{"id":9050,"date":"2021-06-02T14:56:56","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T14:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=9050"},"modified":"2021-06-02T14:56:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T14:56:56","slug":"meaning-making-motherhood-and-the-journey-of-individuation","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/meaning-making-motherhood-and-the-journey-of-individuation\/","title":{"rendered":"Meaning-Making, Motherhood, and the Journey of Individuation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b> Welcome to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>, produced by Sounds True. My name\u2019s Tami Simon, I\u2019m the founder of Sounds True, and I\u2019d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools, such as mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion, regardless of financial, social, or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans, and those in developing countries. If you\u2019d like to learn more or feel inspired to become a supporter, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019re listening to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. Today my guest is Lisa Marchiano. Lisa is a clinical social worker, a certified Jungian analyst, and a nationally certified psychoanalyst. She cohosts <\/span>This Jungian Life<\/span><\/i>, a podcast devoted to exploring current topics through the lens of depth psychology. With Sounds True, Lisa Marchiano has written a new book. It\u2019s called <\/span>Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself<\/span><\/i>, where she draws from a deep well of Jungian analysis and also symbolic research to present a collection of fairytales, myths, and fables that evoke the spiritual arc of raising a child from infancy through adulthood.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lisa Marchiano is smart, crisp, intellectually gifted, and loving. She has a way of normalizing the difficult challenges we go through, whether that\u2019s through being a parent or the other ways that we might find ourselves stretched. She helps us find meaning in meeting those challenges. Here\u2019s my inspiring conversation with Lisa Marchiano.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To begin, Lisa, I\u2019d love to know, what were the circumstances in your life and also what drew you to becoming a Jungian analyst?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lisa Marchiano:<\/b> Well, that is a question that has many pieces to it. My mother was this very intelligent, depthful, soulful person. When I was a little kid, we would go off to school and she would sit around reading <\/span>The Collected Works<\/span><\/i>. In fact, many of my copies of <\/span>The Collected Works<\/span><\/i> belonged to her and have her notes in the margins. I remember her telling me these stories about some of the things from the life of Jung that we\u2019re appropriate for a younger kid. It sounded so interesting. I was like, wow, that\u2019s really interesting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, of course, as I got older, I was like, well, that\u2019s the last thing I\u2019m going to do, because that\u2019s my mother\u2019s thing. I didn\u2019t want to go anywhere near it. I remember I took, like, a quiz in eighth grade where they were going to tell you what career you might be good at, and mine turned out to be psychologist. I was like, I\u2019m never going to do that. I wasn\u2019t interested in psychology at all. I studied history in college. After I graduated, I eventually got into international relief and development. I worked in DC. I worked in New York. I worked overseas.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was in my mid-20s and it just felt like something was missing. I didn\u2019t know what it was. By the time I was 28\u2014and I was living in New York City at this point and going to graduate school\u2014I got really depressed. I mean, I talked about this a little bit in the book, I just hit a big wall. I was 27, 28 years old, and got terribly depressed. I found this book by a Jungian analyst, <\/span>Linda Leonard, <\/span>On the Way to the Wedding<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> which is a beautiful, beautiful book. I started reading that book and it made everything make more sense in my life.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was as if I had long been overseas and finally found something written in my mother tongue. It was beautiful. It was expansive. It just made everything make sense. By the time I had finished that book, I thought, huh, I wonder what it would be like to be a Jungian analyst.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Well, I need to pause and ask you a question here. What was it in the book that allowed you to feel so expansive and have your life fall into making sense? I mean, that\u2019s a big sense of homecoming. What was it?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Huh. Well, so my depression was triggered by heartache. That particular book of Linda\u2019s discusses heartache and longing and relationship. In a very specific way, it addressed this great pain that I was feeling and discussed it in a way that made it universal, so that there was balm for my soul there. <\/span>On the Way to the Wedding<\/span><\/i>, like many of other of Linda\u2019s books, uses fairytales, myths, movies, clinical vignettes, poetry. To see my own struggles reflected back in all of these different ways, when I now understand these archetypal themes \u2026 I think that it was so healing, because I felt connected to these deeper stories. Ultimately, what was so powerful about it was that it gave my suffering a sense of meaning. Jung said that most of us are suffering because we don\u2019t have meaning. We lack a sense of meaning. He said that was true for most of the people that came to see him, that was the number one cause of psychological suffering. I think that is mostly true.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>OK. I have to ask you, what was the meaning that you found in your suffering?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, I could see that it was caused by my need for growth. I had the sense that I was wrapped in a larger story and that I was going somewhere and maybe didn\u2019t know where I was going. But this was happening to me not because I was a hapless victim being tossed about the choppy seas of life but because there was something that I needed to learn. There was some larger part of me that had a plan that I couldn\u2019t necessarily divine, but I could feel it and I could be in relationship to it and I could be curious about it. It was the sense that my life was going somewhere, was on some kind of track, had some larger scope to it, had some direction, mysterious direction.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>In your new book <\/span>Motherhood<\/span><\/i>, you write that quote from Jung, \u201cThe goal of psychological work is individuation.\u201d I wanted to talk to you about that and understand more. Is individuation, in your understanding, some destination that we reach? Or is it just, oh, we\u2019re always in this deepening process? Help our listeners understand more what that even means: individuation.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Individuation is a term that Jung used in this very particular way. As he often was, he wasn\u2019t particularly interested in nailing this concept down and making it very clear. If you read through all of the references to individuation in <\/span>The Collected Works<\/span><\/i>, there\u2019s like 12 different possible ways of understanding it. Essentially, it is the process of psychological growth that one engages in that allows one to become an individual, to grow more whole. The goal\u2014it\u2019s certainly not a destination\u2014the goal is wholeness, not perfection, and we\u2019re never done. We\u2019re never fully individuated, but it is this process of getting to know more and more of ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Is it fair to say that you came to see your suffering as part of an individuation process and that\u2019s part of what enabled you to feel that it was meaningful? Is that fair?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>I think that\u2019s a perfect way of describing it. I don\u2019t know that I would have necessarily had that language then. I think that\u2019s exactly what I realized that made it bearable, that turned that situation. I mean, literally, it was like everything was black and white and it was drab, there was no energy, there was no life, there was just sadness and sorrow and heartache and drudgery. When I started seeing it in this other way, as part of a growth process, suddenly, life was alive again. There was color. There was energy. I was curious about what was happening to me. I mean, it was still painful, but I was curious about it. I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Where was this going?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> OK. Let\u2019s talk right now, in this moment, Lisa, to someone who\u2019s listening who says, I\u2019m a little curious about the suffering I\u2019m in right now, but I\u2019m not that curious. I\u2019m mostly just suffering. How could I take a Jungian perspective, if you will, put on a Jungian pair of glasses towards the situation I\u2019m in right now? Maybe for the person, it feels like some type of depression, like you were describing in your life. There feels like there should be something more, it\u2019s not happening, something like that. Could you just help orient them in a way that could be growthful?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, I think one of the things we\u2019re talking about here is the perspective of the ego versus the perspective of the larger personality that Jung refer to as the Self, and he capitalized the S. The ego, we go about our life and our waking personality, we decide what our goals are, what we\u2019re going to do, we have certain things that we want, we pursue these goals. If we\u2019re lucky, we meet a lot of our goals, we get many of the things that we want. Every once in a while, we come across something we can\u2019t get, we are disappointed, we are heartbroken, we\u2019re shattered perhaps.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s always an experience of this profound disappointment on the part of the ego. If you let yourself fall into that, what you can recognize behind it is, there\u2019s the larger personality standing behind you, the Self. Jung said that an encounter with the Self is always a defeat for the ego. When I got my heart broken, it did feel like a defeat. I was angry. I wanted my own way. I wanted what I wanted. I wanted things to work out. What I recognized is that, no, there was a larger intelligence that had a different plan for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re feeling depressed and you\u2019re suffering and you\u2019re like, as you said, so, OK, tell me more. How do I do this? If you can accept that you can\u2019t always get your way and get curious about what the larger plan might be for your life, what does that feel like? It\u2019s an invitation to drop into a relationship with this larger personality. Let our attachment to these ego goals, to the goals of our conscious personality, fall away, to accept that we can\u2019t always get what we want, that we\u2019re not always in charge.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> It\u2019s interesting, because one of the sentences that I pulled out of your new book is: \u201cDefeat is how we encounter soul.\u201d I circled that. Then I put all these little stars next to it. Right now, as we\u2019re recording, just as we started, a storm started coming in here in Boulder, Colorado, in my home. I don\u2019t know if you can hear it, I can hear it. I can hear this \u2026 First, I thought a plane was overhead. It was like, no, actually, that\u2019s thunder. This is a storm. We\u2019re having a storm. I thought somehow that has some meaning right now, as I venture into this conversation with Lisa. I know you do a lot of work with dream interpretation. Here I am, in the midst of a living dream with you, and a storm has come. What do you make of that?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, a storm is a force of nature. It\u2019s something larger than us. It\u2019s something to which we need to submit. I think that\u2019s what I was talking about before, the need to submit to our suffering. Suffering comes from \u2026 The Latin word for suffering means to undergo. Suffering is something that we just have to undergo. We have to submit to it. Just like the storm clouds that roll across, we cannot control that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Now, in your new book on <\/span>Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself<\/span><\/i>, as in that Jungian book that was so powerful for you, <\/span>On the Way to the Wedding<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> you share a lot of myths and fairytales and symbolic imagery, a lot. I didn\u2019t count it. I don\u2019t know if you know how many myths and stories you share in the book. I think it could be upwards of 50. I mean, it\u2019s a lot. It\u2019s packed. It\u2019s very powerful to read them. You go on a super journey of the imagination.<\/span><\/p>\n

