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: Innocent Ignorance

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I want to take you higher…
– Artwork © 2022 by Jan Ketchel

The Garden of Eden myth imagines the birth of human consciousness.  Adam and Eve chose to break the law by eating the apple. Consciousness is the awareness of having a choice.

Nature’s laws do not require consciousness in order to be obeyed. They come in the form of archetypes, the programs that automatically determine the actions of sentient beings, and the entire cosmos, without any need for conscious deliberation in order to activate.

The archetypes are nature’s commandments, constructed through many painstaking trials of evolution, that become encoded in the genes and developmental patterns that govern a species. The introduction of the possibility of choice in the Garden, prompted by the snake offering the apple, was the birth of the ego, a center of consciousness having the power to override instinct, as it thinks and chooses for itself.

As a consequence of their disobedience, Adam and Eve were banished  from the Garden and thrown into the desert, left to fend for themselves, with their naive and inexperienced egos in charge of making decisions that would impact their survival. This predicament forced the ego to become an imposter of competence, as the responsibility for leadership fell upon an inadequate ego, which had to pretend to be competent.

Before we get too down on the ego for all its inflated pretense of ability or disability, perhaps we should have compassion for this little prince, abandoned in an unknown world. What other choice is there really but to fake it until you make it? The ego never asked to be born without knowledge; it truly is the recipient of its ancestor’s original sin of skipping over nature’s laws and acting through conscious choice instead.

Ironically, the birth of the ego, with its ability to make decisions, was actually nature’s plot to advance humanity to consciousness, an evolutionary trial to improve on nature’s decision making speed and efficiency. After all, Jung would often ask, who put the snake in the Garden?

The coldblooded snake of Eden is indeed kundalini at the root chakra of the human body, pushing itself upwards toward union with higher consciousness at the crown chakra. To be in human life is to experience the trials and tribulations of growing consciousness as it journeys back to the Garden, the crown jewel. The ego is kundalini’s plaything, companion and student on this adventuresome path called human life.

Currently, the ego has become the number one culprit in planetary mishap. The ego is currently mired in narcissism, caught in the lower chakra dramas of self-importance, possession, competition, and domination. This is mirrored in our polarized world with its charismatic leadership.

Within the individual the ego struggles with nature in the form of powerful needs and emotions, as it worries about survival. The higher spiritual chakras of refined love and interconnectedness are far from the consciousness of the needy ego at this stage, consumed as it is with the challenge of its own survival.

Nature, at this current time, is depositing new snakes in our messy garden, in the forms of viruses and climate crises, to prompt the world ego to rise to new heights, particularly to the heart center, where it can shed its narcissistic wrappings through the fire of love. The ego’s work, at the heart center, is learning to make decisions of right action that then rise to expression through word and deed at the throat chakra.

If nature’s experiment of making the conscious ego the agent of prudent decision making is to advance planetary survival, the ego must arrive at a place of humility, able to acknowledge both its innocent ignorance and its narcissistic leanings.

Fortunately, higher levels of consciousness are readily available to guide a humble seeker. Our time is replete with ethereal bodhisattvas, channelled by earth angels throughout the world, sharing their wisdom and guidance to receptive heart-centered egos.

In any moment, ego can ask spirit guides for signs and affirmations in nature, as it contemplates the right direction of a decision. This includes asking the body for guidance as well, where sensations of all kinds might suddenly respond to a thought, offering either affirmation or cause for deeper reflection.

The body also presents itself as nature, ready to evolve under enlightened leadership. An ego that has lost its self-importance, and incorporates the principles of right action, can suggest to the body new rules of functioning that both heal and lead toward deeper fulfillment.

Acknowledge not-knowing with awe versus shame. Assume full responsibility for leadership despite innocent ignorance. Humbly ask for guidance from the crown, then act in full consciousness with refined love.

Innocently ignorant,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: How to Manage the Internal Dialogue

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Watch out for Bobby the Flyer!
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

The internal dialogue is that seemingly nonstop chatter in the backdrop of the mind that constantly judges everything and everyone, particularly one’s self! Carol Tiggs, Carlos Castaneda’s counterpart, as the Nagual Woman, once called it Bobby the Flyer, whose incessant lyric was: “I’m so bad!!!!”

Carol’s Bobby the Flyer issues from the shamanic mythological origin and function of the internal dialogue in humans: an extraneous predator that feeds off the negatively excited emotions generated by the voice of criticism and judgment. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico believed that this entity, whom they labeled the Flyer, influences our minds and bodies, through the internal dialogue, to ensure a steady supply of tormented emotions for its consumption.

