Tag Archives: inner work

Messages from Jeanne

#670 Choose Your Attitudes & Embody Your Wishes

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Currently, I am only channeling you for our readers once a week so that I can devote more time and energy to my own work, which is going well. I have certainly been feeling the energy of change and have been attempting to put it to good use. While it feels like a very creative and promising period in human history it also feels precipitously precarious. I feel that if we are not careful we could miss a very big opportunity. Can you discuss this today? Is there something that we, as human beings, are supposed to be grasping now that remains just out of reach? Because that is what it feels like. How do we, on an individual level, take advantage of this time for our personal evolutions and that of our divided world as well?

My Dear, you ask quite a question, but I get your gist and feel your frustration also, for that is what lies at the core of mankind at this brief moment in time. Frustration may be utilized for good, for the spark that is needed in order to jumpstart a stagnant situation. I suggest looking at the self, the personal situation, and using the energy of now to precipitate change. Precipitous, as you use the word, implies standing on the verge, and this is where you do indeed find yourself today, both individually and universally.

I would suggest that it would not be a bad idea to do a full evaluation of the self as an independent being who is also a member of a collective. No matter what your personal domestic situation is, My Dear Readers, you all belong to a larger group of family and community. The collective energy of the world around you impacts you no matter how busy, how contented, how isolated, how detached or how connected you may feel. And you impact it in return, of course.

A personal assessment of how you are using your time, your energy, your free time, and your daily activities in the world is the opportunity to channel your energy, so that you may take full advantage of this time of change. Perhaps you might question the self as follows:

What is truly important to me?
What do I truly want?
Who do I want in my life, and who do I need to remove myself from?
What energy resonates with mine and where is my own energy being drained?
How do I see myself in the near future?
Am I ready for big changes, or small changes?
Do I act as I speak?
Do I really care about my world and my impact on it?
Have I taken time for myself lately, for my inner self, myself as one part of the whole, of nature and the universe?
Have I found my spiritual connection yet?
Am I happy?
Am I truly alive in the way I most desire?
Am I daring myself, every day, to go beyond my limitations?
Am I facing my fears and allowing my inner spirit self to walk in my shoes and show me what I have been missing?

I could go on for quite some time posing questions, but I realize that I might make you more frustrated than you now are. You must learn that your emotions are your signs of discontent, of issues with the old self who continues to be in the forefront of your life, though your efforts have been to disengage this well-worn self and allow a new self to come forth and speak out for a change. When frustrations, moods, and discomforts arrive it is time to take advantage of such catalysts of change.

The energy of now is quite available for change, but it can go either way. Change will always happen, but by your intent, by your personal energy, you can make that inevitable change be for good, be advantageous, heart-felt and heart-directed. You have the power to affect the right kind of change. Every one of you upon that earth has the ability, simply by your conscious thoughts, to change the self and the world, for good. Positive intent and thinking as catalysts for change are not hocus-pocus, but real-time interventions that, if enacted, will have impact.

As I spoke of last week, you are each personally responsible for taking on the challenges of the self. In order to shift the self, one must dare the self to step out of complacency and the old ways of doing things and force new means of action upon the self by asking the self to breathe more deeply, to sit more calmly, to take in the earth energy beneath your feet. These are all actions of significance. To notice nature and to truly evolve with it, you begin to recognize that you truly belong there. But you are also responsible for everything that happens there upon that earth, and by your thoughts, your intents, your desires, your truths made known, you may afford the self new life.

Seek new life at all times. Think differently. Act differently. Accept the self and others with a new attitude. Be different, and you will notice that the world outside of you will respond differently as well.

Hatred cannot survive in a desert, for it will die without new hatred to fuel it. Without new despair, despair will dissipate. Without new love, love will also die. Choose your attitudes. Embody your wishes. Be what you most desire. Become the person you dream of becoming, and you will become that person.