One opening question I had for you is, do you feel that there\u2019s an archetypal template for the hero\u2019s journey that\u2019s different than from the heroine\u2019s journey? That, in your book on motherhood, you\u2019re really looking at the heroine\u2019s journey, and that in some way, we have some important distinctions to make from what most of us have understood from our understanding of the hero\u2019s journey, at whatever depth we understand it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, of course, the hero\u2019s journey was mapped intimately by the mythologist, Joseph Campbell. There have been others who have tried to elucidate how that might be different for women. I certainly haven\u2019t done an exhaustive study of that. I don\u2019t want to claim that. For me, I think there is a lot of overlap. Most of the big myths of female heroines really focus around a descent. That is why I chose the motif I did to hang the book around. The book is about a descent and a return, this important mythologem that we find across the world, but especially in stories of women.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Yes, a central image that you use is the descent into the well. I wanted to hear a little bit more about that. You write, \u201cGoing down the well is an image of initiation into the feminine depths of the psyche. At the bottom of the well, you can have an initiatory encounter with the archetypal old woman. If you approach her with the right attitude, if you serve her well, she will shower upon you the riches of her wisdom.\u201d I mostly wanted to know what this right attitude is, when we\u2019re at the bottom of the well.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, it\u2019s interesting, because we\u2019re coming back to what we were speaking about just a few minutes ago. It\u2019s that relationship between the ego and the larger personality. If we\u2019re arrogant, if we insist on having our own way, if we can\u2019t submit to that which the psyche offers us, we are not going to have a good day of that. If we can approach with some humility, that larger personality, if we can be curious about it, if we can want to come into contact with it, then we will have a depthful experience, even if it\u2019s painful and difficult. Someone says, you can either be initiated willingly or you can be dragged by your hair. It\u2019s much better to go willingly, actually. Because, usually, it\u2019s less destructive.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Can you give me a concrete example, either from your own life or from a client you\u2019ve worked with, specifically about this experience at the bottom of the well? When you say, submit, submit to what\u2019s being asked of you from your psyche, what that means, what does it mean when we do it?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, I think to go back to the example that we started with, from my life. I mean, I didn\u2019t want to submit, I didn\u2019t want to accept that I wasn\u2019t going to get my way. I was trying to insist upon staying the course. I tried very, very hard not to get depressed. I was working very hard to stay above things. I kept really busy. I tried to see friends all the time. I got involved in a million projects. I threw myself into school. I was in graduate school at the time, it didn\u2019t work. It didn\u2019t work. I just felt worse and worse and worse. Life felt empty. Life felt hollow.<\/span><\/p>\n

