Martha - Martha S Bache-Wiig LLC

Existential Creativity and Mindfulness

by Martha | Jan 28, 2026 | Holistic Counseling and Coaching, Existential Personalistic Anthropology, Groups and Workshops, Life as a Gift and a Work of Art, Parenting, Psychology, Self-Love and Self-Care

pictures of children in various moods and situations

We are becoming ever more aware of how our inner lives and our mental health, often negatively programmed by our childhood experiences, affect our outer lives – and viceversa – and how we can improve them both by developing our existential creativity through holistic therapeutic approaches and mindfulness practices.

Over the last couple centuries, humanity has become ever more acutely aware of the importance of what happens in our early years. When we are children, we are like sponges, absorbing all kinds of information coming from both the external environment – our parents/caregivers, families, social environments, etc. – and from our inner selves – the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that we experience in our own minds and bodies.

The human journey is a complex and fascinating one, perhaps especially because each of us has an incredibly unique experience of it. Even though there are many things that we have in common with others, there is no “one size fits all” human experience.

This means that two children who grow up in the same home can have very different perceptions and experiences of that family, both because of how they are perceived by the others, and how they themselves experience and perceive their family members.

Whereas the current medical/psychological paradigm would like to be able to reduce all of our inner suffering to neurological processes, and thus easily solve our problems with pills, a holistic attitude goes beyond the purely physiological reality of our lives, and looks at the broader picture.

(Added note: It sounds like there is a big change coming in the general mindset around what mental illness actually is and how to treat it: I just heard today – January 29 , 2026 – that the newly revised edition of the DSM, the diagnostic manual used by mental health professionals and insurance companies to diagnose mental illnesses and establish treatment protocols, will include information on the potential causes of the various diagnoses described, including environmental ones such as family/cultural/socioeconomic environment and physical, psychological and emotional trauma. While there is no question that it is not easy to understand the causes behind the various types of suffering people can experience, there is also no question that to completely ignore the effects of childhood trauma and other environmental factors that clearly have lasting, and often extremely debilitating, effects, is absurd. But that is what mainstream mental health approaches have been doing for decades, which has only reinforced an incredibly myopic view of how we consider mental health, and of general wellness of our complex makeup which is an integrated reality of mental/emotional, physiological, existential/spiritual and environmental factors. Taking into account each of these factors is fundamental if we are to understand how to truly improve our overall health and ability to enjoy the experience of being alive. What a relief that finally the mainstream healthcare community here in the USA is beginning to change, and embrace the wisdom that those of us in the alternative and holistic healthcare sectors have been championing for decades!)

There is no question that when we are under emotional and even physical stress and pressure our brain chemistry can end up being altered, and cause us immense suffering, added onto the pain we experienced during the traumatic experiences themselves. All of this can become a vicious cycle, where our wounds from the past continue to live in the present, due to our own inner mechanisms that were originally designed to help us get through the trauma, but eventually keep us trapped within it.

This can happen at any time during our lifespan, although during childhood we are particularly malleable and vulnerable to the effects of stress, and the effects often don’t show up until much later (check out some of the emerging wisdom around CPTSD for more info on this: I find it fascinating that even just over these past couple years more and more healthcare practitioners are getting on board with the recognition that many mental health issues can be attributed to being exposed to traumatic experiences over time during childhood, and even the NHS has now published a “PTSD and CPTSD Self-Help Guide” , something unheard of even just a few years ago!).

But what are the solutions? It is actually pretty incredible to think that today, 128 years since the publication of Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams”, which opened the door to an entirely new way of looking at the incredibly complex inner life of human beings, we have a vast “toolbox” that we can turn to, when we are trying to understand why we are suffering and what to do about it.

We often focus on the incredible technological discoveries humanity has made in these 130 years that have completely transformed how we live (the train-automobile-jet-spaceship, the radio-television-internet and now AI, etc. etc.); at the same time, there has been an incredible revolution regarding how we see our possibilities and limitations as human beings, within ourselves.

At the same time Freud was exploring his unconscious and opening the door to the inner life in the West, other kinds of inner explorers were creating new syntheses between Eastern and Western religious thought and experience. During the 20th century not only did the development of psychology, psychotherapy and neuroscience bring us tools for self-understanding and development that we could not have imagined earlier, but the merging of Eastern philosophies with Western ones brought about new ways of considering not only our own inner lives, but our connection to the greater life beyond our individual selves.

This emerging synthesis has brought about, for example, the practice of “Mindfulness”; the awareness that meditation and guided visualization, even when detached from any kind of religious dogma, are things we can learn to do that greatly enhance first of all the functioning of our brains, which then can lead to new decisions that bring us to better outcomes in our personal and professional lives, relationships and all the rest. More and more researchers and practitioners across many disciplines are delving into this increasing awareness, and offering up new “proofs” for insights that have been present within some religious traditions for millennia, and are just now reaching a more mainstream kind of recognition, across the globe. (One of the pioneering researchers in this area is Prof Richard Davidson at the University of Madison – go here to listen to an interesting talk that he gave on the Neuroscience of Mindfulness).

