often hold various workshops, retreats and life mapping weekends. I also co-own a cottage with separate living quarters for the manager in Ireland,  outside the town of Claremorris in County Mayo, which my friend Jan manages when I, Lee or the cottage co-owners are not ourselves visiting or living there. I retired at 62 from the university, regarding that as a graduation, finally,  to a full life of writing and service, as did my sister also retire as a pastor to establish the spiritual retreat center.

That was fun! I think you’ll find–as I just did!–that as you engage in your future-dream envisioning practice you will find new aspects opening up that you hadn’t even thought of in advance!d

There is also a way to magnify this practice, which I call “Alternate Future Lifescapes”. That is that you can create several alternate snapshots or descriptions of various future realities. This way you can build a Panorama (or, a cornucopia) of the Possible! Let’s return to this version–though you can be playing with this as you like–when we return to this theme of Life Dream casting in the 2nd 6 months of our blog, which will be all about the art and practice of Life Mapping.

So, go for it! Create your Future(s) from your Life Dream. Allow it to share its promises and secrets!

I welcome your insights and stories! 

Envision a Future Transition

 

 

When I was a kid in junior high school (7^th grade) in Pennsylvania, I felt, or was made to feel by some neighbor kids, awkward and nerdy. My best buddy had moved to Florida and I felt isolated and alone. My father received notice almost a year ahead of time that he was to transfer from where we were in Pennsylvania to near Niagara Falls in New York state. So we had almost a year to prepare for our next major family relocation.

I made a conscious decision then to change my social persona, to alter my presentation of self so I might fit in with a more popular crowd in New York. I would dress more fashionably and act more “cool”. I would interact more with a wider range of people at school and I would express self-confidence. I envisioned all of these changes very explicitly and planned very consciously to change my wardrobe, hairstyle, etcetera.

We moved, and I put my plan immediately into action as I entered eighth grade in a new state, New York. Some of my actions were not so healthy; I started smoking to ‘hang out’ with those who appeared to be most popular at the new school. I had lunch with the popular bunch (when I wasn’t hiding in a restroom stall to avoid having to go to lunch at all); I made up a fake boyfriend by displaying a ring that belonged to my mother, and—for a short while—I achieved a modicum of success with the “in” crowd.

Some of the changes I made to change my social persona were healthy and good, so I kept those. I did feel more self-confident, and from then on I was always active in extracurricular clubs and activities. Others I found were not so great. The “popular” girls were rather a narrow and mean bunch toward anyone outside their circles, and I found their interests and concerns to be not very interesting in the big picture, so by ninth grade I drifted to a more nerdy bunch again—of artistic/dramatic and more intellectual sorts. But this time it was by choice, and I was happier. Altogether the conscious choice to establish my own identity at that point led to major changes that have led to all sorts of exciting and self-defining activities and interests, ever since.

So, for this week of focusing on Travel in relation to the principle of manifesting Better Endings, I want  to offer you the simple but potentially breakthrough Life Mapping technique that I call “Envision a Future Transition”.

Consider where you are heading as you approach a Life GOAL or as you aim to manifest your Life Dream. (With more extensive Life Mapping procedures I can help you to define what your current Life Dream is, so stay tuned! I will be shifting this blog to focus wholly on Life Mapping starting this May for the 2^nd half of this year’s blog, in advance of my book on that subject, Life Paths.) For now, you can choose a goal like a job/career transition, or a relocation you are expecting to make, or even a vacation.

As you consider your goal, make a list of several TRANSITIONS you will need to undertake in order to manifest your goal. When I do this I am surprised to find there are a relatively large number of intermediate transitions that will be involved in fully manifesting a goal involving a future change. For example, if I focus on retiring in 3 years, my list of future transitions includes:

• Pay down all debt (shift credit debt to personal loans to be balance free by three years).
• Visit places I might like to retire to.
• Research real estate, weather conditions, cost of living, etcetera at these various possible relocation spots.
• Journal about what daily life will be like
• Research possible part-time employment opportunities
• See a banker about how to plan for and manage retirement income
• Make a list of writing and related projects to be involved with
• Talk with friends in depth about the possibility to go in on real estate together (a cottage in Ireland); research all of this deeply
• Contemplate, contemplate, contemplate, envisioning deeply and in great depth

After making your list of future transitions pertaining to a future goal you aim to realize, circle one (at a time anyway) to explore in depth. ENVISION that future transition in great descriptive detail. You can write this out either in first person/ present tense FROM the future, or in future tense but describing your transition step by step. You could even choose to envision a FANTASY FUTURE transition; this is not one that fits precisely with your goal but would be a fun, “far-flung” sort of possible future adventure. Either approach allows you to ENVISION HOW you might transition INTO a goal state. PRACTICING envisioning in this manner can help you to eventually REALIZE a specific goal and to plan for achieving it.

 

I think you will find that in listing a set of future transitions that can help you envision a MAJOR shift related to a Big Picture life Goal, you will end up seeing how many steps will be needed to make your future goal a reality. ORDERING these future transitions will help you develop a plan of action. Envisioning the goal and its transition points in general will also help you to SEE your future goal as achievable and feasible, and it may lead to some great “synchronicity” as you plant the seed, nurture it with your ATTENTION, and then watch it grow and develop. It may take some unanticipated twists and turns, so you will want to remain open and flexible. But it can help you to FORGE A PATHWAY.

 ***

Better Endings to You! I welcome your insights and stories.

 

 

 

“You See Yourself in Others”–Family-Based Archetypal Projections

Archetypal psychology á la Carl G. Jung or James Hillman or Carolyn Myss—or via a unique Life Mapping approach I will be introducing you to in Life Paths—can help you to become more aware of how easy it can be to project aspects of your own unconscious personality or “Psyche” orientations onto, or into, others.  This way others may serve as mirrors for you of traits or beliefs you may not be ready to own about yourself. It’s like my father used to tell me often, “You see yourself in others”.  We do this with both positive and negatively perceived traits or orientations; it is a psychologically ‘safe’ way to assess traits we may be not ready to see as part of our own psychic makeup.

