Man & Woman – Inner Patriarch vs Inner Matriarch vs Inner Child vs Inner Parent

Have you ever liked someone, but didn’t really know why,  just that a part of them was reaching out to you, and the part in you that needed to feel needed, was eager to help.

In time, that part of you, the eager helper, fell in love with the vulnerable part in him that was reaching out.

Was it your Inner Parent wanting to protect his Inner Child?

How does a relationship like this even lift off? 

What happens when the vulnerable part in him, his Inner Child heals? 

Does this mean the relationship was doomed from the start?

A part of you wanted to stay impersonal for fear of being rejected, (your Inner Child) therefore you would be less connected as you would be protecting your vulnerable self by keeping your distance.

Another part of you wanted to be personal because you liked him, although you didn’t know how he actually felt, you wanted more of a connection, but you feared you would be less protected, in other words – vulnerable, open, exposed.

What about switching between one and the other.  You can be personal one minute, but if you don’t get the response you expect, you may switch to impersonal, where your vulnerability is protected. Pretty crazy type of relationship, that may never even get off the ground, due to the vulnerabilities of both.

Imagine a man not wanting to be smothered, and a woman not wanting to be rejected.  How could these two even get together with such opposing fears?

The woman tries to make contact on numerous occasions, sometimes leaving a great deal of distance between the contacts.  The man may perceive this as smothering, so he does not reply, she then perceives this as rejection.

What is the solution?

You may say, forget him – there are plenty of fish in the sea, so you go fishing. Unfortunately, every time you catch a fish, your focus is on him, not the fish you caught, so the fish swims off, and you’re back to square one.

I have no answers for this one, but if anyone is willing to add their 2cents worth in, I would be more than happy to listen.

This is just one of many scenarios of how inner selves can create havoc in relationships.  There is a vulnerable Inner Child in each of us, although a vulnerable child has no business controlling an adult body and mind.  This is where Voice Dialogue can be very helpful in sorting this type of situation out.

Tags: Dr. John K. Pollard, inner child, inner matriarch, Inner Parent, inner patriarch, Relationships, Switching

Who Is Living Your Life?

What Does This Inner Self Know That We Have Forgotten?

Why Do We Think The Way We Think, Feel The Way We Feel, Act The Way We Act?

Imagine hearing a voice on the other end of the phone from a person you don’t know, have never met, yet, you feel like you have known this person before.  Every cell in your body in resonating with recognition, familiarity, warmth, love, caring, yearning, wanting to be with them again,(not understanding why you feel this way) excited to have found them again, and, at the same time feeling the frustration and deep longing to just get a glimpse of them and maybe, just maybe there will be a familiarity.  You feel like you will go crazy if you don’t find some way, of meeting them.  Only when you look into their eyes, and through their eyes deep into their soul, will you know for sure. 

Are You Crazy? ……. or just delusional …….  he he he

Then you start having this conversation within yourself.  It seems like there may be a party going on in your head, with so many voices getting their two cents worth in.  Your life has just been turned upside down, and you don’t know why, or what to do about it.  

Do you just pass it off as a lonely moment connection with a charismatic voice?  I don’t think so. 

 While all this commotion is going on in your head, the ‘voice’ rings back, and you think – ahh – maybe he felt it also.

“No”  - says an unfamiliar voice in your head.

“Yes” – says another unfamiliar voice in your head.

Then the ‘voice’ calls back again, and you say to yourself,  ”well something is happening here”, and then the ‘voice’ calls again.

Right – you  think to yourself. “I need to meet this voice, don’t know how, I just know that I do.”

So you find a ridiculous reason/excuse to meet.  ”Don’t – he will think you are crazy” says one inner self.  ”Oh go for it” says another self, “what have you got to lose”.

You Meet …………….. You Now Know …………….. The Feeling Is Stronger Than Ever ………..

Your heart goes out to this soul, you feel the pain and loss, many losses, and you just want to bundle him up, hold him, and tell him that everything is going to be okay, although he doesn’t remember you, or does he?  

Does He Recognize You?

Yes – I think so.  No – I don’t know.