One of the most important findings that Professor Davidson points out is that we can learn to increase our wellbeing, and that indeed, if we learn tools that will help us and practice them, over time our wellbeing increases.

This idea dovetails perfectly with the idea of Life as a Work of Art as conceived of by Antonio Mercurio, and which is at the basis of my holistic LifeArt counseling and coaching approach. This approach affirms that while we may come out of highly traumatic experiences, environments and situations that have left deep wounds within our psyches and our souls, and these wounds most definitely leave their marks on us, we do have the power to choose to learn new ways of thinking, acting and Being that will help us move into both feeling and living better, over time.

Any Art takes practice, and healing from our deep conditioning, that can be truly debilitating sometimes, and show up in persistent depression, anxiety and all kinds of problems, does often require that we look at many different types of support to get to a place where we can become increasingly autonomous and skilled in how we gradually learn how to give ourselves the love we so sorely lack. It is often a long, lifelong process.

But if we can embrace this process as an evolutionary journey, rather than as a kind of condemnation from an unjust universe, we can see that we are actually taking part in an incredible shift in the consciousness of humanity. Whereas even only a few decades ago we had few options at our disposal if we were suffering internally, today we have a vast array of practitioners, theories, techniques and approaches to help us along. Not only do we need to remain shuttered within our pain, feeling ashamed for our suffering, but we can find incredible opportunities for connection and reconnection with others who are also looking for – and finding – new ways not only of healing our early traumas, but of developing healthier, more vibrant and sustainable lives for ourselves, our children, and the opening the door for the generations to come.

Every time we make a decision to do something new, to face our pain with more loving kindness, getting some help in overcoming old patterns of thinking and acting that sometimes have been transmitted to us through the generations (check out my page on Family Constellations work for some insights on that), we are being existentially creative.

The term “existential” comes from the idea that our lives have meaning, but that it is up to us choose the meaning we want to give to it. We actually do have that freedom today, and as the great existentialist philosopher Sartre pointed out, this kind of freedom itself brings with it a certain kind of anguish.

But if we are brave enough to recognize that we actually do have this kind of freedom, however small it may feel to us, due to our circumstances and the kind of familial and/or cultural conditioning we may have been subjected to in the course of our lives, we also can soon discover that while many of our choices seem small indeed, each one we make that brings us more towards love of ourselves and others, rather than towards desperation, or resignation, or outright destructive judgment and abuse, helps us practice wellbeing, wellness and love.

For example, every time we manage to choose to notice when we are berating ourselves over a mistake we have made, and shift that inner voice to instead be kind and supportive; or every time we manage to see that after a disappointment we are attacking our spouse, rather than sitting with the pain of it, and stop before we do so, we are exercising our existential creativity. We are doing something new. We are practicing new ways of both connecting with our inner selves, that can lead us to new ways of interacting with others.

Becoming masters of our own lives is not something that happens over night, and even if we were raised in ideal families and circumstances, life has a way of throwing challenges and pain at us, that we are all called to address, sooner or later.

Rather than seeing these challenges as punishments, and seeing ourselves as helpless victims or martyrs, or feeling we have to instead figure out how to wield even more power over ourselves and others in an attempt to control everything, we can shift into a completely new way of seeing ourselves and life: as existentially creative beings, who can make new choices and even create great love and harmony out of our painful, and sometimes completely loveless, beginnings.

We can become Artists of life, and experience new ways of being, of interacting, of creating beauty, wellbeing and even prosperity for ourselves and others.

The old model of control and dominance is no longer necessary for our survival.

There is enough love and prosperity for everyone, and by learning how to develop our own ability to create the life we are longing for, we are contributing to the birth of a new human era.

Starting in February, I will be offering a workshop series, Life as a Work of Art Laboratories, where together we will explore a variety of tools to help us along in developing our own wellbeing, in alignment with the deeper purposes of life, and in awareness of how our own increased inner harmony and connectedness can contribute to the wellbeing of those around us. I hope to see you there, and if you have any questions about it, please feel free to contact me today for a free chat.

New Year, New Lens! Here’s to 2026 🌟

by Martha | Dec 30, 2025 | Holistic Counseling and Coaching, Blog, Existential Personalistic Anthropology, Groups and Workshops, Life as a Gift and a Work of Art, Love, Psychology, Self-Love and Self-Care, Services

Illustration of Le Petit Prince by Antonione de Saint-Exupéry

Hello Friends!

As we step into 2026, I wanted to share with you a new way of looking at life and the many challenges we can often be faced with, both individually and on a collective level, and that can be of great help in these tumultuous, difficult and yet exciting times of rapid change.

