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: Constructing An Ark In A Flood Of Energy

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Construct an Ark…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Introversion can be defined as the quest for divine relationship in the solitude of inner focus. Extraversion is the seeking of that divine communion through connection with energy outside the self. Though most people are dominated by either an innerly or outerly  focus, both attitudes and realms of experience are present in some proportion in all individuals.

The genius in Mark Zuckerberg was his intuition of the latent hunger for extraverted connection that Facebook could facilitate. Social media now dominates human energy and human connection. With the development of AI, with its consumption of all human knowledge, we are nearing the projection of divine wisdom and connection onto ChatGPT.

We also live in a time where the ability to infiltrate the divine relationship between the conscious and subconscious minds, within the individual human psyche, through the influencers of political and social media, is commandeering a person’s ability to think for themselves. Mesmerized conscious minds absorb the suggestions flooding from without, which are then materialized by the subconscious through their beliefs, actions and relationships. We become what we absorb.

When our souls project from our physical bodies in our nightly sojourns into the subtler dimensions of life, we are equally confronted with other souls as influencers. The state of our minds as we launch into sleep will largely determine the kinds of encounters we will attract in our dreaming. Like attracts like.

If befuddled or emotionally charged upon entering sleep, one is likely to find oneself in dream milieus that intensify these unsettled states, thus robbing both body and waking mind of the repose and rejuvenation needed to calmly enter and flourish in the new day.

The ancient wisdom to never go to sleep angry is an ark of safety as we navigate the subtler realms of energy in sleep. Equally valuable, in constructing this ark, is the stated intention, as we enter the hypnagogic transfer station from physical to subtle energetic life, to only have interaction with beings committed to our own greater good and the greater good of all. Thus stated, we are primed in our dreaming to receive wisdom and guidance in the calm waters of those at or beyond our level of spiritual development.

This same ark of safety can be constructed as we navigate the flood waters of waking life. First and foremost, we can exercise our will to be healthful in our choice of the amount of time and the type of content we expose ourselves to in the floods of media.

As thoughts are energetic things, which telepathically can enter us, we do well to choose wisely the thoughts we entertain. Thoughts attract like thoughts from without. Attract and absorb only those that promote the greater good of self and other.

As with thoughts, emotions attract like emotions. Strive to be in a steady current of compassion for all life, without judgment, but avoid sympathy that absorbs problem and emotion that is not yours to bear. Send loving support but maintain firm boundaries.

Trust in the divine relationship between conscious and subconscious minds in all beings to solve all challenges. Empowering suggestions, telepathically sent to others, are of invaluable service to their own mastery of life’s energetic floods.

In both the introverted and extraverted playing fields that we enter, the tide waters are quite high. And, though these waters are naturally cyclic, flooding still abounds on all fronts. The divine connection we are drawn to reflects in all worlds, though we must focus according to our predilection. Ultimately, we will discover that all worlds are one.

To construct our ark of safety to navigate all life, the stated intent for the greater good of self and other is sure to deliver us to smooth sailing.

To the greater good of self and other,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Gathering Within And Slowing It Down

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Go within and slow it down…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

In the late 19th century, the deeply insightful ophthalmologist, William H. Bates, discovered that the best method to improve all errors in vision was to simply relax. The demands of the then ‘modern civilization’, such as being asked to read print in its smallest font, crammed upon a page, invited the reader to strain and squint, as the eyes stressed to read outside their normal, fully relaxed receptive mode of seeing.

What became known as the Bates Method is a series of practices that restores the eyes to the autonomy of complete relaxation with the consequent effect of improved vision. Bates suggested that if we try to see anything, we are in error.

The speed and demands of our current modern civilization, as it wrestles with its pressing shadow of annihilation, is one of constant bombardment of the nervous system, with its deeply arousing thoughts and consequent emotions of anxiety, fear and fretful anticipation. Beyond the eyes, all the organs and structures of the physical body are subject to disease and dysfunction in this stressed mental atmosphere of turmoil.

Meditation is a practice which restores relaxation to the mind. When the mind is at ease thoughts are few, and largely ones of choice, versus the typical state of free association, driving a non-stop train of thought. We are hardly exempt from intrusive thought when meditating, but we do learn to calmly and definitely withdraw our attention from the unwanted thought invitations that confiscate our focus and tax our central nervous system.

