This Jungian Life

Learn to Interpret Dreams with Us! https://tinyurl.com/TJLdreamschoolFacing Rejection forces us to confront what we fear losing—belonging, recognition, identity. Rejection alters how we see ourselves, engage with others, and interpret the world. It shapes unconscious complexes, creates projections, and influences attachment. It appears in myths where exiled figures return transformed, in dreams where locked doors symbolize what we refuse to see, and in defenses against further pain. Healing from rejection requires engaging with its effects, not avoiding them. Some of us externalize rejection, which becomes resentment, further isolating us. Others internalize it as self-doubt, creating cycles of withdrawal and hiding. Some break the pattern, using rejection as a catalyst for self-development, learning to integrate what was once denied. Rejection strips away illusions, forces an encounter with shadow, and demands a new understanding of self-worth. It is present in villains seeking revenge, heroes growing throug

With Deb and Joe out this week, Lisa speaks with Gary Clark, a visiting research fellow at the University of Adelaide, about his book Carl Jung and the Evolutionary Sciences. The discussion delves into the influence of indigenous cultures on understanding consciousness, the role of anthropology in Jung's work, and the implications of evolutionary development on human psychology. Humanity's ancient rituals underscore the importance of integrating the primordial emotional brain with the newer neocortex. Reconnecting to these practices in a contemporary setting can help facilitate integration and well-being, especially during the tumultuous adolescent years. Gary and Lisa further explore the connections between maternal love, Jungian psychology, and the biological underpinnings of social bonding. They discuss the concepts of anima and animus, and the psychological implications of sex-based differences. They also delve into the roles of Eros and Logos in understanding gender differences and the potential

Revolutionize Your Nights – Join Dream School and Master Your Dreams! https://thisjungianlife.com/join-dream-school/⁠ Transformation isn’t about muscling through change—it’s about loosening the grip on rigid perspectives so energy can move. Resist, and the unconscious will find a way forward anyway—through symptoms, dreams, and compulsions that shake up the illusion of control. Neurosis is just a traffic jam in the psyche—energy stuck where it no longer belongs. Real change isn’t an intellectual hack; it’s a shift in how we hold and release energy. The unconscious doesn’t hand out easy answers; it reveals what’s missing. Healing isn’t about control—it’s about letting things realign. The more we resist, the more we stay stuck. The moment we allow, the shift begins. What follows doesn’t just describe transformation—it helps it happen. Find a Copy of the Dream we Analyze HERE: https://thisjungianlife.com/attitudes Learn more about Wellspring Women's Tuscany Retreat: https://bit.ly/LisasWellspringRetreat

Fire strips everything away, leaving only what truly matters. In the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires, homes have become ash, familiar streets are unrecognizable, and life feels uncertain. But fire is not just destructive—it is also transformational. Pamela Power, a Los Angeles Jungian analyst and author, joins us to explore the tensions within this experience. Fire erases yet reveals. It devastates yet clears space for renewal. Loss forces us to let go yet also asks: What endures? Though grief pulls us down, something in us reaches toward life. The weight of ashes is real, but so is the quiet, unseen stirring of what comes next. Find the dream we analyze HERE: www.thisjungianlife.com/LAwildfires/

What do the choices we make about the things we carry and wear reveal about who we are and the paths we take in life?  Shoes as Symbols connect identity, culture, and creative adaptation. Shoes reflect our movement through life and mark pivotal transitions, helping us hold the tension between vulnerability and agency. They appear in myths and stories as agents of change, signaling the emergence of a new attitude and facilitating its embodiment. The simple act of wearing shoes bridges the physical and psychological, grounding us while enabling exploration. Shoes communicate individual and collective identity, shaping and revealing roles in society. Tales, like Hans Christian Andersen’s The Red Shoes and Cinderella with her glass slippers, dramatize the tension between freedom and constraint, alienation and belonging. Exploring shoes in cultural narratives reveals their role in expressing and shaping psyche. Whether it’s the first tiny black patent leather shoes for a holiday or the first ski boots, their prese

