The Purpose of Creativity:

Joseph Campbell writes about art and artists: "Studio techniques alone, not only are of no use, but also may mislead even the gifted craftsman himself."
It is rather the elevation of mind and eye, above desire, loathing or fear, that brings the way of art into relation to that of the mystic: that opens one's heart to see what the soul wants us to see. This is a practice that I describe in my 'Mirrors to your Soul' tool.
Campbell quotes William Blake saying that “the doors of perception are cleansed, and everything appears to man as it is, infinite”, when art transcends physical, or human vision. We need to see with the inner eye and heart. We need to awaken the eye and heart to wonder with imagination to reach what our soul wants to tell us through art, both by doing it and looking at it.
Art is about wholeness, harmony and radiance according to Campbell.
Wholeness is what contains all the parts of the story that is revealed.
Harmony is the rhythm, or composition of the arrangement of parts that tells the story.
Radiance is the authentic recognition of reality by artist and observer of the art. The heart is touched when an archetype is recognized.
The artist is the seer and prophet of their own development and that of life’s evolution. Because the artist recognizes and expresses the archetypal truths, where action follows insight.
The artist sees the world from its center: in a sacred manner, void of all desires, fears and commitment to ideologies; all that which interferes with the soul’s message of creating reality. Building an innovative life is what our soul is here to do.
The artist observes the world from the 'center of existence'. T.S. Elliot describes that 'center of the world' at the ‘still point.'

Join my webinar on January 13, 2020, to participate in an amazing journey finding the artist in you. Even if you have never thought that you could have that side in you, you can now know that creativity is an innate birthright.

Dealing with the Devastating School Violence. December 15, 2012.

Helpful Guidelines to Keep in Mind
Conversations with children must be developmentally appropriate.
‘Young children are not able to process the complexities of violence in the same way that adolescents and young adults are prepared to discuss the issue. Young children often gauge how threatening an event is by adult reactions (i.e., if caregivers act scared and frightened, young children will view the event as scary and frightening). They may be confused by what they hear and may have basic fear responses such as bad dreams, resistance to separate from their parent, and/or crying and clinginess. They respond well to basic assurances by adults and simple examples of school safety like reminding children about exterior doors being locked, child monitoring efforts on the playground, and emergency drills practiced during the school day.’
‘Older children and teenagers may have more information about an event as they are commonly able to access information independent of adults via the Internet and television. For these youth, it is important to discuss issues openly emphasizing the efforts of school and community leaders to provide safe schools. It is also important to emphasize the role that students have in maintaining safe schools by following school safety guidelines (e.g. not providing building access to strangers, reporting strangers on campus, reporting threats to the school safety made by students or community members, etc.), communicating any personal safety concerns to school administrators, and accessing support for emotional needs. ‘
(This information comes from the website The National Association of School Psychologists.)
Parents should reassure their children that they are safe and protected.
‘Parents need to talk with their children and validate their feelings. Children’s questions guide what and how much information to provide. Be open to opportunities to talk when children are ready. Be honest about their own feelings related to violence, and emphasize the positive things that child/family/school can do to stay safe. They should be aware of signs that their child might be in distress, e.g., changes in behavior, anxiety, sleep problems, acting out, problems at school or with academic work. Be conscious of media exposure and what they say about the event. Limit television viewing, (be aware if the television is on in common areas). Developmentally inappropriate information can cause anxiety or confusion, particularly in young children. Adults also need to be mindful of the content of conversations that they have with each other in front of children, even teenagers, and limit their exposure to vengeful, hateful, and angry comments that might be misunderstood.’

Another helpful link for information about helping children is The American Psychological Association

“Put your feet where your heart is! Act on what you sense is true within you. Most of us try to stay in our heads with the information we learn. Acting on your insights, give you access to the dynamic creative lifeforce which confirms the truths of your insights.” November 2012 © Jayni Bloch

August 2012 © Jayni Bloch

Resentment is an emotion that raises bitterness in the soul. On the emotional level, bitterness is like a toxic poison that spreads a negative destructive energy around that affects everyone that comes in contact with it. Resentment attacks the body with illness that breaks the cells down. Deterioration results in matter, and emotions.
Where does resentment originate? How can we heal it? What is its message to us?Let Love and understanding dissolve all destructive bitterness. Let yourself be free from negativity and live with a constructive attitude.

The results and symptoms of neglect of emotional nurturing

January 26, 2012.

It often occurs to me that where some of us suffer severe trauma because of overt emotional or sexual abuse as children, there are others of us that suffer equally because of more subtle emotional neglect. The same symptoms of trauma occur with subtle neglect as with severe trauma but is unfortunately not readily acknowledged or recognized. Symptoms of general anxiety, depression and obsessive compulsion, are common amongst us who have never learned the gentleness of loving care towards ourselves because of a harsh emotional environment for whatever reason. We already notice the harshness of struggling with obsessive compulsive behavior patterns, severe anxiety and the physical obesity, anorexia or injuries and other medical problems we suffer as a result of not knowing how to take care of ourselves. Obsessive compulsive disorder as well as depression and anxiety issues underlie suppressed anger. The neglected child part in us that never had a voice becomes anxious and depressed because they are unaware of their own anger about not being emotionally acknowledged. I see so many people accept subtle emotional abusive behavior from their spouses or friends because they feel unworthy of consideration because of the suppressed anger and inability to acknowledge them self. It is important to start by giving yourself a voice by hearing yourself first and attending to your own inner self.

A general lack about emotional nurturing that also extends to physical, intellectual and spiritual nurturing is widespread in our society, resulting in a lack of an intuitive ability to eat the right food, exercise in the right way and take care of ourselves emotionally. Our parents could have been preoccupied with surviving life or struggling with their own neglect and not be capable of attending to our emotional nurturing, or could have been part of an uninformed cultural attitude about emotional and general nurturing. We treat our symptoms even harsher by only relying on medication and surgery without attending to the underlying neglect of tenderness and regard for the appropriate origin of the symptom. To recover the lack of proper nurturing we need to nurture and attend to our inner voice for the emotional reasons of out symptoms as well.

Relationship problems follow early emotional neglect too because we now project the need for nurturing onto our partners and friends. We might even overcompensate for our unconscious neglect by overprotecting our children and create a self-centered next generation. I truly hope that is not the case, but I do believe that we need to be aware of our ability to nurture our self and others appropriately in a collective healing process.

