Thank You!

Sending my heartfelt best to you. It has been an incredible year. We have lost and gained so much. It is hard to keep up with the transformation. In any change there is grief. I have been feeling mine this March and holding space for clients' grief also. We are not alone. We are connected at the roots.

I want to acknowledge this week as the anniversary of going into lock down. I believe that anniversaries are an import part of processing growth, change and that they are often tender. Anniversaries help us to process change at the unconscious level, at the depths.

Midwifing change is beautiful and intense. I think each of us is a midwife in our own process of becoming. This year has been a protracted labor. You have done an amazing job.

For me being a therapist is like being a midwife. In the past I have daydreamed of being a midwife, owning a flower shop or being a travel writer. Being a therapist is all three. I midwife change. I look for and find the beauty. I travel far and wide as I listen to your stories.

I want to thank you for sharing this journey with me. This has been an incredible year of doing the work I love in new ways. You have taught me how to do depth work remotely. You have taught me how strong the therapy container really is and that it is adaptable and flexible.

One year ago today I had my last in person session at Valencia and 23rd street. Thank you so much for sharing this year with me, going with the flow, changing, being brave, grieving, being creative and continuing to nurture your mental health and midwife your soul.

I got my second vaccine shot on Saturday and my husband will get his on Tuesday. Neither one of us has had any adverse effects. For now I plan to keep working remotely from home and see how life unfolds this year. I have painted my home office the most calming shade of desert pink. I will be taking some time off in April and taking a road trip to see some pink and red rocks.

Let's keep creating safety in our hearts, homes and relationships.

Sending hope, love and gratitude!

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Embracing the Shadow Women's Group

Alchemy

Art by Karen Lynn

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Listen to: Abundance Practice Podcast Episode: Shadow, Creativity and Private Practice with Hannah Green MFT

Alchemy is the art of transformation.

Change involves both dissolving/letting go and willing/intending. The mother of all alchemical formula's is solve ~ coagula.
This equation means that transformation is a death ~ rebirth cycle that requires letting go and dissolving as well as sustained willingness to birth new forms and ways of being. BTW...Every month in Embracing the Shadow we explore both aspects of transformation.

Solve practices allow us to release what we no longer need and make space for something new.

Coagula practices direct our energy and point us towards our highest aims.

Jungian psychology is rooted in alchemy. Creating a dialogue between the conscious and unconscious mind is an alchemical process. Solve practices help us access the unconscious and develop a more fluid and receptive approach to life. Coagula practices bring the wisdom of the unconscious into our conscious, day to day lives in tangible ways.

A solve process or practice is one that dissolves the ego and is about letting go. An example would be: grieving, dancing, embodied meditation, having a bath or authentic movement. A coagula process or practice is one that creates a new form or way of being. An example would be writing a book, setting a boundary, creating a business or baking a cake.

When solve and coagula practices are rightly related transformation occurs. These are natural processes that are happening all the time. Look to nature for endless examples! We alchemists simply seek to consciously engage in, amplify and enjoy the process.

In your own life...

• What is dissolving

• What is manifesting?

• What helps you get into creating?

• What helps you lean into letting go?

• How do community and relationships play a role in both?

Here are two wonderful books that delve deeply into the intersection of alchemy and psychology:

The Alchemy of Psychology by James Hillman

Alchemy: Ann Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology by Marie-Louise von Franz

Poem for the Month

Messenger
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - 
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Mary Oliver

Some Current Inspirations:

The wonderful and inspiring reality TV show Escape To The Chateau

This album by Water Feature for listening to around the house

Working With Resentments

Image Pioneer CD's 1985

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Why work with resentments?

We all have plenty of judgements and resentments. Working with my own resentments is an indispensable part of my journey to wholeness. I have come to understand that while resentments are a fact of life, it is possible to use them for good rather than evil.

Jung said there are three major highways to the unconscious mind: Dreams, images and projections. Resentments are projections and working with them creates a powerful dialogue between the conscious and unconscious mind.

Why is this important? Psychic/life energy gets stuck in projection/resentment. If we release the energy bound in resentment, it becomes available for insight, creativity, spiritual awakening, physical health and vitality. Wether we are working with dreams, images or projections, the point is to connect with the unconscious and the collective unconscious making this a vast inner resource and well of energy available to us.

The following exercise has helped me and countless clients turn resentments into insight. Owning and working with resentments has proven far more productive than denying them, wishing them away or trying to "not judge". Working with resentments is a powerful part of integrating our own Shadow and i have found consistent practice in this area pays off immensely!

What is a resentment?

A resentment is occurring any time I am having a conversation with or arguing with someone in my head, any time I feel stuck or any time I think something should be happening that’s not or shouldn’t be happening that is. This process of putting pen to paper alchemizes resentment into insight and inspiration. Doing this practice consistently and whenever resentment arises is an alchemical key.

