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.
When anger is present it supersedes all else… Photo by Jan Ketchel
Anger is an emotion rooted in our deeply instinctive selves. Anger has protected our survival through eons of evolutionary growth and rests at the foundation of our human form. Our ability to restrain and supplant the automatic defense of anger, with reason, is the hallmark accomplishment of civilization: a civilized mind.
We know the deleterious effects of anger and its variants—jealousy, greed, negativity, resentment—upon the endocrine glands, respiration, digestion, and the central nervous system. We know the psychic effects of sustained anger and negativity in depression, dissociation, and bipolar disorders.
We especially know the horrific evil unleashed upon innocence when the rational mind teams up with anger to manipulate, groom, and abuse. This potential malevolent partnership inside human beings is capable of perpetrating atrocities unheard of in the purely instinctive animal kingdom.
We cannot eradicate anger anymore than we can eradicate evil. However, if we are to change ourselves and our world, a focus on positive attitudes can shift the color of mood that our deep unconscious pumps through us. The result of positive thought is that we physically experience calmer energy inside us and we are actively calmer outwardly as well.
The unconscious is not a thinking mind; it is a reactive mind. Our thinking mind can decide on an attitude and we can focus that attitude on the body. When I say “calm” and focus on a muscle it relaxes. If I didn’t focus on it, the muscle would not automatically relax. The same goes for the unconscious.
Enough cannot be said about the power of positive thinking. However, to arrive at truly effective positive thinking we must be a united self, providing our instinctive self with a clear, cohesive set of instructions in the form of soothing neuro-transmitted commands.
Taking what I need… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The truth is, we are fragmented beings frequently working in opposition to a single intent. Our young child self might say, “I need.” The self burned for needing might say, “No, you will get hurt if you need.” The adolescent self might cry out in disgust, “Here’s what’s gonna be: we don’t need anyone, we’ll just take what we want.” Or the defiant teenage self might say, “We don’t need.” The adult might say, “I’m just going to be what they want me to be, this way I’ll get what I need.”
It should be evident that this multiplicity of self can generate an insanity within, as Jeanne pointed out in Monday’s message. This crossfire of attitudes from different parts of the self instructs the unconscious to release different protective angry emotions, directed inwardly and outwardly.
Drawing attention inwardly in recapitulation we identify the satellite selves of the self, appreciate their varying needs, and bring them into the fold of a unified self. Through the recollection of dispersed energy we become a “unified whole,” as the Shamans of Ancient Mexico see it.
Unified wholeness and calmness will come… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In the process of becoming a unified whole, we must encounter all the selves within and we must accept, express, and release all the emotional energy of our past selves, be it anger or otherwise. This is loving acceptance and total integration of all that we are, all that we have been. With acceptance comes release of the anger once needed to protect, deny, keep separate, and avoid all that was not ready to be known and lived. With acceptance, love supersedes anger, and life moves forward in an ever-deepening quest for wholeness.
With this unity of self, under the auspices of spirit, or the higher self, a clear cohesive message is delivered to the unconscious that rejuvenates the body and mind to give and receive love. This tripartite unity of self—instinctive body self, reasoning mind, and spirit—is then freed to evolve and manifest in healthy proportion resulting in mastery within, advancement without.
Chuck’s blog is ready today so we are publishing it ahead of schedule. Jan’s blog will appear later in the week.
We go within to untangle the tangled web of our lives lived… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
If we are in this world we are in it for a physical reason. There may be other reasons, but we cannot escape the primary truth that we are physical beings that require sustenance and attachment to the world around us to survive and grow. Failures in attachment at the most basic level can be fatal in what’s called “Failure To Thrive” Syndrome (FTT).
Though most humans pass through the first challenge of survival, the subsequent journey to adulthood is fraught with significant challenges as the molding of a solid physical and emotional self is prepared in order to enter and thrive in the unfolding challenges of independence and adulthood. In fact, much of the first half of life is spent trying to successfully navigate adult challenges with a fragile foundation of security.
Regardless of whether our foundations were secure and loving or filled with abuse and neglect, we are all confronted, by midlife, with the growing awareness of the universal equalizer: death. And with that awareness we are confronted with the meaning of life, the meaning of being born into a physical world. Why am I here?
And when we take up the Grail of that question we begin our spiritual journey, our inward journey. We turn, as Jeanne’s message on Monday suggests: Within. Jeanne speaks of building a relationship with the higher self within. This requires that we draw in our mental activity that has appropriately attached to the sensate world for many years. Regardless of success or failure in that physical world, it is time to turn inward and take up the next challenge of why: why am I here? It is time to open to the resources latent within that have waited all these years for attention so that we may be guided to fulfillment and illumination.
