Week Two

 

 

Ensemble Hero:

Crossing The Threshold

New Ways of Facing The Unknown 

Developing The Capacity To Not Turn Back

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Requires An Attitude of 'Daring It' & 'Bearing It'

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Brings Us To Face to Face With Authentic Self-Doubt

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Takes Us Into The Discomfort of Tolerating Novelty

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Transcending Sameness Can Elicit Feelings of Deep Loss

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Requires Becoming Capable of the Unexpected

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Opens Us To Unnerving Excitement & Possibility

“Adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown; the powers that watch at the boundary are dangerous; to deal with them is risky; yet for anyone with competence and courage the danger fades.”

Joseph Campbell

The Point of No Return

Once we enter into the unknown, and see what is possible from there, we can never fully go back to ‘what was’.  Our  fixed, rigidified ways of knowing start to become even more deadening and stifling.  We then become sanctimonious and righteous in our position, defending our certainty of knowing in a way that cannot be questioned or changed.   This becomes a ‘hell’ state of mind.  It is the opposite of transcending to a point of no return.
 

There will be a paradoxical juxtaposition of the unknown with the known.  To enter the realm of adventure, to feel an enlivening sense of mystery and wonder to be experienced (and not explained) in the unknown – we go far beyond the realm of polarizing and opposing forces within us and around us – until it is no longer possible to find our way back.  We keep going through and beyond the doors of what is known to us, mixing in more of the unknown into our lives, setting ourselves for new possibilities – beyond our ability to imagine.

Becoming capable of the unexpected.   We will be surprised by no longer being concerned with matters beyond our ability to foresee or control. Once this inner longing for adventure ignites us, it becomes much harder to extinguish it completely.   The ‘as-yet- unknown self’ becomes more and more the driver of our future existence.   We unexpectedly begin to observe that we have a newfound ability to welcome opportunities that would have made us ‘shrink’ in the past.
 
Becoming more capable of holding ambivalence at the point of change.  We find ourselves able to go ‘back and forth’ across the threshold in a more relaxed and trusting fashion, with less impulsivity, reactiveness and fear.  We let go more and more into the process.  We become less concerned with how well or poorly we are doing, and we are more capable of suspending (not eliminating) our tendencies to self-judge when we are in new territory.

An Ensemble Hero Essay on Crossing Thresholds

NEW WAYS OF FACING THE UNKNOWN

by Michael Mervosh

Threshold: defined – the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested.

Here, we enter inner territory where a previous path does not exist.  We make our own path, as we go…

READ MORE

Week Two Whole Group Live Link

This is a recording from Saturday, February 4th.

Five Questions For Crossing The Threshold

by Parker Palmer, for the On Being Project.

Maybe, just maybe, we’re on the threshold of something new and better — and some of our imaginings might come true, depending on what we do. Here’s five essential questions that can enlarge us, bringing forth wisdom and guidance for threshold-crossing: 

    • How can I let go of my need for fixed answers in favor of aliveness?
    • What is my next challenge in daring to be human?
    • How can I open myself to the beauty of nature and human nature?
    • Who or what do I need to learn to love next? And next? And next?
    • What is the new creation that wants to be born in and through me?

Read the Full Excerpt here.

Audio Files on Crossing The Threshold

The Necessity of Disorientation – Silent Friend of Many Distances – 5 minutes

 

LISTEN HERE

PODCAST – THIS JUNGIAN LIFE

Letting Go: When Is It Time?

To want, will, and work is worthwhile and adaptive–until a life dream, relationship, or identity fades or fails. Should we hang in and hang on – or let go?

When does perseverance become pointless, or hope turn rancid in refusal to accept disappointment, defeat, or depression?  

In letting go, we relinquish our hard-won, heroic “I” and yield to an encounter with the unconscious.

Jung came to realize that “This identity and my heroic idealism had to be abandoned, for there are higher things than the ego’s will, and to these one must bow.”

Jung discovered, as may we, that in letting go something greater can meet and sustain us.  (75 minutes)

LISTEN

ACTION OPTION ONE

BEARING IT – TOLERATING THE NECESSITY OF DISORIENTATION

CROSSING THE THRESHOLD into territories or parts of our lives that are foreign or alien to us, requires us to enter the dark forest of the psyche – the deep unknown.

We must go down into the soul’s unknowable depths, perhaps wandering ever further from ‘the path already made’.

Allow yourself to be undone, to be without any knowing in advance. Stay only with the moment you are living into.

This is a very counterintuitive posture, one that can be quite perplexing to the ego, and rejuvenating to the soul.  The question inevitably arises, “Who am I now?”

ACTION OPTION TWO

FACE YOUR ‘GOLDEN SHADOW‘ – OPEN YOURSELF TO THE ‘OTHERNESS’ IN YOURSELF

For this option, take a deeper look at some positive aspect of your nature that you diminish, shy away from, or disavow – perhaps out of shyness, smallness, or a lack of courage.

Name this quality: Say it out loud, write it down, then read what you wrote.

Now try it on. Own it for a bit of time.  Be surprised by what you find yourself now thinking, saying, or doing!

 GOOD WORK.  Now what have you learned about yourself? What do you like about this claiming this new capacity or aspect of your being?

ACTION OPTION THREE

DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU WOULD DO IF YOU FELT MOST SECURE

Consider making it a point this week to try one thing that you would have never attempt to do before, due to your own sense of inadequacy, fear of rejection or failure, or inability to tolerate a personal discomfort.Use this frame of reference to consider your new way of being:  “What would you do if you had 10 seconds of courage?”

Do not dismiss any type of new thought or action because of its apparent simplicity.

Just give yourself the gift of 10 seconds of courage. Step into an unknown encounter, conversation, activity or pursuit, and see what new possibility arises!

 

SEPARATION – INITIATION – RETURN

These three essential stages of the Hero’s Journey myth provide the seeker with distinct features and tasks to support a transformational process.  For those of you looking to understand more about the various components for each of these stages, and want access to more resources from our library of information, you can access them here.

Read More

Access To Journey Resources

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Suggested Books & Highlighted Readings

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Relevant Podcasts - see above

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Poems That Reflect The Inner Journey

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Short Video Clips

FIND THEM HERE

You Reading This, Get Ready

“Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

Sound from outside fills the air?

 

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

Than the breathing respect that you carry

Wherever you go right now?  Are you waiting

For time to show you some better thoughts?

 

When you turn around starting here, lift this

 new glimpse that you found; carry into evening

all that you want from this day.  This interval you spent

reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

 

What can anyone give you greater than now,

Starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?”

  • William Stafford
JOURNEY MAP

Introduction Week

Week One

Week Two

Week Three

 

CONTACT

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