Take-on Your Life

During my years leading workshops at Esalen Institute (2000-2009), I was inspired and motivated by the transformational spirit that imbued the center, — majestically seated on the edge of the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The Esalen legacy has been dedicated to provoking metamorphoses in all who participated since its inception. That spirit often burns up and reconstructs its dedicated participants. They come from parts hither and yon to partake of the profound opportunity for dissolution and rebirth. Esalen’ s natural beauty, and its thriving vegetable gardens and rugged isolation, create excellent conditions for alchemical transformation. In examining my lectures given at 5-day trainings I decided to share a bit of Esalen inspiration with you.

What does it mean to seek personal transformation (I am not referencing a buzzword or trite cliché)?  For me, it means a process of peering incisively through the haze and maze of day-to-day activities in order to search for and discover our uniquely personalized gems (no doubt sparkling deeply beneath the surface of the maze and emanating a faint, barely visible light to guide your way). This light when followed through obtuse depths may radically change your life.

Your consciously chosen internal journey may lay bare an overarching meaning that expresses more authentically your true self. Can you capture what could bring more passion into your life and bring you closer to your gift of aliveness?

Yet, one could ask: “Is this an indulgence to seek such ephemeral states of mind?” I understand that we must live our lives responsibly, and that may look like a dogged stick-to-it pragmatic attitude and set of behaviors necessary to fulfill our daily requisites. We will live day-to-day with tenacity as we work hard to fulfill our duties with dignity. I respect the diligent way that many live their lives.

Yet we can also support an inspired consciousness that asks us to take hold of our life; carve in purpose as we make daily choices; have courage to insist on creating opportunities; take bigger steps rather than the small ones that lead to a discouraged sense of life.

As James Hollis, a Jungian analyst states in his book, The Middle Passage, from Misery to Meaning in Midlife (Inner City Books, 1993),

“We are called to this present life to live it most fully. We cannot approach death and infirmity hesitant and ashamed, whining about the past. If we are here to be fully ourselves, then surely now is the time.” 106

I am talking about finding soul in our lives – our life expression must emanate from our deepest needs, yearnings and creativity – from the smallest detail in everyday tasks to the overarching themes of our life.

Campbell spoke of ‘following your bliss,’ Hollis speaks of finding your passion.

We are …”obliged to live our passion lest our lives remain trivial and provisional, as if some day all would become clear and choices easy. Life is seldom clear and easy; yet choice is what defines and validates a life.” 106

Murray Stein, a Jungian analyst, in Transformation, Emergence of the Self (Texas A&M University Press, 1998), speaks of the typically midlife transformative process.

He suggests that transformation is the essential human task:

”… transformation leads people to become more deeply and completely who they are and have always potentially been. Change to the new, paradoxically, is change to the very old. Transformation is realization, revelation, and emergence, not self- improvement, change for the better, or becoming a more ideal person. The transforming person is someone who realizes the inherent self to the maximum extent possible and in turn influences others to do the same. xxiv

“The state of transformation can last years or even a decade, one lives in limbo. One’s life, sense of self, purpose, self identity is under construction, all that one was, what one relied on as a sense of self is softened, dissolved, disintegrated. We become alarmed as we feel a loss of much that is familiar. Attitudes, behaviors, purpose, and meaning are reorganizing. One feels vulnerable and naked. (don’t have page number)”

Therapy is a vehicle of alchemy that dissolves what is no longer needed or is self-destructive, allowing for new structures to develop. For the discovery of the Self — invite the decomposition and reconstruction of the life you once knew, so that the lived life can emerge.

As therapists we honor the mystery of the Self as it emerges through the process of therapy. We stimulate your query; we move blockages of fear and angst out of your way; we promote your courage; we inspire your positive feelings about yourself as we dig into your obstructionist shadowy sides that create your particular toxic wasteland; we remove boulders of negativity and coy, falsely smiling façades — all so that your authentic self may emerge.

Invite and tackle this challenge so you do not drift toward your end aimlessly like a raft following the current — but going nowhere.