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: Right Attitude

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Waking up to the news of the world today, the synchronicity that presented itself was this quote from THE MOTHER.*

“If, in the presence of circumstances that are about to take place, you can take the highest attitude possible—that is, if you put your consciousness in contact with the highest consciousness within reach, you can be absolutely sure that in that case it is the best that can happen to you. But as soon as you fall from this consciousness into a lower state, then it is evidently not the best that can happen, for the simple reason that you are not in your very best consciousness. I even go so far as to affirm that in the zone of immediate influence of each one, the right attitude not only has the power to turn every circumstance to advantage but can change the circumstance itself. For instance, when a man comes to kill you, if you remain in the ordinary consciousness and get frightened out of your wits, he will most probably succeed in doing what he came for; if you rise a little higher and though full of fear call for the divine help he may just miss you, doing you a slight injury; if, however, you have the right attitude and the full consciousness of the divine presence everywhere around you, he will not be able to lift even a finger against you…”

“I have had innumerable examples of the power of right attitude. I have seen crowds saved from catastrophes by one single person keeping the right attitude. But it must be an attitude that does not remain somewhere very high and leaves the body to its usual reactions. If you remain high up like that, saying, ‘Let God’s will be done,’ you may get killed all the same. For your body may be quite undivine, shivering with fear: the thing is to hold the true consciousness in the body itself and not have the least fear and be full of the divine peace. Then indeed there is no danger. Not only can attacks of men be warded off, but beasts also and even the elements can be affected.”

Be so empowered,

Chuck & Jan

*Taken from the book POWERS WITHIN, Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, pp. 65-66

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Childcare

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Childcare 101 prop…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Had a dream the other night, where Jan and I were caring for two young children, a girl and a boy, who had never been cared for by anyone but their parents. Try as I might to do everything right, I’d flushed a toilet in one bathroom, which disrupted the water pressure in another bathroom where the little girl tried to flush. Flushing didn’t work for her and she became traumatized.

We were all once children. Our bodies, and some parts of our psyches, became adult. But parts of us are still the innocent, naive, shy, frightened, excited children we once more fully were. Perhaps those parts never grow up and transform. Perhaps the adults we become must assume childcare for our inner family. Perhaps that’s what it means to become a responsible adult. Perhaps that’s what wholeness and integration really mean.

Of course, this does not mean that adults should be bound to childish entitlements. Needs must be appropriately met, but neediness or demandingness are not to be catered too.

Children, inner and outer, may bear the wounds of trauma and unmet needs, which require adult intervention to provide necessary healing.  However, adults must be careful not to become codependent to victimized parts. The horror of trauma is not healed through reparation or compensation.

The healing of trauma requires adult support as the traumatized child regains equilibrium, as it fully experiences and knows the facts of its personal history. Acceptance of the truth frees the child of the trauma and allows it to blossom. Catering to the dysregulated emotions of trauma only further entrenches one in victimhood.

Adult relationships must contend with child parts. Every adult has inner child parts that projectively feel entitled to attention from ‘parent’ partners or others in life. We may look physically like full-fledged adults, but inwardly we are a composite of many developmental stages.

The challenge is to individually assume parental responsibility for our own inner family. The expectations we place on partners or others frequently originate from our own child parts. Maturity is willingness to acknowledge and assume responsibility for what is ours and not expect another to care for it.

Nonetheless, with consciousness we might agree to be partners to our partner’s healing journey. To hug the wounded child part of another might be a helpful healing support, if voluntarily offered. However, to insist on a partner or another person taking care of a wounded part, or insistently feel entitled to care, entrenches and empowers victimhood. Healing cannot proceed under such conditions.

Ultimately, needed childcare must be provided by the adult self, who becomes the true parent to all the parts of the personality. Parents and partners provide the matrix that activates the issues of the child, but only the adult self can truly care for, heal, and lead the whole self, with all its component parts, to fulfillment.

Caring,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Heat wave reading!

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The above link explains what is happening in the world environmentally and in terms of the utter disintegration of morals. From a rich Hindu understanding of cycles of time, what we are experiencing now is objective and far transcends the foolishness of blame, which is rampant in our world today. The year 2025, only 6 years away, represents the completion of the Kali Yuga age, the darkest period in human civilization that accompanies major environmental transitions on a planet wide level. What is rapidly changing is inevitable. We are at the completion of the darkest of dark times, which will be followed by a regenerated civilization, whose consciousness will move gradually toward a new Golden Age. This conception of cycles vastly contrasts with the notion of evolutionary progression as linear. From this cyclical perspective evolution progresses in a cycle that ultimately regresses. We are now at its lowest stage of regression. As the last placed 1960s Mets used to say: “The only place to go is up!” And voila! In 1969 the rock bottom Mets became the Miracle Mets, winning their first World Series.
 
