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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 23h

Jungian, John Perkins on our forbidden self.

The self we might live-the real self-is the forbidden self. Our ambitions are far more collective than we think. In the context of these strivings for competence and success, our uniquely real selves are often marginalised. In the collectively programmed environment of the well-adjusted and successful person, it is a high crime to live one's genuine life in depth. A role must be successfully played, or we lose face. In a climate of collective conformity, an authentic man or woman is often considered to be a nobody. Such a prejudicial programme is not only all around us in our society; we internalise it and callously reinforce it inside our very beings. We are embarrassed about the unconventional outsider in the deep recesses of our souls. But this does not prevent our implicit integrity from gnawing at us. We long to meet this side of ourselves, but we generally seek it in a projected and sentimentalised form. Suitably clothed and equipped we roam the countryside, or the backyard, in search of our forbidden authenticity.

John Perkins, The Forbidden Self

Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

We cannot recover the capacity for joy without re-experiencing our sorrow. And we cannot feel pleasure without going through the pain of rebirth. And we are reborn again when we have the courage to face the pains of our lives without recourse to illusion. — Alexander Lowen

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Such an achingly gorgeous poem by Rilke. A love poem to God, indeed.

I am a city by the sea
sinking into a toxic tide.

I am strange to myself, as though someone unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.

It's here in all the pieces of my shame
that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart—
oh let them take me now.

Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God—spend them however you want.

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— Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

On the necessity of sacrifice in psychospiritual development.

At each stage of psychological development, the Self demands some sacrifice. It is no longer a case of "Thy will be done—my way". Sometimes we may rationally or idealistically decide to make a sacrifice, but unless the time is right, sacrifice is self-dramatisation. The dreams make clear the real sacrifice that is demanded. Sometimes we are called upon to give up the part of our life that we hold most dear, and the fear and loneliness involved in that inner decision dare not be underestimated. At the same time as we are making the sacrifice, we are also required to meet the challenge of the new life. This is a time of darkness; it requires time and patience, space and meditation. So long as our psychological heritage is sound, we can trust that the Self will not demand more of us than we are able to give. We can't get away with offering the starving calf; it has to be the fatted one.

— Marion Woodman, Addiction to Perfection

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Jungian, Robert Johnson on the inevitability of suffering on the way to consciousness.

Suffering is the inevitable path that must be trod on the way to consciousness, the inevitable price for the transformation we seek. By no means can we escape it; we who try to evade it never succeed; and we are twice unlucky, for we pay the price, anyway, but miss our transformation. There is a terrible and immutable law at work: We only transform when we take our suffering consciously and voluntarily; to attempt to evade only puts us into the karmic cycles that repeat endlessly and produce nothing.
This, then, is why we suffer, and this is why, unconsciously, we even seek to suffer: "Because we long for the branding; because we long to grow aware of what is on fire inside us."

— Robert A. Johnson, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Joseph Campbell on creativity and letting go.

There's a beautiful letter that Schiller wrote to a young author who was having the trouble that's known as writer's block. This young writer had oh, so much to say, but he couldn't write. This is a normal situation. Schiller said simply, "Your problem is that you're bringing the critical factor into play before you have let the lyric factor work".
Look what happens to us in our schools: we learn to criticise Milton and Shakespeare and Goethe and everybody else, and then the teacher says, "Now do some creative work". You sit down and this bit of spilth begins coming out and you think, Oh, my God! That's nothing. Of course you can't write like Shakespeare, but you can write like you, perhaps, if you let yourself go.

— Joseph Campbell, Goddesses

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

For those interested in the teachings of Jungian, Marion Woodman her 'Addiction to Perfection' workshop audio [5 hours 25 minutes] is currently free to download this month [September 2026] from BetterListen! Link is in the post below.

An image of the front cover of Marion Woodman's audio for her workshop, 'Addiction to Perfection' from BetterListen.

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Doubt is the crown of life because truth and error come together. Doubt is living, truth is sometimes death and stagnation. When you are in doubt you have the greatest opportunity to unite the dark and light sides of life. — Carl G. Jung, Dream Analysis

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"... 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦". Fabulous quote from Joseph Campbell.

I have read somewhere of an old Chinese curse: "May you be born in an interesting time!" This is a very interesting time: there are no models for anything that is going on. Everything is changing . . . . It is a period of free fall into the future, and each has to make his or her own way. The old models are not working; the new have not yet appeared. In fact, it is we who are even now shaping the new in the shaping of our interesting lives. And that is the whole sense (in mythological terms) of the present challenge: we are the 'ancestors' of an age to come, the unwitting generators of its supporting myths, the mythic models that will inspire its lives. In a very real sense, therefore, this is a moment of creation; for, as has been said: "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but new wine is for fresh skins" (Mark 2:22). We are to become the preparers, that is to say, of the fresh wineskins for a new and heady wine—of which we are already having the first taste.

