Checking In With Your-Selves!

Are you engaged in some process that takes a long time yet brings a personal goal to fruition?  School can be like that, or now for me, writing for mainstream publication. I find this activity proceeds necessarily sometimes in fits and starts. During the fits or slow slog periods of editing yet one more time, I find it helpful to check in with my internal selves: those archetypal persona character modes that each have their own perspectives on our shared as well as their distinctive goals with regard to the project at hand. For it may be one or more of these Archetype Allies that has slowed the progress as a way to call attention to an opportunity for improvement before I can move forward more productively again.

Mindfulness is a popular term these days for this sort of checking in with your Self–or, more accurately for my purposes, your selves!  I like using an Archetype Dialogue Practice to help integrate conflicting internal viewpoints. I use an active imagination technique, such as Jung recommended, to “sink” into a subconscious level of awareness where I can make contact with my internally diverse viewpoints or parts of Self.

You can think of these archetypal personas as being associated with the various roles (or, masks) you occupy in life, as all of us develop somewhat distinctive points of view from the perspectives of each of our role types (e.g. Parent, Teacher, Lover, Nourisher, Idealist, etcetera).   You can have a conversation inwardly and/or journal a dialogue while you are imagining connecting with these internal parts of Self.  Just allow the interaction or conversation to proceed naturally. This is actually a level of subconscious interaction we take part in unconsciously much of the time, as we weigh a decision or an action.

Below is an excerpt from a journaling form of Archetype Dialogue I engaged with just a few days ago about the slow process of editing for publication:

ELDER LEADER     You need to finish the edit and begin taping for the webinar. Time is waning on our sabbatical.

NOURISHER.     Let her be, Marshall. She knows what she needs to be doing.

 LW:  Well I could use all of your input, actually. The editing feels too mechanical now. Taking stuff out is not so much fun as putting ideas into the book. It pains me to have to be removing the lined journaling pages, stripping down to only providing the instructions for library readers to do the techniques externally.

ELDER LEADER.    Yes we understand but that is what you need to do, so library readers will not be tempted to write in the books. That’s the editor’s decision. Why are you balking so much?

ARTIST    I know what you really want to be doing…and it is what I want to help you with… to redesign the Toolkit as a separate aid that readers will be able to download or receive directly as a workbook companion to the book.  The cover art your cousin has provided will fit beautifully with the Toolkit.

LW: Yes but then I also need to get rolling with the webinar production. And a larger than usual docket of classes looms just around the corner in August. Argh!

TEACHER.    One step at a time, dear. That is the best way forward. What is the ONE THING, as you tell people to consider with their own life mapping, that YOU need to be doing, Now?

MYSTIC.   Yes, dear Soul, what is your ONE THING, NOW?

LW:  Well, I want to have a clearer overview of the Whole–of where all this is heading, really. So much work for so many years, and yes we have a publication date, but the whole process feels like it is starting to get away from me, you know? Master, can you help me to re-center, to regain a stronger focus at this interval as I need to deliver these products in full strength and beauty, to best serve the Whole?

MYSTIC    Go within to find your answer, dear. What is your ONE THING, Now?

As I continued with this internal musing (a fine expression, by the way!), I did arrive at answers. My new process is to produce both the edit my publisher needs and, concurrently, I will generate the Toolkit from the extracted material. So I do not have to lose any of the vitality I want for the book to contain. As well, this contemplation led me to write a full draft script of the opening webinar sessions, so I feel back on track now!

I invite you to develop your own Archetype Dialogue Practice.  I will be sharing a full process for this approach with my upcoming book (March 2018), Your Life Path.

What are some of your own archetypal “parts of Self”? Allow them to present themselves to you. Just offer them a safe, open space for communicating with you. Keep in mind that these are not external “voices” or entities, at all. (If they feel as such ever, then it could be helpful for you to discontinue the exchange! ) These are simply your own INTERNAL points of view that much too often we tend to ignore. So, lend an ear!

images are from pixabay.com

I welcome your comments and stories!

“Let’s Meet on the Inner”: An Internal Dialogue Practice

For this month of the archetypal Communicator, I offer you a method for working with a challenging relationship conflict in a positive, constructive way.

For a difficult situation involving communication challenges, you can “go Within” to engage with the person(s) involved, or alternately, you can meet with an Inner Guide and have a conversation with him or her about a snaggly situation. This is a form of what Carl Jung would call Active Imagination.

If you are having troubles communicating with someone because of a personality conflict or in relation to a sticky situation, you can set some quiet, private time aside. Go into a light contemplative/ meditative ‘zone’ (eyes closed in a semi-darkened space or in a natural setting) and imagine that the person or persons you’ve been having trouble with are present in a conference room (or create your own internal environment that is appropriate for your visit).