What do our earliest dreams reveal about the hidden forces shaping our lives? Childhood dreams offer unmediated access to the collective unconscious, revealing symbols that shape lifelong development. These dreams often dramatize psyche's early encounters with polarities, fostering individuation through the integration of opposites. Nightmares and numinous imagery invite engagement with shadow and the sacred, acting as catalysts for growth and transformation. By revisiting childhood dreams through active imagination, individuals unlock their latent meanings. These dreams serve as both initiations into personal mythology and ongoing reservoirs of psychic energy, guiding the journey toward wholeness. Prepare to discover what early encounters with archetypal images reveal about psyche's relationship to the collective unconscious, how psyche uses symbolic opposites to foster growth and balance, which recurring symbols and universal patterns guide psychological transformation, whether unresolved experiences from e

What gives life meaning and guides us through times of emptiness and uncertainty?   The Psychology of Meaning: Keys to Authentic Living explores the processes of self-discovery, purpose, and transformation. Along with James Hollis, Ph.D., we examine how meaning shapes our lives through symbolic living, midlife transitions, dreams, and navigating despair. You’ll gain insights into aligning your inner and outer worlds, reclaiming your lost connections, and making choices that reflect your core values. Join us and wrestle with questions about purpose, fulfillment, and the human journey.   Prepare to discover what meaning is, how it shapes your inner and outer lives, which choices align with your values, whether crises and despair can lead to transformation, why aligning with deeper truths is essential for authentic living…and so much more.   GO DIRECTLY TO THE DREAM INTERPRETATION: 55:25 Find a copy of the dream we analyze here: https://thisjungianlife.com/the-psychology-of-meaning   Find more about James Hollis

'Tis the season to join Joseph, Lisa, and Deb in a Jungian romp through the holiday in all its complex splendor. 1. Scrooge on the Couch: How the Numinous Transforms Something's going on in Scrooge's soul.. and it's tired of waiting for an invitation. Pull up a chair and ponder the universal story of a man whose trauma was transformed on Christmas night. 2. Mr. Grinch on the Couch (01:13:55) What if the Grinch was in psychotherapy? Sit in while we discuss his clinical case and wonder if his struggles come from a deep-seated inferiority complex or worse. 3. Solstice: Why is the longest night so magickal? (02:14:08) Join us as we explore retreating into the unconscious as a psychic wintering, calling our life force into the darkness to prepare for the rebirth of light within us. 4. Holiday Madness (03:26:13) Archetypal forces gather as the nights grow longer. By the time we show up for the holiday meal, we're often on the verge of being overwhelmed. With a bit of help from three analysts, you might find hel

We have looked to the stars to navigate our ships across night-shrouded seas. We have studied the stars to find their qualities in our character and divine our destiny. We have yearned for the stars as the gates of heaven where we hope to reside one day. Mysterious and inscrutable, humanity has ever projected the arcane depths of its collective psyche onto the sky and marveled at what they saw. Prepare to discover who the first astrologers were, why we require the night sky to encounter our depths, what the stars have meant to humanity across time, where we must seek to understand the legends and myths of the gods…and so much more.   *FIND A COPY OF THE DREAM WE ANALYZE HERE: https://thisjungianlife.com/the-star-archetype-of-revelation   *HERE’S A LINK TO THE BOOKS WE MENTION IN THIS EPISODE: https://bookshop.org/lists/the-archetype-of-the-star   LOOK & GROW   *WE’VE PUBLISHED OUR FIRST BOOK TOGETHER! Check Out DREAM WISE: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams: https://a.co/d/6SORo25 *Give yourself the gif

Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams is a practical guide to interpreting your dreams. It is the fruit of our collective experience analyzing thousands of dreams and collaborating to create our podcast and Dream School. It is an answer to the collective call to know and be more. Jung understood the next stage of human development could only come from within, and dreams are the key to that living process. The images we receive each night express a symbolic language, carrying multiple levels of meaning, emotional energy, and archetypal patterns. The dream meets your personal history each night, seeking to free you. Collaborating with the dream maker increases the power of dreams exponentially. If we are faithful to dream work, opportunities to integrate shadow come forth, our hidden potential comes to our aid, and our authentic nature blooms. All this starts with you and a unique impulse to know more. Today, we will introduce you to Dream Wise in the hope that it will inspire you to unlock your drea

