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: Beyond Belief

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Shine a light on what’s bugging you…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

If a desired change is not happening, we must search for hidden influences. Often, the thoughts of others greatly limit what we allow ourselves to become. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico lived lives of virtual anonymity to avoid the expectations of others from limiting their freedom.

The socializing effect of our family of origin, as well as how we were seen and treated by peers, becomes encoded in our young psyches. These internalized definitions can unconsciously become hardwired beliefs that contradict our conscious intent.

Perhaps a sibling was assigned the role of the smart one. By default and comparison we become the not smart one. This can extend to creativity, athletic prowess, or physical designations such as the pretty, handsome, or overweight one. Again, these internalized beliefs become subconscious rules of how we manifest physically, cognitively, and emotionally.

Outside influences actually extend to our genetic coding, which exacts its own impact upon our personhood from the accumulated experiences of our ancient family line. How often do we feel powerless over the dictates of our genes?

It is not helpful to blame anyone for anything because in doing so we surrender our power and become victims. Thus, to blame our genes, our families, or our peers for our limitations is to agree to be limited. Far better to employ our energy in discovering how we limit ourselves by upholding an imposed belief about ourselves.

Anything is indeed possible, but only if we can locate and dismantle the limiting beliefs we have accumulated throughout our lifetime. One method to achieve this is in recapitulation. We might select a vignette from our history when someone judged us negatively.

As we perform the sweeping breath, moving the head from side to side while reliving the vignette, we breathe in our own energy and exhale the energy of the other person, freeing ourselves of the negative internalized judgment that has ruled us.

Another approach to override internalized beliefs is through the power of suggestion. Only this time the suggestion comes from the conscious self, not the influence of others. For suggestion to take root, we must first achieve a deep state of relaxation. Pranayama breathing and whole body relaxation foster this.

Just the fact that we can tell our bodies to relax, and then  experience it begin to happen, underscores the control we exact over manifesting our intent. Once deeply relaxed, we state clearly and succinctly our intention. Suggestions might be: body lose weight; body restore health; brain improve memory.

Trust that the body is fully capable of knowing how to accomplish the suggestion; it simply requires the command to do so. Do not attach to the outcome. Consistently repeat the relaxation and suggestion process.

Watch for synchronicities or life events that will bring to the surface encounters with limiting beliefs. Use recapitulation to untie the knot of your attachment to an old idea, as your energy is freed for the furthering of your intent. This might even take us into our remote ancestry where we disengage from a family myth that has haunted our intended fulfillment.

Beyond belief all things are possible. Free the self from the beliefs that bind you, as you discover your unlimited potential.

Beyond belief,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Time for Self-Regulation

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Oppose the dominant energy of now… get heart centered and calm…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Unchecked impulse is the dominant energy of now. There are no signs of it letting up. None are immune from the impact of this energetic wave. Now is the time to turn inward and self-regulate.

It all boils down to intent. Intent manifests the word. Intent is the spirit of Yang (masculine energy) that attracts the Yin (feminine energy) of matter. When we tell the body to relax, it listens and releases according to instruction. But there are challenges.

Blocking beliefs are habitual instructions well-established in the body. If the entrenched belief is that “I am nervous,” the body will favor this established command and remain tense. This is understandable. A hardwired command may assert itself even in the face of a new order, “the body relaxes.” We must be patient and persevering when establishing new rules.

Perhaps the most challenging blocking belief is that “I don’t have the power to consciously alter things in my body.” Let this be the null hypothesis, that is, “my mind cannot change my body.” Let the hypothesis be: “anything is possible.” Next, set up the experiment.

Two times each day, calm the body with some form of progressive relaxation that focuses attention on all parts of the body, simultaneously giving the verbal message to relax. For example, notice the state of tension in your forehead, or shoulders and neck, and instruct the body to release the tension. Cover all sections of the body, head to toe.

Next, in a state of deeper calm, post-relaxation, tell the body, several times, the issue you expect it to address. A child who struggles with enuresis (bedwetting) might simply state: “body, wake me up when it’s time to pee.”  An adult with digestion issues might instruct the body to “comfortably digest the food you receive.” The conscious mind merely states its intent, the body will know what to do.

Remain persevering in this regimen for a month. Attach no expectations to the outcome. Keep the mind passive. Expectations have been proven, at the subatomic level, to bias matter. Better to remain scientific and simply see what happens. Do, however, calmly follow the daily protocol and note whatever you notice each day. The key here is patience and calm perseverance.

All issues in our lives register in our bodies as stress, which means an activation of our autonomic nervous system to fight, freeze, or flee to protect us. This hardwired reaction can be overridden with direct communication to the body that assures it that it is safe and okay to return to calm. Prove it with your personal experiment.