So you spend the next almost five years thinking about him, dreaming about him, sending him healing, love, energy, messages, without getting anything in return.  The sadness overwhelms you, when you come to the realization that he does not remember, (as tears flow down your cheeks) and may not remember in this life time.  You may have to wait, to be together, maybe in the next life. (if you believe in many lives) Then it occurs to you that there are obviously still lessons to be learnt, by one or both of you.

My Inner Child is reaching out to his Inner Child – yet he does not feel this.

I wish I could forget.  

I wish I never remembered.

I wish he would remember.

p.s. – This is fiction, although it could be true, the mind boggles.

Tags: Future Lives, inner child, Inner Voice, Past Lives, Relationships

Voice Dialogue – A Creative Force

The enemy is no longer “out there” but lies deep within each of us – heal your inner parent first.

When The Words Say ‘Give Up’ – Hope Whispers ‘Try It One More Time’  :)  :)

Our basic assumptions are developed from childhood, family, teachers, books and so on.  We hold them so deeply, that we become identified with them, and when these assumptions are challenged, we defend them with great emotion.  Like maybe, a computer program – it takes over against the best of intentions, and will produce it’s own intentions.

True dialogue is a creative force, and its object is to generate new relationships, as everything is part of a whole, and relationships are what give meaning to the parts, what makes us feel connected to the whole.

The main culprit is our own thought process itself.  The battle between inner parent and inner child.

Whenever we intend to do something, we often unconsciously feel a resistance trying to prevent us from doing it …… the opposite can also be true.

Have you ever come to a conclusion that something, anything, is over, or never was, won’t work, not meant to be, has no chance of coming to fruition, yet – the voice inside perpetuates the impossible. Like, it isn’t even you – another has jumped into your body and is driving your mercedes.

Inner Parent vs Inner Child 

Inner Parent

Your Inner Parent reflects qualities received through your formative years from your own parents, siblings, teachers, friends, actually anyone whom you had contact with that impacted on you, positively and negatively.

Inner Child

Your Inner Child is the bubbly, happy, fun, personality, with feelings and emotions.  It lives in the present, no real concern for the future, and doesn’t bother too much about the past.  Wants to have fun now.  Likes to get it’s own way, just like children do. Your Inner Child has the same characteristics as it did in it’s formative years, from birth to age seven.

So, who is the strong one within?  Is it the Inner Parent, or the Inner Child?

Haven’t you ever heard a conversation going on in your head and wondered what was going on?

Maybe you haven’t even been aware of it.  Well, become aware, because it is your Inner Parent and Inner Child having a conversation.  Sometimes there is a win/win situation, or a win/lose situation, or a lose/win situation or a lose/lose situation.  Wouldn’t you like to know what it’s all about?

We are constantly producing situations and things we do not intend, and then say “… how on earth did it get to this point – and how can I go back to the beginning and start again …”  We are just not aware that it is our deeper, hidden intentions which produced it, and, consequently, we keep on perpetuating it.  Relationship is what creates anything and everything.  It can be good, it can be bad, it can be neither good nor bad – just is.

Dialogue does not require people to agree with each other. It encourages people to participate in a bubble of shared meaning that leads to aligned action. It is a non-judgmental curiosity, its prime directive is being able to see things as clearly as possible, not through a fragmented process.

As each of us is born into a dysfunctional family of sorts, the process of dialogue may free us from real or imagined self-imposed limitations, and as a result, we may even recover self-respect, self-worth and self-esteem.  Imagine trying to converse with another, yet, only having a one way communication, which is a contradiction in itself, because, without the other responding, you are not having a communication at all, you are only having a dialogue with the selves that live within you.

Imagine also, all this going on, on top of a self-respect, self-worth, and self-esteem issue.   Is this just going to reinforce the belief that it is YOU that has the problem? Or, maybe it will open your eyes to the fact that you have NO problem (self-respect, self-worth, self-esteem issue), because you would never act in a way which may injure the Inner Child of the other person. You, as an Inner Parent, would never ignore another human being for any reason.  You would communicate to get to the root of the problem – if there is a problem, wouldn’t you.  I know I would.

Then your mind starts ticking – tick tick tick – you begin to see the picture differently.  It is now reversed.  You are the perfect one, just as you are, and then, the penny drops, you are not broken after all, what a sigh of relief, when you come to the conclusion, that it is the person not conversing, the one who is shouting out so silently, that they are in need of a self-worth, self-respect and self-esteem boost.

