Author: Susan Schulte

Posted on

Recognizing Projection

“Projection occurs when we see an unconscious characteristic of our own in another person or object.”  From Jung: The Key Ideas by Ruth Snowden.

One of the most valuable commitments each of us can make is to try to be aware of when projection is occurring or may have occurred.  As the above quote by therapist and author Ruth Snowden says, projection involves seeing a characteristic in another person that is actually a characteristic of ourselves of which we are unaware.  Learning about psychological projection has helped me to better understand other people and to better understand myself as well.  It has helped me to be more accepting and less judgmental of people who are different from me.

Projection is an unconscious phenomenon; therefore, it’s not something we consciously cause to happen or over which we have control.  But we can become better at recognizing when it might have occurred.  One way to do that is to pay attention to those times when we feel strong emotions about a person or group of people, either positive or negative emotions.  And then to ask ourselves what might have caused that emotional reaction, what is it we’re thinking about that person or group of people and is there a factual basis for those thoughts.  Or are they instead ideas we learned as children passed on to us by parents and other authority figures, ideas that we naturally don’t question as children but should question as adults.

Projection is the basis of much that is wrong in our world.  It is the underlying cause of prejudice against people who are different from us, including differences of race, ethnicity, religious tradition, age, gender, and/or gender identity.  If more people would do the work of trying to become more conscious, far less injustice, inequity, and other forms of hurt would occur as a result of prejudice against others.  By exploring our biases and recognizing that they are based on characteristics we project onto others and neglect to see in ourselves, we live more genuine lives.  And we join with others who are doing similar inner work that is both personally beneficial and also helps to heal the divisions among people.

Posted on

We Need Nature

“We need nature more than nature needs us. It should be looked upon with awe and humility.”

This quote is by Sadruddin Aga Kahn, who was a statesman and activist.

I recently took my first long walk outside since last fall.  I live in a northern state and in the winter I exercise inside and wait until the weather is milder to do activities outside.  As I write this, the signs of spring where I live are daylight lasting longer into the early evening and temperatures generally becoming warmer, or at least not as cold as they were a month ago.  As I walked along the trail that goes through the woods near where I live, I thought about how I enjoy watching the changes that happen each spring.  The leaves haven’t peaked out on the branches yet, but it won’t be long until the leaf buds will form and a few days later the leaves will appear.  And whereas now I can see quite a ways into the woods, before much time passes the vegetation will be too thick to see very far.  Each stage has its own beauty.

As Kahn says, we need nature.  Spending time outside connects us with nature, and we experience it with all of our senses.  We smell the fresh air and the aromas of wild flowers and new vegetation.  We see the various shades of green of the trees, bushes, vines, and grasses; the sky, with its clouds and sunrays; and the birds of many different colors and sizes, some small like the sparrows and some large like the Canadian geese.  And perhaps there is a lake or stream that is part of what we see as well.  Through our sense of touch, we feel the sun’s warmth, the breeze, the firmness of earth as we walk along.  And we hear birdsong and the leaves moving in the breeze.  Being in nature provides a welcome change from being inside, where many of us spend much of our time, be it at jobs or at home.  Being in nature re-energizes and refreshes us.

The places where I take walks, including the woods near my home, are relatively unpretentious as compared to well-known nature areas such as national parks and monuments.  Such places have spectacular scenery, majestic mountains, and many square miles of protected beauty, and I’m thankful those areas are preserved for many people to experience and appreciate.  Whether it be a well-known nature area or the woods near me or whatever outdoor spaces are near each of us, we should look on them with awe and humility, as Kahn says.  For they add much to our quality of life, often more than we realize.  We need to value and be thankful for them.

Posted on

Blessed Are They That Mourn

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  Matthew 5:4

Experiencing grief is one of the most difficult things we do during our earthly journey and it hurts deeply.  To no longer be able to be with someone we care about causes a sadness that can feel like it will never end.  In addition to the mourning we do when someone has passed away, we also mourn other losses, such as no longer being with someone who has ended a relationship with us, having a pet die, and other kinds of endings over which we do not have control.

We sometimes try to avoid the pain caused by grief.  We might tell ourselves things like that’s just how life is, we shouldn’t be sad, we should get over it and move on, etc.  And even worse, sometimes other people tell the grieving person such things when what that person needs most is someone who will be present with them, listen, and have empathy for what the person is going through.  As tempting as it is to try to avoid the emotional pain, we must not do that.  Grieving is a natural process.  It is through accepting the sadness and ache that emotional healing happens.

