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Thea Euryphaessa

@theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social

45 followers4 following566 posts

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TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialOct 19, 2024 2:32pm

More from Jungian, Kathie Carlson on approaching the unhealed child within.

Perhaps the most difficult piece of grief work inherent in coming to terms with the unhealed child is the adult recognition that something really has been lost, that the child's level of need can never be met in its original context. We will not ever have that good childhood that might have optimally nourished our true selves. This does not mean that the childhood experience cannot be addressed or healed, only that new channels have to be found to meet this part of ourselves.

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Deeper questions of meaning come up when the woman is truly able to accept that her childhood experience was as it was and that her mother can no longer make it better. She can then turn to the questions: What did it mean for my life that I had this mother? Who or what did I have to become because of this experience? What have I developed in myself that might not have developed had my experience been different? Many women find strengths in themselves they may not have seen before.

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Raising questions of meaning and re-evaluating ourselves are not enough; we must also begin to care for the child within, actively to make room for this part of ourselves in our adult lives. What are her needs? Does she need time to play? to create? Does she need places to 'show off' her skills or enthusiasms? What kind of stimulation does she need (colours, music, playthings)? Can we mother our inner children the way we might mother an outer child or support a lover or husband, by giving interest and time to ourselves, providing sustenance and enrichment?

— Kathie Carlson, In Her Image: The Unhealed Daughter's Search for Her Mother

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TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialOct 19, 2024 2:30pm

Jungian, Kathie Carlson on positively approaching the unhealed child within. From her book, 𝘐𝘯 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘋𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘚𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘔𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳.

There are many positive ways to approach the unhealed child in ourselves. First, we can learn to identify her needs and claim them as legitimate: needs for attention, affection, praise, unconditional love, play. We can bring these needs to the surface and refuse to label them 'bad'. One of the reasons that we suppress these needs as adults is that they often bring painful childhood memories with them, memories of how we were punished or distorted or our needs unmet as children. We need to allow these memories to come up and be felt, for they belong to our wholeness; we need to mourn with the child, grieving over her deprivations, pain, and unfulfilled longings.

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Sharing childhood pain with a friend or therapist can lead to an emotional companioning that assuages the grief of the unhealed child; she no longer feels totally alone, totally unseen in her hurts. (Thus, one woman I worked with in therapy who had been severely abused as a child told me that the worst of it was not the abuse itself but that there was no one to comfort her afterwards, to be with her in her fear and her pain.) Emotionally companioning the child within by being willing to listen to her complaints and hurts can eventually lead to new growth and a fresh flow out of her stuckness.

— Kathie Carlson, In Her Image: The Unhealed Daughter's Search for Her Mother

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TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialOct 19, 2024 11:17am

Jungian, Linda Schierse Leonard on the feminine archetype of the Eternal Girl [aka the 𝘱𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢]. From her book, '𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘞𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯: 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳-𝘋𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘙𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱'.

SLEEPING BEAUTY'S FATHER WAS A KING who loved his daughter dearly, but forgot to invite one of the oldest and most powerful of the fairies to the celebration of his daughter's christening. His forgetfulness of that feminine power resulted in 100 years of sleep and inactivity in the world for his daughter. Cinderella's father allowed himself to be dominated by a very powerful second wife, so his daughter was condemned by her jealous step-mother to live in rags and be the scullery maid of the household. One man was seemingly powerful, a king. The other was passive and ineffective. Both daughters suffered, and both were relegated to passive and inferior positions. This is the passive role which is one way women live out the pattern of the 'eternal girl'.

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Both Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella were finally saved by princes, just as many women who have lived lives of passivity have sought for safety and security in their marriages. Yet in the end, most of these women feel they have betrayed themselves. Our culture has collaborated in this betrayal. Women have been praised for their compliancy, their adaptability, their gentleness, their youthful sweetness, their obedient cooperation with their husbands, who are 'form to their matter'. Women who live out their lives in this archetypal pattern of existence have simply remained fixated at the girlish level of development. Like Peter Pan, for a variety of reasons, they prefer not to grow up; they remain eternal girls.

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The advantages of this choice are understandable. It can be comfortable and exciting to be admired as a sweet young thing, to depend on someone stronger for important decisions, to luxuriate in romantic fantasies about the Prince Charming who can cut through Sleeping Beauty's hedge of thorns to rescue her, to flirt with possibility, to become the chameleon-like images of many a man's heart's delight, or even to shy away from life and live in an inner wishworld. But the disadvantages of such a feminine lifestyle abound too.

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In exchange for these benefits, the eternal girl often gives up her independence and settles for a passive, dependent life. Rather than developing herself on the personal and professional level, rather than working out her own identity, rather than finding out who she really is through the difficult task of self-transformation—the eternal girl usually gains her identity from the projections others have upon her. To name a few: the femme fatale, the good daughter, the charming wife and hostess, the beautiful princess, the femme inspiratrice, even the tragic heroine. Instead of assuming the strength and force of her potential and the responsibility that goes with it, the eternal girl dwells in weakness. Like a doll, she allows others to make of her life what they will.

— Linda Schierse Leonard, The Wounded Woman: Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship

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TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialOct 18, 2024 8:25am

Yes, we are. And some folks get very angry when they're challenged otherwise.

TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialOct 17, 2024 2:58pm

Jungian, Daryl Sharp on neediness in relationships. From his book, 𝘎𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘠𝘰𝘶: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘖𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘙𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱.

Think of the difference between being in love and loving. When you're in love, you absolutely need the other person, you can't live without him-or her. That's okay to start off with, who can help it? It's only natural, in the sense Jung uses the term when he says, "It is the natural and given thing for unconscious contents to be projected"-but if it goes on like that, you kill the relationship. Need is not compatible with love. Need becomes the rationale for power over the other person, it leads to the contained one's fear of loss and the container's resentment.

When you're self-contained you're free of all that. You have your own sacred space, your own temenos. You might invite someone in, but you're not driven to. And you also respect the other's freedom and privacy. There's an optimum distance in every relationship. It evolves through trial and error and good will-if you stop pushing for more than you get.

Daryl Sharp, Getting to Know You: The Inside Out of Relationship

TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialAug 11, 2024 1:22pm

James Hollis on how we're all neurotic. From, 𝘖𝘯 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘞𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦.

We are all neurotic—split between the imperatives of our nature and our adaptive habits. The reward for responding to what the dark angels ask is to be returned to a place where the imperative of personal journey may be recovered.
In other words, which hurt is greater—the angst-laden path of individuation in the face of the powerful environment, or the endless pain of the soul denied? What does matter, in the end? Perhaps Jung's most succinct definition of neurosis is that it is one-sidedness:

Neurosis is as a rule a pathological, one-sided development of the personality, the imperceptible beginnings of which can be traced back almost indefinitely into the earliest years of childhood.⁸⁷

We all become one-sided in the process of adapting to whatever reality fate presents. In fact, we are often well rewarded by our culture for our one-sidedness. But with every choice of A, B and C are pushed underground and will demand to be fed one way or the other.

— James Hollis

TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialAug 10, 2024 10:28am

For anyone interested in learning more about alchemy from a psychospiritual perspective [especially as its symbolism so often appears in dreams], I found this book super helpful.

Thea's hand holding up a copy of Dennis William Hauck's book, 'The Emerald Tablet: Alchemy for Personal Transformation'.

TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialAug 10, 2024 10:25am

Jerry Fjerkenstad with a great summary of alchemy from a Jungian perspective.

Alchemy is quite simple. You begin with the massa confusa—the base substance, the crude ingredients, the lead. They are placed in a Vas Hermeticus, a sealed container. Heat is applied to that container and a series of operations are conducted upon the substance to change its nature and transform it into 'gold'. The operations can include condensation, distillation, 'repetitio', 'mortificatio' and 'the marriage of the king and queen'. It is a very metaphorical process that is not considered esoteric by [Carl] Jung and [James] Hillman—rather, it is a process that reveals the true nature of the original substance. The massa confusa is equated with the rejected cornerstone of biblical tradition. The god, or golden child, created in the end is equated with the birth of the soul.

— Jerry Fjerkenstad, from Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Nature of the Dark Side of Human Nature

TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialAug 10, 2024 10:10am

David Tacey on the daily need of the soul. From, 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘑𝘶𝘯𝘨.

[Jung] views the soul as a substance in constant need of reaching beyond itself to a larger life. We need ecstasy, which in its Greek sense (ek-stasis) means to be outside the ego. The ego is a prison, caught in time, space and rationality. We need to leave this mental prison behind from time to time, and on a regular basis. What can get us out? Poetry, love, sex, therapy, passion, nature, ritual, ceremony, music, empathy, compassion, and 'feeling with' the world. All of these things Jung calls 'religion'. Religion is anything that provides escape from egocentricity, relief from the mundane, and as such he gives a Dionysian spin to religion, that seems almost contrary to what an archbishop, for instance, might mean by this term.

— David Tacey, How to Read Jung

TEtheaeuryphaessa.bsky.socialAug 8, 2024 3:57pm

And here's the accompanying podcast for this chapter, 'The Untimely Demise of Intuition', from McGilchrist's book, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴. The point quoted above comes up at approximately 27:00: youtu.be/dlV_AtdVO8c?...

Understanding The Matter with Things Dialogues Episode 18: Ch. 18 The untimely demise of intuition

This series of dialogues between Iain McGilchrist and Alex Gomez-Marin explores Iain's latest book The Matter with Things. In Episode 18 Iain and Alex discuss Chapter 18, The untimely demise of intuition To purchase The Matter with Things Hardback internationally https://Amazon.com and https://BookDepository.com Hardback UK only https://ChannelMcGilchrist.com , https://Amazon.co.uk and other booksellers nationwide Kindle on https://www.amazon.co.uk and https://www.amazon.com To explore Dr Iain McGilchrist's work in greater depth and breadth, join Channel McGilchrist here https://channelmcgilchrist.com/join/ You can read Dr. Gomez-Marin's work at https://behavior-of-organisms.org/ and follow him on twitter as @behaviOrganisms Dr Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception in flies, worms, mice, humans and robots. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining high-resolution experiments, computational and theoretical biology, and continental philosophy, his latest research concentrates on real-life cognition and consciousness.

Thea Euryphaessa

@theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social

45 followers4 following566 posts