It is not so hard to change the way you act, think, perceive, believe, or intend, but it takes a personal decision to be different, and that is what you must each seek now in order for the precipice you now each stand upon to impact you in a positive way. You can choose to fall, or you can choose to fly. It’s up to you.

Messages from Jeanne

#668 Do a Spring Review

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
We are experiencing the first full days of spring in the Northeast, a time of rebirth, new life, and new stirrings of the energies of the earth. I find this time of year more meaningful than any other because I feel that spring is a harbinger of new possibilities, urging us all to change with it, offering us amazing energy to ride on, if we elect to do so. During the week I have practiced the process of setting intents as you described in last Monday’s message to us. As I repeat my mantras I often find that I receive answers and guidance in my dreams. I know that this is but one door to discovering more about myself, as dreaming allows me to tap into what I sometimes cannot grasp during the light of day. My dreams show me things of significance, perhaps a missing piece that I then can take into my day and work with. I know that many of our readers may not find what they need in their dreams, or they just may not have explored them for their growth potential as I have. What else is available as a means of offering signs, as a means of guidance, besides dreaming? What else can people look for to help them go deeper and yet know that they are on the right track? How do the answers come? And how can they be trusted as the right answers?

My Dear One, as you state, dreaming is one means of finding your path in life upon that earth, but there are as many paths as there are people, and I would be remiss if I were to conclude that life must be done in one way or another. In dreaming you are offered what lies hidden, but even dreams may not be helpful if one is not deeply studying the self in all aspects of life, in waking life, in relationships, in how one thinks and acts, in how one is present in life or not present. You see, the inner work must be a part of an evolving life in order for the inner self to recognize the signs and how they come to guide. In your own case, you had to learn to trust my intrusion in your life in order to come this far, in order to become this open channel, did you not, Jan?

Yes, I had to learn to trust you and to tolerate you because I did not really want the responsibility of this job. I fought you for a long time, but over time, and because of your unrelenting patience, I was able to get through the first almost annoying years with you. So, what do you suggest that people look for in their own lives, as they do their inner work?

First, I advise that inner work, in whatever form fits a person, is most beneficial.

Second, I advise learning what the personal inner voice sounds like.

Third, learn to recognize and feel the “other” voice that speaks, from beyond the familiar inner voice.

Fourth, learn how to communicate with this “other” voice. What language does it speak with you? Is it the language of poetry, of vision, of art, of music, of movement? Is it a voice that you know immediately though you do not know how or from where? Do you feel an ancient connection inside you?

Once you find this ancient connection inside, by your own diligent process of testing, of trusting, of rejecting, of inviting, and of discriminating between that which feels vibrationally, energetically right and that which feels energetically devastating, you will find your method of communication and your means of guidance.

As with all evolutionary practices, finding the voice of guidance within is an individual process, but in order for it to truly be available and utilized one must learn to trust it. One must allow oneself to be pushed by it, to be challenged by what is presented. For instance, if you are unhappy in a job or relationship and your inner work shows you what to do to resolve it, and you know exactly what you must do, will you allow your self to go forth with this knowing, though you foresee many hardships ahead as a result of daring to do what will truly be life-changing? Are you truly ready for life-changing steps?

In order to be open to the signs of guidance, one must make the decision to change. And this may be the most difficult part of the process we are discussing. For all the signs in the world, all the dreaming insights, all the guidance that is plunked down in front of you will not aid you if you will not make the decision that change in your life is good. If you will not allow for change then you will only accumulate a lot of useless data, until you are truly ready to review your life and see what you have been missing.

Perhaps that is the place to begin now, on this spring day. Perhaps it is time to review all the signs you have already been given in your dreams, in your interactions with others, in your signs outside of you, in your physical reactions, your mental stresses, and your yearning inner self. What is the greatest message that you have been receiving lately? What is it suggesting you must do? Why is it so hard to receive this message? Who are you protecting as you receive this message? What part of you is not hearing, seeing, feeling, or allowing this guidance to be meaningful?

