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.
The mind and the breath are inseparable. Control the breath; control the mind.
Slow, full breath creates calm. The fullness of deep, calm breathing releases the staleness and constriction of anger and fear. Racing thoughts dissolve as attention shifts to the breath.
Breathe! Breathe with awareness. Begin by simply directing consciousness to the breath. Notice the breath. No pressure, no expectation, no judgment, just awareness placed on breathing naturally, as it happens.
Next, decide to accompany the breath on drums—that is, count out the beats of an in-breath, as well as its accompanying out-breath. Bring the beats into equality; same count in as out. Always count along.
Ask the breath to deepen into the abdomen. If the body isn’t ready to go there that’s fine. However far it goes is enough. After some time the body may invite a deeper breath, naturally, as it relaxes and opens to more.
Perhaps as the breath goes even deeper, filling and fully relaxing the abdominal region, it moves higher into the chest and upper chest, filling the body to a count of eight. Holding the breath for a few counts before slowly releasing to exhalation, from the abdomen up to the chest on a count of eight beats, allows for deepening relaxation and calm. Perhaps the breath might repeat this process several times, always with awareness of inhaling and counting and exhaling and counting slowly, maintaining a sense of the filling and emptying of the belly and lungs. Notice the calming of the mind as it is led by the calmness of the breath flowing in the body.
Frequent repetitions of conscious breathing sink into the unconscious, creating a reformulated program for deeper breathing, uprooting old habits of vigilance, fear, or anger, habituated in the body in younger years under other circumstances.
Conscious breathing, accompanied by counting of each beat, sinks into the subconscious as a new habit of calm, naturally canceling out unsolicited thoughts that reactively register unwanted feeling states in the body.
Breathe in life!
Conscious breathing changes the mind and the body by grounding us in the present in calm. From calm we are strengthened in our ability to weather the true storms from within and without. From calm we dispel the illusions that have held our body and mind in check. From calm we resume our interrupted journey, returning back to nature, flowing in the calm river of infinity.
Today, we switch things around and publish Chuck’s blog. Jan’s blog, which normally appears on Wednesdays, will be published this Friday instead.
What is that?
En route to errands, Jan asks: “Did you bring the DVDs for return?” I hadn’t. It was time to turn around, a familiar theme for us these days, as in the past few weeks we have noticed a propensity for making the same trip twice in a day, something always needing a redo. And actually there were two DVDs to return, though we had only watched one. “What is the unseen story?” I ponder, not wanting to get caught in frustration or be disheartened by this unnecessary waste of time, and so I stalk a different attitude as we turn around and slowly drive back home.
“What will we see that we wouldn’t have seen had we not had occasion to retrace our steps? What will we be shown?” I wonder.
Within seconds my questions are answered. Off to the right, deep in a field, I notice what appears to be a German shepherd on its own, standing alertly, sniffing the air. We turn the corner and pull to the side of the road. The animal slowly makes its way towards us, an unmistakable coyote, low to the ground, long bushy tail, triangular face. Barely breathing, we watch as it prances out of the field and cautiously crosses the road right in front of us. What a thrill! But what does it mean?
Coyote is a night hunter. What brings it so boldly into daylight for all to see? Coyote is trickster, a shapeshifter, who teaches folly and wisdom. We are tricked where we are fools, yet through facing our folly honestly we acquire wisdom.
In earnest, I watch the third presidential debate between Obama and Romney. Suddenly, I get it; shapeshifting coyote trickster stands before us in the bright light of scrutiny. Romney has become Obama, adopting nearly all his positions, many of which he disputed but a week ago. Romney has transformed into calm statesman, touting the wisdom of WORLD PEACE!
It’s shapeshifter!
This shapeshifter actually transforms into a being who in a non-lucid moment doesn’t seem all that bad, actually appearing presidential! Oh what fools we mortals be!