Stoicism and Jungian psychology are a natural fit. The first invigorates and organizes the reasoning mind, and the second ensouls it. The amalgam of Stoicism and Jungian Psychology generates a natural resilience. It offers a frame to understand the interplay of reason, emotion, and imagination in service to inner growth. Integrated philosophical reflection empowers us to confront societal crises and develop autonomy through rational self-awareness. Inclusive Stoicism connects personal development to shared human values. The ancient discipline of clear thinking can heal us through narrative coherence, emotional management, and the integration of unconscious material. Combined with imagination, we gain tools to interpret emotions that help us navigate life. From this vantage, the modern epidemic of anxiety is seen as unmet potential in search of purposeful action and the cultivation of virtue as a template for a meaningful life. The ancient stoics explored the concept of the greatest good and found it in the wh

When we betray ourselves, we abandon our values, needs, or truths to gain approval or avoid discomfort. This leaves us disconnected, fragmented, and unsure of who we really are. These patterns often start in childhood, where conditional love or invalidation teaches us to hide our authentic selves to stay safe or gain acceptance. We see this in our daily lives—staying in unbalanced relationships, ignoring our emotions, overworking, or making choices that don’t align with who we are. We justify it, suppress what we feel, or take on others’ beliefs without realizing how much it costs us. Trauma can make this worse by teaching us to keep our needs small or invisible, while societal norms push us to conform and silence our inner voice. To heal, we need to reconnect with our true selves. That means facing the parts of us we’ve denied, listening to our intuition, setting boundaries, and taking small steps toward living in line with our values. This isn’t easy, but it’s how we find our way back to a life that feels w

What does it mean to depose the ego and encounter the dismantling joy of the Self?   Ecstatic transformation challenges our understanding of ourselves and breaks the boundaries of ordinary experience, leaving us questioning a lifetime of assumptions. It shatters our ego’s illusions of separation, shifting the foundation of our identity. It is the greater solutio where our ego and Self come face to face. This psycho-spiritual process is symbolized in the Dionysiac archetypal themes of death and rebirth through ecstatic states that transcend the rational, intensify emotion, and connect us to something greater. Through myths, dreams, rituals, and neurobiological insights, we encounter the dynamic interplay between dissolution and reformation, creation and destruction, and individuality and unity. This episode offers a framework for understanding how shattering joy, vulnerability, and the unconscious reshape psyche.   Prepare to discover what it takes to break free from the limits of who you think you are,  how m

How does one reconcile and integrate opposing forces within to achieve wholeness? Wedding dreams symbolize the union of opposites that spans psychological, spiritual, and alchemical dimensions. Encountering the wedding archetype in dreams constellates an inner marriage that calls for synthesis of known and novel traits and attitudes—depicted as the merging of masculine and feminine aspects or encounters with shadow. Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams will help you understand and prepare for inner union: https://a.co/d/9EyMMgE Alchemy called this process the hierosgamos, or sacred marriage, which fosters a state of wholeness. Archetypal images and themes surface such as light and darkness, the prince bearing the stone, and cycles of creation and dissolution. These images, and others, evoke fascination and prepare our waking mind to receive our emerging potential as the beloved. When projected onto others, these archetypal images—represented by anima or animus—complicate outer relationships. Wh

How do we navigate the forces within us to make choices that reflect our authentic nature? Every decision acts as a bridge between the conscious mind and the unconscious depths, connecting archetypal patterns to individual choices that define human experience. Each choice reveals inner conflicts and values, compelling us to confront both personal desires and universal forces within psyche. Decision-making is not merely logical; it is a convergence of intuition, cultural imprint, and raw instinct, calling for integration rather than domination by one mode of thought. In conscious choosing, we engage the teleological process of individuation, bridging the present to the future, where aspects of our potential are realized. Approaching choices as experimental acts of self-creation, we might see each decision as an alchemical process of dissolving the old and coagulating the new. Prepare to discover what shapes the profound choices that define personal growth, how to balance conscious awareness with instinctual