This raises the phrase, feeding off negativity, to a whole new level. We certainly experience ourselves feeding off negativity when we find ourselves in a bad mood, as the internal dialogue assigns every perception we have with a negative thought and emotion, which can either eat away at us in depression or feed our aggression.

Carlos Castaneda taught that this Matrix-like dynamic corrupts the  true magical nature of human nature, as it becomes shrouded and frozen in negativity. Typically, humans, though entranced by the negativity of the internal dialogue, compensate with materialistic delusions of freedom and satisfaction. Carlos jokingly called us complacent chickens in a chicken coop, unaware of  the predatory nature of our true predicament.

On the positive side, this compromised energetic stalemate has generated for us a solid body and world, which offer us a great opportunity to refine our energetic essence to reach higher vibrational levels, as our minds seek liberation from this embodied negativity.

The restoration of our true magical beingness, experienced as awe, optimism, joy, and lightness of being, requires that we neutralize the impact of the internal dialogue. This begins with stating one’s intent to consciously assume control and direction of one’s mind. The realization of this intent assumes many forms.

Though I may not have control over the thoughts that pass through my mind’s eye, I can control the thoughts that I choose to look at. This is the essence of the core Buddhist imperative of non-attachment. If I don’t grasp at a thought—that is, engage a thought that automatically presents itself in a process of active thinking about it—it simply floats by without impact.

This is the essence of concentration in meditation: releasing one’s self from riding the automatic chain of associations that spring from attaching to a thought, volitionally returning one’s attention to one’s choice of focus instead, such as the breath. Not engaging the internal dialogue, with active attention, neutralizes its impact upon the subconscious mind, the law of attraction center of the human psyche.

The subconscious, when time is not taken for self-reflection, simply activates energetic programs that construct our reality and determine our emotional states. If negative self talk is delivered to the subconscious, it may result in feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, as well as fear of others, who seem so powerfully superior and threatening.

Alternatively, kind and loving messages of self-acceptance, volitionally delivered to the subconscious, may result in a positive, adventuresome outlook, as one becomes excited with the experience of living in the now. Realize that though this might be a coveted state of being, the familiar world, rendered by habitual attachment to the ever-defining drone of the internal dialogue, may be frightening to let go of. Freedom requires the awe and courage to enter new worlds of possibility.

The internal dialogue can be highly seductive. The ego might mistakingly believe it can engage in communication with it without harm. This is an ego inflation. As soon as one enters into debate with the internal dialogue, it wins. Its weapon is to grab your attention, and once it has that, it wins every time! Rationality ought to be more humble.

Beware of the reasonable offerings of the internal dialogue, which can sneak in like a Trojan horse spouting perfect logic. Better to shift attention to positive messages to the subconscious mind, than to expend one’s energy in debate that actually reinforces old programming. As the I Ching suggests, the best way to combat evil is to not engage directly in a confrontation with it but to make energetic progress in the good!

Do not attach to the idea that the internal dialogue will simply go away. It is in endless supply. We cannot control the world of thoughts we live in, which constantly seek inroads into our attention, but we can let them be. Simply don’t empower them any further by naively gifting them the energy of your attention.

If the internal dialogue generates a frantic beta brainwave state of incessant negative thought, remember the first-aid alpha brainwave breath, which will very quickly release you from its clutches. For as long as necessary do this repetitive breath: an inhalation into the belly to a count of 8, hold for 8, exhale to the count of 8, hold for the count of 4, repeat the cycle.

All attention on the count and sensation in the body. Breathe until your consciousness is free, then relish in the calm. No easy road to freedom, just keep on breathing and you’ll soon be free!

Freedom,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: I See Myself in All Others

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Love the whole…
Artwork © 2022 by Jan Ketchel

I am deeply optimistic about our world’s survival. The challenges we face represent a grand adventure in the evolution of consciousness and the refinement of love.

Currently we are in the grip of a global mental virus that has undermined the cohesion of our consensus reality, evident in the extremely polarized interpretations of reality competing throughout the world. Conflicting views on the treatment of the physical virus, Covid-19, clearly illustrate this point.

The mental virus that is afflicting us has even fatally wounded many intimate family relationships, the bedrock of civilization. Most disturbing has been the failure of communication even between friends and family to bridge this deep divide.

As a therapist, I have experienced this failure of reconciliation with even the most caring of relationships. At this stage, calm, rational communication is trumped by this mental virus. Individuals are so sure of their interpretations of reality that communication is limited to argumentation and the intent to convince.