— Joseph Campbell, Goddesses

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

James Hollis on the necessary role of doubt.

Doubt is the necessary fuel for change, and therefore growth. There is no scientific or theological dogma which does not contain within it the seeds of reification and tyranny. Similarly, the psyche summons us, quite apart from the desires of the ego, to relinquish what seemed clear, what protected us, and thereby what now mires us in yesterday. The problem, then, is not doubt; the problem is fear of change. Confronting the risk of doubt is necessary for any group or individual to grow.

— James Hollis, Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

For not knowing about the unconscious means that one has deviated, one is not in harmony with it, and therefore it works against one. — Carl G. Jung, Visions Vol. 1

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

On how psychospiritual transformation is not a one-time-and-done event, but an ongoing process.

Life is truly a mystery—it has to be so—but it is a mystery trying to be solved. Any genuine solution involves dissolution in the waters of the soul and a willingness to sacrifice superficial certainty for an embodied knowing in depth.
No single initiation gives a person status for the rest of their life. Initiation consists of the willingness to set out, to begin, to step into an adventure being fully aware that there can be no certain outcome. The initiate keeps being unmade and remade. All meaningful risks in life involve a brush with death, a sacrifice that makes a corpse of the former life, yet produces a vitality and abundance that spills over in to the lives of others. From the beginning the soul is bound for the sacred, and bound for a sacrifice that reveals a hidden abundance and gifts intended to be brought to the community.

— Michael Meade, The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Marie-Louise von Franz on why it's a good idea to acquaint oneself with one's own shadow.

In general, looking at one's own shadow is purely disagreeable, it is no fun, and the results also are not very amusing, but it has one great advantage: the more one knows about one's own wickedness, the more one is able to protect oneself against that of other people. The evil within oneself recognises evil within the other. If I am naive about my own evil intentions, then I shall fall victim to those of others. Everybody can lie to me and I shall believe them, or they will play tricks on me, and I shall fall for it every time and be the poor babe in the wood, the fool who had such good intentions, but whom the evil world has treated badly. That does happen, especially to young people, and generally to naive people—they are really harmed by evil people. But indirectly, they themselves are guilty, for they haven't sufficiently realised the evil within themselves. If they knew more about that, they would acquire a kind of extrasensory perception for the evil of others.

— Marie-Louise von Franz, The Feminine in Fairy Tales

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Abraham Maslow on our fear of fulfilling our utmost potential.

We fear our highest possibilities [as well as our lowest ones]. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments, under the most perfect conditions, under conditions of greatest courage. We enjoy and even thrill to the god-like possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments. And yet we simultaneously shiver with weakness, awe, and fear before these same possibilities.

By Abraham Maslow from, 'The Farther Reaches of Human Nature'.

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

In a society that capitalises on people's sense of inadequacy, the most prevalent self-limiting story is bound to be "I am not worth it". Unaddressed, it sabotages our best efforts to inquire compassionately into ourselves. — Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Ever since I first heard Clarissa Pinkola Estés talk about 'eyes that can see in the dark', I've made it my business to better acquaint myself with the shadow both within myself and others. 'In Control' by Jane Monckton Smith is a book that opens one's eyes to such darkness. #BookSky #MyBookShelf

A copy of Jane Monckton Smith's book, 'In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder' stood next to a white milk jug vase filled with pale pink wild roses.

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

On loss of soul and spiritual renewal.

In critical times, there can be a lot of endless talk about spirituality because it is sorely absent and needs to be drawn up from the depths. In critical times, we feel the loss of our soul acutely, and there are many attempts, some manipulative and exploitative, others creative and profound, to win back the soul to society and life. Language is usually the key to our success to find, and use, the right words to say the things that need to be said. There are so many words today, some of them evasive, useless and unable to release our anguish or name our pain. The writer Richard Hames said, 'What is reported by the media is ultimately of little consequence now. What remains unsaid and unsayable is more significant'. But what remains unsaid and unsayable in the media is nevertheless sayable in the arts, music, literature and the realm of imagination, which is our true hope for spiritual renewal.