Too often, we insist that we must get to the root of the problem before we can get calm. The problem is, if we are activated, we will be unable to perform the mental operations needed to think clearly. The body funds survival over mental processing. The thinking brain is largely dormant, hence, ineffectual when we are triggered.

Once we become calm, we gain the clarity and brain power to understand the root of the trigger. As we process the trigger, we can continually return to calm by reminding the body to release its stress.

Outer stress resulting  from nature’s changes or political gamesmanship are surely on the rise. The opportunity here is to turn inward and access one’s personal intent to master outer challenge. All power lies within. Take up the challenge to hone your personal link to intent. Do the experiment. Let the outcome be your own proof.

Self-regulating,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Change Has Come

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At least the sun still rises in all its glory…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

We have been future shocked. In our time, before our eyes, the world has shifted to extremes. It’s really a lateral move, nothing new, simply a move to the outermost edge of the known, a comic book version of a familiar world.

We have become an alternative permutation of the reality we once knew, now overtly dominated by impulse and self-importance, supported by the speed and breadth of social media’s reach.

As a therapist, I see the pall of powerlessness and depression run through the lives of many. Often, I point out this collective dimension of these mood states, which many people tend to locate more in the immediate events of their own lives. The animal within us feels the threat we all live with, the mind interprets it more personally.

The truth is that we are in a time of great change. The wild politicians merely reflect the wild natural forces transforming the globe. The world is being reshaped into a sustainable homeostasis by nature itself. Humanity’s inflation is being schooled.

As individuals, what can we do? First, see the truth of the bigger picture. The Earth is transforming. The UN report on Biodiversity and Ecosystems, released last week, states that at least a million species are on the verge of extinction.

The human species, though hardly on the verge of extinction, is more than double what the Earth can sustain in a balanced way. The great migrations of our time reflect this truth, as natural resources dry up. Unlimited growth is not only not an option but is already being curtailed by nature’s storms.

Seeing these truths, we must practice compassion, detachment, and self-regulation. The Earth’s transformation is causing great suffering.  Compassion and kindness lessen the suffering and warm the heart. Detachment, with love and empathy, gives sanctuary to the Spirit, so vital in guiding us in these dark, uncertain times. The Spirit is optimistic, as it sees the relativity of now: all things must and do change.

Self-regulation is mind, the mental body, in partnership with its own Earthly home base, the physical body. The mind that acquiesces to right action for the self, limits the desire body’s control of the physical body. Unburdened by unnecessary wants, the physical body is available to exercise its magical abilities under the direction of consciousness.

The ego-Soul, under the mentorship of the heart chakra, can tell the body to extinguish unhealthy habits and institute evolutionarily productive behaviors. This was the real reason humans became conscious, to speed up nature’s decision making in a responsible way. At present, the ball has swung back into nature’s court, as humans have yet to mature into this privileged position.

Finally, at the heart chakra we know that we are all inseparable parts of the same whole, individual cells of the same body. As such, we have the power to influence the whole, through the living of our individual lives.

One person who finds true balance in the context of their individual life, sends out a balanced energetic wave to all who surround them. That person, as well, becomes an energetic partner of healing at a subtler level, with all the healers of the world. You may never physically meet those other healers, but energetically you are connected to and contributing to the greater good.

Yes, the change has come. See the truth, live the truth, and be empowered to advance true healing.

With eternal optimism,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Unlimited Growth

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Unlimited growth… this baby sprang up overnight!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Perhaps the one thing the majority of politicians of all political persuasions seem to agree upon is the need for economic growth. This mantra trumps reckoning with the impact of unlimited growth upon the delicate ecosystem of a finite planet.

Last week, moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, in a Washington Post editorial, politely encouraged the President to fund exploration of Mars, seeming to suggest the inevitability of Earth’s inability to house us, a somewhat codependent enabling of the sacrosanct right to unlimited growth.

Perhaps Buzz’s solution of space as the final frontier will come to pass, but I see this as an externalization of the evolutionary spirit in humans, who must turn their unquenchable thirst for growth in a truly sustainable direction.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico recognized that evolution of the human physical body had largely reached its limits and that evolution for humans was a more subtle energetic affair, in the form of the energy body. Exploration of life beyond the physical body is their outlet for the very human need for unlimited growth.

Those shamans begin with the very pragmatic observation that human beings, in physical form, are beings who are going to die. From this fundamental truth, they propose that all human beings are equal, none escape this inevitable transformative appointment with death.

Though they encourage that all find a path with heart in their journey upon this Earth, their central focus is on cultivating the vehicle of the energy body, that which launches into infinity when the physical body is put to rest. Shamans suggest engaging intent and becoming energy misers to amass the energy for this dimension of spiritual exploration, now, while in human form.