I felt just so empty myself. Everything, like I said before, was drab and gray. When I accepted it, when I said yes, this is happening to me. I need to confront it, I need to come to terms with it, I need to integrate it. When I looked at it and said, aha, OK, this is it, this is the thing that\u2019s happening. And what can I do but accept it? I pulled out my journal, and I started writing about it. I started writing down my dreams, wondering what they could tell me about this. That\u2019s when I started writing down my dreams\u2014been doing it ever since. Again, it didn\u2019t stop being painful. Now there was energy, there was life back, there was some juiciness, even if it was dark.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> You mentioned writing down your dreams and that now you\u2019ve been doing that for several years, many years.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Many.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I know that as part of the podcast that you cohost, you and your colleagues take a dream that\u2019s been submitted and you share your thoughts and interpretations of it. I\u2019m wondering, just to make sure that our listeners get this, do you have a set of like, OK, when it comes to looking at your own dreams, here\u2019s the top three, four, five things that you really want to consider.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s hard to put it into a list like that. It\u2019s hard to interpret dreams. It\u2019s really hard to interpret your own dreams. Even really seasoned analysts will confer with each other because it\u2019s easy to get stuck with your own dreams, because your dreams show you things that your conscious mind doesn\u2019t know and maybe even doesn\u2019t want to know. It really just goes against the conscious attitude, because that\u2019s what a dream is. It\u2019s an image from the unconscious of something your consciousness needs to know, but that you don\u2019t know or that you don\u2019t want to know.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see, when you\u2019re working with your own dreams, what would be my top … Well, I guess the first thing I\u2019d say is something we say a lot of times on the podcast, we say the least trustworthy attitude in a dream is that of the dream ego. Now, it doesn\u2019t mean that the dream ego attitude is always wrong, but it\u2019s the least trustworthy. When I say dream ego, I\u2019m talking about the \u201cyou\u201d in the dream. If you have a dream, I was at work and my coworker, Suzanne, was driving me crazy. It\u2019s like the you in the dream, that\u2019s the dream ego. What about Suzanne?<\/span><\/p>\n

You might say, well, Suzanne is really a pain and this dream is just … It\u2019s just like this is how it really is. She\u2019s really a pain. I think, well, if that were all it was about, you wouldn\u2019t have had the dream, because the dream is always going to tell you something you didn\u2019t already know. Let\u2019s think a minute. What is Suzanne like? We know that you don\u2019t like her. The unconscious picked this image for a reason. Tell me about Suzanne. Then you might try to come up with a couple of sentences, not long stories, not about the horrible thing she did last week. Well, she\u2019s just so arrogant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes I\u2019ll say to people when I\u2019m working with them, I\u2019ll say, so what\u2019s the essence of this person? I want two to three sentences. Come up with two to three sentences about Suzanne. Well, she\u2019s so sure of herself that she\u2019s really arrogant. She doesn\u2019t care what anyone else thinks. It\u2019s like, oh, well, that\u2019s interesting. How does that fit in your life? Well, maybe you care too much about what people think. Maybe you\u2019re not confident enough. The unconscious has picked this image to show you something that you have in potential, you have an inner Suzanne. You could develop that and you might need to develop that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> That\u2019s very helpful, actually. I had some insights about some dreams as you were talking. That\u2019s very helpful. Now I realize I\u2019m asking you questions and I\u2019m asking you to boil down into pith guidance really complicated issues. I realized that, but I\u2019m not going to stop. Then from the perspective of someone who is analyzing and looking at other people\u2019s dreams, do you have your own like, OK, here\u2019s the tools that inform my art of doing this.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, Jungian dream interpretation is quite a skill. I\u2019ve worked on it a long time. It is a little hard to boil it down. I also don\u2019t want to oversimplify it, because there really isn\u2019t a formula. I can tell you a couple things. First of all, the starting assumption is that most of the time, people and things in the dream are pictures of aspects of us. Just in this little example that I totally made up about the coworker Suzanne, that\u2019s probably not about Suzanne, it\u2019s probably about an aspect of us that is like Suzanne or could be like Suzanne.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes, if you dream about your spouse, for example, the dream might be actually pointing to dynamics between you and your spouse. It might map on to the outer person in some way. It\u2019s not the dreams are never about the other person. If you dream about a film star or someone from your fifth grade class or your high school gym teacher, the dream maker is simply using those images to show you a part of yourself. That\u2019s the opening assumption.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s everything in the dream is an aspect of your psyche, the you in the dream, the dream ego is a little picture of your conscious personality. Everyone else in the dream is also a part of you, maybe that\u2019s unconscious. Then we also consider, again, this is rule of thumb, it\u2019s not a formula, it\u2019s not always like this, but that same-sex people in the dream are often what we think of as shadow. Shadow is a Jungian term. Well, it\u2019s a term that he used to refer to those parts of ourselves, sometimes he would say, that we don\u2019t want to be, that we don\u2019t want to know about.<\/span><\/p>\n