When I was teaching Ukrainian School, many years ago, I would hear teachers in the other classrooms shouting over their students.  Did it ever work?  NO!  If my class ever became unruly, I would lower my voice and continue teaching, the louder they became, the quieter I became, until there was silence in the room, then and only then would my voice return to normal.  It didn’t take them long to learn the rules, and it was not necessary for me to ever punish or raise my voice.  In my silence, I was asking God to come to my rescue, and he always did.  SO – next time you are confronted with a situation  where you feel like the other person is superior to you and therefor makes you feel inferior – STOP – jump into their shoes, (my mother used to always say this) and look at the situation through their eyes, from their perspective, and always keep your head high, knowing that you always do your best, and ask the higher source for guidance for these lost lambs, (you included) for it is they who are silently reaching out to you, knowing that you will understand their silent cry for attention.  oops … the reverse of this can also be true, “ah – a light bulb situation”.  As I was proof reading, the penny dropped for me also, and only the silent ones will understand this one.  he he he – thank you

A level of trust needs to be generated that will survive any crisis or difficulty.  These newfound relationships make it possible for these individuals to tolerate things from one another that they were unable to accept before, and to approach the subject and resolve any problem.  This process requires patience, dedication and determination.   It has been said that – the quality of our thinking determines the quality of our actions, which determine the quality of our results, which, in turn determine the quality of our relationships, and so on.  If one hits the gas pedal and brake pedal simultaneously, the result would produce no motion and energy waste.  In the absence of resistance, energy is not wasted and actions do not cancel each other out.

It is time for us to rethink our old beliefs and develop a new way of communicating with one another and bonding for our common purpose.  How many relationships would be saved, if we all knew how to communicate with one another, rather than talking at one another, or simply not responding at all.  The mind boggles.

till next time ………

olga szewczuk

- 0438 503 011

Tags: communication, dialogue, Dr. John K. Pollard, dysfunctional family, Hal & Sidra Stone., inner child, Inner Parent, John Nutting., prime directive, Relationships, self imposed limitations, self parenting., self-esteem, self-respect, self-worth, voice dialogue

Cycles Of The Moon

Women Are Cyclical Creatures       

Make Menopause An Adventure …… 

 Menopause brings freedom from the emotional ups and downs that accompany the moon cycles of menstruation.  Women have the freedom to feel radiantly well, with a zest for life, and completely ignore the menopausal horror stories from the past.  The second big initiation arrives, and the third and most exciting stage of life begins.

Nobody prepares you for menopause – nor does anybody explain waking at night and feeling sad or fearful for no apparent reason.  Seldom is the intensity of emotion expected, that comes at the end of the second phase of your life.  

As Women, we depend on multiple interactions of hormones in our bodies, as they exert a profound influence on a woman’s health and emotions.  So complicated are the interactions between hormones and the human body, that it is still not completely understood by science.

 A female endocrine system is an interface between body and spirit.  The way women think, feel, all our hopes and dreams, are all echoed in surges of hormones and their shifting patterns, not only from day to day, but from moment to moment.

‘They affect our view of reality’ – this is why an imbalance can create such emotional and spiritual agony.

Why is it then, that Men, and Women themselves think they should always be the same – perfect, calm, rational, reliable, reasonable, loving, caring, stable. A very unrealistic view.

 It’s not in your 40’s and 50’s  that you are likely to be faced with symptoms that  cause you grief.  It’s how you lived your life in your reproductive years that will be surfacing now, the way  you treated yourself, your diet, exercise, decisions  you made about medications – this is what sets the stage for a trouble free  transition through menopause.

A Full Moon is beautiful, yet it does not stay that way, it’s cyclical, just like a woman.

Tags: body & spirit, cyclical, hormones, Inner Goddess, inner matriarch, inner patriarch, men, menopause, transition, women

“THOUGHTS” – Subtle Guidance …..

Thinking is what we all do on a daily basis. Have you ever stopped to ‘think’ maybe we are puppets, and someone else is putting all these thoughts in our head?
Everything we participate in, and I mean everything, right down to the brand of anything we choose to buy, is a thought process. We do it automatically, and think that it is our decision – what if it isn’t. What if we are actually being told on a subtle level to do, say, have, not have, give, not give, etc. by someone else. Makes your mind boggle doesn’t it?

