In the beginning was the child… -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Yes, there really is a part of the self that simply is all about me. Born in childhood, this spark of me-ness is our earliest ego state that simply needs, wants, and expects to be given to. And at that stage of life this narcissism is healthy and necessary; it’s all about survival.
Fairly quickly the needs and expectations of powerful others require us to suppress our needs, delay gratification, and give as well as take—all technologies to form a mature adult ego. This socialization of the child ego state greatly curtails its self-centeredness, which slips into the shadows of the unconscious, hidden but hardly dormant. Polite as we might appear to be outwardly, inwardly or covertly the child still wants and gets, in some form.
In our time, new apps appear daily to rapidly cater to all our wants. In America our new president has become the poster child for entitlement. The child ego state has been freed from the shadows, its narcissism given full legitimacy as a national policy.
The wanting child has truly come of age. We are all being asked to grapple with our own wanting child ego state. However, in approaching this inner child ego state, we must be careful to distinguish between it and the many parts of the self that appear in the form of the child and are in fact not the child ego state, what I refer to instead as the child image. The child ego state itself is a universal non-personal inherited psychic structure much like a limb or any other part of the body which serves a necessary function in life. The function of the child ego state in young childhood is simply to procure, as it is too immature to give or care for itself. In contrast, the child image reflects the personal history of the personality’s unfolding in this life.
Often, an inner child image, not the child ego state, may represent a split off part of the self that was abused or neglected in childhood and had to be packaged up and stored away, often somewhere in the body, forgotten to the conscious mind. This part of the personality holds a memory that may be triggered into awareness by a current event, seeking some kind of recognition and reconciliation with the rest of the personality. This is not the wanting child, this is the traumatized child’s experience seeking peace through integration.
A symbolic child image is also frequently encountered in dreams of pregnancy, or simply having a child, which might represent the development of a new potential in the personality. Hence, one might decide to start a new career, enterprise, or relationship, all starting in an embryonic state, needing the conscious care of a parent/adult ego state to support and bring to fruition.
A dream variation on this theme might be finding oneself back in grammar school, high school, or college, having to learn something. Here, information or skills we missed in our formative years might need attention, asking our current adult ego state to humbly attend to an underdeveloped part of the self.
Having considered these other permutations of the child image self, we need to consider how best to deal with our structural child ego state. First, we should acknowledge that the child is the true home of innocence in the personality. This innocence has been extolled as the only state worthy of entering heaven.
Innocence approaches the world with curiosity and awe, unencumbered by preconceptions and rules. Of course, this innocence will be wounded by Buddha’s greatest discovery: life is suffering. No-one can escape the ultimate reality of old age, sickness and death. Nonetheless, under the tutelage of the adult ego state, “mature” innocence, that can remain open despite the vulnerabilities and inevitabilities of these truths, may find full expression in adult life.
As to the wants of the child ego state, these may be largely under the compulsive dominance of instincts, be it for food, power, stimulation, or attention. The challenge for the adult ego is to help its child ego state become free from the instinctive dominance of its basic needs so that they may be incorporated into adult life in a fulfilling way. Keep in mind that free will can only exist within the limits of consciousness, which is a function of the adult ego state. Beyond those limits there is the mere compulsion of the child ego state. For instance, a sexual impulse, delayed, might ultimately become the foundation of a real loving relationship versus a narcissistic release with a casual hookup. The adult ego state can reconcile and integrate the energy and power of human animal instinct with true relatedness and spiritual love.
The essential challenge with the demanding “I want” child self is to transform it to coexist with the legitimate needs of others. The child ego state dominating in adulthood is largely anachronistic, non-adaptive to a reality beyond “me.” To achieve fulfillment of wants, those wants must be channeled and transformed through the adult ego state that can navigate the world as it really is and find a home for all its deepest needs, within the greater self as well as in the world. That is recognition and reconciliation in maturity!
