Jungian Psychology & Loving Our Totality

Jungian Psychology & Loving Our Totality

I learned and started implementing Jungian psychology into my life in the early 90s. When you begin what Carl Jung called the process of individuation, it is easier to read books by his successors rather than reading primary source until you have established a working vocabulary. There is a good source to help you learn this working vocabulary available on my web site.

The book Invisible Partners, by John A. Sanford was influential in explaining the importance of developing a relationship with my Animus. This is what Carl Jung called a woman’s interior male, soul image. Male or female we each have a contra-sexual image in the psyche. A man’s interior female he called the Anima. This has nothing to do with our sexual preferences. Feminine and masculine are principles inside of each of us.

Dreams, Gods Forgotten Language, also by Sanford and Inner Work by Robert Johnson taught me about using our dreams and active imagination to help us know our many selves including our shadow. Recording our dreams is the beginning of looking inside to ask our inner Self, what Jung called God within to partner up with us. This relationship with the Self is the most important relationship we will ever have.

I’d like to share a short excerpt from my book, The Shadow Dance & the Astrological 7th House Workbook prompted by the In-house Workshop discussion I had last night with my current group of participants.

In the early 90s, a good-looking architect came for a reading. After the consultation was over, I could tell he was smitten by me because of the transference that occurs when we get into someone’s psyche through the intimacy of a consultation. They are astonished that you know so much about them from a piece of paper (their birth chart). A person can also start falling in love with their therapist for the same reason. That person gets to know things about you (not as quickly as an Astrological consultation) but it’s the same dynamic. They know intimate details about you and are being kind and attentive. I felt the same attraction towards him and we started dating.

We had gone on a date only twice when one day he invited me to lunch. He was telling me his dreams where he saw himself wanting to buy a candle shop and expand it into a franchise. He said he wanted to build his own house in the country, but still be close enough to the city. Many of his dreams were similar to my own. It was only our third date when this guy and I started to merge. A romantic euphoria had entered the relationship very rapidly. On the way back from this lunch date, we were in his SUV and he reached over to hold my hand and I put his hand in my lap and a bit too close to my chest. As we got to my driveway, he was telling me that he wanted a two-story house, and he was describing this house. He came to my side of the car and held the door open for me. As I was getting out of the car, I said out loud in a strange voice, “Well, we can’t live together. I have to live in a one-story house.” It just came out. I shocked myself and him. We walked into the house, and he was totally turned off by my remark. He hung out for a brief while and then said he needed to get back to work. He was visibly uncomfortable, and so was I. I didn’t understand why I even made the remark. He never called me again. I had totally turned him off.

I was sad and confused by what had happened. In the book, Invisible Partners, Sanford says “when a woman’s Animus speaks for her, it is a real defeat for her ego.” She will feel terrible afterward, and she’ll know something came out of her that she didn’t choose to say.

After that incident, I was invited by two couples to go to the Woodlands to hear the Moody Blues in concert. I invited my dear friend Andrew to go with me. Andrew and I are like brother and sister and have been good friends for years. That night, sitting there on the hill at the Moody Blues concert with two married couples, I felt a sense of despair and sadness inside of me. There was a full moon that night, and it was so beautiful. Andrew dropped me off after the concert and I went into my house and sat down on the loveseat in my bedroom. I asked myself, “Why? Why when I meet someone I am so attracted to like that architect do I open my mouth and say something to them to turn them off? Why do I do that? I wish I could understand.” The voice inside my head said out loud, “Because if you don’t protect yourself, I will.” I heard this voice clear as a bell. My inner male (my Animus) actually spoke to me. I had been diligently implementing active imagination to have a relationship with him, and as Jung said, “If you work with your unconscious, the unconscious will work with you.” From this and many other experiences now 30+ years later, I can verify the profound truth in that statement.

As a result of that incident, I was in complete awe and a remarkable change took place in my worldview. I became determined to take care of myself; to love and protect myself. In other words, become my own Mother and Father. I chose to proceed with caution and patience in subsequent relationships which is the only way two people establish trust. Establishing trust before jumping into a relationship ever again was my top priority.

I share this excerpt because last night in Week five of my In-person Workshop, (Relationships, Shadow Work & the 7th House) taking place, 6 of us, (5 women and 1 man) had a discussion about sex. The topic revolved around the concept of when to become sexually involved with another after meeting them. I advocate for waiting six months to get to know the person to find out what we feel about each other. Do we both want to be in a reciprocal relationship? In six months of giving and receiving, we will know much more about each other to allow for the comfort and sense of safety to grow prior to becoming sexually intimate. Nothing is a guarantee, but it gives us a good start when we know that we like each other enough to continue to get to know each other. The women in my class mostly agreed with me and the man in our group shared his thoughts of being a younger man and what he feels now as a more mature man. We had all observed people that aren’t commitment-oriented and have sex whenever and with whomever they want to. That is their prerogative and there are certainly exceptions, but if we want to value ourselves and be cherished or respected by a partner, I have concluded we should wait until we feel safe and know each other better. In this day of fast-food relationships, it is clear that a lot of emotional pain and low self-esteem is incurred by entering into intimate situations prematurely.