©Jayni Bloch

Focus on Parenting:

January 6, 2012

Parents are an example for their children. Children model their behaviour according to what they see from their parents. Children are acutely impressed by their parent’s behaviour and actions because of a close emotional link to them. They are either hurt or happy by their parent’s behaviour. Children are especially attentive to any discrepancy between what their parents expect from them or announce verbally as correct behaviour and what they actually do.
Conflict between parents affects children very negatively unless they observe how it is resolved in a positive way through productive and open communication. It is important that separated or divorced parents do not make the children suffer the brunt of their ongoing conflict. Resolve the old conflicts and move on. If you stay in the conflict you might as well still be married to that person. Ignore what and how they do things. It is now not any of your business. Concentrate on what you do and how you live your life according to your best intentions. You cannot prescribe to another how to live or even be with your children. Your ex partner has the right to be the person they are with their children and your children has the right to experience them for who they really are, as long as they behave appropriately and nobody gets hurt or are put in danger in any way.
Behaviour problems in children are really symptoms that indicate towards relationships tensions and conflict in the family dynamic. With the right guidance and insight these symptoms can be alleviated and the children do not have to suffer longer than necessary.
Sometimes parents just don’t know how to handle their children. It is not shameful to not know, because good parenting skills are not common knowledge. It is very difficult to be a parent today. Please seek good solid professional advice if you are unsure about your parenting skills because you don’t want your children to suffer psychological consequences because of your relationship and other life conflicts. It is vital that your support your children through life in ways that will benefit their emotional psychological health. That being said, it is also important that you seek professional psychological support and guidance for yourself to help you grow and heal from an upsetting past.

I have also found that parents today struggle so much with their own unresolved emotional issues, or they give far too much attention to their own needs, above that of their children, that their children suffer neglect. The neglect can be as simple as not understanding or abiding simple principles that is necessary for their development to equip them for life. I am thinking for example of the principle of practicing discipline. Children do not seem to understand the necessity to practice a discipline that will grow a particular skill to the point of mastery, so they seek the easy way in life, because their parents allow them to do so. If things do not happen the easy way, they are not interested. Parents are letting their children down by giving in to this laissez-faire attitude. ©Jayni Bloch

Mental Health:
Mind, body and soul-spirit is an integrated whole. Every aspect affects the other. I talk a lot about the mind and soul-spirit aspects but lets for a moment consider our bodies and the wonderful workings of our biochemical physiology. We need to take care of our physical reality as much as our emotional reality to become healed and healthy. Let us inform ourselves about healthy eating habits by eating foods that support us and not stress our bodies. Let us understand the importance of regular exercise to maintain a good body mass index. Our minds are also kept elastic and sharp by moving our bodies. We need to understand and practice good sleeping habits to prevent depression and weight problems. Stress can be better handled when we support our bodies chemistry and physiology while we always address the emotional-spiritual factors too. Remember, our bodies are vehicles for our spirit.

©Jayni Bloch

Transformation:
Doing psychotherapy is a mysterious psychodynamic process, similar to the symbolic descriptions by the ancient alchemists. In one such a story from an 16th century alchemist Gerhard Dorn, described and analyzed by Marie-Louise van Franz in her book, ‘Alchemical Active Imagination’, tell about the ‘dragon-body’ of the personality needing to die before the precious essence of the wise child in us can be born form this dragon. The way it happens is through a tedious process of delicate tending to a ‘fire’ which heats the ‘water’ of the unconscious in which the ‘dragon’ is absorbed, so that it can let go of its restlessness, for the precious inner essence to be born in the form of a child. As soon as the water has evaporated the dragon gets its life back and flies away again. Very often I feel that as a therapist I am tending that ‘fire’, watching and tending for the right temperature to stabilize and inspire the process of transformation. Timing is everything in this process. The ‘heat’ cannot be turned on too much and should also never die. The process itself has a time of its own and cannot be forced or slowed. The right step happens when it needs to happen for the transformation to complete itself.

There is a saying ‘to slay a dragon’ or ‘slaying ones inner dragons’, which describes the inner dynamic process of coming to terms with ones true nature. The image of the dragon with all its mythological connotations aptly described the instinctive primal power of our human nature. For the dragon to let the precious consciousness within it out, the ‘god-self’ needs to be accessed, released and realized. Initially this part is childlike and grows eventually to maturity through development. I personally know that my fears are ‘slayed’ when my ‘god-self’ appears with love and acceptance for my human nature, the dragon part. The dragon part of me can rest and calm down, resign its need to control, with trust in the essence of consciousness. This golden understanding is the true meaning and key to finding the ‘child’, the true gold. True gold is the richness of a connection with the universal creative god-essence. We continuously deal with our dragon nature as long as we are alive; calming its fears and needs or wishes through staying connected to our ‘god-self’. Psychotherapy with an aware therapist can help manage and tend that ‘alchemical’ process of healing transformation.
©Jayni Bloch

Trust what you 'sense' as indicators towards healing

- In your partnership, trust your ability to learn about and explore your own and each other’s sensations and feelings
-Trust your own feelings
-Trust expressing your feelings (trust sharing your feelings)
-Trust your partner to receive your expressed feelings in gentleness and explore it with you to come to a better understanding about your relationship
-Practice to Trust your partner’s feelings as valid too and receive it in an accepting gentle way even if you do not understand it or feel differently
-Be willing to and Trust your partnership’s ability to walk through the forest of feelings together with gentle exploration until you both see a new picture where the emotional landscape opens a clearing.