My dear friend Michael Gellert proposed, in his book Modern Mysticism, that Jung’s revolutionary mapping of the psyche was the equivalent of a Copernican revelation of the true nature of the Self. Whereas Freud had mapped a psyche where the unconscious revolved around the ego as its “sun,” Jung placed the ego and the archetypes as planets that revolve around the much greater Self or Soul. Thus in Jung’s cosmology the ego, though a valid planet with consciousness, was nonetheless only one of many planets in the solar system of the Self.
Who knows what you might find in the solar system of the Self… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Building upon this cosmology, I would place the entire solar system of the Self—ego and archetypes—as the province of the energy body, that which gives access to the infinite part of the Self in the astral world and beyond. After all, the physical body is but a temporary appendage to the energy body, shed at the moment of its death.
The archetypes that revolve around the Self, in company with the ego, are personalities in their own rights, bringing both havoc and ecstasy to the experiences of the ego. When we identify our experiences as “powerful moods” or “overwhelming compulsions;” when we are “beside ourself;” when we feel “a part of ourself” or that “something possessed us,” we are acknowledging the experience of a meteoric hit from one of the revolving archetypes that has grazed the shores of planet ego, shaking it up, leaving reverberating waves of passion in its wake.
The simple truth is, we must encounter and grapple with the archetypes—they are part of who we are. They absolutely demand our attention, which means, they must be lived and integrated into our lives. If we refuse them, we become like the dry drunk who bitterly resents his or her shallow, lifeless existence cut off from the living waters of the Self.
The archetypes are the gods and goddesses of ancient peoples, residing in celestial realms. Jung’s psychic model internalizes these higher powers as entities that reside in all of us in the realm of the collective unconscious, in the same astral realm as the energy body, rather than as separate beings outside of the self.
Encountering the energy, power, and influences of the archetypes transforms our human life. The experience of falling in love, for instance, is nothing other than falling under the spell of a god/goddess archetype. Suddenly, we and our beloved shimmer in radiance, in a passionately-centered feeling of wholeness. This is hardly a human relationship. Real relationships take time and tremendous effort to evolve into a true loving connection.
Instant love and passion are the hallmarks of archetypal fairy dust. Nonetheless, encounters with archetypal energies draw us like moths to a flame. We are helpless in our longing for these encounters, through which we feel truly alive. Our challenge is to withstand the compulsions and emotions that enervate our ego states, as we are drawn to encounter our archetypal counterparts again and again.
If we allow those archetypal counterparts to rule us, we set ourselves up to regularly be drowned in a sea of emotions, or driven to passionate behaviors unfitting our real life circumstances. However, if we can hold our own, and learn to channel their energies properly, we are molded to maturity. These are the true rites of passage that will lead us beyond the powerful grasp of the gods and goddesses of the archetypal realm.
We go to our gods and goddesses enthralled, like the bee to the golden rod… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
When a man projects the goddess Aphrodite onto a woman, he is overcome with awe and invariably shudders in the golden glow of her presence. He is indeed challenged to rise above his adolescent boy self and actually communicate with her. This is a step toward maturity. If she responds to his call, he is flooded with the benevolent, loving care he has not known since infancy and oneness with Mother. All needs and desires are met in this light-filled union. That is, until a real need is expressed by his goddess! Then the light goes out and he suddenly awakens to the power and control of the dark side of Mother. The archetypal fit with his goddess lover goes out of synch and he is left in the desert facing a real human woman, perceiving her as needy and demanding.
He has tasted the nectar of the archetypal goddess, which he now feels entitled to seek again elsewhere, as he is drawn to freedom, far from the gallows of commitment. Here, he is once again challenged to mature. Does he run? Or does he remain controlled by the dark side of the Mother archetype, whom he squarely encounters now in the eyes of his lover? Can he stick around and truly become related to his human partner? This is his next challenge of maturity.
To bear the fears, rages, and longings of the archetypes is to allow the ego to grow beyond the dramas and intensities of simply allowing the archetypes to live through us. Yes, we need their instinctive energies, but we must elevate them through our encounters to an integrated higher human level. In the example I have just given, that higher level is real love that partakes of archetypal energy but is grounded in human reality as a true connection with a human partner.