When we meditate, we gather in our power of intent. Intent is the power of thought, as exercised, for instance, in the power of autosuggestion to the subconscious mind. We increase the power and effectiveness of intent through retrieving and re-channeling the energy wasted in attention to fragmented thoughts that siphon our vital energy and deliver mixed messages to the subconscious mind.

We live in a universe of thought. From without, our plugged-in generation is incessantly deluged with the thoughts of others, both human and AI generated. At the subtle level of what the shamans call inorganic life—beings or souls with mental powers but not a physical form—we are also telepathically surrounded by the thoughts of others seeking to influence our beliefs, actions and emotions.

We do have the power of intent to cast off these parasitic thoughts, but we must first purify our intent. Here, we must face our own attraction to the excitement that thoughts bring us, yes, even by religiously following the behaviors of those we find obnoxious and absurd. Like does attract like. If we want excitement, excitement will definitely find its way to us.

If we exercise our intent to detach our attention from that which excites and drains our vital energy, it slowly but definitely releases us, as the emotional food of calm that we produce is tasteless to its desire. As with the Bates Method, we are here not trying to do anything, but instead releasing ourselves from programs of thought that disrupt our true state of calm.

As we gather in our intent and power of controlled thought our nervous system slows down. Freed of activating thought impressions it releases the tensions locked in the body from the play of old thoughts, or those of others, that take up residence in the drone of our internal dialogue.

We may be naturally drawn to deepen our breath as our bodies open naturally to the oxygen and subtle prana that feed our minds and bodies. This attention to the breath takes us deeper into alpha and theta brain wave states, where, with intent, we might obtain guidance from our Higher Self, or other higher beings whose wisdom we are open and available to.

When we gather within and slow it down, all things are possible.

Intend it all,
Chuck 

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Replenish The Body With New Thought

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Try on some new thoughts…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Thoughts issue from the mental or spiritual plane of our being. Our mind, or spirit, is located in our energy body, or soul, and is intimately connected to, and oversees, all the operations of the physical body. Thoughts have an energetic momentum that profoundly influences our physical body.

 Our ego mind, though actually of spirit origin, is so deeply identified with the material world, that it simply cannot believe in the primacy of spirit behind physical life. To entertain this spiritual perspective, as suggested in this blog, suspend temporarily the judgment of the material mind view and open to an insinuation of spirit from your higher mind.

The world is so reflecting to us at this time how rapidly changing thoughts are dismantling and reshaping our material reality. Long held medical, environmental and economic beliefs and truisms are being eliminated with the stroke of a pen. This is a grand scale example of how the force of a spirit, as exercised through thoughts, is reshaping our material world.

The big question is how the material world will carry and sustain the demands of these radically demanding thoughts. As individuals we are equally challenged to contend with the impact of our own thoughts upon our physical bodies.

 Spirits choose to enter an earthly life to test out their thoughts in a material playing field. Choice of family and physical circumstance provide the materials to mold a physical life to embody the thoughts it seeks deeply to explore through a human life. Our physical lives are thus our spirit’s laboratory for discovery and growth. Spirits may actually need a physical life to advance in their more subtle dimensions of existence.

For a spirit who lacks the experience of emotional attachment and the maturation and refinement of love needed to advance on its spiritual plane of existence, an earthly life in time, space and the dense energy of physical relationships can provide all the necessary materials for advancement.

As a spirit works its way through the developmental stages to mature love in physical form, it will materialize or attract to it a plethora of relationship experiences to refine its experience of love and relationship  from its crudest to its most sublime form. This subtle energetic achievement of refined love will allow it to deepen its spiritual horizons in infinity.   

Of course the truth is that we need spirit to advance our life in physical form as well. Spirit, or the mind, generates the thoughts whose substance builds the body. Yes, we build muscle and physical skill through physical exercise and repetition, but we equally generate those physical results through their repetition in the imagination. This is the action of suggestion from the conscious to the subconscious mind. It is the subconscious mind that materializes spirit intent.