I hope that with the dawning of a new year you will find new energy and inspiration to bring a deeper love and appreciation for your own self and your life, so you can share your unique gifts and talents with others with increasing confidence, satisfaction, and enjoyment: my new workshops, based on these ideas, are being offered with this goal in mind, and I am looking forward to sharing them with you!

Life as a Gift and a Work of Art.

What does this mean, exactly?

It is not so much a therapeutic technique as a way of thinking and seeing the trauma we carry, and the accomplishments and challenges that are present in our lives from the moment of our conception onward, through a brand new lens.

All kinds of tools and techniques can be used to help us develop this kind of Artistry, from more traditional talk therapy to the most avant-garde energy techniques becoming more and more popular over time. What is important is to define what it actually means to become an Artist of our Life, and why we might want to do so.

First developed by Antonio Mercurio, the founder of Existential Personalistic and Cosmoartistic Anthropology, it is a holistic way of seeing our human experience, and while it fully honors and recognizes the kind of profound discomfort and disorientation we can experience when we are faced with pain and loss, it also encourages us to see these traumas not so much as condemnations or punishments, but as potential motors for new ways of Being, Seeing, Experiencing, and thus Creating new ways of Living.

It encourages us to embrace even the most difficult past or present traumas and struggles as important parts of our story, as often they are the motors that help us find the strength and courage to change not only how we see and care for ourselves, but how we see the world, and how we truly want to live in it. As we turn to address those inner and outer obstacles that bring us dissatisfaction and trouble and manage to overcome them, we not only live better ourselves, but we create a powerful, transformational energy. This energy is such that it can not only help us continue to heal and grow, heal and grow as we face the various challenges that come up in every life, but, like great works of Art that we may admire in the galleries of the world, it sparks inspiration to create such Beauty in others as well.

The beauty we are talking about here is not the aesthetic beauty normally ascribed to material things; it is an inner beauty that transforms pain into love, fear into new dreams, and opens in the most wounded of souls to new possibilities.

Just as an artist uses many different colors to create a powerful painting, so, too, can we learn to combine the many elements of our lives, including the painful ones, to create a new sense of ourselves and, sometimes, an entirely new direction in our lives.

By shifting our inner attitudes from those of feeling that we are powerless victims of circumstance – which can be very difficult when we come from family and/or societal and cultural situations that are abusive, dysfunctional and deny us basic rights – to realizing that we can learn to love ourselves and our lives, and improve our circumstances through that love and through acts of existential creativity, we can build something entirely new out.

When we choose to do so, we are activating our Inner Artist and becoming actively engaged in affirming the deepest goals of our Higher Self .

The Inner Artist is that part of ourselves that expresses our basic freedom to choose to either move towards love of ourselves and our unique life purpose – our True Self – or instead move away from it. When we move towards our life purpose we feel more fulfilled and whole; when instead we move away from it, we feel empty, conflicted, and full of all kinds of problems. This does not mean that we make one giant leap and become either completely One with our Higher Self, or completely disconnected from it. Although some people may experience such extreme moments of inner choice making and never change again, most of us are on a journey that begins the moment we are conceived, and ends the moment we die. We are offered many choices to experience both types of movements, and with every step forward, or back, we learn something new about ourselves and our lives and about Life itself, as well.

And sometimes we are blocked from moving towards our life purpose by difficult external circumstances. If our parents / caregivers in early life, families and societies are unable to offer us the kind of nurturing and support we need to feel in touch with our own Self and our own deeper value and meaning as a human being, it can be extremely difficult to feel the kind of freedom and confidence we need to do so.

We can also be also be inhibited by types of loyalties and expectations that pull us away from our Selves to make others in our life happy, or to keep the peace, but the cost in our mental, emotional and even physical health can be high.

Whatever the case may be, the Authentic or True Self, even when deeply buried within us beneath layers of denial and repression, never goes away. Often it takes time for us to be able to truly hear its call and even more time to listen to it. It is a common experience that something happens in the course of our life – a loss, an illness, a divorce, a deep personal crisis of some sort – that forces us to stop and pay attention. The pain of denying our inner truths becomes greater than the fear of listening, and in those moments, we open our minds and hearts, and begin an entirely new journey.

The Inner Artist is always there, and we can tap into its energy at any time, although we often need to learn how to do so in ways that feel right to us, and that can truly lead us towards the purpose contained in our True Self, rather than remain stuck in our past conditioning that suffocates that purpose, or even actively oppose it.

The thing about learning how to access our Inner Artist is that there is no set manual to do so. The manual for our “best life”, along with our ability to truly love ourselves and our lives in respectful connection with others and with Life itself, is written within us, not within anyone else.

For this reason, it is a journey that only we can undertake for ourselves. We need help to do so, because none of us, just like no other life form, grows or changes in a vacuum. We are here to spark growth in each other, and to cheer each other on in an increasingly give and take movement.

But in ultimate analysis, only we can make the choices that lead us towards a loving expression of our unique being, or away from it.