In prior weeks we have explored archetypal  “ensemble casts” of characters as represented in fiction, such as in the Wizard of Oz, one of my favorite examples. Discussing TV, we realized that several successful situational comedies such as M.A.S.H. or Gilligan’s Island use ensemble casts to represent various character aspects of a basic Self character (e.g. Dorothy, Captain Hawkeye Pierce, or the marooned Gilligan). Now I’d like to invite you to do the same with regard to members of your own Family. This might be your family of origin, or your immediate family you live with, or both, and it could as easily be seen in your family of friends or coworkers that you associate with on a regular basis.

What might your perceptions of specific family or significant relationship Alters reveal about Yourself?

Here’s an easy way to start applying this understanding from archetypal psychology to your universe—i.e., your own Ensemble Archetypal Cast of relations. Simply compose a list of positive and negative (and/or neutral, if you like) character traits that you associate with those in your family or in a close, family-like social group.

What character traits, for instance, do you associate with your Father? If that has shifted over time, you can represent his traits accordingly. What strengths or weaknesses do you see in yourself that you can trace to being to some degree a result of your relationship with your father?

Now try applying those same questions to your full set of close family relations. Especially if you recognize in yourself a particularly strong ‘attachment’ to some perception you hold about a family member, describe the traits you are responding to as carefully as you can. Have you perhaps avoided expressing some character traits in your own life as a reaction to seeing those as ‘negative traits’ expressed by someone close to you? What values do you relate to your aversion to such attitudes or behaviors?

On the other hand, what noble or heightened pedestals might you have constructed for some persons; pedestals you feel you fall quite short of yourself. Why?

Now then, what if all of these character strengths and weaknesses you see in your family Alters are actually all parts of your own Total Self System (as well as being traits you associate with these others)?

Try it out. I will, too…

Here’s a sample subset of a chart I might create for my own archetypal “family projections” exploration:

       Negatively perceived traits  Positively perceived traits

Dad  quick, harsh temper       excellent gaming strategist

Mom emotional over-sensitivity  excellent problem solver

 

Now then, looking at the negatively valued (to me) traits I’ve identified, what might they reveal about me? I definitely try to distance myself from a “quick, harsh temper” such as I associate with my father from specific memories. Does that mean this is not a trait within me? Quite the opposite. Because I do not want to own this trait, I have sometimes overcompensated in a disagreement with a relationship partner by “going away”–either physically or emotionally–when challenged by what may seem like frustrating or objectionable behavior or attitudes. Rather than erupt–as I construct my father might–I go away; or alternately, I might trigger this very response I eschew in myself, in my alter. Then though, when a situation remains tense and I finally DO express an angry temper, I might act out too much–in a brief but relatively uncontrollled outburst. Later I might apologize, or ‘go away’.

The more we can recognize “ourselves in others”, the better!  An approach I use now when I recognize that I might be projecting qualities I don’t wish to own into others, is called an Archetype Dialogue, a form of active imagination, as Jung would call it. You can journal a dialogue (or imagine one) precisely with that ‘character’ in yourself that you think you have seen in someone else. Write out or sustain an imagined conversation with this part of yourself. What is he or she upset about or fearful of or uncomfortable around? Listen to what this part of YOU has to say. You might be surprised to find some of the pent up negative energy dissolves as you ALLOW this vital part of yourself to have a voice.

I invite your insights and stories! Go lightly with this one; be Gentle with YOU! (and You, and you too…….); LOL

 

Your Work/Career LifeMap–What’s Your Next Step ?

What does your history of work and career-related experience reveal about you in terms of your basic interests, passions, values, and your goals or aspirations? Can you trace patterns of development in how you have arrived at your current occupational and avocational situation? Where do you hope to be headed from here, and how will you get there?

To explore how life mapping as a general practice can be helpful in providing personal insights about work and career related life patterns and trends, I have mapped my own. To do this yourself, you may simply list all of the jobs or responsibilities and your career related experiences from very early in your life, til now. If you did the same thing repeatedly, list every time you did that; for example if your waitressed several times, repeat “waitress” in your list to reflect that pattern. When I did this I found I could identify an obvious  series of “stages” with regard to types of jobs and career related activities I have engaged in over time. So, I found it natural to “block” groups of work-related activities together according to developmental time frames. My work-related life-mapping to that point is shown below as an example:

Household chores  student   mow lawn   wax cars {learning responsibility, potentials, gender bender}

Ice chipping at Fair    crab/salmon cannery   Farmhand (suckering grape vines; trimming and picking peach trees)   summer drama coach assistant    usher/toll booth ticket seller at performing arts center {outdoors, physical labor; arts related}

/ college: student  reader   writer  journaling/ poetry   fencer /  {development of unique skills and              interests/outlook}

bar cleaner/solo    Mr. Softee icecream truck driver   {independent activities, nontraditional}

tutor    instructor    researcher    library researcher   author  teaching asst  fieldworker/researcher    faculty associate/ instructor   professor (assistant to associate)   spiritual services provider (talks, classes, workshops, writing PR)   author    personal development process developer    state spiritual services director    academic  committee member/chair   dept chair    personal development coach    author  {academics, spiritual services,  and then public oriented/ “applied research” author}

I created word clouds for each stage next to help me identify and reflect upon repeating themes in each grouping. Here is just the last one of those:

This process has helped me recognize a progression that, in my case, is leading toward a definite shift to a new stage and a major new direction. If I were being a bit more techy here—maybe you can do this with your word-cloud software—I would color-code specific kinds of words to track their development over time; for me, anything related to writing I would code BLUE, for instance, to trace the emergence and gradual transformation of that specific interest and activity. The shift my work/career lifemap reveals to me is that where writing has always been an avocation and later a professional tool, it has increasingly become a primary career focus, so much so that this mapping has given me a definite confirmation and support for an intention I have been nurturing but have been reluctant to act on for the sake of financial stability. My career mapping reinforces for me  that my next step (in 2.5-3 yrs) is ‘retirement’ from my academic position in order to engage full-time with writing and related public service aspirations.