I woke up this morning thinking about the workshop conversation. Having lived almost 72 years on this planet, I also believe we are all the same when it comes to love. Regardless of whether we are a man or a woman, gay or straight makes no difference. It is human nature that makes us crave what we cannot have. It is also our nature to disdain anything we are given too easily. We bolt when someone comes on too strong before we even get to know them as it’s uncomfortable. The other possibility is we end up marrying them because we are flattered and caught up in the euphoric infatuation stage not because we respect, admire, care for or really know them. Just like a kid with a new toy, we are thrilled when we get it, but we also get tired of it quickly. In the same way in a relationship, either we take the time to develop a real loving, caring, relationship of reciprocity or the new wears off quickly and we wonder what we ever saw in them. One guy said to me, “You don’t know me, you put me on a pedestal.” I was so in love with him that it was obvious. Years later, I can now say what I felt for him wasn’t love at all because I didn’t know him.

Couples go through numerous ups and downs for many years to get to true love. Our shadows will surface once we tie the nuptial knot as no one can act out their persona indefinitely. As soon as our differences and human flaws are exposed, we may become disillusioned. The unconscious of both people will facilitate arguments and polarizations so that we can differentiate from each other. Its goal is to make the relationship a conscious union instead of an unconscious identification which Lévy Bruhl called participation mystique. We will be disappointed after the new wears off, so expect it. Now we each have the task of loving another imperfect human being and the golden opportunity to see the unknown and unlived parts of ourselves. We will see our foreign and buried parts come to the surface by the mirrors provided in the relationship if we have the self-knowledge and ego strength to realize what is occurring.

How can we love anyone if we cannot love ourselves? Our totality, the dark and the light inside us and then share ourselves authentically and vulnerably with someone else. Jung says,

“To love someone else is easy, but to love what you are, the thing that is yourself, is just as if you were embracing a glowing red-hot iron: it burns into you and that is very painful. Therefore, to love somebody else in the first place is always an escape which we all hope for, and we all enjoy it when we are capable of it. But in the long run, it comes back on us. You cannot stay away from yourself forever, you have to return, have to come to that experiment, to know whether you really can love. That is the question— whether you can love yourself, and that will be the test.”
— Carl G. Jung
Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939, Vol. 2, pp. 1472-1474

We can also look back and see how we were not loving ourselves; where we didn’t ask questions; we didn’t exercise caution and patience. Patience is a key word for the sign of Taurus. To develop self-love, we can implement both the Taureans needs for safety and security and the Librans needs for intimacy and balance. These psychological needs of the two signs ruled by the planet Venus are good guides to know what we all need to give and receive love with another person. There are no short cuts to self-love, only detours as we go through our lives learning from experiences. Through it all the Self is guiding us to individuate — to become the complete person we came here to be. Shadow Work with our partner helps us learn to love all of ourself. As Jesus said, “You will love others as you love yourself.”

Join me for the next 6-Weeks ZOOM Online WEBINAR
Relationships, Shadow Work & the 7th House
OR an In-Person WORKSHOP in Houston, Tx
For a schedule of events go to shadowdance.com/scheduled-events

For a detailed COURSE DESCRIPTION click here.
(An mp3 + handouts will be sent to you if you have to miss any event)

This course is about relating to ‘others’ and is not just for couples. ALL relationships will improve when you learn about your Shadow self coupled with learning about your Astrological Archetypes that are inherent in your psyche.

Carl Jung explained the opposites and their inherent dance. This dance is in YOU! Learn to share it in a balanced way with partners, friends, family, anyone you interact with regularly. BOTH PEOPLE BENEFIT by a more conscious approach to relating.

CALL to register: 281.799.2900 or shadowdance.com/scheduled-events

Zoom id OR my address will be sent upon registration. Please email (time, place and date) for Birth Chart to: rebecae@shadowdance.com

TESTIMONIALS:
 “I’m going to stop going to my therapist.  It doesn’t pay anymore to go to a therapist as this is all I need. I am doing more here, than I am there. Honestly, I’m putting a pen to the paper and I am reading and learning. I am so glad I am doing this.” 

—Krysta E

“It’s been really interesting in my car ride home, after these classes. Stuff that we talked about bring up a lot of examples and things for me to analyze in a good way, so I really appreciate this class. Depending on where you're at in wanting to be honest with yourself, that's another layer to the work as well.” — Vanessa P

A delightful SYNCRONICITY OCCURRED TODAY.

I was cleaning off my desk and found an email I had printed from Layla Rothrock. It was below a bunch of papers and I read it so it gave me the idea to include what she said in my graphics for this ENews. This is what she wrote after reading Aprils ENews which was called Communication is Everything!

Thank you. I read this and realized just how far I have come, by what you have taught and the lessons in your workbook. He’s like me and I am like him more and more. I have realized we are like one now. Thank you for the tools that I have used to repair my relationships. Love you, 💕 Layla

Suddenly, I hear a notification sound on my Imac from facebook. I clicked on it and this below is what I saw FIRST, a post she had just then posted.

This photo and Layla saying, Can't believe that we were married 7 years ago today. How the time has flown by! Happy Anniversary Todd Rothrock.

Wow!!! What a cool synchronicity as I had already completed my artwork and was now building this Enews to send out. What a lovely photo of their marriage day and a cool synchroncity that tells me to keep on keeping on.

“My favorite part about being an Astrologer is helping my clients become aware of the birth chart as a map of their soul which manifests from day 1. As Jung said, We are not born tabula rasa, blank slates. You will understand this completely when you have a consultation with me. My goal is always to help you forgive the past and let go. You are in charge of living your individuality in a creative way that is life enhancing, instead of repeating endless patterns and feeling victimized by your fate.” — Re

For consultations with Re call: 281.799.2900 
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