A Bird's Eye View of THE ENCHANTED SELF and what it means to YOU!

Written by Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein


The Rebbe Nachman of Breslow often said, “Always remember-Joy is not merely incidental to your spiritual quest. It is vital.” Asrepparttar years have gone by and I’ve been inrepparttar 142637 practice of psychology over 20 years, I have become more and more convinced that he was so right, that joy is not an option. When we take away joy and we take away a sense of well-being, a sense that we are thriving, we allow ourselves or seem to find ourselves in circumstances that seem to drain, tire and weaken us. We are no longerrepparttar 142638 whole human being that is our birthright! THE ENCHANTED SELF is a positive psychology approach to mental health that works both inrepparttar 142639 treatment room and out. I teach peoplerepparttar 142640 techniques they need to start to think in positive ways about themselves and their world. Thus I teach them how to see what is right about themselves, rather than what is wrong. I also teach them to appreciate their own life story, its ups and downs;repparttar 142641 roller coaster ride that we all go on. I teach how to value our potential even if in childhood we were put down or criticized, as so many of us are. I haverepparttar 142642 belief and I teachrepparttar 142643 belief that inside of each of us we know when we are on track and we know when we are living a wholesome life that fits withrepparttar 142644 integrity of our particular spirit. I call this sense of well-being ”The Enchanted Self” and I teach people how to find their "Enchanted Selves" again and again-how to recognize and celebraterepparttar 142645 states of well-being that signify they are in touch withrepparttar 142646 best of themselves. I stressrepparttar 142647 positive benefit of recalling memories about one's life in a fashion that permits us to discover and rediscover our own talents and resources. I also emphasize how to find in our pastrepparttar 142648 kernals of pleasure, and reservoirs of strength, that we can come home to again and again, even if we need to reshape these facets of ourselves to suite new circumstances Basically, this learning involves listening to yourself, and reviewing your own past to see what worked for you, what really gave you pleasure. What aspects of yourself and your life can you identify as necessary to experience a state of well-being? What do you need to feel whole? For example, if you loved to playrepparttar 142649 piano as a child, then you may not really enjoy watching football games as an adult. You may much more enjoy listening to classical music. However, in order to live a full life, you may also enjoy football games because your son loves them or your husband loves them. Thus there is also an accommodation to someone you care about and a resulting interest develops. I think you can begin to see that what is going to work for each person is so unique to that individual! It involves a review of our history, and it involves analyzingrepparttar 142650 circumstances currently in our lives. If we have a handicap we may not be able to become a ballerina. Even if we have severe arthritis, we may not be able to become a ballerina at forty. However,repparttar 142651 love of dance since childhood may easily be converted into wonderful yoga stretches that help arthritis and feel 'dancy'. So often, there is a creative turn inrepparttar 142652 road, thinking out ofrepparttar 142653 box, thatrepparttar 142654 Enchanted Self person develops. You find you have become an ENCHANTED SELF when you havethe courage to put together using your mind, heart, body and spirit new inventive ways of bringing pleasure and meaning into your life. The steps I teach people are rigorous but they are no harder then allrepparttar 142655 habits we learn that keep us in bad moods and keep us depressed. For example, if I teach someone how to review atrepparttar 142656 end ofrepparttar 142657 day everything that has gone right in their day, that it is no harder than listing what went wrong. In fact it soon becomes easier than listing everything that went wrong. The reason it becomes easier is that you don’t build up some ofrepparttar 142658 rage and some ofrepparttar 142659 anger that one can build up when we reviewrepparttar 142660 problems in our lives. Now we are encouraged rather than discouraged and even may end up sleeping better and feeling better leading to much less energy drain. I have foundrepparttar 142661 most effective way to teach people how to access their Enchanted Self, i.e. to find and hold onto feelings of joy, and a sense of well-being is to sharerepparttar 142662 Seven Gateways To Enchantment. It is a quick way to catch your Enchanted Self. So let’s explorerepparttar 142663 Gateways and then try an enchanted assignment! The first Gateway is The Gateway of Knowing Yourself In Positive Ways. That means getting to know your own talents and rediscovering your lost potential. This is a fun gateway and it really builds your self-esteem. You can pursue this Gateway, even while driving you car! For example, you can go over your life history, reviewing your strengths and talents. Start back in childhood-look for your strengths and talents, even if they were disregarded by your family, and maybe even yourself. Now, you haverepparttar 142664 maturity and wisdom to recognize these positive parts of yourself. Even play with looking for your lost dreams-what you thought you could do before someone or circumstances may have dashed those dreams! After you take some time withrepparttar 142665 First Gateway, you are ready forrepparttar 142666 Second Gateway. This isrepparttar 142667 one where you begin to fall in love with yourself! Atrepparttar 142668 heart level you begin to feel your specialness. This may take time, not to worry. After all our society does not bring us up to recognize what is special and wonderful about ourselves! Some of us get closer to this sense of positive self-love by mentally hugging ourselves asrepparttar 142669 child that we once were. Others practice by intentionally giving oneself a for real quick hug, even if no one else does, or looking inrepparttar 142670 mirror and saying to oneself, "I am special and my strengths are unique and perfectly suited for what I want and need to do in life! Another step in successfully passing throughrepparttar 142671 Second Gateway is acknowledging thatrepparttar 142672 story of your life is a fascinating fabric of adventures, episodes, happenings, and even mis-haps that have come together to make a most unique person and that is YOU! Once you can begin to see that your triumphs are to be honored and celebrated and that your defeats have within themrepparttar 142673 wisdom andrepparttar 142674 learning that takes you later in life to new heights you are well along onrepparttar 142675 road to Enchantment.

