The Art of Outgrowing Your Problems” October 20, 2017 C.G

“The Art of Outgrowing Your Problems”October 20, 2017

C.G. Jung Society Vancouver

By :Dan Keusal, MS, [email protected]

www.dankeusal.com(206) 523-1340

To get a PDF of all the PowerPoint slides from this presentation

After November 6, 2017:

Go to www.DanKeusal.com Click on “Workshops” Click on the link to tonight’s lecture Scroll to the bottom of the page, click on the link

titled “Handout”

“Fire”by Judy Brown

Photo by Dan Keusal (2014): “Bonfire, Redmond Lights Celebration”

“Knowing the difference between signs and symbols, between literal problems demanding literal solutions, and discerning that one is really being invited to a deeper dialogue…often lies outside the province of conventional behavioral, cognitive, or pharmacological therapy, and is the reason why depth therapy, psychodynamic therapy, exists.”~James Hollis, What Matters Most, p. 239

“We are so greatly tempted to turn everything into a purpose and a method…

The new thing must not be pigeon-holed…for then it becomes a recipe to be used

mechanically…” ~Jung CW13 para 19

So tonight, my intent is not to teach a “method,” not to show you “how to” or give you “steps” to be “mechanically” followed.

My intent is to evoke, to intrigue, to inspire, to honor tangents, to seize your imagination.

This approach, this process, is part of the difference between solving problems, and

outgrowing them.

evoke: from e +vocare, “to call”

intrigue: from intricare, “to entangle”

inspire: from in + spirare, “to breathe”

tangent: from tangere, “to touch”

seize: from seisen, “to take possession of”

imagination: from imaginari + ion “a mental image of something never before

wholly perceived”

“All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble…They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This ‘outgrowing’ proved, on further investigation, to require a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient’s horizon, and through this broadening of his or her outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge.”

~C.G. Jung, as quoted in Matthew Fox’s book, Original Blessing (1983) p. 25

Summary of The Quote(summary: from roots that mean

belonging to the whole)

Outgrowing, rather than solving, our problems… Requires: a new level of consciousness… a higher or wider interest, broadening of outlook. a new and stronger life urge > problem loses its

urgency, fades …

The point of entry for tonight’s lecture, the keyquote, comes from Jung’s Introduction to TheSecret of the Golden Flower (CW13).

In the introduction to The Red Book, SonuShamdasani writes that Jung receiving The Secretof the Golden Flower, and reflecting on it, andwriting the introduction for it, were “a turningpoint” in his work (p. 218).

(cont)…

Shamadasani quotes Jung: “There [in TheSecret…] the contents of this book [the RedBook] found their way into actuality.”

So we have some indication, at leastindirectly, that Jung himself thought of thismaterial as an important part of his evolvingunderstanding of how people heal and grow.

Jung:

A different light: valley and mountain top[Problem] “not repressed and made unconscious, but merely appeared in a different light, and so really did become different. What, on a lower level, had led to the wildest conflicts and to panicky outburst of emotion, from the higher level of personality now looked like a storm in the valley seen from the mountain top. This does not mean a storm is robbed of its reality, but instead of being in it, one is above it…In a psychic sense, we are both valley and mountain…” (Jung CW13 para 17)

Valley and mountain top:

Reflection exercise.

Bring to mind one problem from your life when you felt stuck in “the valley” (unable to see it from the perspective of ‘the mountain’), and then one time when after initially feeling stuck, you were able to move between valley and mountain, experiencing the struggle AND getting perspective on it…In the latter instance, what helped you move from “valley” to “mountain”?

Jung: the role of the obscure.

“When I examined the course of development in patients who quietly…outgrew themselves, I saw that their fates had something in common. The new thing came to them from obscure possibilities either outside or inside themselves” (Jung, CW13, para 18)

“We have been stopped for so many years

by not being able

to follow small things”

~Lars-Anders Hansson

Obscure, rather than obvious:


Recall one time in your life when the way through a problem came from an “obscure” or small happening, rather than from a more obvious source. How were you able to recognize this obscure/small happening as a way through your problem?

Jung: Inside, outside become the other

“But the new thing never came exclusively either from within or from without. If it came from outside, it became a profound inner experience; if it came from inside, it became an outer happening.” (Jung CW13, para 18)

Jung suggests that to outgrow a problem, we must seek the marriage

of inner and outer, one always and again leading to the other.

“Whatever spirituality is, we know from our glimpses

along the frontier with the transcendent that it wants to step over into living”.

~Ann Belford Ulanov

“The spiritual needs a locale in space and time, a body in which to live,

in the small, particular matter of our lives—the decisions, attitudes, actions, reflections

that we make every day. The other in our dreams

needs our small, dislocated ego in order to become real in this life in this world.