And often the journey is one step forward, and two steps back! It is not an “art” that we learn once. It is an art that we must become willing to practice, to the best of our ability, day after day, accepting that some days we will be more effective than others… but that every day that we try, is a good day.

As we learn this complex and delicate art and tune into our Selves while tuning out the effects of our wounding and conditioning, we become ever more capable of expressing what it is that we are here to express.

This does not mean that we have to be actual “artists” in our daily lives. Whether or not we engage in the “arts” per se, music, painting, dance, etc., or not, we are innately creative, because Life itself is creative, and we are a part of life.

We may be mothers, or fathers, or farmers, or teachers, or CEOs, or scientists; religious people, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, gardeners or not yet clear about anything we are or want to be or do; we may want to live in the woods by ourselves, or feel engaged and important within the hustle of a large metropolis. We may engage in many activities, or few; have many friends and family members, or choose to be alone; be ambitious and driven towards forms of material and societal success and recognition, or satisfied with a simple life.

Each of us is unique, and how we feel most in tune with ourselves and purposeful in our own journey is … well, sacred, and valid, because each life, thus each and every one of us, is sacred and valid.

But often times we don’t know this, because negative voices from our past are louder than the whispers of our Self … and our lack of connection with our inherent worth and our true purpose creates rifts within ourselves and in our interactions with others and the outside world that bring immense confusion, pain, and inner and outer conflict.

When instead we choose to tune into our Inner Artist and affirm the purpose contained within our Personal, Higher Self, we can become capable of making decisions based on love for ourselves and others – an ability to enhance Life in all its forms. And not only does our life begin to evolve in ways that we never dreamed possible, but our own increasing liberation, freedom, and ability to truly enjoy our lives inspires others to make the same effort.

But as I mentioned above, although the Inner Artist is ever-present, as is the Self, learning how to hone our Existential Artistry and actually follow the guidance we receive does often require some deliberate effort and intentional focus on our part. Even the most fortunate among us can be called to higher levels of Self expression, which require new ways of thinking, feeling, and acting in the world.

And just as people with natural artistic talent need to be willing to learn specific techniques and skills so they can best express their gifts, if we want to become expert Artists of our Lives, we, too need to learn new ways of seeing ourselves, our traumas and struggles, our conditioning and our free decisions whether they be Self-affirming, or Self-denying.

We need to become willing look at what the painful experiences we encounter can mean for us, and change our thinking and sometimes even our ways of living to embrace a more enlivened, holistic and engaged way of being.

It does not mean that when we do so we will become perfect, or that we will no longer encounter obstacles; it does not guarantee a quick fix for our inner pain or an automatic solution to the complex and difficult experiences life brings to our door.

Life itself is constantly changing, and we are called to go along with it, even when doing so means letting go of ideas, people, ways of being and thinking that we believed were “forever”.

This new paradigm of Life as a Gift and a Work of Art is not only a new way of seeing and experiencing the world for ourselves and how we can collaborate and connect with others that is not only nurturing and healing, but it is an antidote for the kinds of anxieties that times such as the one we are all living in, during a major evolutionary push. As such, it is not only a huge help, but it is truly exciting!

But how, you may ask, do we embrace this new paradigm, and apply it to our day to day lives?

In the workshops I will be offering in 2026- so far three, on February 21, April 18, and June 20 2026, from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm – we will explore a variety of simple but effective tools and techniques to help you begin to see your own Life as a Work of Art. We will start out by assessing where we are now in our journeys, and from there move on to exploring what we would like to bring into our lives or what we would like to change, and, lastly, some ideas on how we can begin to get there in a more determined, and supported, way.

Join me on February 21 at 10:30 am – either in person in Oconomowoc (405 E Forest St), or on line – for the first of these workshops.

You can check out my webpage here to learn a bit more about the themes we will be exploring and what kinds of tools and techniques I will be offering as we endeavor together to become ever more engaged and fulfilled Artists of our own Lives and of the Life of the Universe.

And if you are already inspired to take this step forward towards creating a New Lens and a New Life for yourself in 2026, and beyond, you can sign up directly here. Please also send me an email to indicate if you intend to participate in person or online.

I look forward to seeing you there, and in the meantime, I wish you the very best for a beautiful and inspiring beginning to 2026!

Exploring the Depths of our Connectedness: A Comparison of Jung’s Collective Unconscious and Sheldrake’s Morphic Fields

by Martha | Jun 1, 2025 | Psychology

Over the past week I have had a truly interesting experience that has caused me to wonder a lot about what the collective unconscious is, how it relates to morphic fields, and how both of them become observable in daily life.

During a session with a client, I found myself compelled to combine two techniques that I am specialized in – Family Constellations and Inner Child/Inner Family work. It was an intuition I had in the moment, where it seemed that the best way to help my client really feel what was going on in the issue they had presented was to help them see, contemporaneously, both the larger picture of the situation with the help of Family Constellations, and the internal aspects of those wounded parts that were connected to their early childhood experiences.