Although we are all unique and grieve in our own ways, with varying degrees of intensity and length of time, grief usually decreases over time.  As it does, we will begin to experience something different, such as memories of that person or pet and of how special they were, things we learned from them, and a sense of gratitude for them having been a part of our lives.  We will be comforted.

Posted on

Befriending Our Dreams

“The key is not so much to interpret a dream as to appreciate it and befriend it.”

I first learned about the idea that dreams have a purpose when I started therapy with a Jungian psychotherapist.  Writing down the dreams that I remembered and talking about them during our sessions was a part of the therapeutic work.  I also started reading books about how dreams help us to learn more about ourselves; how they reveal information from our unconscious that can then be integrated into consciousness.  Two Jungian authors whose writings have been especially insightful to me are John A. Sanford and Robert Johnson.  The above quote is from Johnson’s book Balancing Heaven and Earth.

Johnson’s statement that it is best to appreciate and befriend dreams rather than to try to interpret them corresponds to my experience doing dream work.  When I remember a dream, I first try to get a sense of its possible meaning by noting my associations to people and places in the dream.  I ask myself what stands out for me about that person and how might that trait apply to me.  If I’m familiar with the setting of a dream, I think about what that place might symbolize for me and pay attention to any feelings it might evoke.  For dreams in which persons and/or places appear who are not familiar to me, I also pay attention to any feelings I have about them as I’m writing down the dream.  When pondering a dream, I also take note of images that frequently symbolize certain concepts or qualities.  The ocean, for example, often symbolizes the unconscious, and dragonflies often symbolize transformation.

There are times when I feel some frustration that I’m not able to discern a dream’s possible meaning.  According to Jungian dream theory, each dream has a purpose and the timing of when we have dreams is significant.  When I cannot get a sense of why I had a certain dream,   I need to remind myself that I must not try to interpret the dream or to expect every dream to have a clear and obvious message.  Instead, I need to “let it be” and accept it as the gift it is, a gift to be appreciated.

Sometimes a day or two after having a dream, a thought will come to me or something will occur that helps to clarify the dream’s message.  Sometimes a dream’s images and story resonate with me quite readily.  And sometimes I never get a sense of a dream’s meaning.  I share these experiences because I don’t want others to be discouraged when that happens to them.  The fact that we put the effort into paying attention to our dreams and knowing they have value is what matters.

Posted on

Acceptance 

“Gratitude to God is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy.”

This quotation is by Mother Teresa, a person known to have been someone who gave of herself as an individual and through the charitable organizations she founded to assist people who were experiencing some of the most difficult situations.  She and others in those organizations helped people who were living in poverty, provided care to people dying from terminal illnesses, and in many other ways endeavored to treat people in need with dignity.  And that work continues.

Even though I know from personal experience and from the reading I’ve done that all people are faced with difficulties and challenges from time to time, I often struggle to accept that reality.  At times I feel some shame about this, especially when I think of the dire situations that many people endure in comparison to the difficulties I’ve experienced.  In fact, the women and men whom I admire and respect most—both those who lived in the past whom I’ve learned about through historical accounts as well as people in the present—faced adversity with courage and perseverance.

In her quote, Mother Teresa speaks of gratitude. As I’ve written in other posts, I believe being thankful for and not taking for granted the many positive aspects of our lives is something we should be mindful of.  It’s easy to be thankful for that which our ego wants.  The challenge comes when there are occurrences that our ego doesn’t want—that is when our resistance gets in the way of being thankful.  Mother Teresa not only expresses gratitude, but gratitude even for her problems, and not just acceptance, but acceptance with joy.

Meaningful change usually requires taking steps—one step at a time, as we often hear.  The first step is to endeavor to become more accepting.  The next step is to work toward recognizing that we need to be thankful even for problems when they occur because they are part of our life path and help us to grow and change in positive ways.  After being able to do that, we will be more ready to take the third step of accepting our problems with joy.  It very likely will take time to complete each step, and that’s OK.  We need to be patient with ourselves.  And we need to remember that every step we take matters.

Posted on

Making the Effort to Be a More Conscious Person

“The work is not easy, as Jung himself admitted, but it can have great rewards as it helps us to become more peaceful humans, better able to relate effectively to our fellow beings.”

I recently discovered the book Jung: The Key Ideas by Ruth Snowden.  Ms. Snowden is an author and artist who for many years had a private therapy practice.  In this book, she presents Carl Jung’s work and findings related to the individual unconscious, the collective unconscious, dreams, personality types, projection, and his approach to working with clients.  She includes some biographical information about Jung:  the influence of his parents and other people, including Freud; some of Jung’s dreams that he shared and wrote about in his books; and other life experiences, all of which contributed to his psychological theory.