Dreams salute and solicit our answering consciousness.”

~Ann Belford Ulanov,Spiritual Aspects of Clinical Work, p. 302-303

Inside/outside become each other:


Write down one time when the way through a problem arose from within, and then (as Ann Ulanov wrote) “stepped over into living”? Then write down one time when the way through came from outside you, but required inward integration. How did those processes unfold?

Jung: Not by conscious willing

“In no case was it conjured into existence intentionally or by conscious willing, but rather seemed to be borne along on the stream of time.” (Jung CW13, para 18)

Compare Jung’s “not…by conscious willing,” To one of our culture’s favorite mantras:

‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way,’ about which Jung wrote:

“…the psychiatrist’s clientele in our time…so overvalues the conscious will as to believe that ‘where there’s a will,

there’s a way.’” (CW 13 para 14)

Compare also with: ‘set goals and achieve them.’

Except…too often those goals come from our “old” consciousness; they are merely a way

to defend the frightened ego’s agenda, instead of a reflection of “a new consciousness.”

Not by conscious willing


Try to recall an instance in your life when the axiom “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”…FAILED you…but something “borne along on the stream of time” (Jung) HELPED? How did you become aware of or open to the latter?

Jung: Let things happen in the psyche

“We must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this is an art of which most people know nothing. Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating, never leaving the psychic processes to grow in peace.”(Jung CW13, para 18)

Jung: “Stupid! Boring! Nothing but! ”

“Nothing could be simpler, and yet right here the difficulties begin. Apparently one has no fantasy fragments—or, yes, there’s one, but it is too stupid! Dozens of good reasons are brought to bear against it. One cannot concentrate on it—it is too boring—what would come of it anyway—it is ‘nothing but’ this or that, and so on. .”(Jung CW13, para 20)

“An unexamined dream……is like an unopened letterfrom God.” ~The Talmud

~The Talmud

Letting things happen in the psyche

(vs. “Stupid! Boring! Nothing but…”)


What are YOUR most common ways of NOT “letting things happen in the psyche”? How do you “interfere, correct, ‘help,’ negate? When have you told yourself that your psyche’s process is “stupid!”…“boring!”…or…“nothing but” this or that?

Jung: cramps, the irrational,

and the incomprehensible.

“These exercises must be continued until the cramp in the conscious mind is relaxed, in other words, until one can let things happen…In this way, a new attitude is created, an attitude that accepts the irrational and the incomprehensible simply because it is happening.”(Jung CW13, para 18)

“The universe is full

of magical things,patiently waiting

for our wits to grow shaper”.~Eden Phillpotts (British writer)

“Dandelion, Evans Creek Preserve” Photo by Dan Keusal 2015

The irrational and incomprehensible:


As in Jung’s famous story of presenting his rational patient with the “golden scarab” from her dream, what was one time when the “irrational and incomprehensible” broke through YOUR defenses? On a scale of 1 to 10, how resistant to this were you (1= accepting, 10 = resistant)?

Jung:

Including the excluded: enlargement.

“Moreover, the law of life demands that what they take from outside and inside will be the very things that were always excluded before. This reversal of one’s nature brings an enlargement, a heightening and enrichment of the personality.” (Jung CW13, para 24)

“All of us have to ask this simple but piercing question of our relationships, our affiliations, our professions, our politics, and our theology: ‘Does this path, this choice, make me larger or smaller?’ Usually we know the answer…and yet are afraid of what we know, and even more afraid of what it may ask of us…”

~James Hollis, What Matters Most, p. 71

Including the excluded—enlargment:


Write down one time when you made your way through a dilemma by letting in something or someone person which you had previously opposed? How did the reversal “enlarge” you? What about a time when you were (like Arlo in the comic strip) “living in your own BIG world”?

The Danger, saying yea to oneself,

and the most serious of all tasks

“The way is not without danger. Everything good is costly, and the development of personality is one of the most costly of all things. It is a matter of saying yea to oneself, of taking oneself as the most serious of all tasks, of being conscious of everything one does, and keeping it constantly before one’s eyes in all its dubious aspects—truly a task that taxes us to the utmost.”(Jung CW13, para 24)

The “danger” of consciousness:


When have you experienced the process of becoming more conscious as “dangerous”? What was at stake? What did you risk? How did this process “tax” you? How did it reward you?