It was a powerful experience both for me, and my client, and I found myself pondering this in the days to come, feeling that I had reached a new level of understanding in my own personal journey and in how I can best help those that come to me for help in navigating the complexities of healing our woundedness, stepping into feeling more empowered in how we can create a truly fulifilling life, and in simply being human.

I then participated in a Family Constellations workshop, where there were also several other participants who are therapists of varying sorts. I found myself almost gasp out loud when first one, then another, and then a third shared about how they have recently been integrating Inner Child and Internal Family Systems work with Family Constellations!

What I found unusual was not so much that other people are finding this kind of integration useful, both for themselves and for their clients; that seems a rather natural progression of things, as the two approaches truly do complement each other in a variety of ways that I won’t go into here.

What surprised me was the fact that in terms of timing it all seemed to be happening in a rather contemporaneous way, in many of us, but scattered all throughout the globe.

I was very touched by this and I kind of tucked it away in my mind, to ponder over during the days and weeks to come, as I would begin to explore my own way of integrating things.

Then, that same evening, I received a newsletter from yet another Family Constellations practitioner, who lives in yet another far-flung country, announcing how she is also integrating Family Constellations work with Inner Child work!!

Now what seemed to be possibly a mere coincidence truly began to ring of something “spooky at a distance” happening.

I know that most physicists would cringe at my applying that expression, which refers to particles being entangled at a subatomic, or quantum, level, to connections between human minds and cultural trends. I am certainly not a physicist, and so although I have read numerous books on these topics and have been studying how they can correlate with human experience for years, I most certainly do not consider myself an expert on any of it.

But after over 35 years of personal exploration of how our various lenses for interpretation of reality – science, philosophy, art and religion – intertwine and interact with each other, while being distinct, I can’t help but think that these experiences do show us that we are very likely experiencing the quantum dimension of reality far more often than we would like to think.

We are rightly skeptical about drawing correlations when we are dealing with subjective, or personal, experience, and our scientific method has most certainly helped humanity become more capable of drawing objective conclusions about reality, which have allowed us to advance in ways we could have never imagined.

But subjective experience is also a fundamental aspect of our existence, and many thinkers, even within more purely scientific realms, are becoming more courageous about affirming the importance of recognizing how objective and subjective reality are deeply intertwined, and how they then express into human culture through new ideas and practices, which advance our understanding of ourselves and our world, and how we can live better within it.

I have also noticed a kind of synchronicity in how Antonio Mercurio, the founder of the therapeutic and anthropological approach that he began developing in the 1970s and that I specialized in Italy in the 1990s and early 2000s, began first sharing his ideas when working with others around the same time as Bert Hellinger, who was in Germany.

While their general ideas and approaches have many differences, there are also some fundamental similarities in how they saw the challenges that face people who are struggling with a variety of mental and emotional issues.

Their common experiences of having begun both as priests within the Catholic church, who then left the church to found their own schools of thought and practice with a phenomenological approach at their foundation, seems serendipitous, or, in the words of Carl Jung, synchronous.

There are many, many examples of this throughout history, way before there was the internet and our now instantaneous ability to access information of any type. I am sure you have noticed such coincidences within your own life as well.

I invite you to reflect on this and, if you have an example to share, please do so in the comments. It seems important to be able to notice how we are connected with each other in these mysterious, yet profound, ways.

As we become able to observe them with greater consciousness and appreciation, we can strengthen our positive, creative, life-enhancing bonds with others, wherever we may be.

In any case, I hope you enjoy the following article comparing Carl Jung’s ideas about the Collective Unconscious and Rupert Sheldrake’s ideas about Morphic Fields. I asked AI to help me with it, out of curiosity, and it did a great job 🙂

I would like to qualify this by saying that while I am finding AI very helpful when I am doing research, and even in offering assistance when I want to organize my thoughts or create a synthesis of ideas, I am also well aware of its limitations. It is “machine-think” and as such it is incapable of infusing words with feeling, and for me, that is an essential part of the beauty of the written word, or of any kind of communication.

The wonderful technologies that are emerging now are incredibly powerful and will most definitely continue to modify our lives in unthinkable ways over the years to come, but they cannot replace the importance of our emotions and how our connectedness depends on these fundamental, and still not very understood, energies within us.

Nonetheless, I have decided to share this article as-is, and maybe in the future I will come back and create a second one, infusing it with more of my own “human” editing, just to prove my point. 😉

(And as an FYI, I have written pretty much everything else on my website over the last 15 years… as someone who loves to write, I do not see myself turning over this task completely to AI any time soon! )

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Understanding Jung’s Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious represents a significant aspect of his analytical psychology. Unlike the personal unconscious, which is unique to each individual and formed through personal experiences, the collective unconscious refers to a deeper level of the unconscious mind that is shared by all members of a species. It contains universal symbols and archetypes, which Jung described as inherited structures intrinsic to humanity, transcending cultural and individual differences.