Not only are our bodies shaped by our own thoughts but also by the thoughts of others who are attracted to our thoughts and moods. If we are burdened with our own negative thoughts and absorb the negative thoughts of others, our bodies, the physical representatives of those thoughts, will reflect the weight of those burdens upon our slumped shoulders and the sad, depressed feelings impressed upon our wrinkled brows.

In order to replenish our bodies we must allow for new thoughts to saturate our minds. May these new thoughts be for the greater good of self and other. Like attracts like. When we bathe in positive, loving thought, we magnetize our energy to draw to us people, circumstances and outside thoughts that reflect our state of mind. This also has the effect of detaching us from others whom we may have attracted from our prior negativity. Thoughts, people and spirit entities drop away when they find no sustenance in our current positive thinking.

Of course, we must contend with the ruts of old thoughts that have been habitually stored in the automatic functioning of the subconscious mind. These habits are the triggers associated with old thoughts. The good news is that the subconscious is always open to suggestions in the form of spirited new thoughts.

However, before the subconscious abandons an old directive it will test your resolve and patience through seeing your reaction to old triggers. Don’t get caught. Prove your sincerity. Firmly tell the old thought to get lost, but most importantly, emphatically and often, state the new thought. And then, with unswerving faith in the power of one’s new thought, calmly follow its yellow brick road to completion.

Try this one: My body reflects my spirit. My spirit is completely healthy, wealthy and wise. My deepest spiritual desires are realized in human form. Everything is possible.

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: It is Change In Desire, Not New Rules, That Cures

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The Spiritualization of Desire…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Stop having to stop anything. We get hooked on this materialist imperative for the obvious reason that our senses provide a constant barrage of physical impressions that dominate our attention and mental consideration. We are led to believe that if we are to improve our lot we must change something physically.

In this scenario, our spirit, in its ego form, takes charge and insists upon a new schedule of defined behaviors that will advance it toward its goal. Inevitably there is habitual resistance toward this stated intent, but ego basks in the power of its determination as it pushes through.

The shadow of resistance might lie dormant as ego flexes its muscle, but inevitably there is a coup that overthrows the best of ego intentions. Ego intent is no match for desire. The fire of desire will reign supreme until the fuel that feeds it runs out. That fuel is the spirit of the lower mind that is identified with the denser energy of the physical body, as well as all things physical. Its battle cry is, generally, “More!”

It may be that we want desperately to truly change a behavior and, in fact, must to stay healthy. But in order to achieve this in a sustained way, the change must come at the level of spirit, not from efforts directed at the physical plane, which ultimately terminate in defeat.

The needed change is the refinement of the spirit of desire that issues from the lower self of the physical body and ultimately rises to the higher Spirit self that resides, in the transparency of truth, at the immortal dimension of our being. We experience that elevated dimension from the truth of our heart, the clarity of our intuition, and in our partnership with the divinity of all that is through the portal of our subconscious mind.

To avail itself of the power of this divine relationship, ego does well to focus its attention on suggestions to its subconscious mind, rather than focus on new rules for physical behavior. In this scenario, an influx of spirit energy from a higher plane of self is released to effect a greater spiritualization, at the coarser plane of the physical body.

Specifically, the ego could ask the subconscious mind to lift its desire for a particular behavior, and transform its energy into a changed expression for the greater good of self and other. How might such a transformation feel?

Say, for example one was dealing with a sexual addiction. Under the compulsion of such desire, one spends most of one’s day trying to secure objects to serve as a release for this desire. These casual hookups have no connection except the mutual desire for sexual release. Sexual desire at this level is at its coarsest—physical contact for physical release.

If one were to strongly and consistently demand that the subconscious engage its energies to lift this compulsion, the first effect might be the experience of a reduced actual desire, or physical neutrality, at exposure to a possible object for release. What one then confronts is more the old habit of thought of desire, but not actually the compulsion itself.

In this scenario, the ego is charged to make the choice to accept this gift of grace, and not purposely try to activate the desire for habit’s sake. The ego is asked to be the adult that has been provided with grace by its Higher Self and choose to stay in the peace of this actual moment. This is not a new rule, it’s simply being where you actually are in that moment. Ancient habits may require many rounds in this choiceful cycle.

The actual spiritual lifting of this coarser sexual desire might ultimately refine it into the experience of true loving connection and cherished sexual union in a committed partnership, with a true soulmate, versus mere release with an indiscriminate playmate.