Outgrowing your problems: summary(summary: from roots = belonging to the whole) a “new level of consciousness” “higher or wider interest” “a new and stronger life urge” See problem as a storm in the valley, seen from the

mountain top; we are BOTH “valley” and “mountain” From “obscure” possibilities (v. obvious) Not by conscious willing Inner becomes outer, outer becomes inner (“marriage”) Let things happen in the psyche; let the “cramp of the

conscious” (“Stupid! Boring! Nothing but…”) relax New attitude invites the irrational and incomprehensible There is danger. Developing self is costly. Say yea to

oneself, be conscious of everything one does.

Break…

As Good As It Gets(1997)

Directed by James L. Brooks

Screenplay byMark Andrus

“So ring the bells that still can ringforget your perfect offering

there is a crack, a crack in everythingthat’s how the light gets in”.~Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

A few key points from “As Good As It Gets”

You can’t throw your problems…down the trash chute. Your “problems” are NOT your real problems; they only

point to where you need to unlock, to go into the cracks. You must keep regular “appointments”—with yourself

(inner), the world (outer) and, sometimes, with a mediating guide.

When life asks you “Do you want to dance?,” say “Yes.” The “pills” alone…are not enough; you have to “want to

be a better man (or woman)” and to climb the mountain. You must be willing to “humiliate” yourself: to be “low,

humble,” “grounded,” and “of the earth,” to be vulnerable. Usually, when you say “I don’t know,” you do know. “This”…is not as good as it gets.

“If we feel our way into the human secrets of the sick person, the madness also reveals its system, and we recognize in the mental illness merely an exceptional reaction to emotional problems which are not strange to us”

(Jung, “The Content of the psychoses,” CW3 Para 339, quoted in The Red Book, p. 196)

“As Good As It Gets”:

Reflection exercises.

How do you keep “regular appointments”—with yourself (inner), the world (outer), and guide(s)?

Write down one time in your life when “you make me want to be a better man/woman” guided you. In what ways were you required to humble yourself in order to become better, deeper, more conscious?

A cinema-biblio list to go further/deeper

Jung, C.G. Collected Works Vol. 13 Alchemical Studies (esppages 3-19; esp pages 14-19, paragraphs 17-25). 1967 Princeton University Press.

Hollis, James What Matters Most: Living A More Considered Life. Penguin/Gotham Books (2009).

“As Good As It Gets” (1997). Tri-Star DVD. Directed by James L. Brooks. Screenplay by Mark Andrus. Starring Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear.

Other films where characters “outgrow” a problem: “Life As A House” (2001) Kevin Kline, Hayden Christensen. “Chef” (2014) Jon Favreau, Sofia Vergara

“What Do You Hear In These

Sounds”

Music & Lyrics byDar Williams

From the CD“End Of Summer”

(1997)

I don’t go to therapy to find out if I’m a freakI go and I find the one and only answer every weekAnd it’s just me and all the memories to follow Down any course that fits within a fifty minute hour

And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherentWhen I hit a rut, she says to try the other parentAnd she’s so kind, I think she wants to tell me something,But she knows that it’s much better if I get it for myself…

And she saysOooooooh,aaaaaaah, What do you hear in these sounds?And… Oooooooh,aaaaaaahWhat do you hear in these sounds?

I say I hear a doubt, with the voice of true believingAnd the promises to stay, and the footsteps that are leavingAnd she says “Oh”, I say “What?”…she says “Exactly…”I say “What, you think I’m angry?Does that mean you think I’m angry?”

She says “Look, you come here every weekWith jigsaw pieces of your pastIts all on little soundbytes and voices out of photographsAnd that’s all yours, that’s the guide, that’s the mapSo tell me, where does the arrow point to?Who invented roses?”…and…….

And she saysOooooooh,aaaaaaah, What do you hear in these sounds?And… Oooooooh,aaaaaaahWhat do you hear in these sounds?

And when I talk about therapy, I know what people thinkThat it only makes you selfish and in love with your shrinkBut Oh how I loved everybody elseWhen I finally got to talk so much about myself…

And I wake up and I ask myself what state I’m inAnd I say well I’m lucky, cause I am like East BerlinI had this wall and what I knew of the free worldWas that I could see their fireworksAnd I could hear their radioAnd I thought that if we met, I would only start confessingAnd they’d know that I was scaredThey would know that I was guessingBut the wall came down and there they stood before meWith their stumbling and their mumblingAnd their calling out just like me…and…

Oooooooh, aaaaaaah, The stories that nobody hears…and…

Aaaaaaah, I… collect these sounds in my ears…and

Oooooh, aaaaah, that’s what I hear in these sounds…and…

Ooooh, aaaaaaah, that’s what I hear in these……

that’s what I hear in these sounds…

Documents

The Art of Outgrowing Your Problems” October 20, 2017 C.G