These archetypes include motifs such as the Hero, the Mother, and the Shadow, which reflect the shared experiences and emotions present in human societies.

The implications of the collective unconscious extend beyond the individual psyche; they manifest in collective behaviors, beliefs, and the shared mythologies that form the cultural bedrock of societies across the globe.

Jung posited that this metamorphic field is responsible for the connections between people throughout the world, fostering understanding and cooperation, as these archetypes resonate with the shared human experience. The concept suggests that individuals are influenced by these deep-rooted symbols, shaping their emotions and behaviors in ways that can often be unconscious.

This idea aligns with a phenomenological approach, as it emphasizes the importance of subjective experience and shared human structures in understanding psychological phenomena. By recognizing these universal aspects of our consciousness, we can begin to appreciate the fractals of ideas and behaviors that connect us as a species.

Jung’s theory serves as a foundation for understanding how cultural narratives are formed and maintained over time, allowing us to analyze the ways in which we are linked through our shared unconscious heritage. In essence, the collective unconscious provides a framework for exploring the underlying patterns that influence both individual and societal dynamics.

Rupert Sheldrake’s Morphic Fields: An Overview

Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphic fields presents a revolutionary perspective on how nature and behavior are influenced by fields that store collective memories of species. According to Sheldrake, these morphic fields exist in a realm akin to the collective unconscious described by Carl Jung, as both suggest that there is a shared reservoir of knowledge that influences behavior across species.

However, Sheldrake diverges from Jung by introducing the concept of morphic resonance, which posits that these fields are not static but dynamic, capable of evolving over time as they encapsulate the experiences and behaviors of individual creatures within a species. This idea has significant implications, especially in understanding how patterns of behavior can repeat across generations without direct genetic influence.

The concept of morphic fields extends beyond mere behavioral patterns to suggest that they also play a crucial role in evolution. Sheldrake proposes that these fields help facilitate the development of new traits and behaviors through the collective experiences of past generations.

This challenges traditional views of evolutionary biology, where changes are primarily attributed to genetic mutations and natural selection. Instead, Sheldrake argues for a phenomenological approach, emphasizing the intricate web of connections between people throughout the world and species as they draw upon historical memories preserved in morphic fields.

Moreover, Sheldrake’s theory resonates with the notion of fractals of ideas and behaviors, highlighting how specific patterns repeat across different scales and contexts. Sheldrake’s morphic fields also provide a framework for understanding family constellations, as they suggest that behaviors and experiences may reverberate through familial lines, influenced by shared history.

Ultimately, Sheldrake’s morphic fields challenge established scientific paradigms, inviting researchers to explore the interconnectedness of all life forms and the ways in which knowledge and behavior are transmitted through these profound collective dimensions.

Comparative Analysis: Synergies and Divergences

The theories of Jung’s collective unconscious and Sheldrake’s morphic fields offer intriguing perspectives on the shared experiences and memories that permeate human consciousness and, arguably, other forms of life as well. At the core of Jung’s collective unconscious lies the assertion that there exists a repository of archetypal images and narratives that shapes human behavior across cultures and generations. This idea emphasizes a shared mental landscape that connects individuals through time and space. It is this collective repository that informs dreams, myths, and even instincts, creating a common thread among people worldwide.

On the other hand, Sheldrake’s morphic fields propose that patterns of behavior, knowledge, and memory are transmitted not through the conventional biological processes but rather through these fields which enable a form of memory that transcends individuals. In this view, learning and habits are not solely the results of direct experience but are influenced by these higher-order patterns. Thus, the morphic field serves as a connecting framework through which behavioral patterns emerge and evolve, akin to the fractals of ideas and behaviors that manifest across various species.

Despite these similarities, the two theories diverge significantly in their acceptance within the scientific community. Jung’s collective unconscious has encountered its share of skepticism and has often remained within the realm of psychology and philosophy, whereas Sheldrake’s morphic fields are viewed with even more caution, often critiqued for their lack of empirical support.

Furthermore, the metaphysical implications of these theories lead to different interpretations regarding the nature of memory and consciousness. While Jung’s unraveling of the unconscious emphasizes psychological integration, Sheldrake’s approach hints at a more interconnected universe, underscoring the phenomenological approach in understanding the connections between people throughout the world. The analysis of these theories reveals a complex landscape of consciousness that invites further exploration and discussion.

The Relevance of Jung and Sheldrake in Today’s Context

In contemporary society, the theories proposed by Carl Jung, particularly his concept of the collective unconscious, have gained renewed interest among psychologists, artists, and cultural critics.

Jung’s idea posits that beneath the individualized consciousness exists a shared reservoir of experiences, memories, and archetypes common to all humanity.

This collective unconscious serves as a framework through which we can discuss the connections between people throughout the world, helping to explain shared symbols in art, myth, and religious practices.

As mental health practitioners increasingly adopt a phenomenological approach, they draw upon Jung’s ideas to better understand their clients within the broader context of societal influences and historical narratives.

