Olga Szewczuk

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