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: Navigating Now With Fluidity & Resilience

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Don’t feed the flyers!
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

In his usual mischievous way, Carlos Castaneda would come into the gym every few hours and assess the energetic status of the thousand or so Tensegrity practitioners who’d been rigorously practicing the physical forms, called Magical Passes, we’d been taught. He’d then announce, “Not yet!” According to him we had yet to accrue enough energy to handle the impact of the special knowledge he was waiting to deliver.

Ultimately, having fully captivated our attention, he introduced a special topic, which the shamans labeled, the flyers. The flyers are inorganic beings; meaning, beings who have an energy body but lack a physical form. He stated that we are their prey, the food source for this species of being.

Flyers feed off the energy generated by impassioned human emotion, particularly the incoherent energy produced by intense anger, hate and sadness. Furthermore, flyers infiltrate our minds. They commandeer the thoughts of our internal dialogue, creating stories of us being offended, disregarded, and considered unworthy in our daily interactions. This intensifies the negative emotions that season our energy.

Of course, this is quite a grotesque characterization. Years later, I had the pleasure of a moment with Reni Murez, one of Carlos’s apprentices. She assured me that much in the shaman’s world was metaphor, not to be taken too literally. I pass this guidance along. Nonetheless, metaphor is used to illustrate  energetic facts.

The energetic fact is that thoughts, generated from within, or from an outside source, trigger powerful emotions that deplete our energy and weaken our spirit. It is also an energetic fact that some entities, human or otherwise, feed off the tortured emotional energy of others. Such is the heightened energetic reality of our time.

Clinically, the collective diagnosis of now is Acute Stress Disorder (ASD), reflecting the incessant traumatic bombardment of bombs and words that inflame and terrify the world daily. ASD rapidly turns into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the overriding diagnosis for our traumatized modern world.

In response to these diagnoses, the central nervous system, for the bulk of humanity, is fixated at the fight-flight-freeze mode. In this threatened survival state, the body floods with cortisol and adrenaline to cope with the ravages of overwhelming stress.

The side effect of this constant state of arousal is addiction to the very chemicals the body releases internally to cope with threat. This hyper alert state has become the desired state to feel safe, which results in a continuous cycle of generating fearful thoughts that trigger heightened emotions, which in turn release stress hormones to be prepared for largely imagined catastrophes.

Behaviorally, this leads to a strong attraction to activating news, outer events, and interactions that maintain a steady flow of the stress hormones we have become addicted to. The physical exhaustion of this constant state of arousal is overridden by the defensive energy released by the stress hormones that then weaken the immune system, making one more prone to disease. In addition, despite exhaustion, one is often riddled with poor sleep, as the mind is wary of releasing the defense of alert presence and relaxing instead into rejuvenating sleep.

The first step to energetic recovery is to acknowledge our chemical dependency upon stress hormones. With that, we must take responsibility for our own behaviors that ensure the delivery of our chemical fix. If we truly want the sobriety of calmness, we must be willing to change our thoughts and behaviors.

“I am safe in this moment,” is most likely an energetic fact. State it often, while allowing for a relaxing breath.

“I choose not to engage in confrontative interaction on social media, and that includes just reading it!” Why and how often do I seek out the current news? What is its impact upon my Central Nervous System?

“Am I willing to ask for help from the divine love and intelligence located in my subconscious mind?”

“Am I willing to imagine the calm I seek and allow myself to release to the joy of receiving it?”

“Am I willing to let go of control, trusting the higher power within myself to guide me to equanimity?”

“Am I willing to meditate?” When I meditate, I change my brainwaves, which allows me to sink my awareness into the limbic system of my brain, the touchpoint of the subtle body of my subconscious mind. With this direct access I can rewrite the ingrained habits and illnesses imprinted in my autonomic nervous system, turning off the embedded flyers, healing myself in a fundamental way.