Moreover, the relevance of Rupert Sheldrake’s concept of morphic fields resonates in the fields of biology and psychology. Sheldrake proposes that these fields govern the patterns and tendencies of behavior and development, influencing how organisms interact within their environments.

The concept of a metamorphic field extends beyond biology, suggesting that learning and behaviors are not merely learned individually but are shared among populations, echoing Jung’s collective unconscious.

By exploring metamorphic fields and family constellations, practitioners can address familial patterns and behaviors that transcend individual experiences, bringing to light their roots in collective memory.

As we navigate an increasingly complex world characterized by rapid technological advancement and global interconnectedness, Jung and Sheldrake’s theories provide essential perspectives on understanding consciousness, community, and individual identity.

Their ideas invite us to consider the fractals of ideas and behaviors that shape our experiences, hinting at a collective tapestry of human existence woven through shared memories and social interaction. The implications of these theories encourage a reflection on how we relate to one another, further enriching our comprehension of humanity in the modern age.

Don’t let the Big Bad Baboons get you down – healing from emotional and psychological stress

by Martha | Mar 8, 2024 | Blog

How can we heal from – and stop creating more of – the emotional and psychological stress that so many of us are suffering from?

We all know by now that stress isn’t good for us, but why is it one of the greatest problems we modern humans have?

I am sure many of us ask ourselves this question, day after day, and the answer can seem difficult to find. Even though today we have all kinds of solutions, from wellness programs to drugs to diets to apps that help us regulate everything from sleep to steps, it certainly does not seem that many of us have solved the problem.

Despite having gained an incredible level of wellbeing in many industrialized societies throughout the planet thanks to our increasingly sophisticated technologies, many people are suffering greatly, even though their basic physical needs of food and shelter are met.

To the contrary, in some areas, it seems we are doing even worse than before.

Anxiety, depression, insomnia, auto-immune disorders, chronic problems of all kinds are common experiences among many of us. We have enough food, our living conditions are quite comfortable, but yet we are feeling “stressed out” more often than not.

Is this simply a problem with how we are scheduling commitments, eating, exercising, and sleeping? How much money we have? Is it just because we are not wired correctly in our brains, and we need some drugs to fix us? Or is something deeper going on?

I believe there are always deeper forces at work inside of us as individuals and in our various human groups that we live within. They are not always immediately obvious, and it takes some time, energy, and dedication to be able to tune into these deeper, unconscious realities. But just because the easier route is to not look so deeply (and insurance plans won’t pay for it!), does not mean that these deeper forces are not at work within us, subtly conditioning many aspects of our lives.

Rather than focusing only on our symptoms we experience as individuals, we need to ask some of the deeper questions, such as:

what is it that is driving us to have these demanding lifestyles to begin with?
what is behind all the rush, rush, rush and push, push, push of our modern societies? Why does it seem we never have enough time, money, or safety?
And why is it so hard to pull away from that, and give ourselves permission to rest and nurture ourselves, and enjoy the simpler things in life, like connecting with others?

Like many others in my field, I have been aware for a long time about how repeated environmental stress in childhood can be hugely traumatic, and set us up for a host of mental, emotional, relationship, educational, career, financial and even physical problems later in life.

PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – and cPTSD – complexPTSD, attributable to ongoing stress in adverse childhood experiences – are now almost household terms, and their symptoms (often anxiety, depression, and many others that today are commonly experienced by large swathes of the population in our increasingly industrialized societies) are recognized by many health practitioners and thus can be addressed with a variety of treatments.

What many people fail to recognize, however, is how our very culture tends to encourage the conditions that creates the stress we are trying so hard to manage. This negative conditioning begins within the family even when highly traumatic situations are absent. Why is this the case?

Of course these are complex realities and I do not want to affirm that there is only one easy answer to the problem. I do feel it is important to recognize, though, that much of our “stress” is caused by the values that we tend to uphold without being completely aware of how damaging they can be to ourselves and to others.

Stress, Portrait of a Killer by National Geographic (click on the title to watch) points out how, instead, the social hierarchies that we blindly participate in are generally driven by the conviction that dominating behaviors are preferable, even though they produce conditions which clearly benefit only some of the members, and deeply and negatively affect all the others.

This kind of social organization causes stressful conditions that produce a host of physical, mental/emotional and societal problems that damage everyone within the system, even though those who enjoy positions of dominance also do experience a form of pleasure when they exert their power.

This wonderful documentary addresses the larger societal aspects, by showing research done with a troop of baboons and within the civil service in the UK.

But this same dynamic is often present within every kind of social agreement between two or more individuals that we are involved in: the couple relationship, the family, business organizations large and small, and any kind of grouping of human beings who come together for a common purpose.

Historically speaking, we have been hooked on this drug of dominance – also known as the drive for power and control, or in Antonio Mercurio’s words, “phallic power” – for millennia, so it is so familiar to us that we can hardly imagine any different way of life.