Today, we celebrate the landing of the Apollo astronauts on the moon, 50 years ago in that miracle year of 1969, the same year that the Woodstock Music Festival forecasted a world of peace and love. So, don’t despair, the only place we have to go is up!
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Chuck’s Place: Finding Protection

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Let the light of love shine bright…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Recently, Jan and I ran into an old timer from Bob Monroe’s early days of setting up The Monroe Institute and the New Land Community where we live. He was brimming with vibrant energy and enthusiasm. I happened to mention how fortunate it was that we had just averted a war abroad.

His response was that he wasn’t aware of that and he showed no interest in even knowing with whom we had averted war. He explained that since the Vietnam War he’d taken his attention off the affairs of the outside world and focused on being present to his more immediate experience. He was filled to the brim with the fullness of life afforded by his decision to take control of where he focused his attention.

The negativity of now is overwhelming and infectious. Perhaps the method of our newfound friend to completely stop the world of news from reaching his ears might seem drastic, but as Jeanne’s channeled message of yesterday suggests, we all must find protection.

Don Juan Matus suggested avoiding interaction or any behavior that draws attention as a stranger in a strange land. The I Ching gives similar guidance to The Wanderer, who must find a place to stay at an unfamiliar inn. The disintegration of social mores at the highest level each day now renders us all strangers in a strange land.

Turning inward with the unbending intent to remain positive is a powerful protection. Negativity needs the fertile soil of reaction to feed its fire. Let one’s reaction simply be to inwardly remain positive. Let the candlelight of love be shielded in the heart. Know that its time of sharing its flame with an outer torch is on the horizon. Love will win, love conquers all.

Jeanne warns of entities seen and unseen who can influence the energy of now. She encourages to call upon protective guides and high self to guide and protect in this time of vulnerability. I offer, in closing, the Gateway Affirmation developed by Bob Monroe, perhaps the most experienced multidimensional journeyer while in human form, as a prayerful request for support in such challenging times:

I am more than my physical body.

Because I am more than physical matter, I can perceive that which is greater than the physical world.

Therefore, I deeply desire to Expand, to Experience; to Know, to Understand; to Control, to Use such greater energies and energy systems as may be beneficial and constructive to me and to those who follow me.

Also, I deeply desire the help and cooperation, the assistance, the understanding of those individuals whose wisdom, development, and experience are equal to or greater than my own.

I ask their guidance and protection from any influence or any source that might provide me with less than my stated desires.

Unbendingly positive,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Truth of the Heart

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A path with heart…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Don Juan Matus contended that in the final analysis all paths lead to the same place, death. However, a path with true heart offers fulfillment in the finite life of human form. Thus, to find the truth of the heart is central to life while in human form.

The heart has been popularly associated with the path of romantic love. Romantic love is a spiritualized quest for one’s true soulmate.  That quest is imbued with archetypal energy that generates a heightened state of awareness that erases boundaries and creates the experience of oneness or wholeness between two people.

Most seasoned human travelers come to discover the trickster ally inherent in romantic love. What is experienced in one moment as deep closeness can abruptly shift into great distance in the next.

For the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, an ally was an entity that enabled one to enter the world of non-ordinary reality. Romantic love is indeed entry into a state of non-ordinary reality. However, the ally that works its projective magic to land us there also tests us.

Are we merely hooked on the ecstatic energy of romance or does our relationship truly have heart? If it’s the high we seek, the ally will send us on many journeys of illusion. Despite the highs and lows, we remain hooked compulsively to the pursuit of the next candidate that shines with promise.

Though Cupid, as the Romans named romance’s ally, may be useful to awaken to love’s potential, only the truth of the heart can tell us if we are on the path of love. The truth of the heart is calm and clear. The truth of the heart is not swayed by romance. The truth of the heart is a feeling and a knowing of whether something is right or not.

Thus, our attachment to the heart, as the home of romance, clouds our ability to access the objective truth of the heart. This is the test of the ally. Despite the wonderment of romance, can we get calm and ask our heart the truth about our potential traveling companion?

The true nature of the heart is compassion, rooted in its knowledge of the interconnectedness of all things. Romance is in fact an experience of greater interconnectedness with someone, however, it may be so narcissistically tinged by one’s own needs that one is unable to actually see their partner.

Furthermore, the heart is the meeting place for ego Soul and High SOUL, our ultimate Soulmate. Our High SOUL knows our intent for the life we are in and can guide and support us through the trials and tribulations of life in human form. But we must be able to sacrifice the pressure of our needs if we are to get calm and be open to the truth delivered by our High SOUL.

The truth of the heart is the key to finding one’s path of heart. If a path has heart it resonates in both ordinary and non-ordinary reality. Love is constant in all realities. Romance that does not transmute into the fullness of love in ordinary life fails the ally’s test.

Love, in this higher sense, is the true energy of the heart center, which is connected to the indivisibility and, hence, compassion for all life. As well, the heart center is connected to infinity, which puts into perspective the relativity of life in human form.

From these considerations, the truth of the heart guides the journeyer to their specific path of heart, truly the journey of a lifetime.

From the heart,

Chuck