The time for successful communication to promote communion of polarized opposites has not arrived. Indeed, communication, however well intentioned, is simply not effective at this time. Other processes are currently in motion that must be completed before the ingredients for effective communication can be joined.

Earth itself is engaged in a major transformational process. Transformation requires first a course of breakdown of what is before a reformation of those materials can be accomplished. In alchemy, two major operations that accomplish breakdown are calcinatio and solutio.

Calcinatio is the destructive force of fire. Currently we have a winter fire burning in Big Sur. Last week we had the volcanic explosion that devastated the island of Tonga and was felt around the world.

Solutio is the dissolving power of water as it floods the Earth. Currently, Iran and Zambia are dealing with severe flooding. January 2022 has already seen flooding in South Africa, Madagascar, Uruguay, Peru, Brazil and France. Will Russia dissolve the autonomous country of Ukraine, with its military might swelling at its border, portending the flood of invasion?

The operations of calcinatio and solutio, in human terms, are the expression of passionate emotions that seek to break down the status quo through heated verbiage and flooding of emotions. Humans, physically constructed of the materials of Earth, are behaviorally reflecting her transformational process, currently in the destructive phase.

Separatio is an alchemical operation that separates the broken down materials into their component parts. This is a process of differentiation that values the purity of unique ingredients. On the human front, these are the separatist, or xenophobic, movements that seek to cleanse their enclosed borders of those who seem different from themselves.

In human relations, all three of these operations are concurrently active. These forces of breakdown and separation are all precursors to coniunctio, the alchemical stage of union, where all previously broken down and separated elements are rejoined in a new chemical bonding.

The forces currently active in nature, and human nature, will eventually reach this stage of union. However, that stage has far from arrived as we are still in the midst of breakdown and differentiation. How does one then hold together, with self and other, in such a time of disintegration and separation?

Do not try to force union. Reason cannot contain the forces of destruction and differentiation. Nonetheless, love—the ultimate glue that holds together the oneness of everyone, and everything, at the subtlest energetic level of being—is ever-present, regardless of the alchemical processes currently dominating the world stage.

Rather than bad rap, laugh at, marginalize, or hate those who passionately oppose me, can I see myself in all others? Every attitude, emotion, thought, and belief that I see expressed by another, that I personally differentiate myself from, is actually in me too, somewhere, however dormant. Can I find it, examine it, value it, and include it in my own wholeness? This, I can certainly accomplish within myself.

Though we may not be at the place of union without, can I hold onto the most subtle truth of our oneness within? In wholeness, all belong, none can be eliminated. This ultimate truth is expressed clearly in the revelations of transpersonal psychology and subatomic physics.

Thus, those who heap aspersions upon me are as much a part of me as those I asperse against. Though we might at present be quite separated and unable to communicate, I can still feel love and compassion for all in our interconnected oneness.

Union, like separation will have its day. In the meantime, hold onto love, especially for those you must now oppose.

Love always,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Belly Breath Beta Blocker

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There’s nothing like a calm belly breath…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Beta brainwaves are active when we think, hence, they are the dominant brainwave of waking life. Typically, our consciousness is preoccupied  with an internal dialogue that operates semi-consciously, as it judges, categorizes, projects possibilities, and relives lived experiences.

The subconscious mind treats the mental scenarios generated by the internal dialogue as actual facts and prepares the body to cope with their impact. Hence, the mere anticipation of an upcoming performance might generate a fear, which triggers the release of adrenalin to gear up for the challenge, as if it were happening now.

The resulting constriction in the body is accompanied by shallow breath. In fact, if one observes one’s breath when engaged with the internal dialogue, one is likely to notice both shallow upper-chest breathing and modestly long periods of holding of the breath.

These breathing patterns reinforce to the subconscious mind the presence of a danger that requires a sustained state of anxiety. The subconscious does not think rationally, it acts, based upon the body sensations and mental imaginings it is presented with.

Cognitive behavioral therapy capitalizes on this dynamic of thought-generating feeling and behavior by encouraging one to consciously control one’s thoughts. Mainstream medicine may prescribe beta blockers, a class of drugs that control the impact of adrenaline on the body, particularly the heart.

Abdominal breathing shuts down the internal dialogue, as it introduces alpha brainwaves to the body. Alpha is a restful, calm, relaxed brainwave. When in meditation, alpha is experienced as a mindful state of presence that does not attach to sensations, feelings, or mental meanderings. In alpha, one consciously removes attention from the internal dialogue.