We all come up and we all have parents, we\u2019re all raised in a culture, we learn that certain things are acceptable and desirable and certain other things are not. The parts of ourselves that we learn are undesirable, become part of our shadow. We split them off, we don\u2019t want to know about them, we\u2019d rather think that we\u2019re not that, and we often tend to project it on to other people, by the way, too, like our kids, as I talk about in the book. Shadow comes up a lot in dreams. In the example I just gave about the coworker, Suzanne, I would say, well, Suzanne is your shadow.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s your positive shadow, because my guess is, in my little made up scenario, that dreamer could really use more of Suzanne\u2019s self-assurance. It\u2019s something that the ego thinks is bad, consciously. Oh, I would never want to be that arrogant. Really? Well, you might need to be a little more arrogant sometimes, just a little bit. You don\u2019t want to be a jerk. People will use just a little bit of what Suzanne has, that might help you be more balanced. It\u2019s almost like we can get too one-sided, because we\u2019re too identified with certain values. Then the opposite goes into the unconscious and becomes shadow and comes and meets us at night in our dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Now, you mentioned, Lisa, that you\u2019ve trained extensively to have the dream interpretation skills and framework that you have. What do you think about you makes you good at dream interpretation?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Practice. Practice is part of it. What a great question. Let me think about that for a second. It\u2019s funny, because one of the things that comes up is, well, am I good at it? I\u2019m not really sure I\u2019m good at it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I can feel that you\u2019re good at it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>It\u2019s hard. It\u2019s hard. There are times when … Jung said a lot of times he just would hear a dream and he would think to himself, I have no idea what that dream means. That happens to me several times a week. It is a humbling art. Ultimately, it\u2019s the ability to think symbolically, which we\u2019re not really trained to do in our culture. There are very few places where symbolic thinking is valued. It is a difficult skill to learn. Some of us probably do have a facility for it. I mean, I was always one of those kids who like to read and read literature and read books. That\u2019s probably down the road toward being a good dream interpreter if you like literature and movies and that kind of thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> This is a very literal question. What is symbolic thinking? What is it?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>It\u2019s so complicated in a way. It\u2019s being able to see the multiple levels in which things are true.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Beautiful, what a great answer. That\u2019s great. OK, now I want to talk to you some about your new book with Sounds True. It\u2019s called <\/span>Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself<\/span><\/i>. In full disclosure, I\u2019m not a mom. I\u2019m 58 years old, and I never thought I would have kids, and I never had kids. I was talking to someone on the Sounds True staff who worked with you on the Motherhood book, and she said to me, \u201cWell, let me share with you what was most important to me about this book.\u201d She had several things as she shared them. I was like, wow, this is really interesting.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the things she shared was that the book helped her admit and accept all the resentment that she felt about being a mom and all the things she gave up in order to be a mom, all of her unlived life that had been collected and stored in the decision to be a mom. I wanted to hear you talk more about that for our listener, who perhaps is like, yes, I\u2019ve had resentment, but I just figured out it\u2019s a tradeoff. I don\u2019t really want to spend too much time dwelling on that. That\u2019s not helpful. Speak to that person about the riches that they could find by facing it more completely.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, it makes me … I feel good to know that that was one of the outcomes of the book for this person. Motherhood is really hard. I mean, parenthood is really hard. Motherhood is really hard. It\u2019s hard for so many different reasons. I think that, ultimately, my thesis is something like this. Because it\u2019s so hard, precisely because it\u2019s so hard, it is really valuable at promoting psychological growth\u2014talking about suffering earlier. Suffering is what … You quoted me saying defeat is how we encounter soul. Suffering is also how we encounter soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know ourselves. We don\u2019t know anything about life until we\u2019ve had some difficulties, until we\u2019ve suffered a little bit, until we know what we\u2019re made of, until we have a sense of our own depths. I don\u2019t want to make all of mothering sound like Chairman Mao\u2019s Long March or anything, but it\u2019s hard. It\u2019s hard physically. It\u2019s hard emotionally. It\u2019s hard, because it\u2019s hard. It\u2019s hard because of what you give up. It\u2019s hard because of the fantasies that you have to give up about yourself. Oh my god. Therefore, it is a really rich experience in terms of getting to know yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> When people say it\u2019s so hard, so your central thesis, because it\u2019s so hard, it can lead to a lot of psychological growth. Sometimes I\u2019ll hear people say, oh, my intimate relationship, it\u2019s so hard, it leads to a lot of psychological growth. It\u2019s just like, gosh, can\u2019t we just enjoy these things? The question that\u2019s coming up for me is, one view towards suffering is it leads to growth. Another view is, I\u2019d like to be in a situation where I\u2019m just not suffering so much. What do you think about that?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, yes, there\u2019s the phrase: it\u2019s another effing growth opportunity. I don\u2019t want to make it sound like that\u2019s all that there is. I, hopefully, do lift this up in the book too, that there is a great deal of pleasure in parenting. There\u2019s a great deal of enjoyment. In fact, I talked about this a lot to my clients, that it\u2019s so important when we\u2019re in relationship with another person that we enjoy them. Because enjoying another person is the stuff of attachment. We attach when we enjoy. We enjoy when we\u2019re attached. It\u2019s not that enjoyment isn\u2019t a huge part of it. In fact, and I do talk about this. I think part of the antidote to becoming unattached because we\u2019re not enjoying it is to give ourselves permission to find it hard, if you see what I mean.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I do.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>I think it\u2019s when we expect it to be perfect and easy and then we find that it\u2019s not, and then we become very distraught or stressed or we think we\u2019re doing it wrong. I think a lot of what I wanted to do is just say to moms out there like, it\u2019s OK, it\u2019s OK that you think this is hard. It\u2019s OK that you\u2019re not great at it. It\u2019s OK that you yell at your kids sometimes. It\u2019s OK, because that\u2019s normal. That\u2019s universal. That\u2019s part of the … The deal with the fairytales, it\u2019s like, yes, yes, women have always felt like this. This is an old story. It\u2019s OK that you feel this way. Now, knowing that you\u2019re OK, you can go back and enjoy your kids, even though you\u2019re not perfect. Because it\u2019s OK to not be perfect. In fact, there\u2019s no other way to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Just to reflect back to you, Lisa, I think the book is very balanced in terms of bringing into clear relief the struggle and the pain and the difficulties and the joy and the celebration and the fulfillment. I think it\u2019s very balanced. You can, for sure, feel that. I think we\u2019re not used to\u2014I think this is at least my experience\u2014we\u2019re not used to, in our culture, hearing about the difficulties and the resentment that moms feel, because it\u2019s often, I think, historically, not been … It\u2019s been taboo for a mother to share those things.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think you do a great job of bringing out those taboos and not letting them hide in darkness. Now, you said suffering is how we encounter the soul just like defeat. I want to clarify for that person who\u2019s listening who says, \u201cEncounter the soul. What exactly does this mean, we\u2019re encountering our soul through defeat and through suffering? Why is this something that is a good thing to encounter the soul?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, I think, again, it\u2019s the sense that we come into contact with the larger center of the personality. Let me see if I can make that a little bit clear. It\u2019s when we drop into a sense of giving up our ego plans and really touching into a felt sense that there is something larger in us. Jung said at one point something like the problem with being successful in life is you never understand your reliance on the unconscious. I think I\u2019m talking about those times when the nights are really dark, when you\u2019re really suffering, and then some strange synchronicity happens.<\/span><\/p>\n

