wellbeing

We had a discussion on another blog about the importance of setting our boundaries. When lockdown was imposed on us due to a worldwide pandemic the value of healthy working boundaries increased in importance. Now that we are back to being more mobile and interactive the benefit of these boundaries are being tried and tested even more. 

Self-care is how we treat ourselves. It's how you find enjoyment, play, happiness, balance, rest, and companionship. Everyone is in the middle of a life story, and that story is shaped by what we say yes and no to. Our YESes and NOes are what boundaries are made of.

Let's begin with the most essential boundary tool that everyone has. Take a moment and visualize a compass in your hand. It looks just like this - it has two words on it, yes and no. We use this compass to make decisions, figure out relationships, and set boundaries our whole life.

I can dream

The recent Elvis movie of Baz Luhrmann brings The King back to life for generations of fans. Elvis Presley - the man, the legend, the voice - has been impersonated and depicted many times through the years. 

Elvis Presley himself & played by Austin Butler

Baz Luhrmann's latest extravaganza, Elvis, stars Austin Butler and Tom Hanks alongside a range of performers portraying real-life superstars. The movie is an ostentatious take on the life of The King in all his humanity and glory.

portal of hope

“Provide hope and inspiration for collective action to build collective power to achieve collective transformation, rooted in grief and rage but pointed towards vision and dreams.” ~ Patrisse Cullors, founder, Black Lives Matter

It’s a statement that acknowledges that grief and hope can coexist.

book & author

The tremendous human rights achievements—not only in gaining rights but in redefining race, gender, sexuality, embodiment, spirituality, and the idea of the good life—of the past half century have flowered during a time of unprecedented ecological destruction and the rise of innovative new means of exploitation.

[T]he rise of new forms of resistance, including resistance enabled by an elegant understanding of that ecology and new ways for people to communicate and organize, and new and exhilarating alliances across distance and difference.

Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. ~ from Hope in the Dark (2016) by Rebecca Solnit.

psyche vs persona

If individuation is that which one is set on the face of the earth to accomplish, then to find one's dharma or vocation or individuation is the one criteria of success on the face of the earth. ~ Robert Johnson interview, 1995, with John van der Steur

individuation is the path that takes us to our complete being - consciousness & unconscious

Far too many of us are oblivious to the dangers that some of our behavioral patterns pose to our long-term well-being. Instead of facing up to our problems, we either try and convince ourselves that our issues are trivial and so can be ignored, or we pretend that the problems do not exist at all. 

We can only delude ourselves for so long, as eventually what were once manageable problems turn into problems of unmanageable proportions. For this reason, Carl Jung maintained that a crucial first step toward self-improvement is simply to become more aware of the reality of one’s situation.

Jung, however, is not unique in this respect as many philosophers and psychologists throughout the ages share in this view. Where he is more unique is in his belief that not only do we have to overcome our ignorance regarding the reality of our external situation, but just as importantly we need to become more aware of what he called the reality of our psyche.

The task of striving toward completeness, or what is also referred to as wholeness of the personality, is imperative. Separating the true self from any persona - peeling off layers to get to the core of our being. 

As with Jung, we too can dedicate ourselves to exploring this process we call individuation.