Human maturity requires archetypal encounters, but beware the energies unleashed when under the lure of the archetype. These are the waves that can pull us down and drag us through the sand of the ocean floor, without any certainty as to where we will land. Nonetheless, if we bring consciousness to bear upon the maya, or illusion, of the archetype, we may indeed find the path to maturity and fulfillment.
May we all take some time for sitting in quiet contemplation… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The theme of change continues in this week’s channeled message from Jan and Jeanne. The truth is, change is constant. What we elect to do with it is up to us, however, and that may be the only area of control that we have when we otherwise feel that we have absolutely no control. We can always make the right decision.
Some good advice in this week’s message! May it be helpful and guiding.
Today we offer a powerful message of guidance from Jeanne in response to a question that Chuck asks. No matter what journey we are on, whether we are parents or solo journeyers, whether we are young or old, stuck or flowing, what she says is profoundly important. First Chuck’s question is posed, related to the blog he wrote the other day regarding some personal events, which you can read here, but really it’s a question for all of us who struggle, and then comes Jeanne’s response. Asked and offered most humbly, from all of us, Chuck, Jan, and Jeanne.
Out of the cocoon and taking the journey… as we all must do… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Dearest Jeanne,
As you are well aware, the sons we bore, in your life as Jeanne Marie Ketchel, are deeply challenged by their choices in this life. Most recently this resulted in near death for one of them and criminal confinement for the other. Given the public nature of their recent actions, I offered a commentary on their journeys in my blog, believing that their processes may be relevant to the greater journey of our time.
You live now beyond the sheaths of the human form, yet continue to watch over and guide seekers in this life. What message might you offer—from your perspective beyond the loyalty and emotion of human attachment—for all who struggle to discern their responsibility for the lives of others, particularly those closest to them?
Jeanne responds: In all humbleness, and with great appreciation for the journeys that must be taken, I reply. Here follows my answer to your question:
There is great pressure now upon that earth for all to conform to a new idea of growth. This growth is not concerned with need or desire but only with an awakening to the greater meaning of life, as well as to the state of the world, a state largely brought about by the naiveté of the human population. Something has gone awry, and that something is a deep disconnect, a severing of ties with the spiritual self. Far more important has become the rational and the physical self, the desire body and the impassionate self-serving needs of the human body.
I do not blame or fault, but, in my assessment, this is a dire situation. In reality, however, it is in such times of dire circumstance that change happens. As specifically regards the sons we bore, their time has not yet come to advance, though they struggle at the very door of change. In my detachment I am offered the greater picture, the iconic image of the struggles of the human being to accept its place in the physical world, while simultaneously struggling to embrace its spiritual nature, its truth that it does not really belong there. In other words, the spirit self knows that life upon that earth is not the only thing, yet the human self adheres to it like glue, as if nothing else matters.
In truth, all must face the struggles of these two selves, and so as you, My Dearest Chuck, face the struggles of our two sons, so must you allow them to have their experiences, just as you have had your own. You know from your own life that your struggles have advanced you. This is what all must take into consideration as they face the judgments that arise regarding the decisions of others, for surely judgments arise.
Is it right to judge another, to decide that they are doing life wrong? According to whom are they doing life wrong? No one lives wrongly. No one is really making mistakes. No one should be judged for decisions they make and the situations they find themselves in. Yet, to step back and be compassionately nonjudgmental is one of the most terrifying and necessary moments in life. Especially, when looking into the faces of one’s children, one must look with openness, with open heart and open mind, and say: “Look at you, taking your journey, as I once took mine! Look at you!”
