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: Completing The Past With Love

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Put Triggers Safely to Rest…
-Artwork © 2026 Jan Ketchel

Triggers are spontaneous eruptions of emotional terror that can seize the heart, take the breath away, or throw one into a rage. Logically, we seek to avoid such encounters. In fact, loved ones and friends often know to avoid certain topics with us rather than trigger such explosions.

What are actual triggers? Simply put, triggers are current experiences that resemble prior experiences in life that were never fully put to rest. Triggers can also be schemas, in the form of powerfully negative beliefs about the self, which overshadow our comfort with current life and self.

Triggers thus represent unfinished business, current reminders of past experiences and the emotional outbursts generated by those reminders.

Triggers are inevitable encounters that will, ultimately, be fully mastered. Life reviews in Near Death Experiences frequently send a soul back into life in their body, with the charge to fully resolve a trigger in their current life.

Buddhists believe that triggers are the seeds of reincarnation that must be completed in an otherworldly bardo adventure upon leaving this world and before beginning the next life, or that they are an actual reincarnation in a human life, which must be dealt with before life can progress.

Carlos Castaneda’s loving advice to us all is to take all the time we need, but, to hurry up! The evolving journey is magnificent; let’s free our energy to fully go forward into it!

Triggers are composed of life experiences we have already had but have been unable to mentally and emotionally digest and, ultimately, fully metabolize. Full metabolism is nothing short of love for everything we have ever experienced or believed. Fortunately, we have the innate capacity to achieve this radical acceptance of all of our lives.

At some level, most triggers exist in states of isolation from the greater personality and typically generate sadness. This sadness is separate from the actual sadness of a traumatic experience or core schema. This sadness results from the imposed isolation of the trigger as being too much or too powerful for the rest of the personality to bear.

When the ego is ready to go and be with a trigger, suddenly that trigger is no longer alone. The weight it has borne in isolation is in some degree lifted, as the ego—in whatever state of fear and trembling— proves, simply by its presence, that it can be with the contents and intensity of the trigger.

This act alone introduces a primary love, love for the unwanted and undesirable. Some sadness can be released at this rudimentary level of acceptance. With this act alone the past begins to be completed.

Regardless of the nature of a trauma or schema the truth is that it has been stuck in a suspended animation of no time. All experiences naturally find their home in our personal storybook of life. However, given the suspended state of triggers, they have never been allowed to be calmly put to rest in that loving storybook.

Once the ego, on its hero’s journey, is perseveringly present to a trigger, other resources within the greater soul are able to offer their resources. The subconscious generally provides dreams and synchronicities that offer a needed memory trail that support the full recapitulation of triggers.

The High Self might also point one to helpers, or clinical modalities, to support this natural processing of life experiences.

Processing such triggers or experiences changes the past because the past was never previously fully known or fully completed. Ego’s engagement with the trigger brings its own broader view and inclusion of elements not available to an earlier state of self.

Acceptance of everything leads one to fully loving every aspect of one’s lives lived, which renders all former triggers to become colorful and  neutral pages in one’s personal storybook.

And that storybook could easily be shared with all—no legacy of shame or limitation attached.

And then, the unfettered journey resumes,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Truth About Relaxation

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Relaxed Reflection…
-Artwork © 2026 Jan Ketchel

The truth about relaxation is that there cannot be relaxation if we are not in the truth.

If we tell a white lie, even if exquisitely justified, we will experience an excitement to the nerves that innervate our eye muscles, which will in turn throw our eyes slightly out of focus.

In fact, if we mistakenly misstate our age, with no intent to deceive, our eyes will be thrown out of focus. If we then state, or even just think our true age, our eyes will be restored to normal immediately.

The subconscious mind is responsible for this glitch. It knows the truth and cannot help but register a reaction, however subtle, to untruth. This is not from the place of morality or judgment; it’s simply the subconscious mind’s unswerving loyalty to the truth.

The subconscious mind is wired to do the right thing. This is how it keeps our physical body alive. Nonetheless, it is a true servant to the suggestions it receives from the conscious mind. It exercises its creative power to manifest anything we want, even if what we want serves not the true needs of the self. It will fully manifest a life of error, if that is what we choose to explore.

However, every thought and every action have an effect, which is often called karma. If our thoughts and actions misalign with the truth, the body will register a reaction that indeed, keeps the score.

Our thoughts and actions are constantly straining our central nervous system, often resulting in various states of dis-ease. Often this can manifest as physical symptoms that are erroneously thought to be physical problems, when in fact they are actually but feedback mechanisms from the body that reflect the disordered effects of our current state of mind.

Relaxation requires a quiet mind, where thoughts do not impose themselves upon the body.

The eye, like all senses, is a passive sense. Light waves impress themselves upon the retina, reflecting what is in the world outside of the eye. It does not see from the inside but is only impressed upon, like a small reflecting pool. Seeing is a completely receptive, inert state.