Does your life-mapping of work and career-related activity reveal a pattern of growth and development in your life? Based on your mapping, what would be a natural next step, for you? How can you move yourself into a position to pursue that aspiration fully?

The main goal of a life mapping process is to empower you to Live Your Dream, Now! Reviewing where you have been in relation to where you are now can help provide a strong motivation to focus your attention on where it is you are going from here, and how you can get Here!

I welcome all of your Comments, your personal insights, and Stories

 

Soul’s Journey

This week’s life mapping opportunity invites you to reflect on a time in your life when spirituality brought a Better Ending.  This might be as simple as a time when you prayed, or meditated, or contemplated deeply about some situation, and this focus allowed you to make a better decision or to take a good step in a new (or a staid) direction. Spirituality, as I mentioned earlier this week, seems to me to be a Better Ending in and of Itself, in whatever form we make our connection and Tune In.

You could map your life history of spiritual interests and spiritual practice, or journal to that effect. Is there a series of steps or plateaus along your pathway? How has your religious or spiritual pathway opened before you from step to step or teacher to teacher? Or, how has your connection with your own inner and outer spiritual guidance—e.g. via Christ or Buddha or Mohammed or Krishna or Lao Tzu or Shams-i-Tabriz or Bahau’allah or another spiritual leader, Master or Guide, or through your spiritual or philosophical readings or scriptures–or by inspiring philosophers or authors generally–helped to Light Up and expand your pathway of understanding? What are your goals, your spiritual Quest, from Here? Please feel free to share your stories, too.

Let me try my hand at a journal-type of spiritual life mapping, as a brief example.  Please though, do your own; mine is offered here only as an example of how you might apply the technique. :

I remember at around 9 or 10 that I had a special friend, a Blue Man, who was a constant companion. He knew all of my thoughts and was very loving and patient and kind with me. I used to think all adults could read my mind, because he certainly knew all of my thoughts and we communicated telepathically. When I prayed, he was by my side. I would pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep…and let anyone and everyone  who wants to, live to old age and be healthy”; then I would start naming everyone I knew to include in the prayer so that the bedside prayer might last a half hour or more. Or I remember wondering, and asking the Blue Man, what would happen when someone dies; then I would imagine that life force was like the electrical current running through a TV wire. If unplugged, the electricity would simply light up another TV; I imagined that I died, and then I would simply be awake in another body.

I started sketching an image of my Blue Man at around 12; it was my constant classroom doodle. Many years later I would find him as my spiritual Master that I look to for outer and inner guidance, still today. BTW, I am an ECKist of 40 years, someone who practices the spiritual techniques of Eckankar, a spiritual teaching that recognizes the validity of ALL paths. Its current spiritual leader is the author of many spiritual books, Sri Harold Klemp. Here is actually a pretty close rendition of my doodle and the spiritual Teacher I eventually found:

   

All paths lead Home, I believe, and you are where you are meant to be, right now, where you can learn most, give and receive divine love most, given your current focus of consciousness.

For me the biggest Better Ending from spirituality—apart from always, in the Eternal NOW—occurred in a lucid dream when I was 20. After having spent a summer in Alaska (outwardly, not in the dream), I dreamed I was waiting at a bus stop. The bus came and when I got on there were various passengers who all seemed familiar, and I realized there was a seat waiting for me, next to a friend (DM), who was not there but whose raincoat was over her seat. As I sat and talked with people on the bus about my recent time in Alaska and how I was going home (ostensibly to Buffalo then) with very little to show for it because I hadn’t saved much money from working at a crab cannery, first I noticed that some of these people I had met in Alaska… Tlingit Indian friends I had worked with. Then I realized, as they looked at me patiently, hoping I would eventually understand, that this bus was going HOME, not to Buffalo, and it would take as long as it would take.  I woke up. I wanted nothing more in life right then but to go back to that bus that was going Home. So I played Simon and Garfunkle’s ‘Emily’: “Such a dream I had…” over in my mind, and I was back on the bus! This time, all but myself had reached their destination; I was the only passenger left. I said to the Busdriver, “I want to go Home!” Suddenly I was standing in front of a  room with the door slightly ajar. I peered in and saw a small group of people engaged in a deep, esoteric conversation. A woman with a long flowing dress and dark flowing hair came to the door. “Would you mind if I just listened?” I asked. She opened the door widely and beckoned that there was a seat on the couch where people were talking around a table, a seat that was meant for me, but I had to be the one to ask. Next I was seated there while they were engaged deeply in conversation about some spiritual principle. “I hope you will not mind our nudity,” said a man leading the discussion along with the woman who had opened the door for me. (Symbolically, as soon as I woke I would know this meant total openness.) “I can’t participate yet, but okay,” I said. Then, to the woman who seemed so familiar, I said aloud, “OKAY!”

I met that woman from the dream outwardly, two days later at my college cafeteria, and it was directly through her—Laurie and her husband John, who was the man in the dream—that I discovered my spiritual path for this lifetime.

As Joseph Campbell might say: “All paths lead Home.” Wherever Home is for you—Heaven or Nirvana or God-Realization or a scientific sense of Truth with a capital T, or simply greater Awareness–, find or hold to your path that will take you there, one that well represents your core values and satisfies your Quest, and follow. Going Home—arriving there ultimately—is the Best ‘Better Ending’ of all!

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Mapping Your Habits–No Judgments, Please!