“Am I willing to refuse to not be positive?” An internal dialogue of positive self-statements exchanges the release of stress hormones for the release of the emotionally regulating happy hormones of dopamine and serotonin. To be bathed in the calm of loving compassion is not addiction, it’s the ticket for navigating now with fluidity and resilience.

Thanks for everything,
Chuck

I offer a link to another meditation, this one only 35  minutes long! It’s a very powerful meditation to begin the day with, but can be listened to at any time. Enjoy!

Dr. Joe Dispenza’s Most Powerful Morning Meditation

Chuck's Blog

Chuck:s Place: Being In The New Wholeness With Equanimity

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Establish equanimity with heart…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

The vast majority have chosen.  The energetic wave of competition has settled upon a new state of physical reality, a new configuration of All That Is. Victory and defeat are equal parts of life. When we can greet either outcome with equal serenity, we practice equanimity.

The Four Fold Way of native traditions counsels us to be open to outcome without attachment. If we linger too long in attachment, we are absent to the nuance and opportunity of oncoming time. If we linger too long in attachment, we bind our vital energy and resist union.

I am grateful that the outcome of the election is so definitive. At a collective level we cannot advance beyond the choice of the majority, it’s the law of democracy. We clearly must be where we are. We must live through the changes that will become manifest through the mandate given. The challenge is to suspend judgment and see what happens. The challenge is to meet each day with love and equanimity.

I referenced, in my last blog, the I Ching reading I threw before the election. I present it here in the spirit of equanimity. Hexagram #12, Standstill and Stagnation, depicts heaven and earth pulling away from each other  in complete opposite directions, with no possibility of union.

The ruler of this hexagram, the 9 in the 5th place, was highlighted in this reading. Wilhelm comments, “The time undergoes a change. The right man, able to restore order, has arrived. Hence “Good Fortune.” But such periods of transition are the very times in which we must fear and tremble. Success is assured only through greatest caution…” (I Ching, Wilhelm edition, p.55). The future, Hexagram #35, depicts a coming time of rapid, easy progress.

To acquiesce to the majority’s choice does not mean that one should surrender one’s values nor inner truth. All should tend the flame of their inner spirit as it speaks to them in their hearts. “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” (Mark 12:17) When we are in that alignment, our being will radiate right discernment and manifest necessary action.

The lesson of this election is Lincoln’s proverbial wisdom, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Many of us seek change in our lives but are haunted by blocking beliefs that make us a divided inner house. The subconscious mind requires a determined suggestion, empowered with strong emotion, to manifest the changes one seeks.

Just as at a collective level a majority is required to set the course, we are tasked inwardly with consciously arriving at a majority intention to engage the services of the subconscious mind. This will require some shadow work. We must discover and reconcile with our deeply hidden divided house within.

This might involve some soul retrieval work via recapitulation of past trauma that has given rise to energetic defenses that have created divisions within the self. The freed up energy from this release and reconciliation then becomes available to join in the call for unified change.

The golden rule for manifestation is ultimately inner unity upon what one emphasizes. What we emphasize, by way of thought, feeling and habit, will become our manifested reality. If we have cleared ourselves of the divisiveness of the repressed within, we do well to observe the thoughts, inner dialogue and mood states we habitually reinforce.

With awareness and intention we can release these energetic fixations to All That Is with the intention that the energy from these beliefs be recycled for the greater good. Furthermore, we can lay emphasis upon our truly desired intentions through conscious positive inner dialogue rather than continuing the undermining drone of habitually negative self statements.

With these efforts we will accrue the inner majority to influence the divine intelligence in our subconscious mind to manifest the changes we seek. May all arrive at this new wholeness with gratitude and AWE.

With gratitude and AWE,
Chuck

NOTE: After Jan edited and illustrated this blog, she spontaneously opened Activation of Energy by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, to page 61, and read me this quote, which we found to be particularly meaningful for our times: “…the true cause of what is happening in the world today is to be found not in some collapse of former values but in the eruption, within mankind, of a flood of new being which, precisely because it is new, comes initially as something foreign and hostile to what we ourselves represent. What takes us by surprise in today’s events, what so upsets us and terrifies us—but what in fact we must look straight in the face of so that we can analyze its mechanism and its phases, and distinguish what good effects it has side by side with what evil effects—is, in my view, the implacable cosmic tide: it is this that, having first raised each one of us up to its own level, is now at work, beating in a new rhythm, to expel us from our own selves: it is the eternal ‘rise of the other’ within the human mass.”