Every time we think of something, it manifests itself into our daily routine. All occurrences and experience are a result of our thoughts. Do we think on purpose, or are our thoughts a jumble of randomness with no direction?

“THOUGHTS” – subtle guidance …..

Are our thoughts positive? or negative? Are our thought processes more scrambled when we are troubled, sad, angry, frightened, guilty?

Understand just how important our thinking really is. If we are dissatisfied with our life, the first step would be to examine our thoughts. It is our thoughts that have brought us to where we are now, and if we are not happy with now, all we need do is change our thoughts. We need to become aware of our thoughts, and take them off automatic.

Stop the automatic thinking and … Start thinking on purpose.

We need to carefully examine what we think about, and more importantly how we think.

Our Thoughts create our Words.

Our Words create our Actions.

Our Actions create our Reality.

Thoughts are the most powerful tool in the universe and they are right there in our head.

Just imagine …. we have the power to change our reality with our thoughts.

…I am thinking … my power animal ….

Tags: inner child, inner matriarch, inner patriarch, Inner Selves, negative, positive, thoughts

Inner Matriarch, Inner Patriarch, Inner Child, Inner Goddess,

Inner Self Awareness

There needs to be an energetic balance in your life.  Just like day and night, hot and cold, sunny and cloudy, wet and dry, light and dark.  Believe it or not, we need both positive and negative aspects in our life, and within ourselves.  Let’s say you’re a good girl, a very good girl, and have disowned your bad girl side, what will tend to happen is that you will attract that bad girl in other people, males, females, pets, electrical equipment, car, house. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?  Yet, it’s true.

Have you ever had your disowned selves, turn up in animals?

Your pets maybe …..

How would you know?

How would this look?

Imagine trying to control a cat.  I’m sure many of you know that a cat has a mind of it’s own, and usually does the opposite to what you want it to do, and the more you force your views on the cat, the more stubborn it will become.

I have had cats in my life, although they did not actually belong to me, I was still the one feeding them and watching them multiply, wishing the owners would take responsibility for them.  Even though I complained at how much they were costing me to feed, secretly I loved having them around, especially the new batches of kittens.

I realised pretty soon that I was attracting the cats for my growth and learning.  As my life changed and twisted and spun out of control, the volume of cats would increase.  As my life began to show structure and calm, the cats would decrease, and that would yo yo up and down.  I could get them down to about 3 from the maximum of about 17, but I could never get them to 1 or 0.

There were times I would skimp on things for myself, but I always managed to feed the cats.  It’s like they had some kind of power over me.  I attributed greater importance to them than I did to myself.  It’s as if the cats cast a spell over me, and I was under their control, I valued them more than I valued myself.

Can you imagine one of your disowned selves turning up as a car?

Yes I said car.

Imagine a man who only buys old, cheap cars that constantly break down. He spends most of his time attending to this car, rather than his wife and children.  It is always breaking down, and he is always fixing it.  When he finally decides to get rid of it and buy another car, guess what?  You guessed it, he buys another old car that has similar problems, so that his focus is constantly on the car, rather than himself or his family.

Or! Imagine turning up as an old house.

Renovators dream, or, sane persons nightmare.

If a man doesn’t value himself or his family, this is exactly what he may do, and spend the next 20 years fixing it, renovating it, (sort of) but never completing it, just valuing it more than anything else, and maybe even losing, what he should have valued instead.  To make matters worse, imagine him living out his days sleeping in his car, the object of all that focus, time and attention.

Always remember that energies can only be balanced, they can never be eradicated, because we need both the positive and the negative of everything.  Once you become aware, you can turn one up and the other down, just remember to respect both.

Tags: inner child, Inner Goddess, inner matriarch, inner patriarch, Inner Self Awareness

Beautiful Swan Metaphor

Once upon a time

Imagine a beautiful young swan out in the pristine blue lake, keeping herself busy doing what swans do.  The sun shining, the water so still, resembling a sheet of delicate glass. 