Obviously, these transformative stages are relevant to the refinement of all compulsive desires. These might include food, wardrobe, substances, perfection, negativity, the getting of attention, rage, self-importance—the list is endless. Life in human form is life in the refinement of spirit, from the coarser to the finer, the ticket for spiritual adventure and advance.

The technology for this advancement rests in spirit relationship. This includes spirit at the physical level, spirit at the mental level of the ego, and spirit at the level of the divine in the relationship between the conscious and subconscious minds.

Forget approaching change with a new set of rules for the body. Get instead to the spiritual heart of the matter. With love and demand, ask and you shall receive. Be receptive to grace as it arrives as it will, every day, in some way.

An equanimity mantra from Jan, said slowly, with emphasis on “I am”:

I am at peace.
I am at peace.
Within and without,
I am at peace.

An equanimity mantra from Chuck:

Everything is Meditation.

Only the best,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Highest Level Of Spirit Influence

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Sculpt a life of love and positivity…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Many years ago, my sister, while working as a nurse in a hospital, had an encounter with a man, who may be described as the current, most powerful person in the world. She described him, in that encounter, as both gentle and gracious. This description is quite at variance with his current emphasis, one seemingly dominated with hatred and rage.

The experience of the full range of positive and negative emotions and thoughts is central to the human journey. When our spirit chose to enter a life in Earth School, the intent was to address a specific issue via a human life that would allow for the full enactment and resolution of that core issue.

Naturally, we begin that human journey with our core issue in the crudest of form, like the sculptor who begins their opus with a pile of clay or a solid hunk of marble. We master that core issue, from its crudest of form, into the most refined delicacy of love, toward self and all others, through the working art of a human lifetime. This is the mastery our spirit requires to further its journey in the ever-deepening mystery of infinity.

Spirit, then, is capable of acting both from the higher emotions of love to the crudest emotion of hatred. Thus both good and evil exist in spirit form. Our thoughts and feelings are emissaries of our spirit. When we think positive thoughts and feelings about someone, they experience, on some level, the energetic intention of our positive spirit toward them.

The feeling and behavior of kindness brings people together, regardless of their differences. Expressions of hate and rage generate fear and more rage, as well as divide people in accordance with their differences. Many people today are deeply concerned with the fate of the world under the strain of this polarization, which is rapidly impacting life at all levels.

Many feel compelled to protest, in a variety of ways, the exercise of power as it is currently being deployed on the world stage. I approach the challenge through the suggestion of positive influence, emitted from the highest level of spirit.

This may take the form of a telepathic message for the greater good that we send off, in thought and feeling, to someone we know. That person may experience an unexpected thought about us as the message is delivered. However, the force of the message may not reach the level of their conscious awareness, and act instead as a hidden suggestion to their subconscious mind.

The relationship between the conscious and subconscious minds is the most powerful force we have access to in human form. Thoughts and feelings that issue from the mind, or spirit, act as suggestions to the subconscious mind that then engages its ability to manifest on the physical plane, the intents and desires that issue from the mental plane.

We impact the lives of others by the thoughts and feelings we have about them. If we feel hatred towards someone, their subconscious mind will be influenced by this suggestion to generate more hatred. Our own preoccupation with hatred also directly impacts our own subconscious mind, which will then draw experiences toward us which further those dark feelings and thoughts.

The most effective way to influence another person at the highest level of spirit is to encourage, in thought, that they reach a highly refined resolution of their own core issues. This suggestion is imbued with love and compassion and encourages the same feelings in the recipient.

Every time I think of the powerful man I opened this blog with, I imagine the experience my sister once had with him. I appeal to the kindness I know he has inside him. I suggest that he open to that side of himself and take full advantage of his ability to advance the greater good of the world on a grand scale. I know, with certainty, that this possibility exists within him, as well as within all others.

I suggest that many people, in their thoughts and intentions, send off the same message. This collective intent for the greater good generates a high level of spirit influence, the true motor behind our expressions of physical life.

Whatever form of protest or influence one might choose to engage in, always be sure to refine both thoughts and feelings beyond hatred and rage so as to deliver a current of energy that awakens love and a focus on the greater good of all.

Anything is possible,
Chuck