Category Archives: Chuck’s Blog

Welcome to Chuck’s Place! This is where Chuck Ketchel, LCSW-R, expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Currently, Chuck posts an essay once a week, currently on Tuesdays, along the lines of inner work, psychotherapy, Jungian thought and analysis, shamanism, alchemy, politics, or any theme that makes itself known to him as the most important topic of the week. Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy page.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Harmonizing The Group Soul Of Now

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Loving harmony in the group soul…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

I define the group soul of now to be the collective soul of all individual souls currently extant in human form on planet Earth. We are the brain center of the Earth, afforded the free will to impact greatly the fate of this planet.

Of course, Mother Nature, the subconscious powerhouse of our group soul, also has us experience the true karma of our decisions. Optimally, our collective will would harmonize with the greater good for all.

Currently, the group soul of our world is in a process of extreme  polarization. Conventional wisdom would have these opposing forces come together to reconcile differences in a process of communication, understanding and compromise.

However, such desired union is not yet prepared for, as the warring elements are convinced that success can only be obtained through the total conquest of opposition. For a harmonious union of opposites to occur at the level of the group soul, we must first discover and reconcile with the opposites within ourselves.

If we don’t know ourselves at the depths of our own inner opposites, we are sure to fall prey to the power of projection, where the problem of opposites is resolved through rejecting our neighbor, our projected, forsaken inner opposite.

Nonetheless, we can take advantage of discovering ourselves through the projections that so powerfully, emotionally seize us. For instance, I might notice myself angered at what I see as a highly manipulative, passive-aggressive move by another person. My anger, if I am paying attention, tells me immediately to look within.

As I do my mental inventory, I might discover my own ego power drive that does not like to lose. And with this insight, I shine a light upon the hologram of self, which reveals to me that in the as without of my projections is also the so within of my own psyche.

My ability to identify the true source of my anger, my own power drive, brings me into greater acceptance of my apparent opponent, as I can now see myself in the other. This does not resolve this inner opposition, but it does truly bring it home to roost.

Self acceptance of the unacceptable within makes it more acceptable to acknowledge that everything we are is the same in everyone else. Wisdom comes in knowing how to live those opposites, as in when and where it is best for them to be lived in our lives.

The more we are able to see ourselves in every attitude that comes at us the more we no longer need to be personally offended by the behaviors of others that we ourselves are quite capable of committing, if only in our fantasies. Fantasizing hating our neighbor is quite a potent form of polarization, within and without.

Anger and hatred issue from the solar plexus chakra, the home of our personal power. Inevitably, from this center we find ourselves in a competitive mode with others. The ability to reach the heart center chakra, the place of compassion, allows us to raise our vibration to the higher level of love, truth and wisdom, which lifts us out of the throes of competition.

The heart center also connects us to the wisdom and guidance of the High Self, that which assures us that there are benevolent forces beyond the ego that are in alignment with the greater good, letting us know that we can let go of the need to control, and be in harmony with the greater good of the group soul.

If we are to truly harmonize with the group soul for the greater good of all, we must innerly disarm from overt or covert hostility. When truly detached we are able to shift our energetic posture from yang to yin.

Yin is a magnetic state that attracts people in a positive way because they can feel that they are energetically being accepted, regardless of their views. A yang state, which is assertive, is, of course, equally appropriate at times. This set of opposites, yin and yang, represent a supreme example of opposites, able to express their individuality when appropriate and join in union—the essence of creation—when appropriate.

All efforts to harmonize the opposites within one’s individual soul are powerful contributions to the group soul of now, as it finds its way to the harmony of the greater good of all.

Harmonizing,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Sweet Spot Of The Subconscious Mind

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The Divine Couple working together…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

The Divine Spark of Spirit is expressed in the Soul through the agency of the High Self and the Subconscious Mind, the Yang and Yin of creation. The suggestions of the High Self are given material life through the creative process of the Subconscious Mind, the bridge between mind and matter.

The Soul is the architect and creator of the physical body it inhabits and runs for the duration of its journey in human form. The Divine couple of High Self and Subconscious Mind, within the Soul, also co-create and deliver the Spark of the Spirit to the center of the human personality,  the human ego.

The High Self, as parent guardian to the ego, is ever available to provide its wisdom and guidance to the ego, upon request. The ego has the free will to choose its actions, and this freedom is generally not overridden by the High Self, except perhaps in a necessary, lifesaving intervention.