The right person walks into your life or you get the right email, or the right book lands in your lap and you have this maybe tingle go up the back of your spine and you understand that there\u2019s something else at work here. It is a little bit of an experience of the transpersonal. You understand that you\u2019re not interested. I mean, I\u2019ll tell you my story with the Linda Leonard book, because I\u2019ve told the story a bunch of times. People that listen to my podcast know this, but it\u2019s a great story. I was really, really depressed. I\u2019d been depressed for months.<\/span><\/p>\n

I used to go in, because I live at 81st and Columbus in Manhattan. I used to go into this little bookstore across Columbus Avenue. I go downstairs to the self-help psychology section. I saw Linda\u2019s book, pulled it off the shelf, opened it up, read just some random sentence and some random page, immediately started crying. I thought, I should buy this book. I was in graduate school. I had like 400 pages of reading a week to do. I was like, I can\u2019t buy a book. I put it back on the shelf. I must have done that five times. Then one day, it was the worst day, I did it again.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the worst day. It was a very dark day. That day, on the way back to my apartment, I stopped in to this little New Age gift shop that was across the street. They had crystals and dream catchers and incense, that kind of stuff. In the back, they had, I don\u2019t know, maybe like 10 books on the shelf. They had a copy of Linda\u2019s book, <\/span>On the Way to the Wedding<\/span><\/i>. I didn\u2019t know much about Jung at that point, but I knew that that was important. I don\u2019t know that I would have even had the language to call it a synchronicity.<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew that that was important and then I needed to buy that darn book. I bought that book. When I got back to my apartment and I opened it, I realized it was a signed copy. That\u2019s what I mean. I mean, that\u2019s the outer manifestation of encountering soul. I wouldn\u2019t have been interested in that book if everything had been going swimmingly. The situation would not have occurred where I would have had that remarkable synchronicity that would have led me down. It changed my whole life. That\u2019s a moment where we encounter soul, where something happens.<\/span><\/p>\n