After watching the debate, I am awakened twice in the night by dreams that seize me with fear. In each dream, a psychopathic killer seizes power and is unstoppable. In the morning my waking mood is tense, worried. Not wanting to attach to fear, I penetrate the dreams and the synchronicities of now. Now awake, I clearly see the trickster, come in my dreams to play me, letting me in on the folly of where we are now poised in our world. If we fall for the fool we will eventually get to wisdom, but how rough, how necessary, will that journey be?
Presidents and presidential races attract our projections because they concern our destinies in this world. As well, like kings imbued with divine right, they mirror our inner relations to our own higher powers. As mirrors we must ask ourselves: Are we allowing ourselves to make decisions and take actions in our lives based on our deepest truths, or on foolish illusions we sell ourselves in order to live a safe and complacent life?
The fool will always indulge our weaknesses, but are we willing to out the fool who caters to our inner greed and avoidance of truth? If we refuse inner truth, we certainly will delude ourselves with outer fool, who caters similarly to our greed and fears. We cannot really expect more from our leaders than we do of ourselves. Do we stay mesmerized by the coyote within or the one that walks amongst us in broad daylight? Or do we awaken and heed its warning: Nothing is hidden; it’s right in front of us!
What really matters, the truth, or what we want to believe? Either way, we are led ultimately to wisdom. But the journeys will be very different.
Person-in-situation is a phrase coined by one of Social Work’s greatest contributors, Florence Hollis, in her 1964 book Casework: A Psychosocial Theory. Person-in-situation captures the interconnected nature of reality. To know reality is to know the full mosaic of person-in-situation. Figure removed from ground cannot be known in entirety; the picture is incomplete. Deprived of context, we are clueless.
In recapitulation, we relive the full context of our experiences in situations from the past. Full context includes the experience of our physical body, as well as that of our energy body. Frequently, in traumatic experiences, these two bodies separate. While the physical body absorbs the physical sensations of an experience the energy body watches the experience from a detached vantage point, above and beyond the physical body. In addition to the physical and energy bodies, the emotions and cognitive perspectives of person-in-situation are critical components of the experience being recapitulated. Finally, all the characteristics of the environment in-situation, most especially the words and behaviors of all the characters in the experience, must be included to fully return to and fully relive a moment frozen in time.
Too often we remain stuck, unable to fully free ourselves from a frozen moment from the past because some component of the experience eludes our direct retrieval. That component remains present in our current lives—often symptomatically—either in the body or in a distorted belief or perception of self or reality, but its true meaning remains incomprehensible until we can place it in the mosaic of the past where it really belongs.
Carlos Castaneda suggested that we suspend judgment to deepen our experience and direct knowledge of reality. When we recapitulate it is often judgment that bars our full access to the truth. Judgments we make about ourselves, judgments we have internalized, block our full access to the truths of person-in-situation. Judgment holds us in check. If we deem ourselves bad or scandalous because of the actual experiences we have had, those experiences cannot be fully known and released. Instead, they become energetic powerhouses that emotionally and cognitively control our identity and freedom to be in the world.
In the 3-hour-long extended version of the movie Margaret, currently available only on DVD, a sixteen-year-old girl engages the attention of a bus driver who drives through a red light, hitting and killing a pedestrian in the cross walk. So begins a story of person-in-situation. As the movie progresses we must constantly ask ourselves: What is the true reality of this experience in-situation? Where does responsibility lie? What is the process of recovering all the fragments of an experience? What judgments preclude resolution of this traumatic event?
What is reality?
The release of this movie was delayed for four years because the director fought to deliver the full mosaic of the story. Modern sensibility allots 90 minutes as the maximum story time for consumption in the digital age. The trouble is, edited reality becomes just that, a quickly formatted, judged story that condenses and skips over the full mosaic of person-in-situation, i.e.: Reality.
In Margaret, we are treated to the challenge of finding resolution amidst a field of judgments. And just as in this movie, we too, in every experience of our lives, are responsible for the fact that we are a person-in-situation. This true and actual fact cannot be separated from our personal history. If we want to fully know ourselves, we must let ourselves know the full truth of our experiences, unedited by judgment.