Take turns to give, receive and then do it simultaneously :)
© Jayni Bloch

Finding your Truth

Truth of Self is the divine part within us. We are generally not in touch with it because we identify with our ego which is focused on defensive survival instincts, which helps us initially but quickly condition our behavior into conflict cycles we eventually feel trapped in. In the end, our True Self cannot be denied by our personality, even though our ego often wishes to do so in defensive ways, because it believes it alone is the ‘hero’ of our existence. The ego believes in its own qualities. Our ego is there to serve us, not control us. We need to know the difference between when we are controlled by our ego and when it serves us. As we access the ‘authority’ of the transpersonal ‘power of truth’ within us, the difference between our truth and the conditioned beliefs our ego taught us, becomes clear to us. It is this Truth that creates Trust in life. As we develop Trust, because we are True to our Highest Self, we experience a positive, directing, constructive, loving, guiding power within our psyche and our life in general. Our personality often simulates the authority called Truth, in an authoritarian self-serving manner. Sometimes we are not even aware of this happening. When power and authority is not directed towards our Truth, but towards personal agendas, it can become destructive. On the other hand, the constructive power of truth enhances all life and serves the evolution of our consciousness. Your ego or someone else’s should never override the authority of your own psyche’s ‘divine’ (true) side.
© Jayni Bloch

Parenting

'Being a parent makes us aware, not only, of how to parent our children, but how to parent our own inner child. Our children wake us up to the wounds of our own child nature which needs the healing of a parenting essence. We acquire this very parenting essence we so long for, in the process of learning how to parent, by dealing with our own inner wounds (sometimes linked to our ancestors). Becoming a parent is always in the making within us. The healing process is never complete, but ongoing steps in a collective process of evolution.'

Understaning Child Development
Parents who educate themselves about child development are better equipped to understand their children's natures and behavior. At certain ages or stages of development different abilities are expected from children. Acquiring knowledge of those abilities can help guide parents in their expectations of their children and adjust their guidance accordingly.
Understand and appreciate your Child’s Natural Temperament
Every child is unique. Your child might be introverted and quiet, preferring to read or be busy with individual tasks. Or you child might be extroverted and social, interested in sport and communal activities. Observe and accept your child's natural temperament. Have consideration of their innate natures in your parenting approach.

Birth Order
The generalized traits of children's birth position in the family are guidelines in terms of their emotional experience of themselves, their family and later of life that may help parents understand their children's behavior. Eldest children often feels more responsible and emotionally neglected after their siblings are born, because they have to share responsibility and attention. Second born children do not know any different but come into the world having to share resources immediately. They usually feel more stable and supported or at peace with what they receive. The youngest born children usually experience a lot of attention and affection from everyone in the family.
Gender Roles
Many societal stereotypical ideas around gender may influence parents in their expectations of their children. Parents need to be aware of their own internal social prejudices and not project these onto their children.

The goals of Misbehavior
Misbehavior is a guideline for parents to understand their attachment relationship with their children and their responsibility as developing parents.
Children’s behavior is unconsciously (never deliberate or intentional) goal oriented to achieve their need to belong. They repeat behavior that results in being included acknowledged and feel significant (valued), even if it means that their misbehavior can get them negative attention. Children often misinterpret their observation and experiences and come to the wrong conclusions, which motivate their misbehavior. For instance when a firstborn observes the new sister getting most of mother’s attention because of her helplessness, he may regress to a previous stage of development to feel loved again by mother. Trail and error learning demonstrates to children what kind of behavior achieves the results they desire. Parents get the clues on how to guide their children toward positive behavior when they understand the unconscious needs which motivated their child's misbehavior.

There are four ways of feeling a sense of Belonging:
Attention - The needs for special treatment to feel attended to, is an attempt of the child to confirm his or her need of significance in their relationship with their parents.
This behavior triggers annoyance, irritation and guilt in the parents, who then respond by scolding, reminding, serving or persuading the child, which stops the attention seeking behavior only temporarily. Reminding, punishing, rewarding, coaxing and service are undue attention that reinforces the child’s behavior based on the unconscious belief that they can only belong by getting special attention.
Power - Some children learn to be in charge by acting as the "boss". They unconsciously believe that they belong only when they are “in control". Their "You can't make me" rebellious behavior provoke anger in parents. Parents might even feel provoked, challenged, threatened and/or defeated, because of their continuous power struggles with their children. The relationship between parent and child becomes one of who will "win" this time, but it does not change the rebellious competitive power struggles. In fact, power struggles between parents and children re-enforces the unconscious belied in the child that they should never give in to others and always remain in power to feel worthy.
Revenge – When power-struggles render children helpless against the power of the parent they learn to believe their hurt feelings can only be repaired by revenge. They learn to act with the unconscious belief that the only way to belong, is to get even. Parents usually feel hurt, disappointed, and rejected by this kind of misbehavior from their children, not realizing that the children are actually acting from despair and hurt. Retaliation confirms the misconception of achieving belonging by revenge.
Assumed Inadequacy – Children may believe that they are incapable and helpless or unable. They convince their parents to give up on them because they have learned in the family to unconsciously believe the only way they can belong is to be inadequate. Parents feelings of despair and hopelessness make them want to give up, or take over doing thing for the child, which reinforces this idea in the child about themselves. They start to isolate themselves and do not want any expectations from anyone to have to live up to. These children need to be encouraged and not pitied. They need the trust from the parent in their abilities to develop confidence and courage to participate in life.
Parenting is based on mutual respect and co-operation to encourage responsible and self-governing development.

To become more conscious of how your parenting style affects your child’s unconscious beliefs and behavior, ask yourself these questions.
1. When your child misbehaves, how do YOU feel?
2. What do you as the parent most often do in response to the misbehavior?
3. What does your child do in response?

23 September 2010 © Jayni Bloch
Reference: Don Dinkmeyer and Gary D. McKay, Systematic Training for Effective Parenting. 1976, American Guidance Service, Inc. Circle Pines, Minn. 55014.

Even though this is a very early reference it is still applicable and very powerful in its research of appropriate parenting concepts.

A later book by Dr. Gary D. McKay is: Raising a Responsible Child: How to prepare your Child for Today’s Complex World.