Day after day the beautiful swan would swoon onto the lake ever so gracefully and put in a full day, then fly off home again to be with her family, only to return the next day, and the next, and the next. She was very responsible and hard working.

Then one day something changed.  A very very large male swan from a distant land, flew in to visit his sister swan, who was a friend of our beautiful swan, and when their eyes met, they fell into what some of us may call Love.  In a very short time, everyone noticed that even though our beautiful swan still put in the hours, she wasn’t in the same part of the lake anymore.  She was upgraded to a little embankment, where she was training new swans.  You see – she was sitting on one very precious egg.  She was very very happy, because you see, she was going to be a mother, and have a happy little family of her own.

It wasn’t long before the very very large male swan didn’t come around anymore.  He had his fun and decided to find another swan to entertain him.  You see ….. when he was a signet, his father did the same thing, left him and his mother to be with another swan. I guess the memory of that painful disintegration was locked in his cells, and he too deserted his little one, unfortunately, before it had even hatched.

Our beautiful swan held her head high, and did what she knew in her heart she was meant to do. She moved out of her family nest into a very small nest of her own, because she thought if she were on her own, her signets father would definitely want to be part of their lives.  She bent over backwards, inviting him over, encouraging him to be a better father than his own father was.  To no avail – he wasn’t interested.  He liked his freedom too much, didn’t want to be tied down.  Preferred to be free and have fun instead.  You see, he wasn’t much for responsibility. BIG mistake, big, huge.

Finally the big day arrived. It was time for the little signet to come into the world.  The little signet finally hatched, and she was beautiful, with eyes so big, you could swim in them.  

Our beautiful swan even encouraged her little signets father to be there at the moment she came into this world.  Hoping that once he saw her, how beautiful she was, that he would stay, that he would want to be part of a secure, warm family, something he missed out on. The beautiful swan welcomed him time and time again, and encouraged him to be part of their family.  The tears in her eyes were heartbreaking, as she tried to keep her little family together.  She was determined to rescue her signets father from his pain.  Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be.  He just wasn’t interested enough to stay around.

The beautiful swan raised her little signet all alone, without the support of the swan she was still so very much  in love with. Yes, he would come and visit their little signet, but I guess he just didn’t love her enough to be a permanent part of her life. He didn’t love her enough to give her the security he was deprived of.  He deprived her of a full time father, just as he was deprived of a full time father himself.  He flitted from one swan to another and another never settling down. Wanting his cake and eating it too.

The little signet was immersed in a cloud of love.  She received more love from her mother, than she could possibly imagine. All her family flocked to her side constantly.  She was bathed in love and attention. She grew into a beautiful little swan.  Her mother was very very proud of her, as were all the other swans in her family.  A little chatterbox, wise as wise could be.  She could hold a conversation with all the older swans. She was a very special little swan.

Our Inner Child holds the key to intimacy in relationships, physical and emotional well-being, and the creativity and wisdom of our inner selves. 

The Inner Child lives within all of us, and hidden under our grown-up personas. It’s the part of us that feels emotions, is playful, intuitive, and creative. 

We are all born with a set of unconscious patterns of behavior that psychologists call archetypes. 
Carl Jung is the psychologist who has most influenced the modern understanding of an ancient concept. 

If your life’s experiences are not playing out in the way you would like, and you are leading a relatively stagnant life – looking outside for causes is pointless. Go within. Choose growth over stagnation. 

Olga – 0438 503 011

Tags: happiness, inner child, inner matriarch, inner patriarch, metaphor, Relationships, signets, swans

Remember the days when Men were Men, & Women were Women?

Are you searching to gain something mysterious you have lost?  

Are you irresistibly attracted to people who possess traits you don’t like?  

Are you a tomato, a cucumber, or both?

Is there a strong Inner Matriarch or Inner Patriarch at play here?

strong firm cucumbers

Remember the days when men were men and women were women?  Everyone had their designated role, and life ran smoothly, they complemented each other – so to speak, until one or the other decided one day, that what their job description was, just wasn’t enough anymore.  They weren’t happy anymore with their specialised, unique positions.

juicy red ripe tomatoes

Imagine now two plants growing side by side in the garden, a tomato plant and a cucumber plant. 