When we allow ourselves to take in the full unedited person-in-situations of our lives, our experiences can be fully digested, completed, and released. Resolution de-powers the myths we have had to carry about ourselves, myths that secretly code edited fragments of truth, myths that have awaited debunking, for the time when we could allow ourselves to fully recapitulate.
Experience, once recapitulated, recycles energy previously frozen in the past, revitalizing it and allowing it to proceed deeper into life, deeper into reality. We emerge from the recapitulation as a whole person-in-situation, ready to fully live in the true reality of every moment.
Person-in-situation,
Chuck
NOTE: I highly recommend watching Margaret. The version I am referring to is only available on DVD, released in July of this year, and not the film version released into theaters. The iTunes version is not the same version either, so if you look for it be sure to get the extend version, 3 hours long, released in July 2012. Here is a Wikipedia link to information about the movie.
Some beliefs, like a catechism, are handed down as a prescribed description of reality to be memorized, recited, and believed. Other beliefs assemble inside our minds as we strive to understand why things happen as they do. Beliefs are descriptions that create order and ascribe meaning to our world. Once a belief sets in, whether through the internalization process of socialization, or through some introverted process devoid of outside messaging, beliefs themselves become hardcore “facts” in our minds. And these believed facts are highly impervious to change.
Beliefs constructed in childhood, at such an impressionable time of our young ego’s development, can take up residence in our minds for a lifetime. Our beliefs, positive or negative, become our security blanket; they keep us safe and familiar as repetitive thoughts that comfort and guide us through the maze of life.
Ironically, the belief “I am ugly” can be as equally comforting as the belief “I am beautiful,” from the point of view of inner security. Security rests upon a known, familiar, redundant, predictable interpretation of reality. Consistent beliefs, positive or negative, build stability.
If one has held a lifelong belief that “It was my fault,” the liberating realization that “It wasn’t my fault” can feel more destabilizing than liberating, as it sends us into a deconstructed free fall of feeling that there is nothing safe to hold onto. This free fall, however, is a free fall of the ego alone. Ego is not Self. Ego is a part of a greater self, a Self to which it must awaken.
Twice born Self—beautiful Atman…
In Hindu philosophy the Atman is the true Self, the inner Buddha or Overself of Buddhism, the inner Christ of Christianity, the inner Nagual of the shamans of Ancient Mexico, the inner spirit in all of us. The ego is a functional tool of Atman, the tool of conscious discrimination, the decision maker that aligns action with right action. Right action is action in alignment with truth, with Atman. When ego uses conscious discrimination to deconstruct a false belief, ego goes into free fall, because the world it clings to is outed as a world of false beliefs, which must be surrendered.
Ego must allow the truth of Atman to manifest. To do this means relaxing defenses once dearly needed to construct a “safe world.” This construction is now identified as an anachronous artifact, a young ego’s construction of an illusion needed to create safety. The ego must allow itself to be reborn with Atman in the true nature of reality. This is the real meaning of being twice born—first time as an infant that grows an ego identity through accumulated beliefs, but more importantly grows an ego capable of conscious discrimination.
This exercise of conscious discrimination by ego leads to the collapse of its false beliefs and the birth, however traumatic—and all births are traumatic—into the Self, into the truth of the Atman. This is consciousness and Self reborn in second birth. This is the ultimate goal, to be twice born, with the opportunity for growth in this world, as enlightened Self.
How far can we travel into the truth before lights out, black out?
David Bohm—considered the preeminent quantum physicist of the 20th century—gifted us with the hologram as the most apt metaphor to capture the true nature of reality. When a holographic picture is splintered into fragments, the whole is still contained in even the tiniest of those fragments. Human beings, like a cut up sheet of holographic film, are all fragmented beings, who—no matter how fragmented, however cut up the slice may be—still hold within the wholeness of the truth of everything. Shine a light on any fragment of holographic film, and the whole picture will appear.