Opportunity to heal
8 July 2010
I have noticed that Life presents repeated scenarios in which we have opportunities to repeat the wounds of our past, OR make different choices in which we participate in transforming these old wounds. In this way we ‘evolve’ slowly by not repeating destructive patterns and our children does not have to heal what we did not. As parents our job is to observe the feedback we get in the circumstances surrounding us for indications of what we need to do different than the past. But these choices need to be made with an inner willingness of compassion and awareness, not form a place of defensiveness.To parent is not only about assisting our children’s development, but to participate in processes with our children to heal the past and make better in the future. We evolve by healing the past. We evolve by learning how to parent, not only our children, but ourselves as well as our parents, through our inner work and new behavior. © Jayni Bloch

Truth
30 June 2010
Truth is apparent and visible... if we are willing to recognize and 'see' it. Truth comes to greet us... when we ask to receive it. © Jayni Bloch

World Between Worlds
18 May 2010
Entering my office, is for her a ‘world between worlds’, she said. It is that 'safe' place where magic can happen any moment. This is where meetings happen between the rational and subconscious dimensions. Her creative self discovers insights time after time, which advance her healing progress. I stand in awe as a witness to the creative healing process.
© Jayni Bloch

Communication
29 April 2010
If we want to be heard, we need to be willing to listen to others stories. Listening, encourages understanding and sharing empowers self-worth. Doing both is the basis of communication that builds bridges between people.
© Jayni Bloch

Willpower
13 April 2010
Willpower maintains the structures of our discipline, that makes the space possible for divine creative life-force to manifest, but willpower is not life-force or inner truth itself. Love is that!
© Jayni Bloch

Take it Slow
7 April 2010
My challenge is to take it slowly...allow the Universe to unfold on its own...move with it, instead of force it to move. I tend to rush the processes of my calling....
I do know, the thoroughness of each step in the experience brings awareness and wisdom, which is more important that the time in which it is done. There is no such thing as right or wrong choices or wasted time. All experiences serve consciousness. © Jayni Bloch

Two Truths
30 March 2010
I dance to the rhythm of atachment and separation from my true essence; remembering who I am and then forgetting again. My human state exposes me to two truths; that of my ego and the truth of my god-self. © Jayni Bloch

Self-love
19 March 2010
Self-love truly comes about, once the inner marriage happens between the opposite parts inside us. In order for us to be able to do this inner marriage, we need to accept and surrender to all the polarities within ourselves.
© Jayni Bloch

Source of Inner-Truth
25 Feb 2010
When we find the source of our 'inner truth', God happens in us and we become aware of communal needs, but we first have to give birth to God in us, not the "hero" of our egos... © Jayni Bloch

Fading Fear
19 Feb 2010
Thoughts born form fear, tries to take over our mind. Address these with compassion and choose that they do not rule your personality. The moment you remember your connection to Unconditional Love, fear fades.
© Jayni Bloch

Meaning lies in Symbolism
12 Feb 2010
'Deeper' meaning of events lies in symbolism; the ‘riddle’ in the emotion of our experience, gives us the deeper archetypal dimension and purpose ‘underlying’ our existence. © Jayni Bloch

Dance
26 January 2010
No matter how I feel, I start and end my week with a dance to celebrate life. © Jayni Bloch

Inner Voice

19 January 2010
Our inner voice speaks a wordless language of truth and clarity, which is felt in silence more than it is thought about. Clarity transcends all the dualities of our human nature.
Silence centers us within, to still the many voices around us, in order to hear our truth. May your whole life become a living prayer.
© Jayni Bloch

Spreading Peace in the World

12 January 2010
Yes, you have to be regarding and respecting of yourself. Consider your deepest truth, rather than what the social environment conditioned you to want to be. People hurt you and you hurt others. Speaking out for youself demonstrates self-respect. When you speak up respectfully, others are given an opportunity to own up to their wrongdoings, if they so wish. Own up to your wrongdoings too. This is a way of spreading consciousness of respect and love, which leads to peace in the world. The alternative will spread hatred and wound people. Let’s turn people of our world into a loving peaceful place by living by the principles of respect, honesty and above all love. © Jayni Bloch

The Sacred

"The sacred speaks to our deepest dreams and aspirations, the truths we hold to be timeless, our sense that there is something that lies beyond our everyday experience, and our most fundamental assumptions about why we are here, how we should live our lives and what if anything we leave behind. Any psychology of human behavior remains incomplete without an appreciation for our desire to know and connect to the sacred"
(K. Pargament: Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy. 2007, p. 342)

Archetypes

"Our personal psychology is just a thin skin, a ripple in the ocean of collective psychology; the archetypes are the great decisive forces, they and not our personal reasoning and practical intellect, bring about the real events. The archetypal images decide the fate of man.”

Carl Gustav Jung. Adler, Gerhard. Hull, R.F.C. Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. (Collective works of C. G. Jung, Volume 9 part 1). 2nd edition, August 1, 1981.Princeton University Press.

Radiating or Hiding the Holy Internal Madonna

Somewhere during the night of 26 March into the morning of 27 March, 2009, I dreamed about the Madonna and Child. It was after a creativity day of dancing Caribbean dances accompanied by the earthy sounds of drums, in the class of Richard Gonzalez, at a Networkers Symposium in Washington DC (www.psychotherapynetworker.org). Trying to dance, doing it right, just made it more difficult and I realized that the only way to be is to lose myself in the rhythm of the music of life, to put me back in the flow of natural movement with my authentic core-self.

Dream: The room glows a pinkish gold, radiating from the Holy Madonna and Child on the main wall in the room. The pure beauty and life of the art, touches the filament of my soul with awe-inspiring compassion. An indigo-blue mantle covers her blood-red undergarment as she tenderly looks at her Child, fleshly vulnerable and round in her soft hands. I feel whole and holy in their company.
The scene changes. There is a discussion about the Madonna and Child being too valuable to be exposed to ‘all’ in this room. The Madonna and Child had to be protected; locked away safely so it would not be damaged or robbed.
The scene changes again. The same room that previously contained the Madonna and Child is bare. The glow is lost and a bone-dry white in the room is like that of dead bones. Dusty outlines of where the Art enchanted the wall, marks the loss of beauty and carries only the energetic memory of holiness, like a skeleton.
I search and then find the Madonna and Child, hidden behind a vaulted door, its color los, as if washed out and diluted. An attempt to reproduce the original beauty brought only a small part of the colors back to the surface, in the very centre of the art. Only part indigo, red and flesh, recalls what originally was; the holy aura lost.
I wake up.

I happen to have an unusual picture on my computer of a Madonna and Child, I took in the Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain:

Madonna is the part that births nurturing, I thought; this part creates the space for creative development of the holy ‘child’ in me, as well as makes it possible for me to hold a space for the holy child in others. Open, precious holiness, however vulnerable, loses its power when hidden behind vaults that protects against fear. Holiness happens in the company of those who connect, creating beauty and truth through vulnerability. Give the true beauty, the beautiful truth with vulnerability. Connecting with others, is the Madonna; connecting with the ‘child’ parts in self and others with unconditional love. This is god, this is holiness, and this is growth and power of being alive.