One sunny morning ms. tomato plant says to the mr. cucumber plant “It’s not enough for me anymore to just produce tomatoes, I would like to produce some cucumbers as well.” 

Cucumbers’ response – “What? I have been producing cucumbers all my life, my parents and grandparents and great grandparents produced only cucumbers, now you, who has only produced tomatoes think you can do a better job at producing cucumbers than I, the cucumber expert?”

tomato - “to be fair then, you can produce some tomatoes”

cucumber – “but I like what I do, I don’t want to do your job”

tomato – “well if I’m going to take on some of your responsibilities, then you should take on some of mine also”

cucumber - “does this mean that you won’t need me anymore, now that you will be producing both tomatoes and cucumbers?”

God created man and woman with different bodies, different thought processes to complement each other.  If we were meant to be alone, and do everything ourselves, he would have created us with both male and female characteristics.  Wouldn’t he now.

lost identity

Has anyone noticed that since the job description of man and woman was put into a big wheelbarrow and turned and mixed, that we have forgotten what we were put on this earth to do.  Were there this many relationship breakdowns in our grandparents and great grandparents time?  I think not.  They knew that tomato plants produced tomatoes, and cucumber plants produced only cucumbers.  Their future generations unfortunately, thought they knew better, and look at the results.

If you read ‘Tiger & Tigress’ you will notice how strong the Inner Patriarch is at times, and ‘Tomato & Cucumber’ is a reflection of the Belief System of the Inner Patriarch.

Tags: Belief systems, creation, cucumber, future generations, God, inner child, inner matriarch, inner patriarch, man, men need women, relationship breakdown, tiger, tigress, tomato, woman, women need men

“The Invisible Force That Holds Women Back”

Inner Patriarch

Did you know that each of us has an Inner Tiger and Inner Tigress within? Carl Jung calls these Archetypes ‘Inner Patriarch’ and ‘Inner Matriarch’.

Hal and Sidra Stone write in depth about the Patriarch and Matriarch in their book “The Shadow King”.  These two archetypes, among others, can cause havoc  in relationships, especially for women.  This inner voice unconsciously influences Women’s sexuality, their power, emotions, and their role within relationships. 

Have any of you ever felt the way I did, when I realised that there was an anxious father inside me, the Inner Parent, that constantly worried about me, the Inner Child.  He didn’t want me to fall flat on my face or be rejected, get hurt, or abandoned.  He is this old-fashioned guy who thinks that I and all women need to be taken care of by a wealthy husband and kept safely wrapped in cottonwool.  These are words my late father used to say to me all the time, and when I heard it coming from within me, I thought it was just me regurgitating his words.   This was until I studied ‘Voice Dialogue’ and realised that wasn’t the case.  This person – father figure is actually part of me.  He is controlling my life.  Only when the penny dropped and I realised what was happening that I was able to change what was going on around and within me. 

A strong inner patriarch, or Inner Parent in a woman can make her ashamed and defensive in relationships.  I felt this way constantly.  I was always defending myself and justifying what I did or didn’t do.  I was a doormat with a big self print ‘wipe your feet here’.

If an animal is kept locked up in a cage for many years, it will become wild.  If the door is opened inadvertently, the animal comes out RAGING.  Her rage in her life, was a result – of living a life of PLEASING OTHERS.  A life where her needs came LAST.

Inner Matriarch

As my aware ego awakens, and I separate from my primary selves,  I literally become aware of the fact, that it is they, not I, who have been living my life.  Come and share my journey with me and discover a new key to an old block that thousands of years of Patriarchy has instilled deep within each of us.

Primary selves are those that develop to protect us in the world.  They are the building blocks of our personality.  They make us who we are in the now.

Join me next time, as we discover more inner selves, and if you would like to talk to me about your inner selves just call 0438 503011

olya

Tags: animal, aware ego, Carl Jung, doormat, Dr. John K. Pollard, hal stone, holds women back, inner child, inner matriarch, Inner Parent, inner patriarch, invisible force, personality, pleasing others, primary selves, Relationships, sidra stone, tiger, tigress

Get off the merry-go-round

Navigating Midlife

Join me on this profound psychological and spiritual journey / merry-go-round, that occurs at midlife, remembering also, that our psyche is pre-programmed to encourage us to make changes at certain ages in our life.