As you do a spring review, look also ahead to your future. Breathe in the energies of the earth at this time, this transitional time. Intend transition. Will the self to make a commitment to allow for it. In this way will you find that your signs will be more recognizable, your guidance clearer, and your path revealed. Do you see what I am saying? If your intent is truthfully allowed to be acceptable to you, first and foremost, then all the guidance that you have not seen or heard or felt will be revealed. Here is how to set the intent to change:

1. You must state that you are ready for it.

2. You must open your arms, your heart, your mind and your inner self to it.

3. You must acquiesce to the journey that will unfold before you.

4. You must challenge your self to move forward, though the old you will fight you at every step.

5. You must trust your self. You must trust that you are strong, capable, and ready to change.

6. If you are at the cusp of change, at the verge, standing on the rim of darkness, of fear, of annihilation, you must review how you got there. Have you not already allowed for many changes? Have you not been helped and guided all along the way and lived to tell your tales?

7. Now comes the next big step in trusting your journey: Throw out your voice into the darkness, into the void, into the unknown, into the veils that block your clarity of vision, and wait for its echo calling you forward. With resonance in response you will know what you must do next.

This is a very exciting time to be alive. As I said, breathe in the energies of spring, of life, of possibility, of transition and transformation. Breathe in the possibilities of self and allow for change to guide you. Allow for letting go of the old as you see where it has landed you, and turn to the earth at your feet for the guidance you now need. Happy Spring!

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Self-Hypnosis for Change

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All hypnosis is self-hypnosis is a phrase commonly uttered among hypnotists. And what does that mean, you might ask, because, if that is true, why do we need hypnotists at all? In truth, we have been hypnotized our whole lives and continue to be so by the things that are presented to us from outside of ourselves, often quite blatantly, but also from inside our own psyches, perhaps in unawareness. From our earliest years, we learn about life from our families, teachers, and our social and religious circumstances. As we grow and enter the world we are increasingly bombarded with new information presented to us by the “experts,” such as in the media, in politics, in marketing, in the medical community, the drug companies, the food companies, by important figures in our lives, etc., essentially by anyone telling us, repeatedly, that something is true. And, in fact, the simple act of repetitively internalizing thoughts about ourselves implants beliefs that we are a certain way, so that, eventually, we take on the task of living out these beliefs, whether they are true or not. A skilled hypnotist, to contrast, knows exactly what new words, used in the right manner, can break through the old beliefs and truisms about the self, bypassing the long ago embedded ideas and the protective layers of ego that hold so tightly to those old beliefs, to implant new ideas deeply in the psyche so that change can happen. It is also true that even the most skilled of hypnotists will not succeed in truly hypnotizing someone if the ego is not ready and willing to participate in the process. Thus it is true that all hypnosis is, in fact, self-hypnosis, because the entire self must be involved in the decision to change. The ego must be ready to allow the deeper self to access new information that may bring about a true shift in habits, in behaviors, in beliefs, allowing for a new self to be fully embraced.

The reason I am bringing this up is that in her message on Monday, regarding a process of going into a deep part of the self to reach a place of shift, Jeanne is really outlining a process of self-hypnosis. In fact, my channeling process is a practice of self-hypnosis, of going into trance, a hypnotic state, and allowing my ego to back off while I access a place beyond myself. That being said, meditation could also be termed self-hypnosis. When I had finished with the channeling on Monday, which I do with pen in hand, and was typing it up on the website, it dawned on me that Jeanne was actually offering quite a nice step-by-step practice of doing self-hypnosis. And the key to learning anything is practice. The things we learned as children were taught to us over and over again. We learned to walk, to speak, to read, to write, etc. by doing them repeatedly. In order to become a good artist, to be able to draw and paint what I was actually seeing or imagining in the way that I wanted to express it, no matter how naturally talented, I had to practice and learn by doing repeatedly. It is the same thing with learning to play a musical instrument or play a sport, or even learn to drive. To do anything well, to reach a sense of accomplishment we must practice, and it is the same thing with self-hypnosis. In order to truly change, we must practice repeating our new truths, by asking for shift to happen, by constantly giving ourselves a new view, and by offering ourselves a new perspective. If we wish to achieve change we must participate in making it happen.