When Jung gifted us the metaphor of the collective unconscious, he captured the same reality. At the deepest level, we are all the same—one interconnected whole being, present and interconnected in the collective unconscious. At a certain level, we are all the sum total of the Akashic Records.
The other day, I randomly opened the ancient Bhagavad-Gita, The Song of God, to the following description of holographic, collective wholeness:
“Die, and you win heaven. Conquer, and you enjoy the earth. Stand now, son of Kunti, and resolve to fight. Realize that pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, are all one and the same; then go into battle. Do this and you cannot commit any sin.”
On another day, I opened Rix Weaver’s The Old Wise Woman to a description of a woman’s dream, the exact same dream repeated many times throughout her life. In the dream, the woman always finds herself in the same room with seven doors; three doors to the left and three to the right, facing each other, and a seventh door at the far end of the room. Each time she dreams this dream, as she attempts to pass through the room, a dark presence descends like a cloud and forces her back.
What’s behind the door?
In a waking dream of active imagination—where the conscious ego stays present and interacts with the contents of the dream—this same woman fights the dark presence and is able to access valuable truths about herself behind each door. Finally, she opens the seventh door only to encounter a man with a Book of Rules plastered to his forehead, the true puppet-meister behind her construction of reality.
Jung identified this rule bearer as the Animus, the male counterpart inherent in the psyche of all women. This character functions autonomously in the psyche of woman as the discriminator or organizer, but all too often becomes a dictator—the dark presence that the woman sensed countless times in her dream—with all its rules and judgments, restricting and crippling life.
In this woman’s conscious interactions with her animus in active imagination, she transforms the relationship from one of foe to that of friend, whereby honoring her true feelings and broadening her capacity for articulation through positive collaboration. Had her ego not stood up to the dark cloud, she never would have known the deeper truths of her hologram, which enabled her to move more fully into life. Instead, she would have remained a prisoner to her inner ruler as he constantly dictated a safe world that she could exist in.
Men suffer a similar gatekeeper at the deeper level of the hologram. Last night, after reading Rix Weaver’s account of the woman’s dream doors, I dreamt of a house with several rooms, a woman in each room.
My dream suggests that man must encounter his inner anima—the feminine counterpart of the male psyche—showering life with moods and sensitivities that construct a reality he believes should exist, that he is entitled to. Under the influence of her vexations, man cannot know the true nature of reality, and certainly can’t know woman as person, devoid of anima’s spells of projection.
The true nature of reality—contrary to the popular belief that women are moody and men are rational—is quite the opposite. In truth, the background of a man’s psyche is dominated by his anima in all its moodiness and emotions, and a woman’s psyche is dominated by her animus with its rigid rules and rationalities. Both the anima and the animus are inferior forms of feeling and thinking that lead to hair-brained battles and are the source of many a conflict and breakup. Unless a couple or an individual delves deeper into the characters of the hologram, within or without, these characters dominate life from the darkness, and true reality never experiences the light.
As we move beyond the once highly defended confines of our ego selves, deeper down the rabbit hole of the hologram, we discover other characters quite willing to communicate and share their world. In recapitulation, for example, we frequently ask or are asked by the body self to re-experience, through our senses, a past experience from our lives. The results of this request are often quite dramatic, as we may be taken, quite physically, through the sights, smells, sounds, temperatures, and touch sensations of deeply forgotten experiences.
At other times, we might find ourselves conjecturing about the accuracy of a memory only to have an immediate physical sensation, a channeled body communication, authenticating the validity of our thoughts. In fact, the language of body communication can evolve to a fluid real time dialogue, to a kind of advanced kinesthetics between ego and body self.
Time to break the rules?
As we go deeper into the hologram of the collective self, we might open channels to past lives and to entities beyond this life, though fully part of the same interconnected hologram we all exist in and, ultimately, are.
Truly mind-blowing as these ideas are, that’s what happens when you put down the Book of Rules! The real challenge is to continue to journey ever deeper into the hologram, keeping the lights on—indeed, the true meaning of enlightenment.