I mean, I\u2019m saying it happened and there was this outer circumstance. Sometimes it\u2019s not like that. Sometimes it\u2019s an inner encounter only. Many times, it is inner encounter that has this outer manifestation. It\u2019s like to really get our attention. The universe says, hey, look over here.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Yes. This reminds me of another quote I pulled from the book. In it, here\u2019s what you write, you write, \u201cJung wrote, the decisive question for a person is, is he or she related to something infinite or not?\u201d This is the telling question of a person\u2019s life. I thought, huh, that\u2019s so interesting. What I associated with that being related to something infinite was just something like infinite, alive, brilliant, conscious space, something like that. You go on to say parenthood can be an important part of this relationship with something infinite. I wanted to understand more about that. How is that true for you, that parenthood can be an important part of a relationship with something infinite?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, there are a couple of different things that I lift up in that chapter. One, I think is the experience of being so intimately connected with a child. We really have this sense of being part of life\u2019s unfolding, in a way, whether or not that child is biologically related to us or not. We can see ourselves in the chain of being as it were. I remember having this really intense sense of being connected with my mother and my mother\u2019s mother when my children were small. I was now one of the line of mothers stretching back into the eons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, I have a daughter, who one day herself, hopefully, if she chooses to, will become a mother. There\u2019s this incredible, almost dizzying sense of being connected back to the past and being connected forward to the future. That\u2019s one way that I think it connects us with something infinite. I think it also reorganizes our values and often makes us, or can make us, less focused on these very worldly ego goals like success or money or material goods. It can refocus our values. We may have a different relationship with time after becoming a mother. We may find that different things matter to us that didn\u2019t matter to us before. We may care more about the planet.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> In terms of this different relationship to time, I also found this part of the <\/span>Motherhood<\/span><\/i> book really interesting. You write, \u201cFor great chunks of every day, I wondered how I would survive until bedtime.\u201d Then you continued, \u201cJust as fiercely, I wanted those days to last.\u201d When I read that, I thought of a time when I was babysitting one of my godchildren. I think the parents left her with us for three-and-a-half hours. I mean, I didn\u2019t think I was going to make it to the three-and-a-half hour mark. I mean, after about two hours, it felt … Anyway, but at the same time, I totally savored the sweetness of that period. That\u2019s an interesting change in terms of your relationship with time. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s anything you want to add to that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Yes. Well, there\u2019s that phrase that I think is so true, the years fly, but the minutes drag. It\u2019s really vertiginous because, one minute, you\u2019re like, oh my god, how do I get through the next 15 minutes? I mean, I would literally think about, OK, what can I do for … One of the things no one tells you when you have kids, or at least I didn\u2019t. This was like the shocker for me, is that once they\u2019re not babies anymore, you have to keep them entertained, constantly, all the time. Yes, anyway. It\u2019s like, yes, what can we … OK, so maybe I can make play dough now.<\/span><\/p>\n

That will kill 15 minutes. Then after that, let\u2019s see. Then maybe it\u2019s time for lunch. Well, that will be another 15 minutes. It\u2019s really like, wow, it\u2019s really hard. There\u2019s that, which is so pronounced when they\u2019re young. Then, also, the way that time just … It\u2019s like, how could they possibly have outgrown this outfit already? It feels like I just bought it yesterday. Oh my gosh, look at her now. She\u2019s talking. Seems like it was just days ago that she was a tiny little thing and we just brought her home from the hospital or whatever it is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, my kids are … Well, they\u2019re almost 17 and almost 19. I still have that feeling. I\u2019ll look at them and I\u2019ll think, god, it was just not that long ago. I couldn\u2019t take you to the grocery store without worrying that you were going to run away. Now you\u2019re driving me to the grocery store. How did that happen?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Yes. Now, Lisa, a topic I really want us to address in the book you write, \u201cMotherhood and creativity have a complicated relationship.\u201d I wanted to talk to you about this, because you\u2019re a very accomplished creative person, in my mind. I mean, this book that you\u2019ve written is gorgeous. You write about how earlier, as a mom, you felt a lot of tension between the time that you would spend giving to your family and the time you spend on your own creative life. I\u2019m curious to know what you can share with a woman who feels that tension to help her through this period, where she\u2019s like, I want to be writing, I want to be creating, no, I have to do this other thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, I think the good news is it is possible to be creative and to really, sort of, mother. I mean, I wanted to do both and I knew I didn\u2019t want to compromise my experience of being a mother because I knew it wasn\u2019t going to last forever. I wanted to really be there. It is true that you can\u2019t spend a lot of time on your creativity if you\u2019re going to be very involved mother, especially if you work full time. I mean, obviously, people\u2019s situations are so different.<\/span><\/p>\n