To persist in spending energy on the physical world for answers, at this stage, results in confusion and loss of purpose. The Bhagavad-Gita states:
Thinking about sense-objects
Will attach you to sense-objects;
Grow attached, and you become addicted;
Thwart your addiction, it turns to anger;
Be angry, and you confuse your mind;
Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience;
Forget experience, you lose discrimination;
Lose discrimination, and you miss life’s only purpose.
The inner journey begins with a full recapitulation of the journey thus far taken. We must first settle with the truth of what has happened in this life. The inner higher self will sprinkle plenty of guidance along the path—calm and illuminating moments—as you take that inner journey, guiding and supporting you with dreams, visions, synchronicities, channelings, etc.
The completion of our lives in this physical realm is likely to require that we indeed reengage our extroverted focus, our sensual life, as beings in this world. However, return to that world after recapitulation is no longer a journey of craving but one of loving completion, the completion of the journey within without.
Journeying within and without,
Chuck
Note: Quote from the Bhagavad-Gita by Swami Prabhavananda; page 49; copyright 1944.
Today we post Chuck’s blog. Jan’s blog will appear on Friday this week.
Will spring ever come? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
As I write, millions of Hindus celebrate the festival of Kumbh Mela at the mythical river Ganges. The Tibetans have just celebrated their New Year, the year of the water snake, on the day the Pope resigned. Fat Tuesday, the height of Carnival, lands on the day of President Obama’s State of the Union address. Today, Ash Wednesday, ushers in Lent, forty days of sacrifice—carne denied—before nature ushers in the Rite of Spring.
The juxtaposition of these human traditions built upon the deepest cycle of nature—the end of winter—reveals the exceptional tumult and uncertainty of our time. Will spring ever come, will life survive this most tenuous time of year? A Pope resigning, an unheard of event, is a strong testament to our time of fragility and rapid change, and the need for new governance to lead us forward. The King is dead, long life the King!
On Monday of this week, I turned to the I Ching for reflection on the extraordinary synchronicities of these archetypal events. I offer its guidance as I received it: I threw hexagram #64, Before Completion, with moving lines in the first, second, and fifth places. The resulting future of this hexagram is hexagram #25, Innocence.
Before Completion is the time of very early spring, the time we are in now. The image is that of the fox crossing the semi-frozen surface of a lake. How wisely will that fox cross so as to not accidentally fall through a crack in the ice?
Hexagram #64 is the final hexagram in the I Ching, the Book of Changes. It ushers in the beginning of a new cycle, the time of year we are in now. It is the time of new governance that we are now in as well. It’s the time of planetary transition, at the deepest level, that we are also now in. The question is, as the earth enters its new cycle, how wise will we humans be as we cross the thin ice? How well will we fare?
The two elements that comprise hexagram #64 are fire above and water below. These elements are opposites and they are moving away from each other. Something must happen to bring these elements into a harmonious relationship. Our human country and human world suffer this same opposition now, a great division. Will we find a way to reconciliation and the fostering of new life?
The first moving line states that the fox is too hasty; it gets wet. The I Ching suggests that we are quite vulnerable to get it wrong; to move too hastily is to form a less than perfect union. Restraint is suggested to avoid failure and humiliation.
In the second line, the fox exercises its brakes and does not cross the thin ice. Patience, to accrue the inner strength that together with firm intent will provide the right vehicle to cross the lake, is the guidance here.
The six in the fifth place is the ruler of the hexagram. Victory is achieved. Steadfastness leads to a superior personality that crosses the ice successfully. And with this, the potent, medicinal, nourishing sprouts of spring break through the surface to support new life.
The hexagram of Innocence guides the practice outlined in these moving lines. The essence of innocence is the alignment of ego with spirit self. When ego acts in the service of spirit it is restored to its innocence. This is not a return to the unconscious innocence of the Garden. This is evolved innocence, consciousness that acquiesces to the truth of the spirit.
Last night we witnessed opposition—fire and water, Democrat and Republican—as presented in hexagram #64 in real time, as the archetypal drama of excess, sacrifice, death and the hope for new life played out before us. Mardi Gras closed on the heels of death, Ash Wednesday, as Guy Fawkes—the giant straw man, in the guise of Christopher Dorner—was burned in the arms of Big Bear, CA. The TV networks struggled to decide which reality to display as President Obama simultaneously, in his State of the Union address, spoke of a realignment of governance to face the truths of a planet in peril. He spoke of global warming, energy that doesn’t pollute, and greed tempered to provide a fair wage. These are the sacrifices spoken about in the I Ching under innocence, where the ego—the governing body of the self and of humankind—acquiesces to the truth of the spirit. And Obama stood there before the opposites of fire and water to bring these two opposing forces into fruitful alignment and the hope of a new spring and sustainable life.