Archetypes

Written by Robert Bruce Baird


DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY (ARCHETYPES): - "All material bodies are condensations of frozen bodies." (2) Jung is becoming 'in vogue' again, I hear. Perhaps this time around it won't just involve so little real appreciation for all that he meant and understood. Dream interpretation and projected Western values can be a Freudian gambit - Jung grew to see things few will ever admit to inrepparttar present ideologies ofrepparttar 142623 West. He was able to contactrepparttar 142624 future beforerepparttar 142625 First World War and it almost convinced him he was mad, until he saw his visions were right - then he knew it wasn't himself who was mad - it wasrepparttar 142626 world he lived in! His archetypes may be a contact withrepparttar 142627 genetic 'history book' thatrepparttar 142628 Director ofrepparttar 142629 Human Genome Project talked about recently when he announced that only 2.8 centimetres of 1.8 metres of a gene are required to makerepparttar 142630 human being. It might be a collective 'tap-in' or evenrepparttar 142631 'medulla oblongata' hasrepparttar 142632 ability to recordrepparttar 142633 knowledge of previous evolutionary experience of man's development. Personally I feel it is a matter of some of each of these things andrepparttar 142634 factors relating to chaos andrepparttar 142635 interference of conflicting vibrations or wavelengths inrepparttar 142636 confusing array of bandwidths and personalities.

The 'archetypes' and our dreams are definitely important to our discovery of whatrepparttar 142637 soul and oversoul is trying to achieve. Our conscious waking experiences are far too influenced by convention and peer pressures orrepparttar 142638 five senses, to differentiaterepparttar 142639 ego's interest fromrepparttar 142640 purpose we are here to explore and refine. Is there a connection betweenrepparttar 142641 archetypes andrepparttar 142642 helical structure of allrepparttar 142643 naturally occurring paradigms like time, harmonic building blocks of one dimensional force, nanotubes, DNA and telomeres, etc.? Is that structure part of a form which is unique torepparttar 142644 earth experience or does it have close corollaries in other parts ofrepparttar 142645 universe? We are onrepparttar 142646 verge of breaking downrepparttar 142647 insights of intuitive attuned masters ofrepparttar 142648 philosophies that are aware ofrepparttar 142649 ego and its NEEDS. Soonrepparttar 142650 Eastern mystics and shamans ofrepparttar 142651 world will be universally appreciated, I hope. Their ethic is a clear requirement to explore if we are to beginrepparttar 142652 'New Age' in a position to makerepparttar 142653 most of all that can be! It might be required by other life forms we call alien before we are allowed to participate inrepparttar 142654 cosmos and its order. That would be great!