From a Life Mapping perspective (see right panel) we can look at habits in our lives in relation to situations or conditions during different times of our lives in which we have gravitated to more healthful or to less than healthful habits. This is up to you alone to define, though. There are no ‘standards’ to apply but your own. Habits might be coping devices sometimes. What may not seem healthful in the larger societal or medical sense might be appropriate or even “healthful” for the individual at a given time due to their circumstances. Still, a pattern or habit that might serve a person’s needs at one time might become less helpful or healthful seeming to that person later on.

I invite you to ‘map’ those times in your life when you have developed habits that you yourself understand as less healthy and as more healthy, too. See if you can reflect on the kinds of situations or conditions that were present in your life during those times. You might draw a vertical line down a sheet of paper and name one or more ‘healthful’/wellness oriented habit(s) on one side and name one or more less than healthful (e.g., addictive) habit(s) on the other side. Then see if you can briefly describe conditions that were present in your life at the time that led you to develop each of these habits.

Can you focus on the positive life conditions you experienced when you chose a more healthful set of behaviors (again, by your own definition only)? On the other side, what sorts of triggering factors might have stimulated you to adopt or to intensify a less than healthful pattern?

That’s all, folks.  What you do with any of this is entirely your own concern. Only you can know whether you want to or are ready to substitute greater wellness factors for less healthy or frustrating habits. Please do be kind to and patient with yourself. I know that when I have quit a habit that no longer served my needs (and there are still plenty to ‘work on’), it is because I knew at the time what I really wanted required letting go of a habit that interfered with achieving that more positive goal.

As always, I welcome all Comments and Stories.

Better Endings to You!

Your Wellness LifeMap

I invite you to look back over your life focussing on when you have felt higher or lower on a “wellness scale” of 1-10, with +10 being extreme wellness and +1 being extremely low. (Use your own definition of wellness. To me it is more than just physical health.) You can draw a horizontal line across a page, treating this as an Age line from left (your birth) to right (now). Place 10-year or 5-year marks across the Age line, then you can simply chart your subjective sense of wellness factors, up or down (highest = +10; age line  = +5/neutral; +1 = lowest). After a basic mapping of your sense of relative wellness values in this manner, you can write words or phrases or insert clip art images (as below) to represent what was going on at high or low points, or in between, that contributed to the wellness levels you have charted.

Mapping my own relative wellness values, I found I could first place high and low events along the Age line, then I could connect these to show general trends. Here’s my map using clipart icons as  an example:

Now then, what factors turn up in your wellness mapping as “lifting” factors or as more ‘descending’ factors instead? For me, the sport of fencing that I practiced through undergraduate college years, and returning to fencing once during graduate school right before graduating, were very positive factors. Discovering my lifelong approach to spirituality was also a major positive factor. Illnesses (shown by the needle icon) were ‘descent’ factors. Relationships were a lifting factor for several years, then briefly a negative factor with divorce. Career has been a slightly higher than neutral factor for much of the ‘building’ process, and it has become a lifting factor  recently as writing and teaching have both been more productive.

What can you learn from your wellness mapping that can help you to maintain or improve your own wellness ‘quotient’ now? For me I see the value of physical exercise in my life, as a major means for enhancing wellness. I’m thinking of returning in some measure to fencing (as faculty advisor to a fencing club I could participate). Or at least I commit to work out once or twice a week in addition to walking my dog.

So, try it if you like. Use whatever design format you like. What shows up for you? Is there ONE THING you can do in your life to enhance or maintain your level of wellness?

I welcome your comments, insights, and stories.

Better Endings to You!

“To me, good health is more than just exercise and diet.

It’s really a point of view and a mental attitude you have about yourself.”

-Albert Schweitzer

Your TV Life Map

For this week’s Life Mapping activity relating to our weekly topic of Television Better Endings, I invite you to map a history of some of your favorite television programs for as far back as you can recall. Map those shows or series that have been most meaningful to you, perhaps those that you have personally identified with or that represent for you a chronology of your own development or of your generational heritage. This can include news events—like JFK’s assassination or the Twin Towers tragedy—as well as TV series or episodes, TV movies, and documentaries or special features.

You don’t need a long list of TV memories, just a representative sample.

After making your list, look it over to see if you find patterns evident in your list of favorite television programs. What does your list—or segments of it—say about you?

Leaving that question open, let me try this myself as an example, at least with a selective sampling from what would be my own TV Map. By the way, feel free to arrange these shows or memories in any format you like. You can just use a list, or make a pie chart, or clouds in a sky… any arrangement that feels meaningful for your reflections. In fact, I think I’ll cluster mine in a collage design with clipart icons representing the TV program types, rather than use a linear, simple chronology.
So, here’s my example:

My TV Map Collage reveals a progression of my interests from childhood to Now and shows how earlier interests have led to later career and personal preferences. Early programs (like Flipper, My Friend Flicka, Lassie and Rin Tin Tin) oriented me toward animal stories which I often shared with my best friend, Karen. (She is represented by the childhood friends image and the violin, as we learned violin together.) Then came JFK’s funeral, a significant generational marker event ‘grounding’ my childhood’s otherwise mainly imaginative focus. News stories form a thread throughout the mapping as historical ‘punctuation points’. But later came Star Trek series, travel and adventure stories, and more pet stories until college days, when Saturday Night Live and several sitcoms involving psychologists (Bob Newhart and later Frazier) and programs about family-like friendships, plus a documentary about Native American activism, held my attention while I was studying comparative literature, psychology, philosophy and anthropology. Since the Twin Towers tragedy and, in Colorado, the Columbine massacre, more recent TV preoccupations have included Physics and other science programs, lately the Big Bang Theory, and–as I begin to dream of retirement plans–Treehouse Masters.

Spirituality, instead of politics, is an underlying focus throughout the whole Map, associated with a search for truth and a sense of creative adventure and friendship/family/pet connections of unconditional love.

Childhood reflections:

Animal companions, Friends

Show me Love, not War.

I invite and welcome your Comments, insights and stories!