The Subconscious Mind is the crown of creation. In contrast to the High Self, its total focus is upon manifestation and maintenance of life. It leaves the thinking function to the High Self and to the ego. Its focus is upon maintaining the health and functioning of the body according to Mother Nature’s laws and the wisdom of the ages.

The Subconscious Mind is extremely receptive to manifesting suggestions delivered to it by its Divine offspring, the ego. Most people are unaware of this fundamental fact of life.  In fact, the rational mind of the ego typically rejects the notion that it has the power to manifest its desires and intentions through autosuggestions to the Subconscious Mind.

Ironically, this rational prejudice materializes as a subconscious habit of  limiting beliefs, which the ego impresses upon the Subconscious Mind through its incessant internal dialogue. The Subconscious Mind does not discriminate. It is receptive and trusting. Be careful what you consistently tell yourself; it is taken quite seriously. What we tell ourselves we become. Like the High Self, the Subconscious Mind expects the ego to grow up and assume responsibility for its thought suggestions.

The greater challenge, for the ego, is the mastery of its desires. The ego was born into a material world that prizes sensual pleasure and material gain and accomplishment. These are all essential qualities that must find healthy balance in a human life. The maturation of the ego ultimately requires alignment with, and acquiescence to, the wisdom of the High Self. It might take the better part of a lifetime for ego to adjust its will to serve wisdom and right action.

In the meantime, ego and the physical body may suffer the negative consequences of ego decisions, despite the innate ability of the Subconscious Mind to heal many maladies. The Subconscious Mind will not override suggestions the ego makes, even though they may lead to ill health. Such is the imperative that the purpose of a human life is for true ego maturity.

Divine rescue would interrupt the opportunity for human growth. However, the ego can utilize the Divine power of the Subconscious Mind constructively, but it must first know how to find its sweet spot.

For the ego to intentionally reach the sweet spot of the Subconscious Mind it must silence the thinking mind with firm directives. This can begin with several minutes of stating autogenic phrases/directives to the physical body:

My feet are relaxed… My ankles are relaxed… my calf muscles are relaxed… My thigh muscles are relaxed… my pelvis is relaxed… my stomach is relaxed… My chest is relaxed… My shoulders, arms and fingers are relaxed… My back is relaxed… My neck is relaxed… My head is relaxed… My face and eyes are relaxed… My feet are relaxed…

These phrases are repeated several times as the body becomes relaxed and drowsy and the mind sinks into a light trance. The mind is no longer engaged in active thinking and building dramas through attaching to thoughts. The Subconscious Mind is now freed from the barrage of countless suggestions from random thoughts, and is fully receptive to a single autosuggestion.

And with this you have arrived at the sweet spot of the Subconscious Mind; you have its full attention.

State your suggestion calmly, confidently and rotely, repeating it for several minutes as you then slip off into the deeper trance of sleep. Do this every day with the calm knowing that, for what you ask, you will, in Divine Order, receive.

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Taking The Pain Out Of Archetypal Bite

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We are all frozen children when our triggers show up…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

When we get triggered we are involuntarily seized by the power of an archetype. Archetypes are the core building blocks of human experience that lie dormant in the ocean of our shared collective unconscious until called forth to define and respond to a situation we encounter. 

The terror of a trigger is a tidal wave of emotional archetypal energy that floods both body and mind with panic. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” is an apt definition of the Shadow archetype, as presented by the 1930’s radio mystery series. When we are caught off guard by an encounter, the Shadow archetype—the mystery and danger of the unknown—is activated, and we are in its grip.

Jung defined the shadow globally as everything that we are but don’t know about, which exists in the dark; hence, the term, shadow. Many things that exist in this dark region of the unconscious mind are purposely kept there because they evoke both fear and anxiety, which greatly compromise our stability and ability to function.

We are all frozen children in relation to our triggers. A child state is one of innocence. Shadow shatters innocence. We are no longer safe. We then install the protection of constrictive body armor. Our freedom of movement is checked by insistence of advance notice of everything.  Our breath is shallow and often held.  Our mind is either hypervigilant or not present at all.

The normal child state precedes the age of responsibility. The child, by definition, is taken care of. The overpowering danger of the greater world is held in abeyance until it is confronted by the shadow of the unexpected. When our adult state of confidence and autonomy is overpowered, we too become like children, overwhelmed by the unknown.

