Facing Your Feelings: Avoidance or Encounter?

While we welcome “good” feelings, we often try to banish “bad” ones like sadness, fear, vulnerability and shame. We may deny them by trying to “think positive.” We may attribute them to political wrongs or even the barking dog next door. If emotions have nowhere else to go, they become symptoms, complexes, and even physical illnesses. Avoiding negative emotions simply causes them to go underground and express themselves in disguise.

Jung says, “Our emotions happen to us; affect occurs at the point at which our adaptation is weakest and at the same time exposes the reason for its weakness.” So what is calling for encounter instead of avoidance, displacement or somatization? Feelings are information—they do not necessarily mandate action, nor do they originate externally. Notice them, name them--and look to your dreams, for the unconscious compensates nightly for what consciousness avoids. Something may be pursuing you.

Here's the dream we analyze:

"I saw a bride in a white dress sitting behind a small table in a candlelit, cave-like room. Her groom was standing/waiting across the room. It was an arranged marriage but of their own volition. The bride stood up as a signal that the marriage would occur. They looked into each other’s eyes and knew the marriage was right. This part of the dream seemed to be in close-ups of their eyes and lasted what seemed like a couple of minutes. The sense of certainty seemed to have been there, either two weeks before or after the marriage. "

References:

Inside Out (film).

On the Way to the Wedding: Transforming the Love Relationship, by Linda Leonard (Amazon).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1570627118/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_XYZKF14Y5NGZM0VGR9RH

It'ss Not Always About Depression by Hilary Jacobs Hendel

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399588140/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_JX1R3HSRBNV2HXZH8A9P

LOOK & GROW

⁠⁠⁠⁠Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Do you have a topic you want us to cover?⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠We've got totally NEW MERCH!⁠

If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of ⁠⁠⁠⁠Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams⁠⁠⁠⁠ from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.