Wednesday, June 23, 2010

In Chapter 6 of WHAT MATTERS MOST: LIVING A MORE CONSIDERED LIFE, "That We Risk Growth Over Security",  Jungian analyst James Hollis refers to "the mother complex" on p. 89.   What a term!  What a concept.

Being a mother, I was relieved to learn that there is also a "father complex".

I have heard Jim lecture extensively on the complexes in the last twelve years and through my own analysis have become acquainted with those "other selves" that populate my inner landscape.   The concept of complexes is seens as one of Carl Jung's greatest contributions to the understanding of those forces that rise up seemingly out of nowhere to defeat and discourage us or, in the context of this chapter's content, to keep us from risking growth while we cling to the security of our complexes.

In describing a dream he had while he was in training to be a Jungian analyst, Jim says on p. 88, "...what we have become is frequently the chief obstacle to our journey.   What we have become is typically an assemblage of defense mechanisms and anxiety-management systems generated by the adaptive needs that our fate-fueled biographies bring to us."

It is often the parental complexes that have formed "who we have become" and because those parental complexes are within us we truly have become obstacles to our own journeys.  There finally does come a day when you are faced with the burdensome reality that it's not so much someone "out there" who is keeping you stuck in infantile patterns or childhood repetitions, but a force, an energy -- a complex --  within your own inner landscape.

I first learned about those "many selves" from Elizabeth O'Connor in her book OUR MANY SELVES.  In it, she pivots off the story of the demoniac who approached Jesus, pleading for mercy. In a stroke of brilliance, Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" and the demoniac responded, "My name is Legion."  Indeed, sometimes it feels as if there is a legion of "people" inside us, a whole committee of persons, each with an agenda, jerking our strings and calling the shots of our lives.  The mother and father complexes are only two of those inner "authorities", but they wield a ton of power.

In describing a dream figure that Jim says "embodied my native wisdom, my native strength,"  he asserts that that dream figure "wanted to confront and overthrow my assembled defenses and pull me out of the protective "mother complex" -- that is, the choice to stay safe rather than grow up."

I'll never forget the day I first heard about the parental complexes -- the mother complex and the father complex.  Sitting in a classroom at the University of Houston and listening to Pittman McGehee lecture about those burdensome "people" we carry around with us in a course called "Jung's Map of the Soul", I was mesmerized by the truth of what Pittman was teaching.  "All of us have three mothers," I heard him say, and then he went on to differentiate those mothers. 

Each of us has a biological mother, the one who gave birth to us.  Each of us carries around an idea of "mother" -- and that is the archetypal mother, a concept that is often idealized.  And each of us has a "mother complex" which is that inner mother who is an inwardly created "mother" with traits borrowed from the archetypal mother and the biological mother. That "mother complex" carries some of the same messages and material from both of those other mothers.  (And the same is true with "the father".)

Years before I heard Jim or Pittman lecture, I was sitting with my friend Mary Ellen Hartje in my favorite booth at the Crystal Confectionary in San Angelo, Texas, enjoying -- no, savoring, delighting in -- one of our long, never-ending conversations about life or literature or our daughters.   I had begun reading writers who were writing about Jung's theories, and it all made such good sense to me.  On that day, maybe we were talking about Marion Woodman, John Sanford orJoseph Campbell.  Whatever it was, the conversation with Mary Ellen was stimulating and life-giving, as it always was.

I loved that eatery, too.  I loved the ambiance, the owners and the menu.  Some of the best salads I ever had in my life were at the Crystal, and some of  favorite hours of my life were spent there, talking about important things with wonderful friends and figuring out life.  The food was nurturing, but what happened to me there in conversations and in friendships nurtured my soul.

"I love this journey," I said to Mary Ellen one day, and then one of us made a comment about how we wished more people were "on the journey" of risking growth over security.  "I love the discovery, the quest, the adventure of learing more."

Mary Ellen leaned across the table and took my hand.  Her eyes were at the same time deeply serious and dancing with life.

"Some people don't want to take the journey, Jeanie," she said, "and some people don't even know that there is a journey."

I've thought of those words a zillion times in these many years because one of the biggest, hardest, most dangerous risks for me is risking growth by myself, whether anyone else approves of my risks or not.

My "mother complex" , that portable "mother" I carry around with me wherever I go,  set me up to believe that I had to have other people on my journey to validate my own journey.  If other people were on the journey, it was O.K. to keep going, and in my belief system at the time, "the more the merrier."   I really wanted everyone to sign up for the journey of personal and spiritual growth; a crowd would make it O.K. for me to think what I was thinking, read what I was reading and make the new decisions I was making.

My "mother complex" made me think that if others didn't want to take the journey of risking growth over security they were disapproving of me, and at that time in my life I couldn't bear the disapproval of significant people or strangers!   I didn't want to be misunderstood or judged for wanting to do exactly what Jim Hollis has proposed in these thirteen chapters of this book!  In some weird, qurky, stinking thinking I thought that if others didn't want to go on a personal and spiritual journey, I didn't have permission to do so, either.  How dumb is that?