If we choose childlike defenses, we are caught in the existential kink of anguish, which contains the emotions of archetypes, generating the illusory belief that we are in control. Truthfully, however, we are like children playing hide and seek. We are victims, clinging to the child state of non-responsibility. We become like Little Red Riding Hood, haunted by the shadow of the Big Bad Wolf.

To defuse the power of archetype, we must first be willing to turn on the light in the shadow. This can be initiated by stating the intent to master the unknown trigger. Here, consciousness is taking a stand and presenting a suggestion to the subconscious mind. Previously, the subconscious mind was given the suggestion to avoid the trigger. That became its marching order and, consequently, an automatic habit.

This intent mobilizes the subconscious mind to channel the High Self, who then arranges a series of experiences tailored to achieve the necessary steps toward mastery. These experiences will show up in outer synchronicities, dreams and relationships. Slowly, the shadow archetype will be refined to reveal other archetypes that are the root causes behind the trigger.

For example, fear of approaching a woman might reveal the overwhelm of the Goddess archetype in all her piercing beauty; or terror of the Witch archetype, who threatens to castrate. Reflection on the terror experienced with an authority figure might reveal an encounter with a God archetype like Kronos, who would not even grant his children life.

The basics of achieving dominion over shadow require that we, as ego, undertake the Hero’s Journey. This will likely require that we revisit the triggers many times, as we gradually desensitize from them. When a trigger actually becomes boring, we are freed of emotional disruption. We are done.

There may be many other tasks to complete, as well, such as talking with or confronting someone, despite our trepidations. Inner mastery of the central nervous system through various kinds of breathing practices and body practices will support challenging tasks and build needed confidence.

Perseverance in all of these practices will eventually lead us to neutralize and integrate the shadow of all of our triggers. With this comes the restoration of a child’s innocence in the personality, coupled with an adult knowing that indeed, we can navigate the big bad world with truth and right action, the essence of love and wisdom.

Reflecting,
Chuck 

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Stupendous Empowerment Of The Freedom To Think

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We have the power to create a new world…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Victor Frankl, survivor of four concentration camps during the Holocaust, gifted the world with the empirical truth that the inner freedom to think can literally save one’s life. Additionally, he established that no circumstance, however dire, could take that power to think away from anyone. Frankel’s discoveries are particularly relevant to our current world, itself approaching conditions of holocaust on many fronts.

Freedom to think is distinct from freedom to speak. Freedom of speech is extremely perilous in our present world, as it can be met with serious consequences, even death itself. Speaking is extraverted and therefore outwardly expressive. By contrast, thinking is an introverted, inward thought process that impacts the subconscious mind in the realm of the transpersonal Soul.

It is true that unspoken thoughts are themselves energetic entities that crowd the subtle atmosphere and attract the attention of receptive minds, such as through the practice of intentional healing prayer. However, even in this positive instance, targeted thought suggestions to the subconscious mind of another person will only be received if they resonate with that person’s values and beliefs.

Nonetheless, controls upon free speech and extreme propaganda, at the heart of the influencer industry, barrage the human mind incessantly with falsities targeted to control human belief and behavior. These persistent messages can take root and cloud access to one’s inner freedom to think clearly.

To avoid this type of barrage we are wisely advised to limit our exposure to emotionally charged rhetoric that seeks to hook our attention through fear mongering, and to direct our attention instead to our own inner thought processes. Inwardly, we are best advised to find calm in meditation, and truth through inner reflection and connection with our own true Spirit.

Robert Monroe, before each of his journeys into the subtle realms of infinity, always stated the intent that he would only accept an interaction with an entity that was at his level of morality and knowledge, or beyond, and that they should hold only benevolent intent. We can present these same suggestions to our own subconscious mind, with the intent to include both subtle thoughts and interactions, and to protect ourselves from outer world influencers as well, thus insuring maximum protection from undesirable influence, within and without.

The power of thought that Victor Frankl tapped into was the ability to manifest the life he suggested to his subconscious mind on the plane of the imagination, which he could live in and be supported by, as he navigated the horrors of life on the physical plane of existence, until the war ended.

His positive dissociation was hardly schizophrenic nor in denial of physical reality. Victor Frankl was already a practicing psychiatrist by the time he went into the concentration camps, acutely aware of reality in time and space, but he was able, through the power of imagination, to live in two planes of reality simultaneously.