— David Tacey, The Spirituality Revolution: The Emergence of Contemporary Spirituality

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Why, by god, does one spend one's life according to conventions that constrict us like a tight costume and that prevent us from reaching the invisible soul, this dancer among the stars! — Rilke, The Poet's Guide to Life

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Nothing good, once it has come into existence, may be suppressed. It assumes reality like a tree, on its own: it is, and it flowers, and it bears fruit. Nothing is lost: everything is passed along. — Rilke, The Poet's Guide to Life

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

'It is so futile to weary your life with the politics of fashioning a persona in order to meet the expectations of other people'. — John O'Donohue, Anam Cara

Some people are afraid of being themselves. Many people allow their lives to be limited by that fear. They play a continual game, fashioning a careful persona that they think the world will accept or admire. Even when they are in their solitude, they remain afraid of meeting themselves. One of the most sacred duties of one's destiny is the duty to be yourself. When you come to accept yourself and like yourself, you learn not to be afraid of your own nature. At that moment, you come into rhythm with your soul, and then you are on your own ground. You are sure and poised. You are balanced. It is so futile to weary your life with the politics of fashioning a persona in order to meet the expectations of other people. Life is very short, and we have a special destiny waiting to unfold for us. Sometimes through our fear of being ourselves, we sidestep that destiny and end up hungry and impoverished in a famine of our own making.

— John O'Donohue, Anam Cara

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

When we have a problem, we instinctively resist trying the way out that leads through obscurity and darkness. But in order to penetrate the darkness we must summon all the powers of enlightenment that consciousness can offer. — Daryl Sharp, Living Jung

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

James Hollis on men and the darkness within.

Our mythology is full of heroic adventures—mountains climbed, ogres fought, dragons defeated—but it takes even more courage for a man to speak his emotional truths. The hero quest today is not through the physical world but through the badlands of the soul. The evil men must engage is not the barbarian at the gates but the darkness within, the fear from which only boldness may bring delivery. . . . Our fear is the task—failing the task we bluster into macho compensation or shamed complicity. Telling the truth of our soul to ourselves is the first task. Living that truth is the second task. And telling it to others is the third. Such truth-telling will be the supreme test of our lives.

— James Hollis, Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Jungian, Kathie Carlson on our inner mother and her transformation.

Each of us carries at least some of her mother within her; each of us has introjected her to at least some extent. This inner mother may function as a 'voice', a pattern of reaction, a certain set of opinions directed at ourselves or at others. We may fall into feeling manipulative or powerless or critical just like her. But it is very important at this point to differentiate between the outer mother and the inner. The outer mother may change or die, while the inner mother goes on in a fixed pattern. While the outer mother may have gone beyond the woman she was then, through her own development or because of different circumstances, the inner mother may remain the mother we experienced at five or fifteen. On the other hand, the outer mother may be utterly entrenched, more fixed than ever in her patterns, and then we despair about the parts of us that are like her; but it is important to differentiate between outer and inner mothers even if they appear to be alike. With the inner mother, we may have more opportunities for transformation.

— Kathie Carlson, In Her Image: The Unhealed Daughter's Search for Her Mother

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

One of the major psychological diseases today is the urge to make everything public; to keep anything hidden or secret is felt to be almost a crime. — Helen Luke, The Way of Woman

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Marie-Louise von Franz on the potential genesis of archetypal stories such as myths and fairy tales.

Personally, I think it likely that the most frequent way in which archetypal stories originate is through individual experiences of an invasion by some unconscious content, either in a dream or in a waking hallucination—some event or some mass hallucination whereby an archetypal content breaks into an individual life. That is always a numinous experience. In primitive societies practically no secret is ever really kept, so this numinous experience is always talked about and becomes amplified by any other existing folklore which will fit in. Thus it develops, just as rumours do.

— Marie-Louise von Franz, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

How Did the rose Ever open its heart And give to this world All its Beauty? It felt the encouragement of light Against its Being, Otherwise, We all remain Too Frightened. — Hafiz, It Felt Love [translated by Daniel Ladinsky]

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Poet, David Whyte on how 'branding is the death of both humanity and individual artistry'.

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

On the growing pains of psychospiritual transformation

Awakening and transformation move us to a more expansive context in which we can grow and learn for the next period of our lives. We are like snakes who must shed old skins of beliefs and habits from time to time in order to continue growing. But while we still remain within the old skin, the new experiences of awakening may be accompanied by a great deal of pain and confusion. We may need to face something about ourselves which we do not want to see because it is too awesome or because we fear the pain of seeing how inadequate we have been in the past compared to our potential. The pain of facing our failure, our denial of the divine in ourselves and in others, seems to be an important step for many of us on the road to becoming ourselves.