If we squint and try to see, we completely contort the eye and interfere with its receptive ability. To see best, the eye must be left alone, completely relaxed, to receive its impressions. To trust the eye, is to completely relax one’s grip upon it.

Taste is another sense that requires complete passivity to deliver a true flavor. If the mind decides to think and talk when we eat, we hardly taste our food at all. We cannot make ourselves taste.

The sensory capacity of our taste buds passively receives impressions from the food. It requires of our mind to relax its thinking, and passively be present and attentive to these sensations, to know the fullness of the flavors of what we eat.

Even touch is a passive sense. Although a massage therapist might be quite active in giving a massage, they must really be quite passive in order to receive the true state of a client’s musculature, which allows them to truly connect and know how best to touch.

Relaxation requires trust in the body, and trust in the subconscious mind.

If we passively let go of trying to control the non-activity of our senses, they will operate most efficiently.

If we center our attention on our eating, refusing thinking and talking, we will have a pleasurable and fulfilling culinary experience. This includes not listening to podcasts when we eat!

When we touch another, if we take our mind off our thoughts, we can, in the experience of sympathy, register the truth of that other person’s state of being, and instinctively deliver the right touch. And yes, when we actively touch, we are taking action, but it is action informed by the truth passively received.

When we act in alignment with truth, we are, and deliver, calm.

A path to relaxation is to intend that the conscious mind stay in alignment with truth. That truth is best known through passive presence that follows the guidance it receives from its senses and the natural wisdom of the subconscious mind.

Beyond the senses is the wisdom that all guidance arrives when we are calmly, passively available to receive it. If the mind is actively fretting about what decision is right, it is too distracted to take in the myriads of signs from spirit, often arriving through the subconscious mind, that point to the right path, the path of true knowledge.

Ego, for all its valiant efforts to anxiously do the right thing, is at its most mature when it waits, gets calm, and truly listens and receives the truth, from which naturally flow its true marching orders.

Get calm and really listen, effortlessly,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Nakedness Of Shame And Lust

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Total Embrace of Passionate Self…

Shame is like the all too familiar dream of being forced to use a completely exposed public toilet. The toilet might be in the midst of Grand Central Station. The toilet may be horrifically backed up. There may not even be a toilet seat, or anything other than a hole. But one thing is certain, you have to go, now, and, hence, you are totally exposed.

The dream is depicting the total loss of a coverup, the persona that knows how to dress up and hide imperfection. Nature forces us to remove that mask as we expose the state that we are truly in. And, of course, we are deeply unacceptable, seen for what we truly believe ourselves to be: imperfect, just plain ordinary or, of course, seriously flawed.

A great concert pianist just died, at age 99. Early on in his career he left the performance stage, so fearful was he of the public eye. Such is the noose of perfection that stifles the expression of one’s capabilities upon the world stage. And being alive means being upon that world stage.

Carlos Castaneda preached: “Suspend Judgment!” He poked fun at us, mercilessly, during workshops, that we might finally get over the human curse of our own self-importance.

When we were thrown out of Eden for the brashness of becoming conscious, we were exposed to our own nakedness and had to classify it. The conclusion: we were not enough, or too lustfully burdened. SHAME!

The Lust/Strength card, of the Crowley tarot deck, pictures a voluptuously naked woman, completely relaxed in her beingness, easily taming the beast around her. This is hardly about her sexuality.

No, this is her naked acceptance of herself and her passion to advance life in total fulfillment of her desire, without judgment.

This is about an intensity of strength that transcends confidence. It’s  fully embracing, being, and reflecting, the true luster of Self.

What shame could there possibly be in that,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: A Pain In The Back

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OW!!!
-Artwork © 2026 Jan Ketchel

A day with nothing required to do, hence the beginning of a creative cycle. I decide to tackle splitting some wood that has been waiting.

I drive my pickup truck to the pile of logs. The first thing I notice when I open the door is that there is no annoying buzzing, which always happens when I leave the key in the ignition and open the door.

I’m dumbfounded! Fourteen years with this truck and this has never happened before. Several times I reinsert  the key, open and close the door, and the same anomaly repeats—no noise!

Little did I realize that this key event was prompting me to become lucid, as I was being ushered into a journey of non-ordinary reality. I next grabbed my maul, walked over to, and stared at, the wood to be split. Suddenly, my back, at the level of the sacrum, seized, as if struck by a giant weight! The pain was excruciating and I was afraid to move.

My mind knew that I had done absolutely nothing to cause this experience, but the excruciating pain I was gripped by sure was physically real! I immediately turned to my trusty first-aid mantra to my subconscious mind and incessantly repeated, “My back is healing, my back is healed.”

Nothing doing, nothing changed. I lumbered to the truck and drove back to the house, recounting the experience to Jan. When I went to demonstrate the magical key in the truck ignition, the magic was gone; the annoying buzzing returned, along with my aching back.