Friday, March 27, 2009, the plenary session at the symposium started off with the Poet, David Whyte (www.davidwhyte.com), who demonstrates the manifestation of creative authenticity. The Audience is bowled over with the integrity of his poetic insight. Their faces show their souls opening up, as the magic in the energy of the art this man is, touches every heart. I see an expression of Madonna in front of me. There are times when a person loses themselves in ‘holiness’, and expressed through them in these moments, God shines through them. David Whyte reconnected me of the poet-side in myself that I neglected and made little time for.

Saturday, March 28, 2009, was a day of connection with Hedy and Yumi Shleifer (www.hedyyumi.org). This beautiful couple shared the fruits of their long journey together, discovering ‘connection’. Again I encountered the precious and holy ground of Madonna with two people who are fully in touch with Her in themselves and share her sacredness freely and openly. The joy of the creative energy in the space between us is magical and empowering because of its unconditional love and acceptance. After their workshop, I went up to Yumi to greet him and Hedy. As we hugged I noticed my rush to move out of the hug. Yumi did not let go, detecting immediately my urgency to disconnect and said; “A hug is not done until you don’t have to not-want-to hug any more”. He held on to the hug until I felt a willingness to truly stay in the hug-of-recognition and relaxed into it. Then, he let go and I felt hugged and knew that I truly hugged back only at that moment of relaxing into the hug when it became authentic. What a gift! I have such moments, of fear to connect; my colorless, radiant-less, hidden Madonna, afraid to be robbed and contaminated, does not participate in authentic connection. I live in isolation, disconnected form others at times afraid to be in their way, of intruding my self on them, so I hide, don’t dare to come out and be with others. Creative holy spaces of connection are never available in such moments of hiding. Such moments of hiding are empty skeletal memories of potential. The greeting and willing acknowledgment of another, happens when it has already happened inside myself; when I allow the Madonna in me, to hold my child, then I am ready to be ‘held’ by another and to ‘hold’, regard, the other. Yumi demonstrated to me that I was worth connecting with and I can allow myself to be connected with and others are worthy of having connections with. I have such a longing for connection and acknowledgment and did not know it, was too afraid of it and consequently hid away my Madonna that knows how to connect. Needless to say, when I hugged Hedy, it was a real hug. Thank you for your light, Hedy and Yumi. Your ‘hug’ acknowledged me. It allowed and let me in to your world. I am willing to let you into my world now.

That night I danced freely with openness. My soul grew wings from compassion Love gave me for the child in me. I danced on clouds and at the same time felt true earth, connecting my humanity with the drop of holiness inside that is now willing to let others in.

The archetypal journey of this stage, this time of my life, is revealing how Madonna connects, projects and reflects from the outside and the inside.

It was only after the silence, holding the mirror of reflection to me that I can now ‘see’ and integrate the meaning and the ‘life-energy’ of the Madonna-dream. She approaches so gently, preparing me for illumination of her presence in the world and people around me as well as inside me. I am now willing to move, dance, breath and hug in a new ways.