— Molly Young Brown, The Unfolding Self: Psychosynthesis and Counselling

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Your stage mask [𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢] is not bad, evil, or necessarily egocentric; it is just not 'true'. It is manufactured and sustained unconsciously by your mind; but it can and will die, as all fictions must die. — Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Persona and shadow are correlative terms. Your shadow is what you refuse to see about yourself, and what you do not want others to see. The more you have cultivated and protected a chosen persona, the more shadow work you will need to do. Be especially careful therefore of any idealised role or self-image, like that of minister, mother, doctor, nice person, professor, moral believer, or president of this or that. These are huge personas to live up to, and they trap many people in lifelong delusion. The more you are attached to and unaware of such a protected self-image, the more shadow self you will very likely have. Conversely, the more you live out of your shadow self, the less capable you are of recognising the persona you are trying to protect and project. It is like a double blindness keeping you from seeing — and being — your best and deepest self.

— Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Just been reminded of a fantastic psychospiritual heroic journey in the guise of Marlon Brando's character, Terry Mallory in the 1954 movie, 'On the Waterfront'. Outstanding film with themes that are still as relevant today.

A still of Marlon Brando, standing in front of a group of men, from the 1954 movie, 'On the Waterfront'.

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Heroism in myth is to do with sacrifice; in psychological terms, one sacrifices the former egoic identity that a new, deeper identity might be born. The ultimate act of the heroic journey is the death and rebirth of the hero into a new life. — Keiron Le Grice, The Rebirth of the Hero

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

As someone once pointed out to me, when you become conscious, the first thing you discover is why you stayed unconscious all those years. Being conscious means you really have to feel what you feel, which is frequently very vulnerable and raw. — Pema Chödrön

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

On how pursuing meaningful creative interests can change our lives in the most inspiring and positive of ways.

I have seen that myself again and again-that it is useful to show someone the animus or the shadow or some other complex, to have it out in 'washing dirty linen', but it is very often best just to help people to find the essential meaning of their lives, what they are there for. When they become interested in that, they completely lose interest in petty nonsense. When the main water of life in a human being is flowing again, when there is, for instance, some meaningful creative interest, then one no longer has time to spend hours on the phone to one's sister or brother or a friend to complain that she or he has been wrong. One just hasn't the time, and therefore one is much more inclined to think, "Oh well, let it be. Never mind. It may be my fault, so let's make peace." Because life is flowing again. When one finds the essential meaning of one's life, this has a purifying effect upon one's 'dirty linen' affairs.

By Marie-Louise von Franz from her book, 'Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales'.

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

We spend years building our lives on rotten foundations. It takes years to build new foundations for a new life. — Marion Woodman, Dreams: Language of the Soul

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

David Adams Leeming on the meaning of myth. 🧵 1/2

C. G. Jung wrote: "the primitive mentality does not invent myths, it experiences them. Myths are original revelations of the pre-conscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings . . . ."

The point is not to search for the physical or historical correlative of myth, but for the meaning which is intrinsic in the myth itself, for myths, like dreams, are psychically real. Indeed, myths might be called the dreams of mankind. Dreams serve as escape valves for individuals. They represent wishes and fears. Myths serve whole societies and . . . many societies at once in much the same manner. The priests or medicine men or shamans who feel and convey the myths are, as Geza Roheim has written, "the lightning conductors of common anxiety. They fight the demons so that others can hunt the prey and in general fight reality."

— David Adams Leeming, Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

It would be inaccurate to say . . . that an adventure has no purpose or a wandering no outcome. It is just that the purpose is never, in the end, what we thought it was. On the contrary, it is something that was unknowable, residing as it did in the wilds beyond our fences. #MyBookShelf #BookSky

A copy of Bayo Akomolafe's book, 'These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home' stood next to a white milk jug vase filled with pale pink wild roses.

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

On spirituality as the art of transfiguration.

Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any predetermined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined programme or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practise a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence.

— Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self

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Thea Euryphaessa @theaeuryphaessa.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Following the release of 'The Odyssey', here's Iain McGilchrist on the cultural importance of great stories and myths.

One of the reasons we are captivated by great plays and novels, narratives and myths, is that they allow us to stand back: to step away from the immediacy of experience, through what I call 'necessary distance', and see the complexities under which all human life labours. Such distance does not alienate, but, on the contrary, enables us to see ourselves with heightened awareness, and to empathise with those who stand for us—and for more than us. Great dramatic performances play out, in archetypal form, the intricacies of all human relationships and human motives, the conflicting demands of many-faceted love, of friendships, family and kin, of valued work, vocation, and the urge to create, the striving to preserve dignity and pride, and the lure of beauty towards things that are perhaps exciting, dangerous, deeply fulfilling and unendurable at once—not to mention loyalties to religious conviction, to a society's cohesion, to the need to avoid pain, and the call to confront evil, to belong to a society and to be a unique individual, to heal, to save and to give meaning to life. In short, they inculcate the practice of judgment.

— Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things

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