What drives us to seek meaning in the shadows, and how do we discern the real from the imagined when fear and faith converge? The rise of the Satanic Panic in the 1980s drew upon ancient archetypal fears of evil embedded in the collective unconscious, merging with societal stressors like the emergence of fundamentalist Christianity in American politics and women’s increased participation in the workforce with the resultant rise of daycare use. The archetype of the Devil as slanderer can capture a community. Even as they are prompted to accuse others of devilish behavior, they themselves are controlled by the slandering spirit. Accusing is a defense that expiates one’s guilt and places it in another. Potentiated by a blend of projection and literalization, mass hysteria around claims of ritual abuse was spurred on by poorly trained therapists and law enforcement. Anecdotal reports of hypnotized adults and children were taken as factual and later discovered to be suggestions presented by authority figures. Lat

What is the ultimate path to inner wholeness, and how do we reconcile the tension between the spiritual and material aspects of our existence? Take up the journey to find your lost spark this fall at Dream School: https://thisjungianlife.com/join-dream-school/ Jung’s exploration of Gnosticism enhanced his vision of the human psyche. In the Gnostic myths, Jung recognized the modern inner journey—where the Self represents the wholeness we all seek, mirroring the Gnostic Anthropos, the complete human being. Individuation, much like the Gnostic quest for spiritual awakening, becomes a journey of reclaiming our hidden divine spark, integrating both the conscious and unconscious aspects of being. A great cosmos of balance held in pairs of opposites is upset when Sophia breaks away and is lost in time and matter. The task of humanity is to recognize the sparks of divinity in the world and facilitate the repair of the cosmos. In this, Jung recognized our modern inner journey—where the Self represents the wholeness

How does the dream maker help us when we’re lost and alone in the wilderness of our lives? Let your inner dogs guide you to a deeper understanding of yourself—discover the wisdom in your dreams this fall at DREAM SCHOOL. We love dogs, and they love us. For millennia, they have held deep symbolic meaning in mythology, religion, and literature, often serving as protectors, guides, loyal companions, and a connection to our instincts. When it comes to dog symbolism in dreams, they can embody emotional support, intuition, or boundless enthusiasm. Whether acting as guardians, like in ancient myths, or loyal companions, dogs often reflect our need to trust our instincts and deal with unresolved issues or unprecedented transitions in our lives. Their appearance in dreams evokes a connection between our conscious and unconscious minds, helping us navigate challenges that our waking minds cannot fully grasp. Prepare to discover what dogs symbolize when they appear in your dreams, how the roles of dogs in myth and relig

We Want to Meet You at DREAM SCHOOL-check it out: https://thisjungianlife.com/join-dream-school/ Do you need a map to chart a massive inner transformation? Jungian alchemy provides a symbolic framework for individuation, connecting ancient alchemical traditions with analytical psychology to illustrate the psyche's transformative process toward individuation. CG Jung saw alchemical imagery as symbols for inner psychological processes, where the work of transforming base metals into gold paralleled the transformation of unconscious material into conscious awareness. This alchemical process deepens our understanding of confronting our shadow, inspires us to differentiate our true desires from those that were pushed into us, motivates us to seek and apply wisdom then abide in an optimized state where we can be helpful to others. By exploring these symbols, Analytical psychology offers insight into the stages of psychological maturation that restores original access to the Self, the true center from which our auth

Across the globe and through the ages, dragons lurk in our myths and dreams, haunting us as primal forces of terror and transformation. Found in almost every culture, these creatures are potent symbols of the instinctive unconscious, embodying both the dangers of the natural world and the depths of our psyche. In Western mythology, they emerge as fearsome enemies, threatening to drag us back into chaos. Eastern traditions, however, revere dragons as wise and transformative beings, symbols of transcendent power and enlightenment. The battle with the dragon mirrors our inner struggle to confront and integrate powerful regressive drives within. To achieve psychological wholeness, we must face, befriend, or conquer our monstrousness, neither merging with nor denying it. Our dragons carry the archetypal power of the parent and the primal human experience, influencing our actions and inner world. Mastering it, often with the support of companions, empowers us to confront our deepest fears and unearth the hidden tre