Our neighbor’s cat visits daily and is always greeted warmly, without attachment… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Outside of the physical pain lies another pain, the pain of emotional detachment, the most necessary detachment, the most necessary suffering of mature beings. For yes, even as those of you who have children must stand by and watch and suffer, so must you challenge yourselves to do as you request of others. You must evolve to a new level of freedom for the self and others by releasing judgments and emotional attachments, for the idea that you can control, or really even guide another, is quite absurd. I say that with all love and compassion, for I understand the role of parents and others who must stand by while seeing so clearly the futility of such struggles. But the truth is that no one can teach another, for lessons in life come only through experience.
Remember always that everyone learns in their own personal manner and an awakening, a knock over the head for one person, may be nothing more than an annoyance for another.
Value your own process now even as you look upon the processes of others. Know, all of you, My Dear Readers, that in the struggles of others reside your own struggles. Know that the compassion and concern and worry that you direct outwardly should be turned inwardly. Know that even as you intuit devastation and decline for others, so must you take that knowing inwardly. You must face what lies in your own future if you do not face your own struggles, both as they manifest outwardly and as they manifest inwardly in the physical and psychological pain that you suffer as a result of your life, mirrored by the lives of those closest to you.
No one can live another’s life. No one can learn the lessons that another must learn. No one can make the decisions that another must make. To aid too much is to inhibit growth, and so I advise compassionate detachment in the face of outer turmoil. Will you heed my advice? I know, as I have said, that no one can really help another, yet I remain committed to my assignment as guide and helper, just as you each do upon that earth, as adults, parents, and teachers. And so, from my perspective as a being no longer in human form, I advise that you seek this perspective of compassionate detachment as well. For all of you, though you exist in human form, are fully capable of accessing a higher state of being.
Within the body self lies all you need. Your core self awaits your recognition. No one is a superior being, yet in the reality of a spiritual self, all are superior beings. At the same time, no one is a lesser being, no one is a damaged being, no one deserves pity or fear, no one deserves more or less compassion than another.
Allow, My Dearest Chuck, and All of My Readers, life to unfold as it must, for the key to all of this struggling that you carry within your heart is the greater awareness that struggle is necessary for change to happen. If the seed did not have to struggle through the darkness of the earth to break open there would be no flower reaching for the sunlight.
The seeds sprout, the bees come and go, life in its unfolding… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Let the seeds lie upon the ground where they have fallen. Let them become the men and women they struggle to become on their own. Let their decisions take them to their next challenge. Let their circumstances crack their outer shells, so that roots and sprouts may occur, for it is only in the cracking that this will occur.
Life, even in the form of solid rock, evolves as it wears down and changes shape, as it rolls and rattles about in water and wind, being sculpted by the turmoil of nature’s energy. Realize that the human being is only but another object in the turmoil of life’s energies. Tossed and jostled about, in meeting life head on, all that is offered will turn each one of you into new beings.
Even as a stone may one day stand as the cornerstone to a new structure, so must you carry in your hearts the knowledge that each human being will one day evolve into their own cornerstone. But this, for the most part, will only happen through discovering that the cornerstone one seeks is within, not without.
I ask, as you struggle with those closest to you, as you struggle to understand them and their choices, to drop all notion of helping. Take the small stones you carry in your pockets, the memories and knowledge of them as tender children full of potential, and lay them at the alter of life. They are showing you that they are, in fact, ready to more fully engage life now, for in their very struggles does life exist, pushing them now like you never could. They will certainly pay attention to life, though they may still resist you and your advice! Let life become their mother and father now. Let life, full force, carry them where they need to go.
I cannot do more than guide you to detachment. The struggles to achieve a place of compassionate loving detachment are your own. But I do wish to impart that life is not just what you observe and experience in your human form, but a most vital energy shared by all beings. Remember that even as you feel your own powerful life force, so does everyone else.
Awakenings come in many forms and to each person their awakening is appropriate. Even the awakening of death is not to be despaired or attached to beyond loving appreciation for life lived, because the one who has died has evolved to a new level, awakened to new life.