A Re-Visioning Conversation

This week’s life mapping activity invites you to practice a “re-write” as a form of applying the principle of Better Endings.

Recall a communication Moment from your life that may have marked a pivotal transition in a relationship or situation. What might you have said, that you didn’t? How might you have spoken or replied otherwise than you did? Might it have mattered? How?

Replay this conversation, either by using “active imagination” (in an aware, contemplative, imaginative mode), or by journaling. You could also ask a spouse or significant other to model the other person’s role.

Allow this imagined or re-scripted conversation to become transformational, to achieve a “Better Ending.” For some situations, this might mean reaching a “closure” that was never possible before (my example below). For others it might mean getting to share what you were not able to at the time, or allowing the other to share what you now sense they might have based on what you have learned since then.

“Ellie”

Preface: I LOST my dog of 12 years’ companionship, Ellie. She was a dear, close companion. Yet by nature this sweet, orange boxer-Rhodesian ridgeback mix was timid and afraid of strangers. This proved her demise when I left her with a new friend’s sheltea in a fenced back yard while my friend and her daughter and I went for breakfast. When we returned, Ellie was gone. She had jumped up against the gate, which opened, and she would not allow neighbors to take her in, in a city residential neighborhood totally unfamiliar to her. I looked for Ellie for over six months almost daily, driving from Colorado Springs to Denver to search for her. She wasn’t chipped nor was she wearing a name tag on her collar, as she would never normally be more than an arm’s length from my side.

To Ellie:

L: Oh, my dear, I can only hope that, whatever happened, you always knew in your heart that I love you. I hope and can only trust that you felt somehow Spirit was with you, comforting you as you slept, guiding events in the best possible way they could unfold in the situation.

E: I tried to find you. I never stopped trying.  Do know I loved you, too.

L: I looked for you everywhere I could think of looking. At all the shelters; via Craig’s list; in all of the greenbelts I could walk, over and over. I followed leads, and dreams, that seemed to be guiding me to where you might be, in storms and sun, days and nights. But I could not reach you, my Friend. I held a ceremony for you, with GM and TU; we buried some of your favorite possessions, read spiritual passages for you.

E: I heard you/ saw you inwardly then. I was never without spiritual companions, though I rarely felt them outwardly in the panic that consumed my search.

L: Dear, dear Ellie, I am sorry. I left you alone with another dog in a stranger’s yard. I am sorry I took you at all that day. I should have realized your timidity would not allow you to adapt so quickly to new friends.

E: You wanted a companion dog that could go anywhere with you. I wanted to stay home, safe beside you.

L: I love you, dear Soul. I wish you the most wondrous spiritual adventure as Soul, forever.

E: I needed this push to prepare me for what was to come, in my next life.

L: But I hope that the trauma you felt will not hold you back.

E: Soul grows from all experience. I chose to try to find you and found instead the world is bigger and more full of danger, and care, than I knew.

L: Goodbye, dear friend. If I can ever comfort you, I am always Here, close to your Heart, as Soul. Twenty-four/ seven, times Eternity!

E: I go forward with fresh experience. Thank You.

L: Thank You for  all the Love you gave.

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The poem below is re-blogged (after my initial post of the tribute to Ellie), from Cats at the Bar:  http://tvkapherr.wordpress.com/  :

Remember love?

Impermanent.

Remember joy?

Immeasurable.

What is love,

what is joy,

but knowing

what is you?

By floridaborne twoonarant.wordpress.com

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Thank You to readers and those “liking” this post. Of course it is a difficult story to share but I feel that in using this vehicle, I am sending my heart out along the cosmic sea of Spirit and Divine Love as the opening image betokens…there is no real separation of Soul to Soul, so I do believe.

Your Pets Lifemap

 

For our Better Endings Life Maps Activity this week, you can start by listing all of the pet friends who have shared their life with you. Using your own intuitive guidance, list your pets’ names, the years they have been in your life, and something unique or characteristic about each pet and about the time frames they shared with you. You might use an adjective or a phrase describing each one. Then create a Mapping that shows in a way that is meaningful to you an arrangement of how these pets have ‘patterned’ in your life journey. The Bubbles chart shown here is my own mapping of individual or groups of my pet friends who have been in my life in different time frames. As an example for your own creative mapping–which might take another form for you–let me describe my mapping:

The first time frame shown in the orange bubble to the right represents Special Animal Friends from my Childhood, from about 8 years old til 18. Reviewing the list of some of my favorite animal friends from that time, I see some patterns. I befriended a wide variety of animals, both wild and domestic. I was always bringing animals home: frogs, white mice, a pigeon who flew into my garage and stayed for a year. I rode wild colts with my neighbor friends at local horse farms. I had a parakeet, Petesy, who was a close friend to talk to for many years. There were many cats…most of which I also brought home and only a few of which my father let me keep; and Queenie, a great companion beagle-poodle, who was ubiquitous as my special friend until and even after I left home at 18 for college.  These childhood friends exposed me to my own wildness and unconditional love. Animals were my special family, my Friends.

Reading my Pets Lifemap from East to South to West to North (yes, like a Medicine Wheel!), next came my heart throb of 11 years, my first solo pet away from home in college: Chela. I described her in my pet ‘reincarnation’ story Wednesday. What a great friend and constant companion Chela was. She accompanied me on my Big Move, from East to West; from Buffalo to Phoenix, Arizona. I would say she was a lifeline for me. CONTINUITY has always been one of my most valued and important values in relationships, and Chela was there for me–and I for her–as a thread of continuity linking my Childhood to my later life Journey in graduate school, dissertation research at Zuni,and beyond.