Will we take the advice of the I Ching, so in alignment with now? Do we have the humility of a Pope who retires his ego, recognizing that he can no longer hear the spirit and properly serve the people? Can we of the human race surrender our collective ego as the fathering principle of this planet, and acquiesce to the truth of spirit as our Rite of Spring? With a hopeful outlook, the Book of Changes comes to a close and simultaneously enters a new cycle of life. Let’s see what happens.
In the dreaminess of the dream, what do you see? -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Carl Jung brought our attention to nature’s use of the mandala as a symbol of our wholeness. Whenever some configuration of a circle and a square appears in a dream, follow that trail. Pick up that lowly copper penny inside a box, something of your valuable wholeness lies there. Follow that bouncing ball as it hits the square pavement stones. It may lead you to the next piece of the puzzle of self.
Typically, the mandala is divided into four sections, symbolic of our divided selves. Wholeness requires that we discover, develop, relate to, and bring into an integrated life, our very divided and separated inner selves.
Perhaps at the deepest level our divided selves reflect our lives lived through infinity, our incarnations in different worlds at different times. Sometimes in my consulting room clients are compelled to visit and integrate the challenges and lessons of past lives. More often than not, however, this deeper integration awaits as a final task to completion of our present life, as we prepare for transition into new life.
Division within the self is often a function of trauma. In childhood trauma especially, our developing selves are confronted with challenges beyond our ability to emotionally and cognitively master. Such experiences are split off, frozen in time, stored in the body for future reconciliation when our evolving self has greater mastery and an ability to meet the challenges of its lost self or selves.
All individuals experience splintering of self through the normal socialization process known as education. During schooling we are sharply molded into more uniform beings, despite personality differences. Unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are relegated to what Carl Jung called the shadow personality that takes up life in the darkly impersonal unconscious mind and body.
That shadow personality seeks life in our fantasy, in our less than conscious states where it can seize control in psychic projections and obsessions that dominate our attention, regardless of conscious rational intent. Even predatory behaviors may be viewed as compensatory states of shadow possession, reactive to the dominating power of socialization. It’s no wonder we have a society up in arms about limitation of its arms, so aware are we of the destructive power of the shadow. Would that we were equally aware of the nature of projection; where the shadow is so easily disowned within the self, only to be feared and projected, placed out there, in the dangerous other.
The truth is, we are a multiplicity of beings, in fact a multiplicity of energetic beings. As Jan hints in her blog, we may indeed all be the same being. Wow, the integration of that realization is indeed of the highest order!
Our challenge, as Jung’s discovery of the archetypal mandala suggests, is to find all our missing parts and fit them into a unified whole. These parts all come with their challenges, ranging from facing a past life to facing down the tyrants of trauma and freeing the lost children of the self, to finding one’s voice in song or finding one’s rhythm in body movement.
The shamanic tool of recapitulation, like following the bouncing ball of the mandala in dreaming, is a time worn tool to putting in order the multiple personalities we call Self. That task is a journey of a lifetime. It’s why we’re here.
I end with a quote from The Book Of Us, Jeanne speaking of taking the road to life’s completion, channeled by Jan on May 30, 2008:
The ultimate purpose and reason for living in that realm is to complete your evolution at that level of learning, and to prepare the self to move on to the next level. Completion entails taking into consideration every bit of who you are, and putting together the puzzle of the self, holding the self responsible for finding what you need to make this completion happen …To achieve completion must you be prepared to leave your recapitulated self upon the shores of that world and advance to a new level where only completed souls may go..
Following that bouncing ball and dreaming on,
Chuck
We are travelers whose journey has been interrupted. Our world is like a crowded airport with grounded flights, journeyers sequestered, forced to stay put. We are guarded by sentinels, unable to move beyond the confines of the airport.
According to the seeing of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, the guards at the airport, the guardians of our world, are an impersonal energy, not human at all, that has taken up residence in the brains of our species. Those shamans labeled that energy the foreign installation of “the” mind. We tend to call it “our” mind because we are helpless to know otherwise, so pervasive is its control over our lives. The effect of this control is universal. It can be seen everywhere in the form of self-obsession. We are a species so obsessed with the self that we are blind to the real interdependent nature of all things. In fact, our species’ obsession with self-interest has brought us now to the brink of destruction.
The truth is: If we don’t evolve beyond self-interest into a world that includes the needs of other—plant, animal, climate—we face certain extinction.
Perhaps a more benevolent interpretation of our predicament is one of necessary growing pains, for in truth we are a species bent on changing. Were this not so, we never would have left the Utopia of the Garden. Our need to grow, change, and explore got us expelled from the Garden and brought consciousness—the freedom to choose—into the brain, as we simply got bored with the known routines. Our growth, however, has once again become stunted and routine, completely swallowed up in self-absorption. We must crack the shell of this container of self-absorption in order to reopen the airport so we can continue our journey beyond the self.