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Chuck’s Place: How To Love & Be One With Everyone*

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Loving reconciliation of the opposites…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

This much I got right from my second grade religious instruction: God is everywhere. God is everything. Nothing that is, is not God. God is, simply, All That Is. Everything and everyone in our world is part of All That Is. We are all one. All includes both good and evil, in everyone. 

We are a holographic universe. Shine a light on any one of us and all of us will appear. As within, so without. As above, so below. Our supposed individuality is simply what we emphasize in All That Is. Though we may emphasize the good, we are all equally, latently evil. 

When we rigidly identify with the good, we project our evil outwardly, where someone else must vicariously live that side of our wholeness for us. This is the stalemate of extreme polarization: We hate our disowned shadows yet remain hopelessly, negatively bound to them, as they reflect in the faces of our supposed enemy. 

To become whole beings we must include all that we truly are. Our personal drama for the life we are in reflects our attempt to reconcile the particular constellation of All That Is that we chose to experience in this lifetime. The ideal is a union of all our discordant parts into a balance that best serves the greater good.

Truthfully, sometimes the balance achieved is extremely volatile and destructive, as is quite evident in the greater world, particularly in America this very day. Nonetheless, for all of its unsettledness, our current world is fully an equal member of All That Is:  All With Equanimity (AWE).

This wholeness does not mean that boundaries and limits are not to be exercised. As the Dalai Lama once answered when questioned, yes, he would use a gun to stop another from killing him. His caveat, however, was that he would not shoot in anger but with total loving compassion for the person trying to assassinate him.

To love everyone, we must begin with ourselves. We are tasked with loving every aspect of ourselves, even the body parts that we try so hard to hide. We must even love the part of ourselves that hates and judges ourselves and others. We must love that part of All That Is. Through loving that part we bring better stability into the dream we are in.

Can we love the greedy, unforgiving, entitled, self-serving, bitter part of ourselves that seeks release through vengeance and retribution? Can we allow ourselves to know and accept that part of our being that is so consciously rejected and buried alive within?

Can we love the mercenary, deceiving, selfish, power hungry materialist within that we dress over with generosity and random acts of kindness? To face the truth of, and love this part of self, we must remove its stigma and find its rightful home within, refining the  personality to reflect its greater wholeness in better balance.

Outwardly, we are tasked to reclaim ownership of the parts of ourselves that we project onto others, those whom trigger us to rage and embroil us in a battle of opposites. Can we have compassion, even feel gratitude, for those who play such a vital mirroring role in our own journey of self discovery?

And yes, we may need to stop them or ignore them, but can we do it from a place of love versus hate? When we hate, we reject a vital part of All That Is. Short of full acceptance, that which we hate becomes our karma and our destiny.

When we can be in love, we raise our energetic vibration to a frequency that gives us direct access to our subconscious mind. The neural networks in our brain expand with harmonious neuroplasticity, as our emotions are elevated and calmed with in-body dopamine and serotonin.

Our brainwaves flow cohesively as our thoughts are calm and collected. Outwardly, we manifest positive vibrations that invite greater social cohesion. Even when all opportunity for outer connection is denied, we rest contentedly within, knowing that all things will pass.

I am particularly grateful to be able to participate in the leela, or Divine play, of now. I hold all epochs in AWE, but truly appreciate the unique opportunity of now, in this Age of Aquarius, to refine love to such subtle levels, as we manifest the next stage of our evolving dream.