Hold your loved ones tenderly, and tenderly let them go when the time for their own maturity arrives. They let you know in their turning away from you, in their decision making, that they are ready to take on life on their own terms. You cannot outline or plan the life of another, so please step back from attempting to do so. Stand back in awe instead and watch them go into life, fully loaded with all that you once gave them, energized by your continued support in the form of powerfully positive intent that they go live their lives to the fullest.
Set the intent for calmness… in the midst of turmoil be like the eye of the storm… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Detach from worry about others and you release them. Detach from fear for others and you release them of your fears, as well as release them to discover, face, and conquer their own fears. Detach from controlling others and let them discover the seeds of their own intent.
Life wants to live. Let life have its intent realized to the fullest by standing aside. Let the seed sprout, let the stone roll, let the winds blow, let the waters flow. Do not stand in the way of life, and notice—as you step back and out of the lives of others, as you let them seek maturity and responsibility for themselves—how your own life begins to evolve at a quicker pace. In releasing comes release of new energy.
You are not responsible for the lives of others. Once your parenting is done, once the early years are over, the child must grow up. That can only happen by that child becoming fully responsible for its own life. One day you, and it, will realize it is an adult and fully responsible for itself. Then it will discover not only its power, but its passion as well.
The role of the parent is a difficult one, but it is no more challenging than the role of each individual to separate from the past and move on unencumbered by life to a new level of existence, energetically freed and energetically alive in a new way. It is the goal of each one of you, to evolve on your own terms. Good Luck!
What kind of mother did you get? – Art by Jan Ketchel
Motherhood seems to be the theme of the week. It all started on Mother’s Day. I decided not to call my mother. It was a deeply considered act on my part. I absolved myself of upholding a tradition that has no meaning for me. This was done not out of spite or resentment, but only because there is nothing to be gained in continuing a tradition for tradition’s sake. It would have been different if I had some attachment to my mother.
I felt no need or obligation to continue playing an old charade. It would have been ingenuine. I have moved on to a new world where old habits and behaviors and meaningless acts are questioned as to value, truth, and importance and dealt with in a compassionate and affectionate manner. And so I allowed myself to have a completely free day. I flowed with the energy, weaving in and out of worlds as the day went on, enjoying every minute of my freedom from old stale duty. I received phone calls myself from my sweet children, but they also know that I have no expectations of them. They don’t have to uphold anything on my account. Our bond however, is real and genuine. In contrast, I have no connection with my own mother. I never did.
I have no memory of my mother as a mother. Any tender mothering she administered was over pretty quickly. After that she became someone I dodged as often as I could and who I dealt with as little as possible. An impeccable petty tyrant, she often loomed as big as the nuns at the Catholic school I went to, as big as the Church itself.
I have distance from that mother now. As I worked through my parental relationships during my recapitulation, there were many things about my parents that I had to confront and consider, but there were also plenty of things about them that I had to own and encounter inside myself as well. I explore this deep inner process in The Edge of the Abyss as I faced the mother—and father—I got and understood how I had become just like them. There was always, however, a part of me that didn’t want to be like them, that struggled to become independent of them and how they lived their lives, to become my own separate being.
I granted myself permission to become a different kind of mother when I had my own children, an openly loving mother. I also granted this new mother to myself as I recapitulated, teaching myself that it’s okay to be expressive and joyous, tender and considerate of myself. I learned how to become my own mother and my own father, a different mother and father from the ones I got, fully present and attentive, connected and available to the evolving being I was. This was how I also learned to love and appreciate the parents I got; how I learned what it meant to have compassion for others.
A different kind of mother… – Art by Jan Ketchel
And so the motherhood theme—perhaps because I rejected the status quo on Sunday, or perhaps because it’s in the energy of the planetary alignment right now—continues to arise. As the week has gone by, I have had to face the motherhood question.