My "mother complex" told me through that inner, nagging, shaming voice, "You'd better be careful.  Don't go too far in these wild ideas.  Stay close to the shore of what you've been taught so that you'll be safe," or you will be criticized, judged and abandoned.

Staying safe guarantees that I will repeat the same old patterns and get the same old results.

Indeed, what I had become -- a people-pleaser -- had become a chief obstacle to my journey and my own personal and spiritual growth, and unless I am vigilant about my own personal freedom and stay awake and alert I can drift back into that old childish state in a heartbeat!

Through a long, arduous process of analysis and long years of practicing Centering Prayer I have learned to mother myself in ways that are life-giving and nurturing.  I've learned that someone can disapprove of me, and that's O.K.  I've learned to approve of my own choices and handle my own disapproval when I miss the mark.   I've learned that others can reject, criticize and misunderstand the journey I'm taking and I can still have a relationship with them.  I have learned that the path I'm supposed to walk -- not out of duty or legalism, but out of the opportunity to become "my own wild and precious self" -- is a holy path and that the True Self, or God-within, is relentless and ruthless about keeping me on that path, even when I walk it by myself.

I'd like to say that analysis has cured me of all of my complexes and issues, but the hard truth is that while I manage those inner voices better now and while I more often hear the voice of the nurturing, supportive inner parent now than before, in a stressful situation or when I'm too tired, too lonely or too hungry, those complexes can take me over in an instant.  Instantly, I can feel the old ways I used to feel, back before I knew the difference between "being in a complex" and thinking clearly.  In a complex, I have the same physiological responses I had in an earlier, unconscious state.  In a complex I react instead of act and limit myself to the same old bondage.

"What is the answer?" I asked my analyst, feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of risking growth over security, and his answer comes back to me over and over, "Awareness, awareness, awareness."

What about you?

Are there inner voices that keep you clinging to the status quo, security, perceived safety?

Are those inner voices about present-moment realities, or are they voices from the past?

Who really is in charge of your life?  Are you?  Or do your parental complexes call the shots for you?

In what ways is the Self pushing you to grow, to expand, to enlarge your life and your vision?

Where have your security blankets become strait-jackets?

Whose approval do you still seek?

Whose disapproval do you still fear?

I'm challenged by the idea that "if you're not growing, you're dying."

Who in your daily life supports your personal and spiritual growth?

Grace to you -- Jeanie

This is the second in a four week series of reflections based on Chapter Six of the book WHAT MATTERS MOST:  LIVING A MORE CONSIDERED LIFE,  by James Hollis.   You can order Jim's books from here -- http://www.junghouston.org or from http://www.amazon.com.     You can also order CDs of his lecture from this course from the Jung Center in Houston.     Previous posts from this series can be found by clicking "What Matters" on the home page of this website.   I welcome and enjoy your comments, posted here on this website or sent to me by e-mail. 

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

In Chapter 6 of his book WHAT MATTERS MOST: LIVING A MORE CONSIDERED LIFE Jungian analyst James Hollis suggests "that we risk growth over security."

What's not to like about that?

Doesn't everyone want to grow?

Thirty-one years ago I picked up the phone and called the editor of the San Angelo Standard Times and asked for a job writing a reflective column about life.  I suggested to that unknown stranger that I would take an ordinary event in daily life and meander around it for about 600 words in order to convey a spiritual truth.  I didn't want to write a religious column, but I wanted to convey the idea that it is in those  very places where the dots don't connect, the old answers aren't adequate and the mystery of life is a puzzle that growth happens. 

It was my (untested, youthful, naive, idealistic, romantic, old soul) idea that it is in those ragged, hard places where we are hurting, where we are uncomfortable and where we do not know what to do that we are provided the opportunity to grow.

I suggested to this editor that I would call the column "Growing Edges" and I defined a growing edge as that place where new life can happen.

Several things surprise me still:  First, I was shocked that this editor instantly signed on to my idea.  In fact, when he said, "We've been looking for a column like that," I got weak in the knees.  Synchronicity always delights me, and sometimes it brings me to tears.

Second, I am amazed that I have been allowed the privilege of writing that column every week for over three decades.  I've never missed a week, and I've made a ton of friends through that column.  I've had my critics and gotten my share of mail that has made me cringe and want to run for cover, but the discipline of writing that column week after week has been good for me.  I had no idea that the weekly challenge would force me to risk and grow like it has.

I've heard from those who want me to use the column as a bully pulpit.  I've had pressure from those who have wanted me to espouse a particular point of view or press a religious perspective or a political bias.  I've continued to hold to my original intention, which is to find a spiritual truth that is hidden in plain view in ordinary life.

The column is not an op-ed piece, though sometimes I really do want to use it for a rant about whatever is getting on my nerves in public life!  It isn't an editorial, and it isn't intended to be a place where I work out my own stuff.   In fact, when something happens in my life and I hear "There's a column" from a friend or from my own inner editor, I let that idea get cold before I write about it.  Twice a year I write from an overtly Christian perspective, but it is a source of great joy to me that I have readers from outside my faith tradition.