The four steps that Jeanne offered begins with the practice of saying a mantra, of repeating something over and over again, reminding ourselves that this is important to us, that we want this. This is doing self-hypnosis. By repeating an affirmation, a prayer, an intent over and over again, we are doing self-hypnosis. This practice allows us to enter a new state of awareness, to go into trance, however light, so that we can take the next step, which Jeanne outlines as breathing innerly and allowing ourselves to feel our energy as a calm pool. She then asks us, in the third step, to go deeper into trance and into self-hypnosis and look at ourselves from outside of our normal means of viewing. She asks us to change our perspective, which is one of the main tools that a hypnotist uses, offering, through acceptable, personal suggestion, the means of seeing what we have been missing about ourselves, something that we have not allowed integration into our conscious awareness. She then asks us, in the fourth step, to take a look at how we have been affected by the outer world all our lives, to see even that world from this detached new perspective and gain clarity on just how the things we believed about ourselves may not really be compatible with our inner truths or our inner energy. Have we been compromising our energy in order to uphold an outer world that we do not truly believe is right for us? Have we been playing a game, simply because it was the only game that we knew? Are we caught in the outer energy because we are not aware that we have our own energy inside of us that has very personal ideas of what we should be doing with our energy, and with our lives?

In offering this four-step process Jeanne is offering us a practice of self-hypnosis so that we can be our own catalysts to change, without having to wait for the world outside of us to force us into having to accept a shift. We are offered the opportunity to do it on our own terms, with our own full participation, ego and psyche in gentle alignment. If we practice these steps of self-hypnosis as Jeanne outlines them, eventually we can affect change within, simply by the fact that we are intending change. By our practice of these steps, by repeatedly introducing new outlooks, new views of ourselves, both innerly and outerly, we offer ourselves new energy, based on truth and resonance of inner spirit. As short and subtle as these visits to our inner energy are, eventually we will be ready to take longer and deeper visits, offering ourselves the opportunity to envision and enact even greater changes.

Any new idea we wish to offer the self can be introduced in the manner that Jeanne outlines. If we wish to be better at something, more focused, if we wish to lose weight, eat right, sleep better, change a habit, be happier, be more daring, be loving, be aware, etc., —for ourselves or others— we can use these steps, beginning with simply stating our new intent in the mantra of step number one. By going through the process Jeanne offers us, by looking carefully, gently and compassionately at ourselves, and by sticking with the practice for as long as it takes to achieve change, without giving up for all the old reasons and by allowing the ego to sit idly by, we can truly change. We can achieve what we desire. And, in alignment with spirit, you might be surprised at what you discover about the self that you did not understand or even know about before you began the process. Try it and see what happens!

I am reminded that even before I knew anything about hypnosis or even thought about becoming a hypnotist I certainly utilized a lot of self-hypnosis, not because I knew what it was, but because it was such a natural habit, one that we all do all the time. That might be another thing to notice. How often do you hypnotize yourself each day? You might be surprised that it really is quite often.

Enjoy the nice spring weather! And keep practicing!
Love,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#666 Take a Personal Energy Day

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Today is the ides of March and to quote Shakespeare in Julius Caesar: “Beware the ides of March.” I have always felt this to be a high energy day and today is no exception. Sometimes it has felt like a day of dangerous energy and other times, like today, it feels like if you could tap into the energy that you could really use it as a catalyst and go far. I am writing this early in the morning. It is still dark and quiet outside; even the birds have not begun to stir. What would you like to talk about today, Jeanne, this energy that I feel? Or is there something else that you feel will be helpful to your many readers as we begin this new day and this new week?