After Chela left, Ariel, shown here, moved into my Heart.  She was a dear Soul companion (absolutely I believe that Animals are Soul, Too), for 20 years!  Reflecting on her qualities that were a big part of my journey with her and other pets we also had while she was with me, I see attributes of their special characters that mirror archetypal character aspects  of myself: Intelligent/ Artistic Ariel; Freedom loving Skyway (a brindle dog who was an escape artist and loved to run!); Quiet/ Timid Ellie (an orange boxer/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix who was Skyway’s life companion and mine but who was very timid; a one person dog); and Expressive Loki (still in my life; a beautiful, all-white cat who is very communicative; he was quite the mischievous kitty and is such a SOLID friend!).

All but Loki passed–by their own life stories–before the next Ensemble Set arrived. I now live with Loki-Emily-Arthur (3 cats) and Sophia (Sophie, my Shorkie buddie; shown above with my mother, Elizabeth).  All of them are always there and I am there for them. They are my refuge, the Family I return to daily and spend the nights with between having to be out in the world. As a most naturally quiet and introspective sort of person myself, my pets are my touchstones. I am entirely humbled by their magnificent unconditional love and companionship. They are constant and true, whatever hardships or complexities have come into and gone out of my life among other Humans.

So try mapping your animal friends in relation to your life history. When did which of them enter and exit? What QUALITIES did they exhibit for you; what relationships did you learn about through them? People say we tend to resemble our pets. I would say there are no accidents and each of our special friends has had a special affinity with us; an archetypal synchronicity. Take some time if you would then to pause and APPRECIATE the wonderful LIFE GIFTS each of your animal–and human too, of course!–friends have shared!

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I invite you to compose your own Pet Life Mapping. And do feel free to share your insights–or pictures!–with us!

Archetype Dialogue

“For every typical situation in life,

There is an archetype corresponding to that situation.”

– Carl G. Jung (Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious)

Can you think of an issue about which you are conflicted or undecided, for which you can express “two sides” of the situation? E.G. whether to move or to stay with a job or to change a relationship? Or do you have a “personal conflict” over some area of your life that persists through the years without clear resolution?

When you have opposing viewpoints within yourself around an issue that is important to you, it’s as though you are two or more people about that. Here, we are talking about what Carl Jung and many others since have called Archetypes. These are submerged viewpoints, your ‘inner voices’ that might feel at odds with each other about how you should approach something.  James Hillman would say these various archetypal aspects of your Self are in your “Personal Unconscious”, and Jung would say we have even deeper sorts of archetypes in our “Collective Unconscious” that are universal.

As an anthropologist I take a practical approach as well as a “depth psychology” approach to archetypal character guises and traits. We all take on various ROLES in our lives that are associated with various STATUSES. These can include kinship statuses and roles (like Mother or Child, husband and wife) as well as occupational and recreational roles, like Doctor and Golfer. Each of these personal ROLES is associated with specific kinds of SITUATIONS we engage in regularly. And each of these brings out deep archetypal—not just formal ‘status’—aspects. Considering various Themes, or KINDS of situations in our lives, each Life Theme may be associated with archetypal character dispositions.  For example, ROMANCE might bring out the Lover in You, whereas EDUCATION may bring forth your Teacher and/or Student “parts of Self”, and SPORTS or MILITARY SERVICE might bring forth the Warrior. Each of these “situational archetype” parts-of-self has their own ‘character’ presence in your unique assemblage of archetypal outlooks. Some are deeply buried or suppressed (e.g. some may be in “Shadow” mode), while others may be more actively integrated within your conscious personality.

The Life Mapping activity for this week’s topic about Attitudes asks you to write or to imagine a DIALOGUE with two opposing viewpoints—both your own—around a topic you may feel conflicted or “dual” about. It can help to get these divergent sides talking to one another about a situation you are trying to better understand or resolve, especially if leaving it unresolved keeps you “stuck” about that issue.

Let me share an example from my Life Mapping cases. Mindy was a woman who had been experiencing a persistent dilemma for many years. In the course of life mapping she identified two Archetypal outlooks that she associated with a spiritual aspect—she called this her inner Warrior—and a Physical-life side of self, which she called her Descender. Around some of the same issues in her life, her Warrior-mystic and her Descender modes were at odds. Her Warrior wanted to follow inner spiritual nudges: make a move, take or end a job, accept a relationship. Her Descender, though, hated to be pinned to any decision.  Mindy journaled a dialogue between these two archetypal parts of self.  She found that one value was important to both of them: Freedom. But they each defined freedom in diametrically opposite ways! The Mystic thought freedom was about following inner nudges of spirit; it was “Spiritual Freedom”. The Descender wanted Freedom from commitments! So, for many years, Mystic-Mindy would boldly step forth and change locations, jobs or relationships. But almost immediately thereafter, Descender-Mindy would want to bolt; to leave that location, job or relationship. When Mindy put the two to talking with each other over a couple of weeks in her journal, they/she came to recognize how these opposing, archetype-driven points of view were interfering with her ever establishing a STABLE set of conditions. So she started asking them about their goals and she found some they shared. She needed a job, for instance, with built in variety and flexibility. Now Mindy has become a successful public speaker for a health supplements company she believes in. She gives workshops on various products and travels around the country. Both her Mystic and her Descender selves are happy, for once! Mindy has embraced and ‘integrated’ more of her total Self.

Writing an archetype dialogue allows you to tap into aspects of yourself you might otherwise suppress. Offer a “safe space” to these feelings and viewpoints, knowing that your core Self will remain strong and centered throughout the exchange. Just as an example to get you started, let me illustrate briefly. I call this approach: “Open Mike”. Just set a topic about which you have dual or multiple ‘attitudes’, and invite your various situational selves to speak. If you’re not sure what topic to introduce, ask ‘them’ to suggest one for you!

Open MikeTopic: My currently overburdened schedule

This is crazy! How can we keep this up? You are going to collapse at this rate.

(Self in italics) Who are you?

Someone who wishes you would lighten up a bit…

A Nurturer, I believe.

Yes. You do need to give yourself some time to relax, dear. Breathe. Go to the gym. Read a Maeve Binchy novel; I want to!