Am I still carrying my mother around inside me? I pose this question to myself as a challenge and I have to be honest: Oh yes! I am not totally free of my mother. It’s not that easy to cast off that which was long ago embedded inside you, especially if it still exists in reality and must constantly be reencountered. I may still have to encounter her inside myself after her passing too, though I work now to free myself of that possibility. I have no intention of dealing with her ghostly enigma. But the truth is that it’s not my mother that I must face. It’s really only the enigma of the mother of my childhood, who’s shadow sometimes falls upon my brave new world. I don’t want her living inside me, in my body or in my thoughts, and so I constantly work at exorcising her tags of energy still embedded in my psyche. I do this not with any hatred, but only because we are done, our work as parent and child was finished long ago. However, the old mother inside me can still draw me into old places. Those times are less and less frequent, but they are still there, waiting for me to lapse. “Don’t leave me,” she pleads, “take me with you!” I notice it especially in my body, in my posture, moments when I feel the weight of that old mother, as if I’m literally carrying her around on my back.
The body is such a bearer of bad habit. It so easily slips into old postures of submission and fear. I notice that I’m not emotionally feeling like my old self when this happens, I remain my new strong self, but some part of me remembers and my muscles slip back so easily into their old molds. I have to constantly be aware of how I sit, walk, and move around in general. I have to constantly readjust myself inside my new body self. “I’m stalking a new self,” I remind myself, as I shrug off the old. “I’m stalking a new me!”
My life in this world has, for the most part, been an introspective one. Deeply introverted, my inner dissociated self was never a stranger, but this body was. I have claimed back my body, but I still have to remain in it. It’s so easy to slip out and go elsewhere. As I worked through my recapitulation, I realized that my greatest challenge in this life is to be fully physically present. I know that now. And so that is the work I do now. On a daily basis I remind myself that I exist in this body. And so, I have to thank my mother for her part in this process of self-discovery. Even though I didn’t call her on Mother’s Day, I am grateful for the mother I got. She has helped me to grow, but it was necessary for me to be totally in my own body, mothering myself as a physical being in a new world, being my own mother on Mother’s Day.
As both a mother and a daughter, I can say that the best Mother’s Day gift anyone can give—or father’s day gift for that matter—is to become totally independent beings all around. Mothers, mother yourselves. Children, mother yourselves. Fathers, father yourselves. Children, father yourselves. Become the parent you never got and love yourselves. In this way, we absolve each other of the hooks and kinks that keep us attached, that keep us all immature adults, that keep us bound by old stale rules that keep us repeating unhealthy dynamics, traditions for tradition’s sake that have no meaning, that keep us big babies.
Intent we keep posted on the fridge… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Traditions must be upheld, it seems, until we no longer need them, until we find ourselves free at last. And so I constantly remind myself that it’s okay to break the rules, to see where I am in my life, how far I’ve really come. Can I pull this off? Is it right and for the right reasons? Just look around and see how many people you know who are already doing it. Are you? Who in your life is daring to break with tradition and not show up at the family gathering? Are they doing it for the right reasons? Not out of resentment, fear, guilt or hatred, but because they’ve truly evolved and moved on? And can we let them go, without resentment too? At other times, it’s vitally important to go beyond personal issues and show up for an occasion, to transcend grudges or disputes and be present for others. Sometimes it’s just important to step into another’s world and flow with what they need. I am, for instance, still very present in my mother’s life. She depends on me. I have deep affection for her, but I need nothing in return.
Just think of those 17-year cicadas waiting for their moment of emergence, their moment of freedom from what their parents did to them! I imagine it feels pretty much like what I felt as I did my recapitulation and came out of the shadow of parental expectation and duty. I had to find my own way in life, in my own way. It’s what we’re all charged with. As you burst through the crust of the old self and feel the sun on your face, for the first time perhaps you realize— like I did, and like those cicadas know—that this is not the end, it’s only the beginning. There is yet another moment of transformation to come: growing your wings. And after that you have to fly! And then where will you go? That next step is always there, just one more step ahead of you.
It’s time to leave the pit and spread new wings of intent, as free mature beings. Imagine the sound that all of us freed human beings would make, our spirits shouting, drowning out the sounds of the cicadas. Now that would be something to hear!