With love and gratitude,
Chuck

*NOTE: I threw the I Ching, asking for a reading for America with respect to the outcome of the election today. I decided to suspend interpretation but share the hexagrams obtained, for review by anyone interested: Hexagram #12, Standstill, with the 9 in the 5th place highlighted. The future of this reading is #35, Progress. Do be sure to explore the 9 in the 5th place, which is the key to the whole reading. There are many I Ching interpretations, including the classic Wilhelm translation. A search online will reveal many options. 

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Chuck’s Place: Gratitude Now!

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Turn thoughts to gratitude for a brand new attitude…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

The subconscious mind is the creative powerhouse at the core of our soul. It links with the limbic system in the brain, which houses our instinctual and emotional primal self. The subconscious is vastly influenced by the survival suggestions of this primal being, with self-preservation as its number one priority.

The ego is the conscious thinking part of the soul, that corresponds with the neocortex in the brain while we exist in human form. This analytical center provides us with the ability to exercise free will, even overriding the hardwired genetic programs of the limbic system. We are free, for example, to make decisions and take actions that the limbic system would have us avoid in order to remain safe.

The subconscious is also powerfully affected by the thinking suggestions of the ego, and, if impressed enough, may manifest them, despite the more conservative suggestions of the limbic system that run counter to the ego’s wishes. Emotion is the significant variable in the subconscious mind’s choice; what we put a lot of emotion into usually wins out.

The highly emotionally charged fight/flight/freeze reaction of the limbic system is its central program for self-preservation. When the subconscious mind manifests this natural reaction in the nervous system, the ego’s neocortex center is compromised. We simply can’t think rationally, as the subconscious sends all available energy to the body to fund survival.

The result of this fear-based internal environment is the flooding of the body with adrenaline and cortisol, which generates a hyper-alert physical and emotional state to fend off real or imagined attack. Without the ego’s ability to contribute alternative perspectives and suggestions that could release the perception of danger, the body remains captive to this ever-present threatened state.

Emotions of fear, anger and hate tend to be reinforced by triggered memories of prior threats or imagined potential threats, which the brain treats as real, intensifying the emotional panic. Fearful thoughts generate negative emotions, which trigger more fearful thoughts in an ever-escalating loop of deepening negativity.

In this low frequency state of negativity, the subconscious manifests a state of exhaustion and hopelessness, matching the suggestions of the activated limbic system. In order to shift from this disheartened state, the ego is tasked with exercising its will over the limbic system’s hardwired programs, introducing new suggestions to the subconscious mind.

The decision to breathe for several minutes to an 8-8-8 count and then a 8-16-8 count will begin to shift brainwaves away from an anxious beta mental state into a calmer alpha/theta state. From this calmer place we can state our desired intent, perhaps for a more peaceful inner, as well as outer, world.

This is the opportunity to raise the emotional vibration to the heights of gratitude, an extremely attractive vibe to the subconscious mind. Begin with deep appreciation first for the divine intelligence of the subconscious mind, which places itself at our creative disposal. Send love and gratitude toward every other part of All-That-Is because, regardless of circumstance, we are all in this together.

With deep gratitude and awe, imagine the manifestation of that which you seek as fully formed. This accomplished deed in the heart and mind causes the brain to form the neural circuits and release the appropriate hormones to match the body with the mind’s imagination. The subconscious further supports this transformation by attracting outer physical reality to it that matches its inner high vibration of loving gratitude.

In this time of pervasive outer negativity, no one can be stopped from an inner practice of deep gratitude that radiates and attracts a reality that matches its love and appreciation for all. Be the gratitude rainmaker whose solo practice releases a thunderstorm of love upon the world.

Gratitude Now!
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Good & Bad Of Habit

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-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

From a biological point of view, a habit is a well-connected cluster of brain cells (neurons) that form a circuit that, when turned on, directs the body and mind to automatically behave in a certain way. Many habits are inherited through the arrangement of genes in our DNA, and many are formed epigenetically, as we learn new things post-birth.

A distinguishing characteristic of a habit is that it operates outside of consciousness. Our body is frequently prompted to perform habits while the attention of our conscious mind is far away, in thought. Think about driving and suddenly noticing that you have arrived at your destination with little memory of the journey.