Perhaps it was necessary to have this respite of selfhood—a fixed identity to hold onto for awhile—as we consolidated our evolutionary gains. But now that container can no longer serve us, as the reality of where we are now is forcing us to evolve beyond the obsessive absorption of the self or perish.
The obsession that we are now afflicted with comes in many forms, ranging from extreme narcissism to near total self-abnegation. Do not be deceived. Self-sacrifice seeks its own rewards, even the prize of avoiding the truths of the self for a lifetime. Is self-negation not but another form of self-absorption, reigning all powerful, controlling life through avoidance of the most basic of needs?
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico ask us to not take personally the impersonal reality of our tyrannized relationship with the mind. From their seeing, this is a condition all humankind shares in common. There is no avoiding it. No one is to blame. But we must face that we are all in this predator’s grip.
It’s impersonal. – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The Shamans state clearly that the first tool to counter the tyranny of the mind is to suspend judgment. Rather than personalize everything, observe the self and others from a perspective of objectivity—no blame—simply an intent to see things as they really are, without the filter of self-interest. If we stay in blame, we evolve no further. We stay within the compound of the mind like chickens in a chicken coop, naively and happily enjoying our captivity.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico had no illusion about the deadly power of the tyrant of the mind to absorb all our energy, as in fact we spend our entire lives in the prison of self-absorption. Nonetheless, they did see the value of using actual tyrants to their own advantage. They discovered that putting themselves under the control of an actual tyrant offered them the opportunity to break the tyranny of the self-absorption of the mind.
They discovered that in order to physically survive the brutality of a tyrant, it is utterly necessary to break through the veil of self-pity, self-worth, in fact self-anything. The tyrant cares nothing for the selfhood of its victim, and thus to survive the tyrant one needs the complete objectivity that only selflessness provides.
Many Shamans perished in their encounters with tyrants. Nonetheless, the rewards of success were so great and so meaningful that they risked this encounter with death, for success meant freedom from the human form of self-absorption. Success meant freedom to experience an expanded self, unburdened of the confines of self-importance; a self free to explore reality with far greater powers and clarity than humanly possible. To those Shamans, the risk was worth it.
This past week, the New York Times Sunday Magazine explored, in depth, the dilemma of child pornographic images continually finding new life on the worldwide web. How is a victim to heal or find closure when images of their abuse continue to be preyed upon, beyond their control, throughout their lifetime? These victims will indeed be unable to heal, as long as they remain attached to the self in those photographic images.
As I see it, these girls/women, though they didn’t choose it, have already had their own encounters with brutal tyrants like the ones the Shamans of Ancient Mexico faced. They have already survived those encounters. However, they must complete their interrupted journeys to freedom through a thorough recapitulation if they are to heal. They must fully relive their experiences with their tyrants and in so doing retrieve all their life energy bound to those experiences. And so, I envision a different scenario, healing by facing the tyrant.
Imagine one of those children mentioned in the article, now an adult, giving a news conference with all the images of their abuse plastered around them, as they calmly and with utter detachment describe the full truth of what happened in each of those pictures. Such detachment breaks all attachment to shame, blame, and victimhood—in fact any identification of self with the images presented. Nonetheless, the full truth of what fully happened in each of those images is fully known, fully owned, and fully released. The images no longer hold any energetic attachment or charge. This is healing detachment.
In such detachment there is no longer any emotional or physical energy attached to those scenes from the past. All energy has been retrieved for a new and evolving life. Those images are the shells of a prior life, but life has actually moved on. This detachment offers the means to completely break free of the predator’s grip—to be freed of the tyrant to control life—and to be freed of the self defined by the predator.
Free to fly at last! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
This kind of detachment is life freed from its absorption with the self of those images. From this place the predator has no home, and thus no power. This new self is not a victim. This new self has moved on. This new self is a fluid ever-evolving being now, freed of all fixated definitions.
This kind of healing that I envision for the young women in the NYT article, frees the old self in those images from static interpretations and judgments, all the fixations of the self-absorbed mind. The freed self exists outside the predatory confines of the mind, as well as all who seek to feed off the torment of the once victimized being. That victimized being simply doesn’t exist anymore.
In fact, the evolved being can look back with compassion at all still caught in the confines of self-absorption. That freed being is fluid, able to resume its interrupted journey, in its evolved state having moved beyond the guardian mind of our limited world of self-absorption, a world that even says no one can heal from such a thing. Such an evolved being is now a beacon of developmental necessity, a shining example of where we all need to go now.