Simple Resentment Releaser

• I am resentful at _____ because…

1.

2.

3.

Picture yourself getting uncomfortable and list the specific things the person is doing and/or saying as the discomfort is happening.

• What does this affect? List all that apply:

• self-esteem (is the situation affecting my sense of worth or value) hint: I have never had a resentment that isn’t.

• security (is the situation happening in my primary relationship, inner circle, workplace or home?)

• personal or intimate relationships (are other people involved?)

• ambitions (Is the situation affecting my money, job or professional reputation?)

• What did I not do or say?

When I am resentful I am over-managing a situation. Here I free-write what I would do or say if I had no fear or attachment to outcomes.

• What do I think they should do?

1.

2.

3.

Make a list of all the things ______ should do. Write each statement as: ______ should ______.

• Turn it around.

Rewrite all the above statements replacing

(other person's name) should ____ with:

I can _____.

This becomes my personalized formula for getting relief and moving forward in line with my values. Read each 'I can ___'  statement and consider/feel into what that means to you today.

A wonderful book on releasing resentment:
Loving What Is by Byron Katie

Treating Trauma

Treating Trauma

Since the pandemic, more people ask me about my methods of working with trauma.

Trauma occurs when the nervous system gets overwhelmed. This overwhelm takes us into unconscious territory because we are being asked to understand or integrate something that our conscious mind can't yet make sense of.

My long time therapist and mentor Jo Sopko likes to say “the metaphor is always safe.”

I work with trauma using this metaphorical approach and my clients often find this very gentle and effective. A “metaphorical approach” means working with art therapies and Jungian sand tray to address trauma. These methods work so well because they gently create a dialogue between the conscious and unconscious mind, allowing healing to happen naturally and sometimes spontaneously.

This approach also recognizes that although trauma is very difficult it is potentially transformational because it can facilitate and indeed necessitate a dialogue between the conscious and unconscious mind. In short it takes us deeper and can catalyze new growth. Working through it gently takes time.

This old school, Jungian approach to working with trauma is client centered and emphasizes wholeness. 

Here are some images of my sand tray (no client trays are included) and a few of the many images I work with. 

Thoughts From Golden Gate Park

Image Amethyst Remembrance by Jeanie Tomanek

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You must give birth to your images.

They are the future waiting to be born. 

Fear not the strangeness you feel. 

The future must enter you long before it happens. 

Just wait for the birth, 

for the hour of new clarity.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

It is Monday morning at 8 AM and I am writing this from the gardens outside the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. The Dahlias have been cut back, all except for one pink solitary stalk which both promises and remembers spring. The sprinklers are dousing the misty air and the grass is gloriously wet.

This morning I awoke early and had to see flowers. I’ve been reading Mary Oliver poems and essays. My body wants grass, seashores, barking seals, flowers wet with morning dew and the conversation of birds.

My body knows what heals. My imagination know what heals.

Last night in bed I put down my book. I wanted to close my eyes and see how evocatively I could imagine an English garden or the California coast. Years of Jungian active imagination has asked me: how receptive can I be to images, body memories and the connection with nature I have inside? I slept well.

This morning I awoke with a sense of purpose. I visited my local coffee shop for only the second time in nearly a year, tipped heavily and drove to Golden Gate Park. Only 20 paces from Fell Street the park enclosed me in her green arms. This is another world from the bustling corner in the Mission we call home. It feels prehistoric. Birds fill the morning air with sound.

I drive so little nowadays that I have a nearly overwhelming sense of freedom when I get behind the wheel. Inevitably the song I am listening to makes me cry. I feel giddy and drunk with possibility. I feel as if have set off across the country just a few blocks from home. These days I don’t need to go very far to feel I've traveled a great distance.

It’s been nearly a year since the pandemic hit and I’ve been seeing clients at home, my husband and I more cocooned in our couple bubble than ever. It’s been glorious in many ways. As a sensitive person having more of an energetic buffer has been soul nourishing. I feel deeply connected to those in my life while at the same time submerged and steeped in my own energy and creativity. It’s a strange paradox and one I’m learning to live with.

I’ve learned to do depth work remotely. Clients tell me where to place the sand tray objects and we dive into the unconscious through text sent images and poems.

Sometimes the need to get in the car and traverse every inch of this earth arises from such a deep place inside me. My eyes fill with water and my body instinctively and hungrily makes it way to the park, to the beach or to the hill.

My body knows what to do: breathe the air, gaze at the flower, walk on the earth.

I am still in the cocoon. Transformation happens incrementally. Like drops of water change gathers and the washes us anew. I have time to answer this call to the wild and to explore the world with new eyes.

In the meantime I will listen and act locally. I will revel in these pockets of wildness in the city. I will sit in the park and feel the grass. I will close my eyes at night and enter the waking dream of nature inside my body.

I will breathe into the astonishment and wonder of change.