Do not forget, as you go about your day and get involved in the progression of life upon that earth that you are absolutely available to not only feel the energy outside of you, but to tap into it as well. Today, I speak of this ability in relationship to the energy outside of you, felt so deeply inside of you; though even this may not be noticed as you, My Many Readers, jump into a new busy workweek.

It is possible, with a little anchoring, to redirect your attention throughout your day to how you are feeling inside the self. And by this, I mean deeply inside the self. For this is where you have the ability to notice, to perceive, and even to utilize the energy that is indeed quite available for your use, that is quite helpful and that, if you can tap into it, may reveal just what you need to know at this time in your life.

This is a time of shift, as Jan perceives, but this is also a time of dubious energy, for shift comes in many forms. Shift can come in tidal waves that overtake and swallow one up in unwanted energy. Shift can come in soft and gentle breezes that stir the unconscious awake and assert that prospects are good. Shift can come during sleep so that you wake up feeling different yet unaware of how such a change occurred, for your conscious self did slumber through the time of shift.

Shift can also come when you least expect it and when you are only half prepared for it. Consider, however, that no matter how shift occurs, and in what form it comes to you, that you are ready for it, though you may protest quite heartily at such an idea. I will always contend that you are indeed ready for what comes to you, for what happens to you without your controls and desires coming into play. For you pull toward you, energetically, exactly what you need so that your life will proceed in a direction of growth and awakening.

Whether or not you want to wake up, though, is truly up to you. You are the only one who can decide whether or not you are going to perceive the events in your life as meaningful awakenings. And then, you are the only one in your life who makes the choice to accept these awakenings as either happy challenges or as devastating calamities. You may see them as both good and dangerously necessary events, or you may see them as bad occurrences yet as most precipitous and meaningful as well. How you accept what comes to you in your life will largely depend on where you are, how much inner work you have done, and what you have been able to hold onto as you have learned about the self, the journey you are on, and about how energy works.

I suggest that a special day of contemplation of energy is not a bad thing. A special day of listening to the inner self is not a bad thing. A special day of really allowing the self to feel the energy and find out what it personally means in your own life, at this moment in time, is not at all a bad thing to do. Today, for instance, or really any day this week would be energetically appropriate for such a task. Choose a day this week and set it aside as your personal energy day. Take a personal day, and this does not need to be a day away from your normal activities, but a day of personal intent nonetheless. A day of personal intent would look something like this:

1. You wake up and ascribe a mantra to the self, i.e.: “Today is my day of personal intent to feel the energy,” or something like that. This will be your reminder, to say throughout the day, as you go about your daily routines. You can say this as little as three times or as often as six, but do not obsess about it. Simply use it to remind yourself that you are electing to re-anchor in your feelings on this day.

2. And what will you do with yourself once you have anchored? You will calm yourself for a moment with some calming breaths —perhaps heart-centered breathing— and you will allow yourself to feel the energy that is pulsing through you, through your physical body. Describe this energy to yourself, and then take another breath and go deeper into your inner energy, and describe again those deeper feelings. Do this to three or more levels, each time going deeper, depending on how much time you can take out of your day. You may only have time to touch briefly inside the energy of the self, or you may have time to go very deep. Be assured that just the act of doing this inner check with the self will offer a shift in your treatment of the self, in your perspectives, in your feelings, and in your perception of what you are really feeling. Say that you are feeling rushed and a little stressed, but as you breathe and go deeper into the self you may find a pool of inner calm energy quite different from what you have been experiencing. Each time you drop back into that calm pool you will take a little more of that calmness out into your world with you, and this will allow you to actually experience your outer world differently.

