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Tess' Journal
12/30/2009
Enjoying the 'Now'
It is the end of the year, in fact the end of the decade which is troubling to me since the 2000 New Year’s party I gave seems like about two years ago. Time speeds up as we age, which is an interesting idea to ponder.
I have not found an older person who says time drags. Maybe there is one out there? My father, before he died was usually ailing with one ache or pain but still said time just got faster and faster. Once, my son postulated that since time is relative and as we age each increment of time is a lesser percentage of our life than at an earlier time, time seems to contract and become shorter. That is as good a guess as any I have heard so far.
It is sobering, especially as life marches on and opportunities remain in a safe deposit box, unworn, unseen, unlived. And then some just disappear altogether. Joining the circus doesn’t seem like an option any longer. But maybe happiness/fulfillment/meaning comes from simply enjoying and tasting the “now” as so many books and gurus would have us believe. Now seems impossible if bombs are going off outside or my young child is hungry and the pantry is empty. Life is complex, that is one thing I am pretty certain of—and one other thing too. In fact the only thing I am really certain of is that there is a larger, stranger, wilder, funnier, more mysterious and more layered reality than one is able to know. Something is there, something that one can only get hints or glances of, not something that can be photographed, made into doctrine or snake oil. That is all I know.
5/20/2009
My Newest Book
I am happy to report I have just finished seeing the final proofs of my book, Sacred Dream Circles: A guide to facilitating Jungian dream groups. This book took almost five years to write-which seems like a long time to me.
When I write I do it quickly. Then I hate the material for about a year. Then, when I look at it a year later or so, it isn't quite as bad I thought is was so I begin the rewriting and editing process. Then I hate it again. Then I ignore it for another year. Next, I get the courage one day to read it once more, and I see there is a salvageable book buried somewhere within the muck of bad writing. I edit some more. This process continues until I can't stand it anymore, I give up and let the thing go-imperfect and "as is".
Both of my books were identical in this way-truthfully I wrote each one in just a few months but it took the next four and a half years to come t o peace with what I had written. Of course, some editing was necessary and helpful, but by and large the work wrote itself.
I use writing in many of my seminars and retreats. I find putting words to thoughts and feelings is therapeutic and informs the ego of what it did not yet know-much like a dream. Writing will "tell" me how I am and what is truly roiling around within my soul many times when I am otherwise dim and dull. This type of therapeutic writing is how I began to find my professional writing voice.
I have written a handbook-a chance for regular people, as well as professionals to try a dream circle. Dream groups are a lot like singing in a choir: in some ways simple and easy and in other ways truly challenging to achieve a level of expertise. The dream group needs harmony, a musical score, practice, and ideally, a leader. In this way an achievement is accomplished-a group effort that is uplifting, ene rgizing, and wondrous. Dream circles work better when some parameters are followed which is the basis of Sacred Dream Circles. I will announce the printing schedule in my next blog.
Have some of you found dream circles meaningful? Or have some of you discovered the magic of writing?
5/7/2009
Dreams in Counseling
Last week I taught a class at the Southern Methodist University Graduate School in the Counseling / Psychology Department. I was asked to present on “Dreams in Counseling”. The students were young, respectful and seemed relatively interested in my lengthy evening presentation; but sure enough - one common attitude about dreams presented itself - the one that haunts the collective mind-set with ubiquitous tenacity.
People, in general, even those in the mental health professions have relatively no idea how revealing and personal dream material can be. I have colleagueswho will not allow a class member or workshop participant to share a dreamin a public setting because opening the psyche in such an unprotected environment can leave the dreamer at too much risk. It is fashionable to make fun of dreams, ridicule people who pay attention to them, forget them, malign them and call them (often) weird or stupid. This combination, found in public seminars and classes, that of on the one hand curious, open and naďve people eager to share dream material and on the other hand, cynical, defended and sarcastic people too scared to face what may want to surface from the underworld a rather challenging combination in which to navigate.
Actually, a mid-range, balanced point of view is ideal - something that bridges denial and naiveté. One does benefit from noticing and attempting to de-code dream material and one also benefits from showing prudence and caution with whom to share the images. Dreams are funny. They atomically open one to a vulnerable position whether one realizes it or not. Precisely this happened when Jung told Freud one of his most significant dreams: briefly, Jung related that he entered first one chamber, than descending stairs to enter another, more ancient chamber, and then another, until finally he reached a prehistoric cave. Freud said his dream depicted Jung’s wish to kill Freud. This type of interpretation where one simply grabs at a notion, especiallya judgmental and condemning one is quite damaging to the person brave enough to share the dream to begin with.
I don’t know if Jung had his feelings hurt - probably not, but just hearing the story evokes a sense of indignation from me for Jung.
Interpreting dreams is very tricky business. Usually interpretation of any sort is not terribly helpful, which goes against all the notions most people hold about dreams. I prefer to approach them more like art: they are to be experienced, digested, felt, heard but not reduced to “meaning this or that”. Freud’s “interpretation” short-changed the impact Jung’s dream presented - a dream that took decades to understand fully.
Some dreams are like trees - they grow slowly and given enough care and nourishment will become huge, living magnificent parts of our lives.