"When I go pastrepparttar 142655 dark alleys and passages of my mind, I come torepparttar 142656 core of my Being. - Atrepparttar 142657 core of my Being I am in touch withrepparttar 142658 light andrepparttar 142659 love andrepparttar 142660 knowingness that are inherent properties of my natural state." (3)

One ofrepparttar 142661 outcomes and plans involved inrepparttar 142662 rape and pillage of aboriginals and nature-worshipping cultures aroundrepparttar 142663 world was a history that injected war intorepparttar 142664 lives ofrepparttar 142665 Mayans. Personally I have a hard time accepting thatrepparttar 142666 'missionaries' ofrepparttar 142667 Keltic/Toltec or Druidic tradition that are reported inrepparttar 142668 stories about Kukulcan and Quetzacoatl were responsible. However, they were probably accompanied by those members of their society (or followed by) who broughtrepparttar 142669 mindset of European power-mongers and aristocrats. I can see whererepparttar 142670 Ostrogoths disappeared to and it wouldn't surprise me ifrepparttar 142671 Sybarite/Milesian faction had ousted other 'Bruttii' beforerepparttar 142672 6th century BC., who found their way torepparttar 142673 Upper Mississippi area ofrepparttar 142674 Great Lakes before moving south torepparttar 142675 more extensive mounds they built.

There is mounting evidence thatrepparttar 142676 Basque played an important part inrepparttar 142677 Mayan scheme of things. Their language is connected as isrepparttar 142678 Rh factor inrepparttar 142679 blood. It is rare and traceable to Iberia, (the one betweenrepparttar 142680 Black and Caspian Sea) andrepparttar 142681 Mayan. They also seem to have lived in harmony untilrepparttar 142682 Norman or other conquests were occurring in Europe. Needless to sayrepparttar 142683 conventional wisdom is trying to paint them as sacrificers of barbaric proportions, but that too can be traced to Moshe (as in Moshe Rabbenue) and European influence and practice. There is no doubt in my mind thatrepparttar 142684 nature and archetypes ofrepparttar 142685 Mayan culture make it clear there was a long tradition of harmony and awareness ofrepparttar 142686 ego and its conflict that adds so much negative inputs to our shared experience with nature. I likerepparttar 142687 words ofrepparttar 142688 following author who has lived inrepparttar 142689 lifestyle or with these people even more than I have.

"Even thoughrepparttar 142690 Mayan temples became overgrown with jungle lushness,repparttar 142691 Mayan beliefs have survived. Because of their togetherness all these years and their deliberate lack of contact withrepparttar 142692 Spanish,repparttar 142693 Mayans have managed to practice their beliefs and practice them today almost as they did thousands of years ago.” (4)

The Mayans say we should be careful and observe our involvement with nature andrepparttar 142694 progressions of different forces. They say: "Do not put yourself, in front of your SELF!" Most people are unable to quiet their mind and keep order in their memory and recall, due to a lack of proper tools (like Ars Memoria, inrepparttar 142695 'Symbols and Concepts section') andrepparttar 142696 spiral of educational inputs that have no flow and fit. If we have a through-line of purpose and ethic these problems ofrepparttar 142697 busy-mind disappear and a greater sense of mental and other well-being permeates our lives. The Mayan are naturally this way and if Western Man succeeds in abusing them with greed and need then it will be a greater loss in my heart than I wish to bear. "The inner quest

The tradition of vision, andrepparttar 142698 inner quest byrepparttar 142699 shaman,repparttar 142700 Druid,repparttar 142701 saint orrepparttar 142702 holy man, seem to be connected at specific places whererepparttar 142703 energy forces ofrepparttar 142704 planet are located {Inrepparttar 142705 microcosm of our mind orrepparttar 142706 macrocosm ofrepparttar 142707 universe, too.}. The Celtic and pre-Celtic shaman,repparttar 142708 living embodiment ofrepparttar 142709 collective psyche, wasrepparttar 142710 link withrepparttar 142711 ancestral spirit world. He performedrepparttar 142712 ceremonies connected withrepparttar 142713 dead, andrepparttar 142714 annual rites of renewal on behalf ofrepparttar 142715 living. The age-old communal tomb which wasrepparttar 142716 source of his power {Like relics ofrepparttar 142717 Catholic Church. The lattices ofrepparttar 142718 DNA archetypes and stone enclosures were designed to houserepparttar 142719 forces of personal and tribal attunements.} wasrepparttar 142720 place whererepparttar 142721 forces of heaven and earth could meet. The vulva-shaped megalithic dolmens from Cornwall and India show how widespread wasrepparttar 142722 ancient belief inrepparttar 142723 burial receptacle as a womb-place ofrepparttar 142724 Earth Mother andrepparttar 142725 Other-world. These tombs were usually constructed with giant stone slabs forming a chamber and a trenched passageway,repparttar 142726 gaps filled with dry-stone walling and covered by a great mound of earth. Dolmens, quoits and cromlechs arerepparttar 142727 remains ofrepparttar 142728 original chambers. Natural caves and artificial chambers cut intorepparttar 142729 rock were also used.

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