Start a conversation. It can be very simple and does not have to be directly about the challenging situation you are facing. What is important is that this is a positive exchange. Allow the internal conversation with your ‘alter’ to proceed naturally, as if you and this person or persons are meeting Soul-to-Soul with a shared intention to move beyond your snaggles and to arrive at a positive, win-win solution.

As an example to demonstrate the approach, around 15 years ago I faced a difficult situation with a workplace colleague. Coming from polarized theoretical approaches for teaching, the impasse between us reached the point—very uncomfortable for me—that we would avoid contact with each other altogether.

Then one morning I woke from a lucid dream encounter with this person (let’s call him Carl). In this dream encounter, I simply met Carl in passing. I beamed a positive smile, made Soul-to-Soul eye contact, and said, “Hello Carl!”. That was it. But it had the most amazing effect! That very morning at work, I was in the mail room when Carl walked in. Seeing we were ‘stuck’ alone in the mail room together, we made eye contact for the first time in several months.

               “Hello Carl!” I beamed, smiling.

               “Hi Linda,” Carl replied also with a smile.

That was our entire conversation, just as in the morning’s lucid dream. Somehow, it set into motion an immediate, significant thawing of our relationship. We no longer avoided one another, and in fact shortly after this encounter, Carl applied for and received an out-of-state position that would allow him to advance in his career. (I had put the job notification in his mailbox!) Within 3-4 months, Carl left, with the two of us in a much improved relation, as I even organized, as department Chair, a farewell party for Carl.

free images are from pixabay.com

I invite you to try this technique for yourself. Imagine an internal conversation with someone you seek to have a better relationship with. You are not trying to change this person, but you are simply allowing a Soul-to-Soul encounter that may be difficult to engage in “out Here.”

I welcome your Comments and Stories.

(P.S. I will be on a road trip for the next month, so blog posts may be on a less than regular schedule.)

Dragon Dialogues

 

It is fascinating for me to see how synchronous these topics are being as they come up; I suppose that is because they are sequenced within a definite process. So I’m hoping you may be finding the same as readers.  This week we are focusing on DRAGONS: those unconscious monsters that pen us into a guarded space and do not allow us to soar freely toward the fulfillment of our goals or desires.

This week for me the Dragon has surfaced while writing an invited book chapter I have committed to deliver.  Most of it is ready but I am hemming and hawing about the most important piece: my own unique data and interpretation.  So, let me walk the talk by engaging in an Archetype Dialogue with this Dragon that smoulders within:

L:  Hullo! I see you there, hiding in the Shadow of your Cave.

D: (Snorts, pulls further back into the Cave’s interior.)

L:  I need help!

D:  (Dragon says nothing but steps a little forward, into better hearing distance.)

L: I don’t know if I can do this! I am afraid that whatever I turn in will be attacked because my viewpoint in this paper is opposite in theory to almost all of the other authors. I was invited to represent a competing point of view.

D: (Breathes fire in my direction, landing just in front of me; I back away!)

L: So is it you preventing me from finishing? I have one major section left to produce. The deadline is in two days.

D: (More Fire-Breath; I back into a corral; the gate closes me in.)

[Thoughts aside: I recognize this is self-protective behavior. How can I get beyond my Dragon’s charge?]

L:  Dragon, please let me out. I really need to do this. We have been asked and this gives back to our friends at Zuni. I’ll take the responsibility. Could you help in another way? Maybe if you let me ride you we could scan the work in progress together so then from a higher perspective I could finish and still be safe. Could we do that together? I really need your help. I need the ‘distance’ factor.

D: [Fire burns the gate right off its hinges! Dragon approaches and lowers Her head into the corral. I clamber up onto her scaly back, where a natural saddle appears.]

*********

Next Day: Fellow readers and bloggers I have to tell you this: It worked! After reaching the awareness that I needed “distance” from the task that I had allowed to intimidate me, I went to the office the next day and “got it done”!  I felt inwardly supported throughout the day’s work, too.

Archetypal dialogue journaling helps you to exteriorize a situation at the same time as it helps to ‘interiorize’ by “going Down/ or Within.” As both James Hillman and Carl Jung emphasized, it is important to meet your archetypal personae—including your Dragons—in their own domain, rather that expecting them to “come UP” to meet with you or to express their concerns. It is the dynamic tension between Up and Down, or conscious and personal unconscious that may in fact spark change. Stirring up the Depths can release awareness you might otherwise overlook.

Try it with your Dragons, if you would! They are not here to harm you, Really!