9/10/2008
Collective Consciousness is buzzing with politics in the United States these days
I feel like I’m velcroed to the TV—Denver fascinated me, especially since it is one of my homes towns. (My niece was in the audience at Mile High Stadium on Thursday night).
I must confess, regardless of political leanings one may have, I was moved and proud and awed and pretty much blown away to see the day arrive when a man of color is a contender for President of the U. S.
But what did Carl Jung have to say about politics? Legendarily, not much—he was reported in a few sources to being apathetic, or “out of touch”.
Now, with better research, we know nothing of the sort was true. Jung was a spy for the allies in WWII, consulted with Dulles regularly and helped write the propaganda that was dropped from airplanes over civilians in Germany at the end of the war. Jung was considered an expert on the German psyche so tapped as one to strategize a victory. Reportedly it was Jung who strongly urged Germany be divided into East and West. My own analyst, Mary Briner and Jung together would translate top-secret Nazi documents for the allies. Jung was passionately involved, albeit surreptitiously.
Several times Jung was taken to a hidden location deep in the Alps when word would leak out the Nazis were going to capture or asassinate him. So, like many he risked his life during WWII.
We’ve had wars and splitting in the Jungian world for years now, our own system is quite political. I often wonder where individuation and consciousness are located when power and greed become a subtext for analytical training. One certain step to resolve dichotomies is to begin by looking inward, how is one’s enemy only a reflection of oneself?
It’s not so easy to pick the “right side” of conflicts—but when every nerve ending screams out one is forced to follow the call—whether it is 1942 or 2008.
7/10/2008
Clown Girl by Monica Drake
Recently I read somewhere that great novels aren’t written anymore – certainly it’s true that great novels aren’t often published anymore but Clown Girl stands as a shiny exception. Through spare dialogue, brutal imagery and divine comedy Drake pulls the reader into a vivid world that is mesmerizing, unkind, post-modern and somehow redeeming.
If I wrote, “Drake compromises no character to explore complex issues of identity and role and class stereotyping within the gen X slacker world” I would give only a partial impression of her novel. Within this matrix is witty observation and hyperbolic plot lines that still provide a surreal, captivating, and yet wholly believable narrative.
The clown who makes us laugh, makes us cry, the clown who laughs to cover her own tears are all here in a tale filled with tricks—in every sense of that word. In her crisp, poetic, slight of hand Zen-like style she evokes a landscape where the images within the frame are drawn with only a few strokes of her deft ink brush. Rarely have I read anything so fresh, different, and curious.
As the person said, with a gleam in her eye, who lent Clown Girl to me insisting I would like it, “It is really good.” Well, it isn’t, it is far better than that.
6/3/2008
Weighty issues
Can you stand one more time, observations and opinions about weight..?
Believe it or not, I am going to write a bit about weight loss. It would be pretty easy to write volumes on the subject, especially since I have been working with eating disorders since 1986, but I am going to refrain from covering the archetypal, social, cultural, nutritional and emotional aspects of eating. You all have already heard all or most all of it anyway.
Here are some observations after thirty years of seeing people for therapy and analysis.
1. Body type and hereditary are more important than almost anyone is telling you or we want to believe. For fun, find some web sites with identical twins. Even ones separated at birth they are the most convincing. The congruent body types, even the fat deposits are so identical it is astounding. Twins who live very different life styles can affect a 10% to 15% difference in body weight according to one study I read. So, acceptance is one of the big factors in this collective hysteria about not if you are obese which brings me to.
2. I have noticed over the past thirty years that my unemployed wealthy clients, both female and male tend to be slim. Some have come into analysis and become slim, keeping it off, too. Of course they can afford the best gyms and trainers, but some have not used either so it cannot be only be wealth that makes the difference? It is fascinating to me to see how people, especially women who over work, have too much responsibility, pay all of the bills, fight hard battles out in the world and probably have serious home obligations as well are often pudgy. And I have observed almost every woman who retires looses weight in the first year or two of freedom. Sleeping more, stressing less, working less and getting help paying the bills and sharing the responsibilities are key ingredients for people to be able to keep weight off.
3. Exercise does not do much unless you do a lot of it over and over and over. Recently several people who had various forms of obesity and poor conditioning were taken through a training program that resulted in all of them running the Boston Marathon. This was a recent PBS special. The weight loss for the women was small, except if it was paired with food control. That is quintessential: exercise will do hardly anything in terms of weight loss (but there are countless other benefits not the least of which is ameliorating depression). The one exercise that does change shape (not necessarily weight) is weight lifting and resistance exercise. Just go to late night TV, catch a women’s body building competition and you will see all the women with the identical shape, same with the men. I do not know how much of that is due to steroids, surely not all?
4. Food control takes libido. Not the sexual kind, but rather the Jungian kind, simply defined as energy. It takes planning and drive and focus and desire to grocery shop, come up with options, cook and think ahead in order to eat well. The Re-decision therapists call it making a decision. That about says it. Deep down, like deciding to stop at red lights, one has to make a total commitment to find the necessary energy to make this change.
So, talk to me...
Tess
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"Her book is a rich compilation of dreams, stories and theory that blend well and make for delightful, almost easy reading."
– Fredrica R. Halligan, Ph.D
Watch her video reviews here
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Contact Tess for more information on her book or her seminars:
4054 McKinney Ave.
Suite #212
Dallas, Texas 75204
214-520-3663
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