I questioned the obvious psychosomatic possibility that my body was just telling my mind that it wasn’t up to the splitting task I’d assigned it. The truth is, however, that my body had been in terrific shape and I was not pushing it beyond its energetic capability.

I considered a number of physical remedies but came to the very clear realization that this was not a physical problem, as had been clearly shown to me. I did absolutely nothing to cause the physical ailment, however real the physical symptoms were. I chose to meet the spirit behind the symptoms head on, on spirit terms.

So many times over the years, clients have had acute, powerful physical symptoms that have warranted a trip to the ER. On some occasions this resulted in a much needed physical treatment, however, in many cases the final diagnosis was a panic attack.

We came to discover that, often, the precursor to recovering a new memory during the process of traumatic recapitulation is, in fact, panic—a natural defense that warns of the coming intrusion into consciousness of disturbing material, often associated with physical pain. So? Was I in the midst of a traumatic recapitulation?

Jan did remind me of similar symptoms I had grappled with several years ago. At that time, I realized I was energetically incapacitated by allowing myself to assume responsibility for burdens that were not my own. That realization had ultimately lifted the extreme weight I had experienced, in dense form, in my back.

Subsequent to that realization years ago, I had firmly programmed my subconscious mind to refuse outside suggestions that could be harmful to me. I knew that we energetically live in a completely interconnected universe, where the thoughts and actions of others are subtlety detected by, and can impact, the subconscious mind. So, how could this hurtful energetic suggestion from without have slipped through now?

The answer is obvious to me. My subconscious was infiltrated because somewhere I was colluding with the outside energy, thus actually inviting the experience I had. My overriding suggestion to my subconscious mind has always been to live in truth. In this case, I was led to an issue I had to more deeply examine and adjust my attachment to.

The back journey I was on was orchestrated by my High Self to help me become aware of this impediment to growth. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way.

Are you wondering if my back has healed? The answer is that there was nothing physical to heal.

This experience has been an energetic dialogue, along with an emotional process, that was initiated by and resolved with Spirit, which momentarily took possession of the flesh.

I have to end now, as I go attend to outdoor tasks.

Stay well,
Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: When Is It Time To Act?

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Time of Waiting,..
-Artwork © 2026 Jan Ketchel

Hexagram #29, The Abysmal, has become one of my most instructive hexagrams from the I Ching. How odd to be drawn to the abysmal!

The image is water on top of water. I imagine being stuck at the bottom of a deep well. The water level is low but slowly rising, fed from below.

Instinctively, the hero attempts to climb up the steep walls of the well. Perhaps a couple of attempts are made, but they result in slippage back into the water below. Resurfacing from the unwelcome dive, the hero sees that there’s a place on the wall to hold onto and stay afloat, buoyed by the pressure of the rising water from below.

The realization comes forth to rise with the water as it reaches new levels, finding new places to nestle, in awkward balance with the water pressure from below. Acquiescing to the Tao of water, going with its flow, rather than climbing without support, is the true staircase to eventual freedom.

The water, in its own time, will rise, filling the vacant space in its container of well walls and ultimately move on when it reaches level ground. And when it reaches ground level it is indeed time to act, time to move on.

The Tao is a combination of waiting and acting, yin and yang. When we act we are subject to the karma of our action. Climbing up the well walls resulted in falls into the water and the struggle to get the head back above the water; cause and effect.

Decisions to act are at the level of ego consciousness, which holds the power of choice. Erroneous decisions at this level result in necessary consequences. The question for ego is: What truly is right action?

Often, ego acts precipitously, based upon fear, or opinion, lacking alignment with truth and right action. Even so, these are necessary actions, as one must learn the art of surrender to right action; action in accordance with the truth of the circumstance one is in.

Learning the patience of waiting, which is being receptive to the higher power of the truth of the Tao, conserves ego’s energy to act decisively at the right moment when action is truly required.

Likewise, we may be seized with the impulse to act for what we perceive as a greater good, and act we do, only to discover that it was not the right time nor the right action to take. Ultimately, as mentioned, no action is wrong action, as all actions lead to necessary experience and knowledge.

However, with experience, we begin to realize that there is a deeper dimension of wholeness in motion at all times, with actions best exercised from the perspective of this broader view.

Taking in this broader view, we open to the necessary times of patient waiting, which sometimes means bearing tension until things become clearer, as in my image of the hero waiting patiently in the well. This is alchemy taking place in a sealed container, where necessary actions, sometimes powerfully destructive, must be completed before things can advance to a new level.

Such is the state of the world now, where we are being challenged to bear the tension and to not act precipitously. Have faith in the rising water in the well, that it will eventually rise to the level of freedom, to nourish us all.

In the waiting time, despite all the tension, remain in the calm of knowing that the right time to act will show itself, and when it does, we will act rightly and with precision.

Calm in the knowing,
Chuck