Jayni Bloch © 31 March 2009

See poem: The Madonna Hug

Mothering, Fathering and Family Lineage

Jayni Bloch © 27 January 2009

In June 2008 I had a dream. My mother was still alive at the time. She passed to the other side in October 2008.
I am a back seat passenger in a car with my mother and grandmother. My mother is driving the vehicle and her mother, my grandmother (deceased), is sitting next to her in the front passenger seat. Although my mother is operating the actual controls of the vehicle, my (in the dream) ‘blind’ grandmother is driving the vehicle, by verbal command. My mother respond to her mother’s every instruction. My mother loses control of the vehicle. I desperately and urgently advise her not to listen to my blind grandmother who is in no position to give instructions in this dangerous situation.
The road is extremely treacherous and winds around precarious high cliffs. The vehicle sways dangerously across the road and almost slips over the edge of these dangerous cliffs, as we decent down a steep mountain pass. Every so often the car loses footing and a wheel slips over the side, rocking the car sharply from side to side as gravel spits up against the body of the car. Regardless, my mother keeps on obeying the inappropriate commands of her mother. How is it possible that my mother listens to a blind woman for instructions in this life threatening situation? I find it hard to believe that something so ridiculous can happen. Entranced by her mother’s ‘blind’ instructions she only responds to her, putting all our lives at stake. My mother ignores me completely as I desperately and repeatedly plead with her to open her eyes, to think for herself, to find her own truth and use her own sensory abilities and not obey the orders of her blind and deaf mother. She is blind and deaf to my input. How come she ignores me? She behaves like a programmed robot, staying ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’ to me. The danger builds up and my pleading stays ignored. I decided that the situation is so ridiculous that I had to jump from the car to save myself. The absurdity of feeling helpless in the face of life threatening danger, while there was an obvious solution I was not acknowledged for, became overwhelming. I open the door of the moving vehicle, look for a reasonably ‘safe’ spot at the side of the road, saw an opportunity and jumped. I feel myself role over gravel and land hard on my back at the side of the road. Vehicles stop and people come running to inquire about my wellbeing. I feel a great sense of relief for escaping the madness of the vehicle I traveled in. Somehow the inquiring people turn against me. They decide I was ‘mad’, because of my choice to escape my mother and grandmothers’ journey’. This society does not allow it. They put me in an asylum, to have therapy with a psychiatrist. Guards get ready to lock me in a cell. The steel door shuts slowly by rolling shut from left to right. As the door unrolls, I realize I was about to be imprisoned permanently. With all the might I can scramble together, I ran towards and push against the unfolding closing door, breaking it seconds before it shut close permanently. Once again I escape in the nick of time, a second time and feel great relief. I wake up.
It is 5 am on Tuesday morning. I lie awake contemplating my dream and think about my ancestral fears and pain patterns. I have contemplated these in the past many times. Dreams are symbolic and have complex and multifaceted meanings. One obvious interpretation is my behavioral, emotional and spiritual patterns I inherit from my ancestors, that keep me prisoner in blindness and deafness, which cause my life journey to be treacherous and stuck. I am also aware of how I observe patterns and try to consciously choose not to repeat them or grow beyond then through practicing healing principles of acceptance, choice and consciousness. I humbly ask Divine Presence for Light and the willingness to be open to hear and see ‘guidance’ for growth and healing to happen. My healing affects my child, so he is able to do his share of change for future generations, and so on. It sometimes feels as if all of history and all my ancestors are still present with their wounds and patterns of thoughts inside me. I am aware of all that is, is in me. I hold the past in love and forgiveness, while I choose a different road to travel and develop on, despite the resistance and challenges of my human psyche. I ask that the ‘blindness’ in me will shed its veil so I will ‘see’ the Light of Truth.
The images of this dream still haunt. I think of my responsibility as a parent as well as how I was affected by my parents as a child. I thought of my internal psyche with its parent, child parts. It is so easy for collective and ancestral wounds to pull me into it and keep me blind on my life path. This blindness puts me and those close to me in physical emotional and spiritual ‘danger’.
There is a part inside me that is conscious and aware of how to respond to and adjust to life’s feedback system. I am sensitive to and notice the indicators life gives me for direction. Do I always act on this guidance? If I stay blind and deaf to it, I put myself and my ‘family’ in danger. Can I give up on my ‘family’ when they don’t want to listen to me? Why do they not listen to the side in me that knows and receives Light guidance? What part of me is not listening and seeing the Guidance given. Maybe the "deaf" parts are those conditioned parts that are set in ego-programs. It is frightening for the ego to move away form these patterns. The ego deludes me and tempt me with ‘benefits’ in the form of false feelings of fulfillment of my ego-needs which I become addicted to; like being obedient to ‘unauthorized’ authority which is obviously motivated by personal gains (and not for the Highest good of all), so I will be 'accepted', 'safe' and 'belong' somewhere.
“So”, I wonder, “how do I affect my child?”
It seems to me that even though the principle figures in my dream are matriarchal women (they represent the female sex I identify with in this lifetime), they have a broader significance than the feminine. I thought long about this and realized that my mother for instance is more than the personality she was to me. She represents the human nurturing essence I experienced in life from the instant I became conceived in this life and this nurturing essence is not completely separate form the fathering essence that made me possible. We tend to separate these essences because of the specific individual people who partake in these mothering and fathering roles in our lives as our parents. Every woman and man has both mothering and fathering essences within them, despite the major function they perform in their parental role. The maternal figures in my dream represent my parenting influences in general as well. The influence my mother had on me was intimately linked to the influence my father had on me, because they affected each other in how they parented me individually. Mothering and Fathering happens in synchronization with their unit they form their bond and the health of this unit is determined by the health of their relationship and the health of their individual souls. This also applies to me and my partner in our parenting of our child or children.
When I first contemplated my dream, I only focused on how my mother affected me, but later realized that my father was a passive bystander and sometimes active participant in affecting me positively and negatively. They are both responsible participants in the parenting process. Willing or unwilling, conscious or unconscious, they both partake in the parenting of their children with all the baggage of their parents unions on them. This is how history continues the inheritance of pain and wounds, as well as gifts and wisdom, form generation to generation, without realizing the extent and power of it.
Parents are meant to operate and affect children as a unit. Mothers and Fathers form a unit with all the necessary and important parts needed to reflecting and affect the aspects of mothering and fathering everyone carry within them, to their children.
We all come from Mothers and Fathers and most of us become Mothers and Fathers when we choose to join a partner and have children together. Just imagine how powerful the ancestral emotional and spiritual history affects us all on an unconscious level. We are mostly unaware of the powerful pain patterns we repeat and carry over onto our children without intending to at all. To stop suffering, we can choose to be conscious and be willing to heal. We always appreciate the wisdom and talent patterns.
Mothers and Fathers carry the wounds of their personal history and ancestral history, which, when not healed, affects their children. This is a ‘normal’ consequence of human life and also the motivation to become conscious and heal. Suffering and pain is terminated when we make choices to heal. Healing of individuals implies the healing of the past and ancestral themes, so we path the way for future generations to live without past pain and wounds. Each individual is responsible for themselves to get out of the grips of being caught in historic pain.
The more I thought back on how my relationship with my own parents affected me the more I realized how my relationship with each of them individually was not separate form how they related with each other. In other words, their relationship with each other was a unit and affected me as a whole, just as my relationship with my husband affects my child today. The quality of nurturing and guidance I got for my soul development from my parents individually was directly affected by the quality of their relationship with each other. The wounds they got entangled in with each other, affected me profoundly and I carry it as my pain from them in order to heal it and not pass it on again. I appreciate the gifts of wisdom and talents they gave me. These manifest too, because of their union that encouraged this or not. Mothering and the fathering does not stand in isolation from parenting as a whole. The parents as a unit affect what each individual give to the child or children and does not rely on an individual parent only. In fact the individual as a parent has only the effect of the unit on the child whether they want this to happen or not. Children suffer and benefit from what happens in and to the unit of the parental partnership.
Parent’s conflicts and joy affect their children. When the conflict between them is irreconcilable, it will keep on affecting the children, even though the parents get divorced. A ‘spiritual’ separation is needed to release the hold of the union’s energetic emotional dynamics on the children. The children can then experience parenting via the mother and the father separately, when there is no union between the conflicting parties in the ethers. Complications develop when the separated parent connect with another partner. This new unit will once again affect the children emotionally rather than the individual mother or father personally. As long as there is any spiritual and psychological 'union' the parented children are affected by that union or unions, their parents are connected to. It is possible to have more than one union with different partners. The affect on the children is emotional and spiritual on an energetic level.
Spiritual separation happens when the partners involved release each other energetically on intellectual, emotional and spiritual levels. They can still be involved in parenting their children but without affecting each other spiritually as a ‘unit’ with their wound-conflicts, which is then transferred to the children.
My dream indicated to me that the ancestral patterns in me can affect my response to life and influence my connections to others in powerful destructive ways and when willing to see and hear healing 'guidance', in a powerfully constructive manner.

The Dream also indicates The Archetype of Choice and Family Lineage

This dream also powerfully demonstrates the dilemma of the archetype of Choice. The inner emotional dilemma of belonging to a family lineage that demands emotional, psychic and spiritual loyalty and this loyally is also culturally reinforced, while my soul and spirit ‘sees’ a different reality that tempts me to defy the family pattern, is an excruciating dilemma.