I do think there\u2019s something about setting it as an intention and a practice, and doing it even a little bit every day, if that works out. I mean, I can\u2019t remember if I discussed this in the book. I don\u2019t think I did. Most of this book I wrote, and I wrote a 30-minute chunks, or I would write for 30 minutes a day. You know what, you can write a lot if you write 30 minutes a day. It adds up. It is a struggle. I have women in my practice who are creative women and they have kids and work full-time. Single moms maybe. It is not easy. It is not easy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Especially, a lot of creativity does really require or benefits from open expanses of time. On the other hand, there\u2019s something about just making it a discipline and a practice, and just getting right down to it. Even if it\u2019s not really good, you did it. What I found, I don\u2019t think this is any surprise, is if I had taken a break and I hadn\u2019t been writing, I would come back to it. It wasn\u2019t very good. What I was writing was not very good. If I did it every day, yes, after a few weeks, it\u2019s like, oh, that\u2019s not bad. It\u2019s a little bit about the art of possible. It\u2019s not ideal. You can make that commitment to yourself and find something.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> OK, I want to just see if we can make something even more explicit and clear, which is, towards the beginning of our conversation, I brought forward this quote from the book that for Jung, the goal of psychological work is individuation. Then you talked about how part of your thesis in <\/span>Motherhood<\/span><\/i> is that there\u2019s a lot of psychological growth from the intense challenges and suffering that come from motherhood. What I\u2019d like to understand is, specifically when it comes to individuation, how does a woman, in the journey of motherhood, gain those lessons, those learnings that will lead to greater individuation?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>OK, so I\u2019m going to focus on one part of the answer so that it\u2019s really explicit and clear. Jung said that the first job in individuation is to come to terms with the shadow. I was talking about those parts of ourselves that we don\u2019t want to know about, they are not civilized, thank you very much, I want to leave them at the doorstep. I don\u2019t want to know about them. I don\u2019t want other people to know those things about me. I would just rather not think about it, thank you very much.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no way that you are going to get through spending any amount of time with your children where you\u2019re not going to meet those parts of yourself that you cut off and sent back to the backstage. They\u2019re going to come out. I spent three chapters talking about that in the book. First of all, you\u2019re going to project your stuff on your kids, you\u2019re going to …<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Tell me what you mean by that, because you said that before in our conversation too, and I wasn\u2019t clear about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Psychological projection is when we take an aspect of ourselves, usually something that\u2019s unconscious, and we see it in another person. Really, we\u2019re reacting to something in our self. My little dream example, my guess is, I mean, going back to the coworker Suzanne, this is something that happens all the time with people, is we have someone who really gets under our skin, not just that we don\u2019t like them or they\u2019re not our favorite person or we\u2019d prefer not to be assigned to the same team as that person, someone that just drives us nuts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe everyone else also finds them somewhat irritating, but they really get in our coat. You can be sure that there\u2019s something about that person that has shadow for you. It\u2019s got a little extra heat for you. That\u2019s because you\u2019re projecting your shadow on that person. In this case, this made-up case that I used before, we\u2019re going to say that this very accommodating, mild-mannered person in waking … The conscious personality is very identified with being accommodating. Suzanne doesn\u2019t mind being a bit of a terror or letting everyone know what she thinks.<\/span><\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t care what people think about her. Suzanne is going to really drive my putative-case person here crazy, because Suzanne is living out something that is in the shadow. The extra heat comes from the projection. I don\u2019t want to be bossy or arrogant. I\u2019d split that part off. I don\u2019t want to know about it. Now it\u2019s living out there in the world. On Suzanne, projection conjures up this idea of like the old-fashioned movies. You would shine a light through the little piece of film and it would be projected up onto the screen. That\u2019s very similar to the psychological process.<\/span><\/p>\n

We cast something out onto the world around us. You have a shadow. We all do. At some point, every parent is going to project some aspect of his or her shadow on his or her child. For example, an example that I give in the book is my daughter was … I think she was about four or five. She was really hesitant to ride a bike. I got really uptight about it. What\u2019s wrong with her? Why doesn\u2019t she want to try? Is she somehow behind her peers in this way? Fretting about it for an hour, and then realize it was really about me. I was feeling inadequate. I was feeling incompetent.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was feeling like I was maybe behind my peers. That\u2019s how we wind up projecting our shadow on our kids. If you\u2019re lucky, you think, oh, damn, I\u2019m projecting my shadow on my kid. It\u2019s an opportunity to take it back. Then you know a little bit more about yourself, a little bit more of your personality is now conscious that was unconscious before. That\u2019s individuation, where you make something conscious and you develop a conscious relationship with it. The other way that you\u2019re going to get to know your shadow is you\u2019re going to be an awful, awful person.<\/span><\/p>\n

At some point, you will be an awful person to your children. The quote I used in the book, I just love this quote. Fay Weldon says, \u201cThe best part about not having children is that you can go on believing you\u2019re a nice person.\u201d Because if you have kids, you will be terrible to them at some point. You will scream at them. You will say things you deeply, deeply regret. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible to get through parenthood without doing that. You will come to know yourself in your worst aspects.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, if you can hold it correctly, if you can hold it psychologically, you won\u2019t say, oh, I\u2019m a terrible person, what\u2019s wrong with me? You\u2019ll say, oh, there\u2019s my shadow. Look at that. I\u2019m human just like everyone else. I have this awful side that most days I don\u2019t want to think about. There it is. It\u2019s humbling, but it also expands us. Because we know ourselves more. We can\u2019t be trapped in this innocent complex and think that we\u2019re all nice. Like Fay Weldon said, \u201cWe\u2019re not nice.\u201d Thank God, we\u2019re complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> What would you say to that person listening, who, as they\u2019re hearing you describe this, is remembering some incident where they \u201clost it\u201d with their kids, and they still can feel bad about it. Yes, I\u2019m human like everybody else. Really, I don\u2019t know. I wished I hadn\u2019t screamed like that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Well, great question and a complicated answer, because I\u2019m clearly not saying it\u2019s a good thing to scream at your kids.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Sure, sure, sure, sure.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>I do think it\u2019s an incredibly normal thing. There is a way where I think that being angry with our kids is probably necessary. I think if we\u2019re never angry with our kids, first of all, our kids never learned that it\u2019s OK to be angry. They don\u2019t learn that this is an entirely normal thing. They don\u2019t learn how to relate to their own aggression. Maybe the other thing I want to say is this notion of repair. Repair is so important. It\u2019s almost more important than not having the rupture. Getting really angry at your kid, that\u2019s a rupture. What matters is the repair.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you go back to your kid and apologize? I mean, I do. I do that all the time. For some people, that\u2019s hard, and maybe they have other ways of repairing. I mean, even a young child, mommy is sorry she yelled, I shouldn\u2019t have done that. I lost my temper. I\u2019m sorry. That really builds connection. I think it\u2019s complicated. It\u2019s not like it\u2019s a great thing to yell at your kids. You\u2019re probably not going to not be able to do it. There\u2019s some real gold in there, too.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> When you, Lisa, look at someone who you think is very well individuated, I get it\u2019s not a destination. There\u2019s no final destination, but you meet someone and maybe I don\u2019t know if it happens very often or not. You think, wow, that person, what a beautifully individuated person. What is it that you see in such a human?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>I think the first thing that comes to my mind is openheartedness. It\u2019s a lack of defensiveness, more or less. I mean, all of us get defensive sometimes, but do we live there? Do we live in a defended way? I think if we\u2019ve practiced living in such a way that we are constantly getting to know ourselves better and integrating more and more aspects of ourselves, we do grow more and more openhearted, and there\u2019s more room for joy. There\u2019s more room to be with whatever we\u2019re feeling, whether it\u2019s joy or sadness or heartache.<\/span><\/p>\n

