Every time I learn a new song on the guitar, there is an impulse to want to play something that I already know. This feeling is always there—the impulse to move away from the difficulty. It is the same with emotional work. There is an impulse to push away the uncomfortable feeling. The grief, the anger, the shame—that which is painful.
Continue reading “The First Year Of Emotional Work”
There’s an asymmetry between building something and destroying it.
It takes weeks and months to build a house. Many hands and machines. It takes one fire to burn it down. One person’s anger is enough to make that happen—if the person is resentful enough.
This is is why emotional maturity is important. It doesn’t matter what we build if we cannot stop our self-destructive behaviour.
In very simple terms, emotional integration is when the internal charge of an uncomfortable emotion dissolves.
The tricky thing is this: We are often unaware of what emotions we have stuffed down. We might not be aware of every single thing that we felt during a traumatic event. Some things stay buried for very long.
On one level, we know that we’ve integrated a trauma when we no longer feel charged emotion when we think about it. But that is not to say that there isn’t still some stuff beneath the surface of our awareness.
Continue reading “What Is Emotional Integration?”
No one believes that they will only have to finish one run to become fit. I’ve never encountered this sort of thinking when it comes to physical fitness. But I encounter this idea often when it comes to emotional work.
Continue reading “Emotional Work Is Analogous To Physical Exercise”
In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung writes about a time in his life where he had many extraordinary dreams and visions. Jung had countless dreams throughout his life—some of which he discusses in detail in his memoir—but from about 1913 to 1917 his exposure to unconscious information was ramped up.
During that period he had accurate visions and dreams about the world war. He encountered various archetypes and, believe it or not, he even received guidance from a non-physical spiritual guide, called Philemon. I found this fascinating. How many scientifically-minded thinkers of Jung’s calibre will admit to seeing visions and spirit guides? I would venture a guess and say, not many.
Continue reading “Jung’s Moon Phase | What To Do When You Are Suddenly And Unexpectedly Bombarded with Psychic Information”Many years ago, I wrote on my whiteboard: “Control someone’s emotions, control them.” I came to this conclusion after witnessing the reactive nature of large groups of people. Highly charged emotions such as anger and fear are highly contagious. Anger is flammable. Fear is infectious.
Continue reading “Why Emotional Awareness Matters”
I once heard an influencer claim that she was born a great writer. When I scanned through her book I saw that her self-assessment was wrong. She did, however, have quite a following.
Continue reading “Born A Great Writer”A fellow writer once told me that she doesn’t need to be precise in her use of language because she (unlike me) isn’t into the hard sciences (engineering). Her opinion was that because writing is an expression of her thoughts, anything goes.
I’ve encountered this idea many times. The argument is that language belongs to the arts therefore should not be rigorous. Language doesn’t deal with precision like mathematics and engineering. An essay, unlike a math problem, does not have a right answer. This means that we can essentially write what we want.
This is a foolhardy argument. Good writing requires rigorous effort. Much the same kind of effort that one would put into understanding difficult mathematics.
Continue reading “Bad Writing Mostly Goes Unnoticed—But Not By Rigorous Writers”
A pet peeve of mine is the phrase reading for meaning. It’s a nonsense idea. When we speak of reading, the meaning part should be implied because reading without meaning isn’t really reading at all. We should call that, moving your eyes across a page. Or zoning out with eyes open. Or zombie zigzagging. Or just something else.
Continue reading “Reading For Meaning”
Making a small piece of art isn’t necessarily hard, especially if you’ve done it before. Making a small drawing might take a few hours. A first draft of a short story might take an afternoon. Creating an interesting guitar riff—a few minutes.
Continue reading “Do An Experiment – Make A Tiny Piece Of Art”