This kind of dilemma, between tradition (loyalty) and defiance of tradition, can take many forms. I faced profoundly difficult choices in my life at various stages of my development. The first choice I made that defied my family tradition was to become educated. It was not expected from me as a daughter in my culture to do so at the time in the environment I grew up in. I was one of two women in my classes of 1970 that went to university after graduation, instead of getting married and have children immediately. My father supported me full heartedly, but was surprised about my need to go to university. The second time I defied the family and cultural expectations was when I divorced my first husband after a marriage of ten years. Again I was told that no-one in the family ever get divorced! I was accused of being ruthless and cold to do such a thing. No-one enquired about my pain and fears in having had to come to such a radical decision. By the time I decided that divorce was the right option for us, I have already tried everything under the sun to save my relationship. I came to the realization that my soul was disintegrating. I had to leave or will be emotionally and spiritually dead in that relationship, that did not honor my being. My family and my culture did not accept my choice. I was judged for my choice to defy family expectations and leave with my three year old son, on a different journey. I wanted a journey I had choice in, to grow and be constructive. The third time I defied ancestral, social and cultural expectations (tradition), was when I married my second and current husband. He grew up in a different culture, spoke another language and had a different religion than me. Our souls and spirits recognized each other as true partners. We both live according to principles that are beyond culture and tradition. We both honor and appreciate what we have learned form our roots, and use the lessons in our life to move forward, always towards new insights and understandings. Our relationship stays fresh and our souls heal and grow together. The forth time I defied expectation, was when I immigrated to Canada from South Africa. Again I felt that I did not belong in my country of birth. The wounds of my ancestors were still weighing heavily on the souls of my people and kept us all blind to healing and growth. I did not expect it, or even contemplated or ask for it, but to my surprise, received guidance to leave. My ego resistance, wanting to stay in the only place I was familiar with, eventually caved. The instant I ‘listened’ and ‘saw’ what was indicated to me and acted willingly on the guidance, doors opened for my husband, son and me to move to Canada. It was very scary but we were comforted and acknowledged. My personal destiny came, each time, from Higher Guidance and even though I was frightened to act, I acted anyway on Guidance and not on personal fear, will or ego-needs. In fact, each time my ego resisted and feared, willingness to trust the higher guidance opened up new roads and journeys for me. Choice comes in as a willingness to go where Guidance indicated despite tradition and social expectations.

Jayni Bloch © 27 January 2009

Integrated Spirituality

"The effectiveness of the search of the sacred lies not in a specific belief, practice, emotion or relationship, but in the degree to which the individual’s spiritual pathways and destinations are well-integrated, working together in synchrony with each other. At its best spirituality is defined by pathways that are broad and deep, responsive to life’s situations. Nurtured by the larger social context, capable of flexibility and continuity and oriented towards a sacred destination that is large enough to encompass the full range of human potential and luminous enough to provide the individual with powerful guiding vision. At its worst, spirituality is defined by pathways that lack scope and depth, fail to meet that challenges and demands of life events, clash and collide with the surrounding social system, change and shift too easily or not at all, and misdirect the individual in the pursuit of spiritual value"
(K. Pargament: In Press. 2008.)

How would you describe your sacred experiences and how is it supported or not supported by society at large?
I have found that sometimes the sacred becomes secret and not shared, because of conventional social ideas about the subject that does not allow the breadth and depth of the subject.
What do you think and what is your personal experience? Is society prejudice about the sacred?

Creative Interactions

Relationships are creative interactions that forms a powerful platform for partners to mature and overcome personal struggles and inner hurts. Couples go through a journey where the deepest individual wounds are triggered by each other usually soon after the initial honeymoon euphoria settles. A natural, automatic defensive response to perceived emotional pain in the relationship is projected onto the partner as the cause of the hurt. Your partner might contribute to the unhappiness, but the root of the issue usually lies deeper. One's personal history tells of themes or patterns of emotional experiences that resembles the current hurt-pattern in ones relationship. For instance the theme of feeling criticized or sensitive to rejection might be such a theme.

So, what really goes on? How do we understand why these themes happen in our emotional experiences?

Let's go back to our youth. All of us develop unconscious defense mechanisms that originates in youth when we need to survive emotional conflict. These defensive systems become unconsciously refined through repetitive experiences that unconsciously confirms perception of painful events and the need for particular defensive responses. These defenses become automatic response reactions in relationships, because we are now so practiced in perceiving the signs of emotional danger, that we defend against it in constant anticipation of the particular hurt-theme. Our relationships become stuck in a repetitive roundabout of fixed defense response patterns from both partners that feed the viscous circle.

We justify our defensive behavior by rationalizing while it actually interferes with emotionally satisfying attachments. Our longing for understanding and acceptance triggers counter reactions in others because we do not realize how we sabotage our relationships through these unconscious behavior patterns. It is easier to blame and project cause onto the partner.

imagine For example: a person might experienced a feeling of competition with siblings for their mother's attention and respond with a feeling of rejection and lack of confidence because they feel unimportant. This experience creates a conflict of paramount importance. This conflict is a dilemma that contains on the one hand the hurt that needs to be defended against and on the other hand the original need that is still unfulfilled. Because human nature is neurologically programmed to defend itself but also to heal itself, this conflict becomes the archetypal theme that repeats itself in the persons relationships as a healing challenge. The wound-feelings surrounding the theme becomes a sensitivity that is guarded against experiencing, but at the same time needed to be solved, so it is sought out.

A busy partner, for instance, could easily be perceived by the person in our example as not being interesting in them which triggers the hurt feeling of not being important. They would look at experience with lenses that perceive and confirm their wound in order to confirm the need for defensive behavior but serve as a healing challenge at the same time. One is programmed to protect oneself against pain. Once a defense-response-theme is created one sensitively but unconsciously seek it out to confirm an ability to survive the hurt while constantly seeking to solve the conflict that caused the hurt in the first place. Ones partner creates the platform for this dilemma to come to resolution.

Understanding how our wound-perceiving spectacles trigger unconscious automatic defensive responses that keep the unhealthy themes in our relationships alive can help us heal the dilemmas of our lives.

The very partner we struggle with in a relationship contains all the clues we need in order to heal our inner defensiveness and the relationship. Our problems and symptoms are guidance to the answers. The wounded part of our self need to be drawn to the person who brings it out so that an opportunity for awareness can follow. The most amazing thing is that we unconsciously select the exact person who instigate both our own and their wounds so the relationship is beneficial to both partners. Relationship is a dynamic healing tool that underlies the purpose of existence and evolution.