I know but there is just so much to do. I have bitten off so much this semester…

This Life, don’t you mean? I am with you and want to see you reach your goals, too, Lindy, but she is right; you need to add some balance. Trust that you will get what you need to get done even better when you accept your time limitations.

Are you an Elder Leader?

No, a Communicator.

Thanks for all you contribute; all of you, too.

Nurturer: So what are you going to do to ease up a bit?

I will do what I can…feel free to nudge me when you see an opportunity for me to open a novel or take Sophie for a walk.

[This is just an example of how to begin an Archetypal “Open Mike” dialogue. It is helpful to have a journal dedicated to this exchange. Explore many topics; get to know these ‘parts’ of yourself that are always within you and can help you reach your Dreams! Use whatever names you want for these; in Life Paths I will be introducing a specific ‘pantheon’ of 12 universal archetype figures based on Jung and on the works of a lesser known archetypal psychologist, Dr. Charles Bebeau-LW]

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I invite your comments and stories of your own.

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Thanks for reading and for those who are “Liking,” Thank You!

Happy Valentines Day

Your Recurring Dream Messages

This week’s Life Mapping activity invites you to reflect upon a recurring dream or a recurring image in your dreams. These sorts of dreams or dream images can reveal archetypal messages for you about important potentials and challenges. If you keep a dream journal, you will notice repeating images or scenarios and you can keep track of how they appear to you and whether they change over time. As you work with your recurring dream imagery—either through dream-based therapy such as Gestalt or archetypal dreamwork, or by actively contemplating the dreams you record—you will come to understand what they represent about your own feelings or unconscious complexes.

For many years in my dream life, I encountered archetypal lions, tigers and bears (oh, no!).  There was always a similar scenario: I have befriended a Tiger, for instance. Then something stresses the Tiger and I realize that, being wild, he will turn on me and try to hurt me. So, I run, climbing through three degrees of fences or walls (like the 3 epidermal layers of skin!) in order to reach shelter and safety, with the Tiger hot on my tail until I get through the thickest, third barrier.

In one of my Bear dreams, my sister and I are in a woods and we find a cute little bear cub in a clearing. We approach to pet the bear, but of course, then the bear cub’s Mother sees us and comes after us to protect her cub. I tell my sister to run and climb a pine tree (axis mundi, “world tree” for you Jungian readers, linking Earth with the Heavens).  I climb up behind her, then looking down I see the Mother Bear—beautiful and graceful–climbing after me as easily as if she were on level ground!

To benefit from these vivid recurring dreams, it is important to work with them inwardly as well as outwardly in your journal. After the Bear dream described above, the feeling of the dream lingered, but I didn’t completely understand it at first. So on the second evening, I took the dream “into contemplation”. Asking for help in understanding the dream from my Inner Guide, I asked inwardly about the meaning of this dream. Then, the dream played itself out visually on the screen of my mind, like a movie rerun. As soon as the rerun faded I heard a voice, telling me clearly: “Even though you run from Her, she is driving you to greater heights!”

This interpretation was exactly the point of the whole series of lion and tiger and bear dreams I was having: I was projecting my own strength or power into these animal figures. Rather than claiming and harnessing my own power, from fear of that power being overly aggressive, I ran from It. Yet, indeed, even running from my Power required me to use it, to get away, to protect my sister, and to survive.

After I realized the meaning of these dreams, they started changing. In a Bear dream several years later, I see a cub and then a Mother Bear and I climb a pine tree. But this time, at the top of the tree there is a platform; I walk across it to a Laboratory where a female scientist is preparing a potion she gives me. Somehow this prepares me with what I need to know to ward off the Bear. I go back to the tree and strip off sections of bark, tossing them down at the Bear, who backs off down the tree and goes away!

So, what is an example from YOUR dream life of a recurring dream scenario or dream figure?

Write down as vividly as possible a typical dream with this recurring scenario or figure in it. Let your unconscious mind help you to write out this dream description; it will give you the right words to use.

Now, you can ask yourself, or better yet, ask your own Inner Guide to help you understand the meaning behind this recurring dream. Does it remind you of any outer situation in your life, perhaps showing you something about how you typically respond to it?

If you are an artist you can draw or paint the significant elements from your recurring dream. If you are a poet, you can write a poem, or if you are a musician, write a score or lyrics.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

(William Blake, from “The Tyger,” in Songs of Experience)

However makes most sense to you, record what you can of the meaning of your dream. Then, put it aside. You can create a dream dictionary at the back of your journal (cf. The Art of Spiritual Dreaming, by Harold Klemp), and then every time you have your recurring image or dream, you can write the date and describe the image to see if or how it might be changing over time as you assimilate the force of the image into your daily life and understanding.

For me as an avid Dreamer for all of my life, I believe that recurring dreams always bring important messages. Dreams are not merely phenomena to be experienced or even just remembered or retold. Dreams are messages from Spirit and from your own Higher Self. Learn to listen to their messages to you and to act on your dreams to benefit from their lessons or nudges. Even if the action is just writing a dream down or sharing it with a loved one whom you can trust, I believe the more you pay attention to your dreams, the more clearly they will speak to you and help you to identify and then to fully Realize your Life Dream.

Better Endings to You!

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I invite you to Comment about your own recurring dream image or the lesson you have learned from this activity.  Remember, ultimately YOU are the best interpreter—and active beneficiary—of your dreams. The more you can learn from your dreams to realize your Dream, the more service you can also be to others!

Gifts from Childhood

Our Life Mapping Activity this week involves remembering “a few of your favorite things” from Childhood.  Make your list. What are 10 or so people, places, activities or things you loved as a child? Then ask yourself, why? What qualities did these favorite things bring into your life; what were their gifts to you, both Then and even Now as you reflect upon them?