The quotation I chose is from Snowden’s book.  When I read it, it immediately resonated with me.  Jung and many authors of books about Jungian concepts acknowledge that doing psychological work is difficult.  It requires devoting time to recording dreams and writing down thoughts that come to us, noting synchronicities and their possible messages, and trying to find the meaning behind unexpected occurrences.  Doing Jungian psychological work also requires a certain amount of courage as we learn about ourselves through that work.  Some of what we discover are things that can be hard to acknowledge, the darker aspects of our natures.  And yet it is through learning about ourselves that we become more authentic and genuine human beings.  By being shown more about ourselves through dreams, synchronicities, our projections on others, and life experiences, we are better able to make changes and try to become more the persons we were created to be.  And that leads to a more meaningful and purposeful life.

Becoming familiar with Jungian concepts has definitely helped me to relate more effectively to others, as Snowden says.  For example, being aware of extraversion and introversion has helped me to be more accepting of people who are different from me.  I know people who are naturally outgoing, for whom interacting with others is what makes life most enjoyable for them, and who find it difficult to be alone.  I also know people who need a certain amount of quiet and alone time and who find it necessary to limit how much time they spend with groups of people.  As with all human qualities, it’s not totally one way or the other; each of us has a certain degree of extraversion and introversion.  But knowing about these different approaches and how natural they are to each person’s emotional makeup helps us to better understand our differences, to be less judgmental, and to be less likely to try to change someone to be like us.

Snowden’s comment about becoming more peaceful human beings as a result of doing Jungian psychological work fits my experience as well.  It’s a sense of peace that comes from endeavoring to do those things that are part of living a more genuine life.  It’s a peacefulness that is present even during the challenging times which are an essential part of personal growth as well as during the less challenging times.

Working toward becoming a more conscious, grounded, and whole persons requires effort.  And the rewards are definitely worth the efforts we make.

Posted on

Saying Thank You in Prayer

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”

This quote is by Meister Eckhart, a German theologian, philosopher, and mystic who lived from 1260 to 1328.

There are many types of prayer.  Often we pray to ask for something we want or something we hope will happen.  Such prayers matter, especially when they are not for egocentric purposes.  But we also need to remember that we have many reasons to say prayers that, rather than asking for something from our Creator, instead say thank you to our Creator for what we already have.

It can be easy to take for granted various aspects of our lives.  Many of us have good health, a nice place to live, employment, enough food, and people who care about us.  And for many of us, these blessings have been available to us with little or no effort on our parts.  So in a way they’re just expected.  That certainly isn’t the case for many people in the world.  We need to recognize the blessings we’ve been given and be thankful, and to express our gratitude through prayer.

When praying for someone we care about who is going through a difficult time, we should also say a prayer of thanks that that person has been and is in our life and for how knowing him or her has enriched our life.  When praying for help when we are going through a difficult time, we should also say a prayer of thanksgiving for the help we’ve received at other times and also for the more peaceful times we’ve experienced.

Prayers of thanksgiving help us to be humble, serve as reminders of the many gifts we have been given, and help us to grow closer to our Creator.

Posted on

“Appropriate” Anger 

As a child I was taught from an early age that being angry is wrong.  I’m sure my parents were taught that as children as were their parents.  I’m also sure my parents believed good Christians didn’t get angry.

It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I started to realize that being angry is a natural human emotion.  That became especially clear when I was attending a support group when I was in my 20s.  A woman who was then in her 50s shared with those of us in the group that when she was a young adult several male clergy used her for sexual gratification.  After hearing about her experience, I found myself feeling anger that those men took advantage of her vulnerability, and then I felt some guilt about being angry.  We talked about our reactions in the group, and the psychotherapist who was facilitating said the anger that I and others were expressing was totally appropriate.

Anger is one of the many emotions that we as human beings feel.  Just as we experience sadness, joy, fear, and contentment, there are also times when we are angry.  A person who doesn’t feel emotions is limited in her or his ability to have empathy for and relate to others and is limited in experiencing life more fully in general.

It isn’t being angry that’s the problem.  It is how we act and react when something happens that causes that emotion in us.  It’s important to take a step back and ask ourselves what is the cause of how we’re feeling.  One reason it’s helpful to know about psychological projection is to ask ourselves when we’re feeling a strong emotion about another person or group, including anger toward them, whether we might be projecting something about ourselves onto them and then exploring that.