3. The next part of the process of this personal intent to feel the inner energy of self is to take a look at your outer world from this inner place, to really see it from this deeper perspective, to look with detachment, impersonal detachment, as if it were not your world at all, but someone else’s entirely. From this impersonal perspective you may see something differently. You may even see your whole world as quite a scene, quite a play, and you may gain insight and reconciliation of issues that you have not before been able to gain clarity on.

4. As you allow yourself the pleasure of removal from your world, as you do this technique of energy removal from your outer world into your inner world, your next step is to notice just how the outer energy has been affecting your inner energy. Are you in synch with the outer energy, flowing quite easily with it? Or are you struggling with it, fighting it, or overwhelmed by it? Notice what is happening. This is a very important point to become aware of. How is your inner energy reacting to the outer energy? You may notice what is going on and feel it quite easily, or you may only feel it lightly. You may feel that your circumstances do not allow you to notice this interaction, but I contend that in momentary calm you will be able to discern how you have been reacting to the energy outside of you. If you find this difficult to figure out, take that as your answer, that you have been reacting obliviously, and that is the truth of your attention to how the outer energy affects you. And so be it.

And now you are ready to learn something about the self through this little exercise. You are ready to learn how very subtly, or even how abruptly, your personal energy is affected each day by the energy outside of you. Assume, as Jan states, that today is a high energy day. Are you going to allow it to take over and send you off on a wild goose chase, simply because if offers such wild opportunity? Or are you going to tap into its energy in a meaningful way, by studying it, balancing it with your inner place of energy, and use it to further your self on your journey, both inner and outer. Good energy is good to tap into, but with practicing how best to use it in your awakening process is a very good way to use it meaningfully.

So, a day of personal intent to use the energy to gain a new perspective in order to grow is not a bad idea at all! By studying this process within the self, by working with it, you will gain the ability to automatically tune into the energy outside of you, ascertain how it personally feels and how to personally use it. You will gain inner balance and outer balance and clarity of inner self and outer energy, so that stability may be achieved.

Growth will happen, progress will happen, change will happen, and a new perspective will be gained as you learn to utilize the energy that comes from without on such a day and such a week as this. For in this assessment that Jan makes, she is feeling the energy of change. Now comes the hard part. How is she, and how are you, going to tap into it for good personal use?

Intend it, feel it, step back and gain perspective, and then balance with it; and know that you can always do this simply by reestablishing your intent to do so. Enjoy the process!

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: The Shadow Lurks

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I seem to do a lot of my inner work in dreaming. It has always been this way. My psyche seems to like to work on issues of importance while my mind sleeps and luckily, more often than not, especially if I intend it, I wake up with good dream recall. I have also discovered that if I present a dreaming intent my psyche readily obliges, giving me just what I need. Over the past few weeks I have made some decisions, one of which, as you know, was to change my name to my married name. This is not as easy at it may sound. Any woman who has faced this prospect upon marriage knows this. Suddenly, a well-known identity is challenged and the big question of “Who am I?” arises. During my recent process of making this life changing decision I had the following dream.

I am having a funeral for Jan Hughes. I am burying her in a field on a hill, under the spreading limbs of a tall tree. As the funeral progresses I have an inner dialogue with this “old Jan,” as she is lowered into the grave, as dirt is thrown onto the casket, and as she is put to rest. I tell her that I am not abandoning her, that I am not rejecting her, but that she has done her life’s work and it is time for her to recede while a new me takes over. I am thankful for the life we had together. I thank her for accompanying me this far and for taking me on my recapitulation journey. I tell her this as her grave is covered, as a headstone is put in place, and as I walk away and leave her buried under the tree, knowing that something is not quite resolved, but I am not sure what it is yet. Even so, every day, in the dream, as I pass by the spot on the hill where she is buried I see her headstone and know that I have made the right decision.