In truth, we all exist simultaneously on several planes of existence. The current state of the world is concurrent with our awakening to the rarified energetic conditions of life on the astral plane, where the power of thought is the key to manifestation. As we move deeper into the Aquarian Age, our utilization of this power has the potential to completely change physical life on this planet.

We are presently at the beginning of such knowledge, but as shown in the accomplishments of Victor Frankl, we can utilize the extreme conditions of now to access the stupendous empowerment of our freedom to think, to both survive now and to manifest the world we truly want, through the power of the subconscious mind.

Best to keep your relation to your subconscious mind sacred and personal. That which we talk about inevitably attracts the energy of resistance. The containment of a suggestion within the womb of self allows it to mature, without interference, and to be born when it is truly due.

May your suggestions also be impregnated with the intent for the greater good of all.

Quietly exercising,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Cruelty Is The Reaction Formation Of Unrequited Love

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When cruelty shows up, find your way to love within…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

The dominant feature of those who hold power in the world at this time is cruelty. The rhetoric and behavior of those warring entities is both disdain and indifference toward the suffering of adversaries and a polarized philosophy that can only see solution in the destruction and elimination of opposition. Understanding the energetics of cruelty can truly lead us to a path of peace.

As we enter the autumn of our seasonal cycle, we must acknowledge Nature’s Law of Destruction as the necessary precursor to new life.  We are indeed in the cosmic season of Kali Yuga, the Dark Age of Degeneration. World leaders are under the spell of such energy, channelling it with gusto. If we suspend all judgment, we see the necessity of this breakdown and can turn our attention to the process of preparing for renewed life.

Beyond the destruction of autumn lies the barren season of winter, where life moves inward to the darkness of the soul in the shadowland of Self. Winter offers a peek into the Dark Night of the Soul, where we are invited to face and resolve our inner mysteries. It is here, if we are ready, that we discover the covert defenses we have utilized to avoid our deepest feelings and needs. One such defense is that of reaction formation.    

Sigmund Freud introduced reaction formation as an ego defense that “transforms an unacceptable or anxiety-provoking impulse or feeling into its opposite” (from Brutus AI). For instance, instead of consciously acknowledging an unacceptable desire or emotion, we act outwardly with just the opposite of how we truly feel. Thus, we might act affectionately toward someone whom we actually feel hostility toward.

A more nuanced appreciation of the dynamic of reaction formation is the energetic exchange that occurs when something is transformed into its opposite. For example, the intensity of affection one might feel for a person, that is then followed by a felt sense of rejection by that person, might result in a corresponding emotionally intense feeling of hatred toward them.

This compensatory emotional reaction assuages and redirects the original energy of affection, while it also protects the ego from the feeling of rejection. Such is often the motive in stalking behavior, where one can be said to be in love with hatred.

Cruelty might issue from disappointments at the primal-need level of human development when one is most vulnerable, sensitive and needing of attention. The British psychoanalyst, Melanie Klein, went so far as to suggest that a frustrated infant would assign one of its mother’s breasts to be the ‘good breast’ and the other the ‘bad breast’ to energetically balance its joys and sorrows and preserve a lifesaving connection to its ‘flawed’ human mother.

Cruelty, however, permits no such defensive option. Cruelty bespeaks such a deep experience of felt rejection at one’s core, the shame of which is reactively transformed into the pleasure of rejecting others and bathing in their extreme suffering. The scapegoating of others creates a playing field where the ego is justified in its fixation of hatred, with an intensity that nullifies its deep sense of inner rejection and abandonment.

When we are able to acknowledge and feel the truth of our deepest disappointments, we are freed from defensive illusions and entitlements that fuel cruel thoughts and actions. These actions allow us to experience love for ourselves, at the deepest level, and love for all who  have taken on the challenge of loving in human form.

Planet Earth is the planet for the accelerated experience of refining love. Taking the Night Sea Journey of Recapitulation allows us to gather, from all our disappointments, a loving acceptance of everything. Immortal souls we may be, but in the context of a mortal life love is challenged to grow amidst its greatest adversary, death itself.

To move beyond the defense of reactive formation to true loving acceptance of all that is, is the foundation upon which new life will grow  in the New Age, beyond the Kali Yuga of now.

Those of us now present in human form are privileged to contribute to this energetic emergence, most especially through the practice and acceptance of all that is, within and without.

It’s all about love,
Chuck