There are times, however, when our feelings of anger are not projection.  They are a healthy response to something that should not have happened or be happening, a response to something that is intrinsically wrong.  At those times, anger can be a kind of energy that can be used in a positive way.  The anger that those of us in the support group felt and expressed showed the woman who had shared how she had been treated that we cared about her.  Similarly, anger about any forms of injustice and cruelty can be the impetus for doing our part and living in a way that counteracts injustice and cruelty.

When that happens, our “appropriate anger” is a response of hope.

Posted on

Generosity 

 

“Generosity is the most natural outward expression of an inner attitude of compassion and loving-kindness.”

This quote is by the Dalai Lama.  Compassion and loving-kindness are two of the themes about which he often speaks and writes, emphasizing that those qualities are essential for us to have in order to make our world a better place.

There are tangible and intangible forms of generosity, both of which matter very much.  For any decisions we make, we should always try to discern the guidance of our inner voice, including as to the forms of generosity we are called to do.

Some tangible forms of generosity are donating money to help support charitable organizations, the performing arts, and causes we believe in.  We can also donate clothing and household items to organizations that make them available to people in need.  Volunteering our time, energy, and skills is another tangible form of generosity.

Some examples of intangible forms of generosity are being nonjudgmental, having empathy, expressing concern, and treating others with respect.  We are also generous when we listen to others, giving them our full attention.

We can become more generous people in the sense the Dalai Lama refers to by trying to be aware of prejudices we might have and by taking note of the degree of our self-centeredness.  Gaining this awareness is the first step toward making changes.

The more of us who make those changes, the better our world will be.  And this will result in more people being the recipients of compassion and loving-kindness, which is as it should be.

Posted on

Experiencing Kindness

“You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.”

These words by poet, philosopher, and abolitionist Ralph Waldo Emerson are good for all of us to keep in mind.  I recently had an experience where I was the recipient of kindness.

I needed to go to my job as a crisis line counselor and, because some of my hours are overnight, it was about 10:00 p.m. when I was leaving to drive there.  It had been snowing for a few hours and several inches had accumulated.  I had expected that the parking lot of the building where I live and the street leading out from there would have been cleared during the time I slept before going to work because that often had been the case other times.  But it hadn’t been cleared, or at least it hadn’t been cleared recently.  Because of the amount of snow and because there’s an incline for about two blocks before the street levels out, my car got stuck in the middle of the parking lot.  The conditions were such that the tires couldn’t get traction and just spun when I pressed the accelerator.  So I couldn’t even drive my car a few feet to the side of the parking lot so that it would be out of the way when the person came to do snow removal.

I called the on-call supervisor to ask if someone could cover my hours and that I would work that person’s hours another day.  But my supervisor said no one was available and she offered to arrange for a Lyft ride.  Unless the Lyft driver had four-wheel drive, I don’t think that person could have made it through the snow either.  And the idea of walking to where the street levels out and waiting for who knows how long for the Lyft driver in the dark and cold seemed like an unsafe thing to do.  I have friends who would have given me a ride to work in other circumstances, but I didn’t want to ask someone to take the chance of their vehicle getting stuck.

After sitting in my car a couple of minutes trying to decide what to do, a vehicle came into the parking lot.  The young man who was driving it got out and walked to my car and said he would try to help me.  After digging the snow from around my tires and much other effort, he and his fiancé were able to push my car out of the center of the parking lot to the side.  I told them I was on my way to an overnight shift where I work, and they asked me how far it was.  I told them about 10 miles and they offered to drive me there!  Unlike my small car, they drove a vehicle that was higher above the ground and had four-wheel drive.  What a wonderful gift that they were so generous to take the time and make the effort to do this for me, someone they had never met.

In addition to this being a kindness such as Emerson refers to, this experience shows the way that unanticipated help is given to us.  I had no way of knowing that people would drive into the area where my car was stuck, especially in the late evening in the cold and snow, and especially that they would be two people so willing to help me, even to the extent of taking the time to drive me to my job.  When I was trying to think of possibilities before they arrived—and the possibilities were extremely limited—I could not have expected that someone would show up to help me.  And yet they did.

I expressed my gratitude to them and I expressed my gratitude to the Creator.  Over the years, there have been other times when I received unexpected help, and I’ve heard and read other people’s accounts of receiving assistance that they could not have anticipated, assistance that occurred when they very much needed it.  All of us have received such help.  Help from the universe.