Three days later, I have another dream related to the same theme. In this dream I am approached by a woman who I recognize from my past. When I knew her I was in awe of her and admired her for many reasons. She was beautiful. She wore her hair in a short pixie cut and I once cut my hair like hers, wanting to be like her. She was tall, not exceedingly thin, and she had perfect posture and moved with definite grace, totally in her body, while I am short and in the past tended to hunch my shoulders more than I do now, totally not in my body. She carried herself with such confidence and seemed totally relaxed with who she was, both in her work and in her personal life. In the dream, she is old, her hair is longer and very scraggly, thin, hanging in her face, her expression is withdrawn and dark, her eyes sunken and haunted looking, her skin wrinkled and her cheeks, once so plump and rosy, are cavernous. She comes very close to me and peering into my face says in a harsh whisper: “I love you. I have always loved you. I want to be with you. I want to be your lover forever. Don’t leave me.”

“Oh, yes,” I say, “I remember you came to me in a dream once before and told me the same thing, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she says, “but you wouldn’t pay attention.”

“But I’m married now,” I say. She looks devastated when I say this and I am not sure what to do with her. She looks sad, sick, lifeless, and I feel her love for me as well as her pain at being rejected. I don’t want to make her feel any worse, but I can’t figure out what to say to her. “I’ll keep it in mind,” I say, referring to her desire to love me forever. And at that she disappears and I wake up.

As I write down this dream upon awakening, I begin to see this woman as my shadow. She tells me that she loves me and is asking me to integrate her. She is my extraverted self whom I have kept hidden for so long, unloved and uncared for, as I have lived most of my life as an introvert. I chose the life of a freelance artist and writer so that I did not have to be in the world or interact in the world, except minimally. She is asking me to take her as my lover, to give her life, to be what I once projected onto her and in so doing restore her beauty. It is my personal challenge, in this life, to be extraverted. I know this. I am totally at ease in introversion, in doing inner work, it is all I have ever done, but being in the world is and always has been my challenge.

It is interesting to note here that I did recently bump into this woman from my past, several months ago, and I was struck by how much she had changed. She did in fact look quite haggard. Her hair was longer and rather thin and, I thought, rather unattractive compared to the way she looked with a shorter cut. She looked almost unhealthy, whereas ten or so years ago when I last saw her she looked beautifully ageless, with that amazing posture and self-assured presence. When I saw her recently I felt that we had almost exchanged personas. She looked the way I did ten years ago, before I did my recapitulation, before my real inner work started. Now I have long thick flowing almost white hair, I am softer and more glowing, and my hunched shoulders are pulling back, my posture exhibiting more self-confidence, and my haunted look is gone.

When she comes to me in the dream, this woman from the past is asking me to embrace her as she is now. The last time she came in a dream, I rejected her, and she mentions it. I was not ready at that time, but now I am. She, the shadow, wants me to love the old self now, to embrace the woman I have buried, but also to not reject her. I must not only love what this woman, this shadow once represented and what I projected onto her, but I must also love what she now carries, the old me. And I must do so without feeling sorry for her, but fully embrace her with compassion and love for our unfolding journey together, in real life and in dreaming life. And I must also accept her admiration of me, as I have changed and evolved, for that would complete the picture. As I take back the long ago projection, and love all these parts of myself, I am accepting the challenge.

This is the kind of stuff that the psyche presents to us, whether in dreams, in daily life, or in what happens to us. We are always, in some way, presented with our issues; in problems that arise and in the people we meet and interact with. When we are ready to make some changes and move on, embracing our evolving selves, we are given the opportunity to integrate, to take back our projections, and to embrace the totality of who we are and who we have the potential to still become. I guess I would just like to stress that, in looking to the workings of the psyche, I was able to see how these two dreams were meaningful in my own process of change, and how, as I looked deeper, I was presented with what really lurked below the surface, asking for resolution.

Even though I feel like I have done nothing but deep inner work for the past ten years, I am still being challenged to keep doing it, to go deeper and deeper, into my own shadows. You never know what or who might be lurking there!

Until next time, may your dreams take you where you need to go!
Love,
Jan