Intent is energetic instruction. Intent is the law of attraction. These are my characterizations of intent. Don Juan Matus said, quite simply, we intend by intending. Intend to dream and dreams come. If blocking beliefs prevent intending, intent is not discovered or cultivated, as we simply manifest the same old, same old. If intent is spent on materialism, it will manifest as such. Intent is not about conscience, it’s about utilization.

To intend to find the energy body with perseverance will result in its discovery. The unlimited exploration of reality and infinity is available to everyone, simply through intending it and having enough energy to go there.

Being an energy miser does not mean being selfish, as the name implies. It does mean refusing to spend one’s intent on illusion. The glamour of self-importance, in all its permutations, the black hole of worry and the fixation of power at the level of the solar plexus, are all poor investments of energetic capital. None of these promote the unlimited growth potential of the journey we all share in common.

Heart-centered truths are good investments in energy body growth and exploration, as the heart does not validate illusion, only true energetic facts.

Robert Monroe journeyed with his energy body into the future of planet Earth, perhaps two thousand years from now. He discovered that though humans still had physical bodies they rarely used them, as they had become masters of the art of intent in their energy bodies.

Everyone is invited to discover, for themselves, the unlimited growth potential at the subtler energetic body level of reality. This is particularly apropos at a time when illusion spills out of control at the denser physical level of reality.

Energetic exploration will only enhance physical reality, as energy is withdrawn from exploiting it and invested instead in furthering its evolution, where we are all headed.

Unlimited growth is indeed at the heart of the human spirit. It’s simply time for a course correction. Plant your seed of heart-centered intent and let the growth begin!

Growing,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: MirrorIng, The Heart of Connection

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Mirroring in nature…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

We can use words to communicate, but connection requires more than words. Connection is meeting in pure transparency.

The intimacy of meeting so directly can be overpowering. The removal of boundaries, at that level, recalls a state of union and oneness that long preceded the notion of a separate self.

The terror of loss of self in such encounters generates ambivalence. Though we might seek the closeness of connection, we seek refuge in the protection of small talk, roles, and prefabricated expectations and interactions. Why do we find it so necessary to hide?

Carlos Castaneda was emphatic that we should avoid looking into the mirror; at most, a brief unfocused gaze for shaving or combing of the hair. For the shamans of his lineage, looking in the mirror results in the fixation of attention upon self-reflection, what the psychotherapist of today calls narcissistic preoccupation with the self.

The more we focus upon the presentation of the self, the more we become alienated from our true selves. The more we stare at our reflection, the more Bobby the Flyer takes command, and we find more and more fault with ourselves, which leads to a state of narcissistic loathing. Why then do we hide? Because we are so damned unacceptable!

Loathing the self is then compensated for by the insatiable attention we seek for our outer presentation of self, what Jung called the persona, or the mask we wear. Regardless of how much attention it receives, it is never enough to erase the underlying belief of unworthiness of the true underlying self.

Mirroring, in the modern psychological sense, happens between two people, not one person viewing their own appearance in the mirror. To mirror with another is to feel, know, and be with the truth of one’s own and the other’s experience in the moment. A meeting of the eyes in that moment reflects an unmistakable acknowledgement of a shared experience.

Mirroring requires no words, though words might be exchanged. Words are not necessary because the knowing of the meeting has already been validated through the mirroring effect. Meetings of this kind crack the mirror of fixation upon self-reflection. Meeting in transparency, with nothing hidden, transcends judgments of self and other.

Mirroring actually requires no special skill. In fact, shamans suggest that we all have access to the direct knowledge experience of mirroring. Direct knowledge is knowledge unfiltered by the mental processing and judging of the mind’s internal dialogue.

The key to direct knowledge is inner silence, a state of mindful presence that shuts down the mental process, that is, thinking. Devoid of thinking we are treated to the experience of what is, unbiased by interpretation.

Connecting at the heart level is mirroring at the level of truth. Of course, this can be experienced as extremely romantic, where “hearts meet as one.” Romance is highly sought after for this mirroring experience of transparent meeting.

Unfortunately, romance soon becomes overwhelmed with archetypal expectations of each other, which quickly engages the judging mind. This closes down the purity of the mirroring channel between partners, who then become utter strangers. The mirroring of romance is co-opted by nature’s underlying intent to simply continue the species, not deepen spiritual connection.

Romance is a limited subset though valuable experience of mirroring. That is, while it lasts. Mirroring is possible in all human and non-human interactions. Mirroring frequently happens between humans and animals, or humans and plants. Mirroring is the basis of successful early parenting. Mirroring is the essence of true bonding.

Mirroring is the active relational tool for the current and coming evolutionary advance of the human species. It springs from the heart because the heart brings us to the true interconnected oneness of everything, which is the active principle in mirroring.

Relax the mind, suspend judgment, and mirror. See what happens!

Mirroring,

Chuck