For example, here are some of my Favorite Things from childhood, listed below, along with some of their gifts that have enhanced my consciousness and continue to be a part of my awareness or interest ever since:

Gifts Gained from “A Few of My Favorite Things” of Childhood:

Friendships/ BF Karin     pure engagement, companionship, sharing, freedom, humor

Pets    unconditional love and joy, playfulness, comfort

Trips   exploration, beauty, freedom, sharing

Family   togetherness, mutual support, caring

Creative play   imagination, fun, sharing, freedom

Places: woods, horse farms, trees, secret forts   excitement, love of nature

Bicycling    adventure, freedom, creativity, openness, self-reliance

Reading    discovery, other worlds, voices, insights, expansion of ideas

Plays    creativity, expression, discovery, exploring archetypes (roles)

School   education, teachers, development of ideas, learning

Violin   beauty, form, love of music, orchestra, practice

There is a law of spiritual economy that says, “Nothing is ever wasted.” Nothing, not even a smile or a hug, is ever really forgotten, so it is there for us long after it was shared, when we really need it!

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THANK YOU ALL FOR READING AND FOLLOWING!! I am not so adept at navigating WordPress and Twitter to be able to thank you each sufficiently and individually, but it warms my heart to know that you are visiting and reading when you wish to!

I invite you especially to read to tomorrow’s post, “Trust in Your Own Childlike Nature”, which I hope might be helpful for you as you aim to include your own Inner Child archetype more in your conscious world! To prepare, I invite you to contemplate this phrase: the “Alchemy of Childhood”.

Turning Points and ‘Combustibility’

Our Better Endings Life Mapping activity for this week allows you to focus on what sorts of Life Lessons you are learning through the most critical, pivotal events of your life. See if you can list one or more events in your life that have been of such magnitude in terms of their impact on who you have become that you feel you were not quite the same person before and after this or these events occurred. These are your Turning Points.

Take some time to reflect on these ‘chapter turner’ events in your life. For each one, what did you learn because this event transpired in your life? Did it have a positive or a negative (or, both?) impact on you, in retrospect? Why? How? If you could go back, would you change anything about this event or situation? If so, what might have gone differently then?

One basic way to explore a Turning Point is to write or journal about it, talk about it with someone you trust, and actively contemplate its role or effect on your life. What LIFE LESSON have you learned because of this experience?

I welcome any insights you would like to share!

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Because a very special story has come through about our weekly topic of surviving disasters that I will share with you tomorrow (and another story also, for Sunday), I will add a second piece today about a Principle of Better Endings that I’ve been learning about this week:

Combustibility : a Better Endings principle?

I was having some difficulty early this week finding just the right principle of Better Endings to account for how disasters or personal hardships result so often in major Life Changes and Lessons. I awoke then Wednesday night at around 2 AM from a series of dream images: rocket ships! So the first word that came to mind was propulsion; that such heavy impact events propel us forward at great speed; they launch us into another level of awareness or situation or or purpose. Applying that metaphor to what happens within us that allows this launching to occur, I find the word combustibility!

A few weeks ago I shared the life metaphor from Will of a golden spiral. Will said the spiral he imagined had “launch pads” along it that would propel him to a higher level of awareness. Again then, we must have the capacity for ‘combustion’ to allow this to occur.

Or, are we the astronaut within the combustible rocket? Then we must be willing to be launched! And the ship must have enough fuel to propel us upwards at great speed.

Interesting how some natural disasters themselves exhibit combustibility—a wildfire, hurricane or tornado, for instance, all are very highly charged phenomena. Do these impart their intrinsic quality of combustibility upon those that they impact? Perhaps we either combust into an accelerated change in our lives and/or the experience burns us?

Heavy impact events in our lives have the capacity to propel us forward, upward, or downward at great speed!

Realize Your Goals!

Connecting with this week’s Better Endings focus on joblessness or underemployment, our Life Mapping tool for this week can be used to envision a pathway to manifest a desired goal. As you engage with this GOAL-CLUSTER mind-mapping activity, I invite you to approach it with a childlike perspective, allowing “playful” ideas to emerge from your unconscious sandbox.

Using the template shown above, you can start by placing either a word, a phrase, or an image icon that represents a meaningful, desired goal (with perhaps a photo of yourself, smiling!) into the center of a page, with an X that segments the page into 4 quadrants around this GOAL-center.

Next, starting with the top/RESULTS quadrant, you can use free association to place words or phrases that represent what you will gain or how you will benefit  with your goal ACHIEVED. Where these benefits or positive outcomes are meaningfully interconnected for you, you can draw lines or off-shooting branches showing these connections.

Next you can start filling in any of the other three quadrant sections, again using playful free association to ‘draw connections’ between ideas either within a quadrant or migrating across them.

For example, let’s say your goal is to take a trip to visit Ireland. RESULTS might include: “touching base with my heritage”; “expanding my horizons”; or “slowing down for awhile/ getting away”. Then branching off from one of these you might add, “gold at the end of the rainbow”, and off from that: “retire there?” [okay, now I am getting my own ideas; I love Ireland!].  Now under OBSTACLES, maybe you would write: “Money?” That may lead you to the RESOURCES space, where you can brainstorm how you might afford the trip; if so, you can connect this resource to the obstacle statement. Envisioning Resources might lead you also to think of some very real Solutions, see?

After filling in this GOAL-cluster mind-map so that you feel you have fleshed out all four quadrants with meaningful and helpful ideas,   I invite you to go back and circle or use color to highlight those specific Resources and Solutions that can help you to actualize the RESULTS you desire to create in your life. You can also start a new page, placing any of the specific Results or Resources or Solutions (or Obstacles) you generated with the GOAL cluster into the center, and explore that aspect with its own, freestyle cluster mind-map.

Approaching this technique as a playful game will facilitate emergence of a mindful awareness that can stimulate “out of the box” solutions.  Remember from Denise’s Guest Blog two weeks ago: “There IS NO BOX!”