To consciously introduce alpha brainwaves via the breath, focus on the belly for the entire breath. Allow the chest and upper chest to remain completely dormant. Imagine the belly to be a balloon that you slowly fill up to capacity, hold, and then release. Abdominal breathing is also called diaphragmatic breathing, as the diaphragm pushes downward as the balloon fills up.

Specifically, count to the count of 8 during the inhalation, hold for the count of 8, then exhale fully to the count of 8. When you complete the exhalation hold the breath for a count of 4, then repeat the pattern, beginning with an inhalation to the count of 8.

This pattern of 8-8-8-4 can be repeated for as long as one feels comfortable. Notice the resulting shift in mental, emotional, and physical states. Of course, feel free to modify the count as needed to fit your comfortability.

In fact, just practice taking a deep abdominal breath or two at any time, and notice how it breaks one’s fixation upon an anxiety-generating thought, feeling, and mental state. Achieving this calm with the introduction of alpha waves can allow for a more useful contemplation than the unnerving mental activity of the internal dialogue.

8-8-8-4,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Technology of Love

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The refinement of love…
Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

During his journeys in infinity, Bob Monroe came to understand that we, in our world, are charged with refining the heavy, raw materials of love, which we are all endowed with, into a very high-frequency, subtle energy that can traverse the highest levels of subtle being.

If we consider that life is a progression—from living in a densely packed energy container, known as a physical body, to a more subtle high-frequency energy state known as the soul body, as we transform from physical to pure spiritual existence when we die—then it is self-evident that the love we experience in physical form must be refined to a much higher subtle vibration to continue to accompany us in our evolutionary journey beyond physical life.

We are all programmed at birth to seek attention. Receiving “good enough” attention initiates the journey of refining our love potential. If we survived childhood, the most basic need of feeling loved, regardless of how compromised, was satisfied enough to allow life to progress.

Love in these primal stages of life is highly dependent upon the provisions of sustaining material resources and consistent, connected caretaking. The lower chakras of the human energy system are the centers connected to love in this dense physical form at this stage of life. Thus, the safety of a secure home, together with the nurturance of caretakers, is the focus of love.

Childhood is a stage of normal narcissism, as the dominance of one’s dependency requires one to see others as need-fulfilling objects. The existence of other as a separate being, with their own needs, requires a physical and emotional maturity unencumbered by the dominance of outer dependency.

The bridge between the lower and upper chakras is the heart. The heart is the major transformer of love, from dense material dependence to the lightness of connection beyond narcissistic need. Just compare the heaviness of sadness and anger at unmet needs to the joy and exuberance of sharing with a resonant being. 

How does the heart perform such a transformation of love energy? First and foremost, it is necessary to allow oneself to feel one’s feelings within the containment of the heart. Typically, the intense emotions of need, wanting, and disappointment burst out from the solar plexus, bypassing the heart, landing at the throat chakra, seeking verbal expression.

This energetic rush often causes the throat to lock, like a tripped electric circuit overwhelmed by the intensity of energy presented to it. Unrefined emotions are either trapped in the throat or result in powerfully expressed verbal demands upon others.

Emotion felt in the caldron of the heart can be transmuted through heart centered breathing. Breathing into and out of the heart performs a netting effect that Jan was taught during a meditation, where a net runs through the heavy clumps of emotion, promoting a lightness and free-flow of energy.

With the heaviness of emotional energy somewhat lightened, one is freed to recapitulate the experience that generated the intense emotion. Generally, one discovers that the root of the issue is a perceived slight to one’s value and self-importance by the actions of another. This is a stirring of the lower chakras, still attached to needs requiring material response or attention from the other person.

With refined heart-centered awareness, one’s adult self can extend loving compassion toward one’s younger self and engage in a process of helping it achieve full acceptance and understanding of the truth of its life lived. Releasing all energy of being offended, in the cauldron of the heart, as well as attending to one’s own primal needs, raises the vibration of love energy, allowing it to smoothly rise to the throat chakra and beyond.

This purified love can be expressed to another person without need for reciprocation, as the state of loving compassion radiates in one’s energetic field. This is the love that rises higher and higher in loving compassion for all beings. This pure radiance is sure to attract similar energy in resonant traveling companions.

This refined love grasps the interdependent oneness of everything and is capable of extending itself to caring for the needs of the planet, and all beings, regardless of their shortsightedness or dominant narcissism. This is the love that can help inorganic beings to release their attachment to the physical world and continue their journey forward in their energy body.

This is the love that has no need to reincarnate, as it is fully available to continue to refine as it navigates toward ultimate wholeness in infinity.

The heart is the most important technology center in which to produce this high-frequency love vibration—truly the ultimate key to the kingdom.

In loving compassion,

Chuck