This is our blueprint of life, and we are always moving into and out of different stages throughout our entire lives. If this wasn’t to be – we would still be crawling aimlessly around our mothers feet.  The Inner Child, Inner Matriarch and Inner Patriarch are also very much involved and a strong part of our individuality.

Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jungs’ concept of psychological growth is a process within our psyche, encouraging us to become more uniquely individual. This process begins at midlife and continues over our entire life span, for us to acquire a fuller, clearer, unique identity.

Psyche – Greek word for soul, with its three layers – conscious, personal unconscious and collective unconscious.

• The conscious, is who or what we think we are, and contains all the psychological parts that we can control and direct willingly, like the tip of the iceberg that is seen floating above the water.
• The personal unconscious – all our unwanted desires, impulses, forbidden feelings and beliefs that we have repressed or forgotten, where all our hidden positive, creative qualities and abilities lie, just below the surface.
• Our collective unconscious is shared throughout the universe, where our archetypes lie. These deep, abiding patterns of being, perceiving, responding and behaving, remain powerful and present in all of us, although activation is required for us to become aware or them, and once activated, we recognise that we have experienced them already, yet not been aware what it was we were experiencing.

Persona – Latin word for mask.

Until puberty most of us are governed by instinct, our unconscious. Around about 14 our conscious begins to develop, by developing a strong ego and persona, until midlife, when we transform.

Jungian psychology believed that it is critical that we develop a strong ego in the first half of our lives, if we are to navigate through midlife with a smooth transition, if there is such a thing.
Our psychological health is defined as ‘balance’ between all of the opposite attitudes, desires, and ways of being, that are part of us. We find a way to integrate these opposites as we become aware of them within us.

Somewhere in our 40’s there is a shift in our psyche, as our ego loses energy, and what was buried deep, starts bubbling to the surface – we pretty much turn inside out. This is what’s called a midlife crisis, and we begin to question all the values, attitudes and assumptions that have given us meaning and certainty in the first half of our life. Our world, as we know it, seems to be crumbling around us, and we are at a loss as to what to do about it. Familiarity is now turning against us, and the opposite of what we once were is surfacing.

Jung was the first psychologist to recognise that a resurgence of individuation occurs in the middle years and continues through the rest of life. This midlife transition is a bridging time between the first half of our lives where we create a life based on what others deem suitable, proper for us, appearances for the outside world, what others expect of us, to what is important to us now.

“I made my decision to ‘jump ship’ (leave home) 3 weeks before my 48th birthday, after years of lovelessness in an empty marriage. My mother on the other hand made her decision to ‘jump ship’ (leave life) 3 weeks before her 58th birthday.”

How many others out there are struggling, denying that there is even a need for this transition. As I watch my grandson, (who will be one in a week) crawling, pulling himself onto furniture, climbing, precariously stepping from one piece of furniture to another, sometimes letting go for a moment, with a tiny startled look in his eyes and a little stiffness in his body as he is aware of an unsupported stance, and quickly grabs hold of something for stability, security. How many of us do the same thing?
Life is going to happen to us one way or another. Is he going to walk on his own, run even? Of course – just like we are going to emerge through this veil, and step into paradise.

This transition through midlife is different for everyone, as some may walk a relatively smooth path, from the first half of their life through midlife to the second half of their life. Others, may be mimicking tarzan, as they attempt to swing from the cliff to one tree then another, only to have the vines break, and they come tumbling down to the ground. Many will crawl back to the cliff, stay there a while and try again, this time succeeding, many will just stay there for fear of the unknown, only to have a big bird swoop down on you, knocking you off balance, and tumbling off the cliff, leaving life.

Take a risk – live – know that it is okay.  Wherever you are at any given time is where you are meant to be. Take the time for yourself, alone time for self-reflection.  Focus on what it is you do want, forget what you don’t want.

Love the parts of you that are out of character.  Step off that cliff, and know that you will fly.

Look in the mirror, smile, and love the person looking back at you. 

Olya

Tags: archetypes, balance, belief system, Carl Jung, character, conscious, inner child, inner matriarch, inner patriarch, Midlife, persona, psyche, psychology, self-reflection, soul, subconscious