Relationship struggles?

Many couples wonder why they battle with their relationship and what will happen in therapy. Is it worth their investment and will it really help in the long run? Look at the following guidelines of principles and Process ideals and decide for yourself.

Why do we have relationship struggles?

When you have a relationship struggle, whatever the nature of it, we will sit down together during Couple Therapy and learn to understand the nature of relationships, why we encounter problems and what to do about it.

Basic Principles

There are basic principles that need to be followed in therapy which will be discussed in detail with clients. Here are examples.

Personal Responsibility. Every individual needs to accept responsibility.
Trust your partner to accept responsibility.
Focus on Listening to the Emotion and not the Contents.
Mutual Respect.
Equality.
Keep on Talking.
Commit and Cooperate.
Practice Neutrality and Perseverance:
- Our mistakes are guideposts that leads us to the answer.
- Uncertainty is the midpoint of the path towards understanding.
- Accept whatever happens challenges you into a new direction.
- Humbleness do not equal humiliation.
- Giving up only extends the agony, you have to confront your lesson some or other time.
- Trying to understanding a situation that feels like a mystery is like solving a riddle: there is a hidden theme that has a clear message and it is the problem that shows the way to the solution.

The therapy process will take you through the following steps to help you develop tools to communicate and relate well and achieve personal happiness and ongoing growth.

Identify personal schemas/themes/archetypes.
Identify and understand all the archetypes at play in your relationship.
Identify the vicious vortex in your partnership. How are you pulled in and how do you pull in?
Learn to listen and talk (Communication).
Learn to jump out of the vortex.
Refine the process of connecting and growth. Practice new skills with newly discovered themes.
Develop confidence. Apply skills in other relationships.

Hope this short guideline give you an idea of the possibilities for your healing and growth. Please contact this office if you feel you want to work on your relationship.

Regards and Blessings,

Relationships: the mysterious gift of self-development

I understand the relationship between two people, especially intimate ones, as an archetypal expression. Each person's being selects and is drawn to another that mirrors the 'other side' of themselves they need to get in touch with (whatever that may mean to them at a particular time in their life). The more unconscious we are about whom we are the more unconscious our selection process. We are always unconscious about the things we need to discover. there will always be new things to discover and the easiest way to discover it is to see it first in our partner. We cannot see ourselves without looking in a "mirror". It is our partner that reflects to us the unknown aspects of ourselves.

peaches&hibiscus Conflict in relationships helps each of the individuals understand themselves better. Whatever irritates us in our partner usually represents the unconscious side in us that needs to be recognized. What we are blind for in ourselves, our partner usually show painfully clearly to us. It is the mirror in which we can see our true selves and our true issues that needs healing. As we integrate the wounded parts we move forward and are ready to encounter new aspects.

Every human being contains the archetypes within their personality. Some archetypes are more prominent than others. Some are related to our wounds and issues and it's those which needs our attention and forces our attention to it through our experiences in relationships and events. Our relationships therefore reflect these Archetypal personality patterns.

To understand more about why one encounters specific experiences one need to ask the question: "What is it in me that wants to be noticed by me about myself through my feelings about this person I encounter or this happening in my life at this time?" Or "What does this person tell me about me"

Archetypes or primordial principles are dualistic; every one contains both polarities. One side of the polarity cannot exist without the other and opposites are therefore different sides of the same energy. We become initially only aware of one side of the archetypal energy in us. It is experience that allows us to develop maturity to be able to accept the opposite pole of the same energy.

In relationship, the individuals usually represent the two sides of a polarity. This is why there is tension in couples that attract and repulse at the same time. It is this tension between the opposites that sharpens our self-knowledge.

In close relationships, people experience an opposition from the "other" because they split archetypal aspects into good and bad parts that they accept and reject about themselves. When this happens blindness develops of one's own side that is not accepted and usually gets expressed by the "other". What we "see" in the other, as the problem is what we needs to become conscious of in oneself as the opposite side of the same energy that needs integration. Conflict in couples is the subconscious's attempt to "show each person the other side of themselves.

The need for us to become whole (to be conscious of both sides of the polarity of its archetypal energy) is so strong that it draws to us the other (unconscious) side subconsciously. Yes, this underlying blueprint to integrate is stronger than and rules the conscious mind. How things appear to the rational mind is not necessarily how they are. Rational appearances are delusional, but so is the imagination and dream world without reason. One side of a energy is usually unbalanced and delusional. We realize this very quickly in our relationships when we base our choices of partners on reason alone. There are the unexpected traits and behavior that becomes apparent that we never noticed before. The conscious mind can defy and rationalize what it encounters and lose the message from the subconscious about the meaning of the unaccepted behavior or the encounter. This is by the way why we keep on experiencing the same themes in our life and relationships, because if we don't get it, we repeat the experiences over and over again in an effort to become conscious. Consciousness is not brain intelligence alone but a combination of rational and subconscious faculties; our "whole" being that is clear about the polarity of our archetypal traits and keen to unravel the mystery of clues towards understanding new aspects not yet seen.

Jeremy Taylor describes in The Living Labyrinth: Exploring Universal Themes in Myths, Dreams, and the Symbolism of Waking Life. (1998), how seemingly polar opposites flip over and turn into one another at precisely the moment when they seem to be most in opposition.

This is exactly what happens with couples. The exact complaint they have about the other is usually exactly what they do themselves but cannot recognize.

The discomfort of the conflict is the soul's plea for consciousness. Too bad that we think we can fix conflict by avoiding it or forcing our partner to change.

Carl Gustav Jung (On the Psychology of the unconscious, para.117-119.) wrote: There comes the urgent need to appreciate the value of the opposite of our former ideals, to perceive the error in our former convictions, to recognize the untruth in our former truth, and to feel how much antagonism and even hatred lay in what until now, had passed for love... The point is not conversion into the opposite but conservation of previous values together with recognition of their opposites?

In other words: Our partner and even our enemy show us the "value" of the opposite ideal we upheld, the possibility that our convictions can be wrong and need to be updated, the fact that what we believe to be true is not the whole truth and that there's more to be considered than what we thought. It does not mean that we need to change into the opposite, but reconcile both sides into a new understanding. Bringing opposite energies together in this way is the basis of all creativity. It is the symbol of new life, like the ovum and sperm that unites into an embio. This is how we heal, become whole and grow.

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