I tell the story in the introduction, when I\u2019m trying to give this picture of what individuation looks like, of this really renowned Jungian analyst, Harry Wilmer, who presented at this conference that I went to early on in my training, and he was giving this talk about yarn paintings. I thought oh, it must be some indigenous art practice from some hunter-gatherer tribe or something. They make yarn paintings, and we\u2019re going to hear about the symbology in it. I thought, well, I\u2019m going to go and take notes. I\u2019m going to be a good student.<\/span><\/p>\n

I went, he was quite elderly at that point. He just stood up there with a microphone in this faltering voice, and he talked about being stuck on a tuberculosis ship during World War II, the kind of quarantine and being really depressed and bereft and lonely. He just took some yarn and a needle and a piece of cloth, and he started making what he called a yarn painting. He showed us these beautiful paintings, as it were, made with yarn. It was basically like embroidery, that he just did as he was trying to accept his suffering and make meaning out of it and come to terms with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

He showed us paintings that he made after his adult son died, and I think it was a motorcycle accident, if I\u2019m remembering correctly. In the midst of that anguish, he just took up a needle and some yarn and made something. Early in that presentation, when I realized what it wasn\u2019t, it wasn\u2019t going to be some heady, esoteric, scholarly presentation about the symbology of yaki yarn paintings or something. No, it was about this man\u2019s individual, unique, very human efforts to deal with his own suffering in his life. I just started crying. I just cried the whole time.<\/span><\/p>\n

His openheartedness was just so evident. I tell this story in the book, the story that didn\u2019t make it into the book is what happened later. Because I don\u2019t know if it was that night or the next night. One of the things that most people don\u2019t realize about Jungian analysts is that we really love to dance. Every, any Jungian meeting I\u2019ve ever been to, when the music starts, the tables all clear. This was my first one though, I\u2019d never been to one before. The last thing that I had been to where music was played and there was a dance floor.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was like some wedding where maybe a couple of people get up and half-heartedly dance around a little bit. Here I was, and there was a dance floor and there was as a banquet, one these hotel banquets, the music started, and in unison, every chair scraped. Everyone got up and danced, including Harry and his wife. I mean, they must have been in their late 80s at that point. There they were dancing. To me, that\u2019s what individuation looks like. I want to be dancing when I\u2019m 90.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> That\u2019s a beautiful story. To end, what occurs to me is that in some ways, your book, <\/span>Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself<\/span><\/i>, is a very articulate, filled with myth and story, personal reflection, client story yarn painting that you made in your own way. I\u2019m curious if you would say, the meaning making this provided for you to write and now publish this book.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Tami, I\u2019m not sure that I\u2019ve had enough of a chance to digest it all yet. It\u2019s a big thing to publish your first book. That\u2019s a very big thing. I\u2019m just so grateful to you and to Sounds True for making one of my lifelong dreams come true. I guess I\u2019ll say that. I guess one of the things that I can say in answer to that is that I recently moved. I moved the home that I\u2019d been living in for 17 years or something\u2014or basically, it\u2019s the house I raised my kids in. I thought that it was going to be a just a huge emotional blow to leave there because of all of the memories. It wasn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s because the process of writing that book was my metabolizing-my-motherhood experience. Not that it\u2019s all sewn up with a bow because, I mean, trust me, I\u2019m still in the middle of it. In terms of making meaning of all of that, of the wonderful times, the joyful times, the sweetness, the poignancy, the frustration, the anger, the resentment, the doubt, oh god, the self-doubt, there\u2019s so much of that, the shame. Somehow I got to digest all of that in writing this book. I feel like it\u2019s just really well metabolized, which is nice.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> I will say for anyone who\u2019s making meaning of the motherhood journey, this is a gorgeous book to reflect with and imagine with and journey with, down deep into the well and surfacing up again. It\u2019s called <\/span>Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself<\/span><\/i> by Lisa Marchiano, Jungian analyst, cohost of the podcast <\/span>This Jungian Life<\/span><\/i>. Thank you so much. What a beautiful offering to others. Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LM: <\/b>Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS:<\/b> Thank you for listening to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. You can read a full transcript of today\u2019s interview at SoundsTrue.com\/podcast. If you\u2019re interested, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app. Also, if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i> a review. I love getting your feedback, being in connection with you, and learning how we can continue to evolve and improve our program. Working together, I believe we can create a kinder and wiser world, SoundsTrue.com: waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

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