Habits are housed in the subconscious mind, which pairs the suggestions it receives through sensory triggers with its storehouse of habitual responses. The subconscious largely runs all the systems of our body independently of our awareness.

Habits are the building blocks of our identity. When we awaken from our night sea journey of sleep, we are quickly swept away from dreamland and placed into the familiar story of who  we are in waking life. Thoughts of our upcoming day become the triggers of our mental habits that tell us who we are.

“What is the time? Oh, I always wake up late, I never give myself enough time (depressed feeling). I won’t have time to eat (sad). I’ll grab a coffee at the gas station because, of course, I didn’t fill up yesterday because I was lazy, as usual (defeated). Oh! I have that meeting today; I hate presenting (anxiety). I feel so judged by my peers, especially by her, Miss Perfect (failure). I hate this job, but I’m stuck (not good enough)…”

We think about 60,000 thoughts a day, 90% of which are habitual. This string of thought-triggers, that begins upon awakening, becomes a nonstop internal dialogue that solidifies our sense of who we are, providing us with our familiar identity. Whether we like ourselves or not, we find comfort in the secure grounding and dependability of our habitual definition and feeling of self.

The good news, from a neurological point of view, is neuroplasticity, the capacity of the brain to establish new neural networks, and consequently, new habits. New thoughts can be consciously chosen, which, when repetitively stated and imbued with imagination and emotion, provoke the subconscious to manifest a new identity and a new physical reality.  (See link below.)

The brain treats our thoughts as actual reality. When we imagine something in our minds, the brain creates new circuits of neurons and chemical reactions that build new physical structures and emotions in the body, in accordance with the model we mentally create. When the mind rehearses its desired future, the brain builds the structures to make it physically happen.

The challenge to suggesting new thoughts to the subconscious, as Dr. Joe Dispenza points out, is that we must allow ourselves to be uncomfortable with change. Our attachment to the comfort of our familiar, known, habitual self generates defenses to protect its prior habitually-established neurocircuitry.

Subjectively, this is experienced as doubt and lack of faith in the ability to truly transform the self, mentally and physically. The tendency is to continue to place emphasis on the known, reinforcing the hegemony of the old circuitry. As Christ pointed out, without faith there are no miracles. He was not talking about faith in him but faith in the ability of the self to truly transform. That’s the suggestion necessary to get the attention of the subconscious.

The nuts and bolts of transformation is rote practice, continued over time. Say something enough times with passion, while imagining it, and it will come to pass. That’s exactly how the inner dialogue already works: we become what we think. If we take conscious control of directing our thoughts, we change our brain and we change who we are.

The challenge is both perseverance and a willingness to live in the discomfort of a fluid rather than a fixed identity. To grow, in its fullest potentiality, is to arrive at the perspective of all that is, better known as, the ultimate experience of cosmic oneness.

At the gross motor level of the physical body, the shamans of ancient Mexico used not-doings to break the fixation of habitual behavior, awakening consciousness to be able to choose new behaviors. A not-doing might be to change your bedtime every night or to wear mismatched socks during the day. Spontaneous decisions, like breaking into singing and dancing or choosing a different turn while driving, disrupt habit and awaken consciousness.

Life in Earth School paradoxically requires us to establish a uniformity of identity through a habitual self to feel safe and grounded, yet it also insists that we constantly break old habits of self in order to grow.

Life in Graduate Earth School asks us to wake up and be the rising sun each morning, like the phoenix burning off the habitual self of just yesterday, as we journey further into the adventure and discomfort of the unknown in a new day.

Nothing can ever stay the same. Habits are all temporary perches from which to observe and discover infinity. Enjoy them, learn from them, but don’t get too attached, as more of infinity awaits!

Not Doing,
Chuck

Sharing a good meditation to support a changing self, created by Dr. Joe Dispenza. I suggest listening to it in its entirety, many times, for the fullest experience.
You are the Placebo-Guided Meditation