Harvest Project Update
Greetings, Friends!
I completely disappeared down a rabbit hole of writings by Robert A. Johnson, the dear, wise, Jungian analyst, who passed away a few years ago, in San Diego. I know several of you have studied with Johnson, either through the Jungian Institute, or Pacifica Graduate Institute, or in the local writing programs offered through Hay House publishing.
His title of He, She, and We is a classic for self-inquiry, transformation, and owning our shadow, and was required text during my doctoral studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where Robert presented his work to us in person. At the time, I remember saying to myself, ‘one day, I will look back at this experience and know how rarified this gift is for my personal quest with the Unconscious.’ This week of reading several of his books took me to this moment of claiming the memory: I am in awe of the breadth and scope of this man’s ability to articulate the space we need for understanding who we are, and who we can be while on this planet.
In developing the Harvest Project, I merged one of the graduate classes I taught in thesis writing, with several other aspects from my private practice, where the balance of ego and soul was/is the focus of self-inquiry and personal healing. I realize much of my guidance in the efforts of listening to the unconscious, through active imagination, shadow work, and somatic listening, is based in Johnson’s work of how to honor our longings, desires and dreams that have been quietly waiting politely off in some corner pocket, or in my case, erupting in volcanic waves of personal change. In other words, the unlived life is fully present whether we want to be conscious of it, or not, and Johnson makes clear there is a path to travel for reuniting parts of our Self we chose to leave behind.
Living Your Unlived Life: Coping With Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life, by Johnson, is the book I want to bring to you both today, and throughout the weekend.
Why?
Well, you might recognize your own project within the title of the book: fulfilling your purpose, of listening to your dreams, of finally making space for an important transition to emerge within your life. Some of you are finishing up projects started back in May; many of you are in the midst of refining your work, and moving into the next phase; and some of you ARE the project, and the process of unfolding, discovery, and satisfaction is finally in sight. Some of you have arrived back face-to-face with long term patterns of containment, of the known territory and you still are nurturing desires and longings to move beyond these known lands and psychic landscapes. The process of self-discovery is one of the most intimate ways to be in the world. All of you are creating, doing, being amazing work.
To help provide foundation, an understanding of the larger picture, and of focus, I am sharing a few passages from the beginning section of the Kindle edition of Living Your Unlived Life. Hearing/reading these words from Johnson is reinforcement and validation toward your commitment and to your project. These are direct quotes, with citations, and I left them to stand alone, without analysis or paraphrasing or corralled with my personal meaning-making. I don’t want to direct you toward a meaning . . . I want you to make your own meaning. I am already skewing this email from my selections of Johnson’s work; my bias and subjectivity s already present by what I present and by what I Ieft out.
Regardless, this is the first selection of readings to assist in your self-reflection of being in relationship with what has been left out, what is waiting to be seen and honored, in your life.
From Robert A. Johnson, Living Your Unlived Life: Coping With Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life:
"We all carry with us a vast inventory of abandoned, unrealized, and underdeveloped talents and potentials. Even if you have achieved your major goals and seemingly have few regrets, there still are significant life experiences that have been closed to you. If you are an only child, then you will never know the experience of having a brother or sister. If you are a woman, then you are not a man, and some of the masculine experience is foreign to you. If you are married, you are not single. If you are Christian, you are not Muslim. And so it goes. For everything you choose (or that has been chosen for you), something else is ‘unchosen.”
Perhaps you are short and you always wanted to be tall. Perhaps you wanted to be thin, or to have a different body type, or to explore a musical talent, or to be more athletic. What is unloved yet still has some urgency in you? How is it expressed? As discontent, or anger, or persistent sadness and lack of energy? Are you frequently agitated or disappointed by what life brings you? Do you feel cheated by the circumstances you find yourself in? What are we to do with these unlived desires? From what subterranean place do they arise to take possession of us?
The unchosen think is what causes the trouble. If you don’t do something with the unchosen, it will set up a minor infection somewhere in the unconscious and later take its revenge on you. Unloved life does not just ‘go away’ through underuse or by tossing it off and thinking that what we have abandoned is no longer useful or relevant. Instead, unloved life goes underground and becomes troublesome — sometimes very troublesome—as we age. Of course no one can live out all of life’s possibilities, but thee are key aspects of your being that must be brought into your life or you will never realize your fulfillment.
When brought into awareness, unloved life can become the fuel to propel you beyond your current limitations and into deeper and greater awareness. Your ego and the higher Self join together into a new synthesis. The ego is our name for the cent of human consciousness, while the higher Self is a supra-ordinate organizing principle in the psyche, a center force for the personality as a total phenomenon” (Johnson, 2008, p. 4 - 6).
"Harmonizing our conscious lives with the unseen power that direct the universe brings a sense of ‘rightness: a feeling of being home even in the midst of our journey” (Johnson,2008, p. 6 Kindle).
"Everything human is relative because everything rests on an inner polarity, a phenomenon of energy. There must always be high and low, hot and cold, so the equilibrating process, which is energy, can take place. Everything that conscious human beings experience is brought to us in pairs of opposites. Anything you do or can experience in your life always has some unloved opposite in the unconscious. This is difficult for us to bear. It is not fair. And yet it is true.
It usually takes an abrupt turnaround in attitude for us to profoundly balance our lives. What is required is a synthesis of the conscious personality with essential energies from our unloved life. This is the impetus behind the midlife opportunity. We have differentiated and specialized in egoic consciousness to the point where we can’t stand it anymore. In the second half of life we are called upon to examine the ‘truths’ by which we live and even to acknowledge that their opposite also contains truth. It is a mistake of fear that the truths and values of our early adulthood are no longer relevant. They’re still relevant, but they have become relative — they are no longer universally true.
In order to be complete human beings, we need to recognize that we have an ego, which directs our earthly responsibilities, but also within us is the spark of something godlike. There two qualities seem to yearn to find each other; they want to be united again, as they were in childhood” (Johnson, 2008, p. 22 Kindle).
An Exercise for your Journal: Please indulge yourself by answering these prompts.
Taking Inventory of Unlived Life: An Exercise
How would you title your life story?
What have been the critical crossroads or turning points in your life?
When and where have you experienced major losses and disappointments?
What were some of the missed opportunities or paths not taken?
What has been the nature of your friendships? Are you a good friend?
Do you keep a balance of looking after yourself and others?
Which talents and abilities have you not applied?
The four Unlived Life Inventory Categories:
Outer Life: Reaching satisfaction from what you do in life. Time management. Feeling accomplished.
Inner Life: Know thyself. Comfort with own company. Engage with feelings, emotions.
Deeper Life: Listening to intuition, ability to express creative needs; honoring longings; connections with nature.
Greater Life: Aware of presence of a Higher Power; compassion and love towards others; self-reflection, meditation, prayer, spiritual practice.
The next section is Learning the Timeless Art of Being. Look for more of Johnson this weekend.
Until then,
In Service to Soul,
Brenda