As the documentary also shows, sometimes odd things happen, Life somehow intervenes … and new social models are born. I am not going to ruin the story for you, because I really highly recommend watching this documentary, as it can offer some powerful insights and energies to those of us who are actively working to change this behavioral model, in our individual lives and in our interactions with others.

What I will share, is that what this documentary and the research it shows us seems to underline, is that indeed we do, today, have a choice, about how we are going to live. Even though it can seem that we don’t, we can feel caught up in systems and ways of living and acting that are inevitable and difficult to change, in reality, today we have many tools available to us, to help us break out of these old, destructive models.

We don’t have to just wait around and pray for some kind of miracle that will take out the bullies.

It’s not easy, because our whole society still tends to either worship or feel threatened by those who have a domineering, authoritarian attitude, and assume that these “Alpha” personalities are the ones who should be leading us.

I have often heard people say admiringly of someone, “oh, he/she/they is/are such a Type A!” , as though that is the very best way to be. Only when we look more closely can we realize that this model tends to often have very negative repercussions, not only for the person themselves, but for those around them.

As the great psychoanalyst Alice Miller pointed out, the deeper, and most uncomfortable, truth is that these patterns of dominance and submission begin within the family, and they have been passed down for generations. We are often unconsciously locked into old patterns that reproduce a wide variety of problems. And on a most basic level, when these patterns prevail, we are not free to express the life within us in the ways our souls want to grow.

This is a form of “stress” that can generate all kinds of imbalances. In our attempts to compensate for the inner conflict we feel between wanting to please our parents/family/societal systems and the deeper yearnings within our souls for authentic expression, we can find ourselves bouncing around from one “cure” to the next, never really getting to the root of things, and never really finding any true relief.

But what is the solution?

We live in a strange, but fascinating time. On one hand, our understanding of these deeper societal issues that affect individual mental, physical and spiritual health has grown exponentially over the last couple centuries, and we have developed incredible new tools to help us evolve and grow, both individually and collectively.

And yet, despite having reached a level of success as a species that no longer justifies the need for this kind of destructive, dominant behavior, we have become addicted to it.

Now we have the science to show what happens in the brain, and thus prove that indeed, the dopamine pleasure centers are activated when hominids impose their will over others in an aggressive and purely self-serving way.

And we all know what addiction is about: we do something repeatedly to experience a form of biochemical relief, or pleasure, even though it can cause terrible damage to us on every level, and to others as well.

And we also now know that when we have become addicted to something, the only way to truly break free of it – if we are lucky enough to realize in time the damage it is causing us – is to stop taking the drug, eating the sugar, going to the casino, falling in love with unavailable people – engaging in whatever it is that gives us that momentary high, which is a distraction from some kind of deeper discomfort or pain.

Many addiction recovery models today include the understanding that addiction flourishes when there is a lack of healthy nurturing and connection within the family system, and thus abstinence must be combined with cultivating healthy “connections” with others, in one form or another. Otherwise, at some point the need to get the “high” and alleviate the pain of the isolation we feel will override even the strongest of wills, and we will be back in the kind of slavery an addiction produces, in no time. It might be uncomfortable and damaging, and we may not be free, but it is what we know, so we tend to gravitate back to the familiar pain, rather than the unfamiliar one that having to rebuild new inner resources brings with it.

But what about breaking free of the societal addiction of dominance? Many of us are not on the “Alpha” end of it. We are, instead, the victims of those who are getting dopamine highs off of dominating us.

That, too, however, is a form of addiction – because once again, it is what we know. It is an energetic “atmosphere”, a relational reality that is what has been familiar to us since early in life and is thus very difficult to break out of and truly modify.

Neuroscience has allowed us to see how all these various emotional patterns create biochemical set points within us, neural pathways that are hard to modify, especially when they were established early in life, or have been reinforced regularly for a long time.

But it can be done. We can choose to quit drinking or smoking or even dominating others in our lives, and we can choose to stop harming ourselves by being a victim, once we understand that even as victims we are playing into this round-and-round of dominance-submission, that causes pain and suffering for everyone.

As you will see in the documentary, the suggestion offered to those who feel trapped in situations of submission/victimhood in the work environment is to find some area of your life where you feel you have “control”.

For example, they suggest that if you are in a job situation where you do not feel you are valued and treated fairly, the suggestion is to go out and do something where you do feel valued in your free time.

But to me, this seems like another bandaid, or even another form of dominance, because we end up trying to use external solutions to try to solve problems that lie much deeper, and that affect us not only in an external way, but deep within us, on yes a physical and behavioral level, but also on a more deeply emotional and spiritual one, as well.

If we have been stuck in patterns of dominance, or even of being a victim of dominating behavior, the truth is that we are lacking in a felt sense of what a loving, supportive atmosphere is like. We do not have the neural experience of it, which is a body experience. And if we have not experienced that, how can we possibly recreate that in our lives, in our interactions with others?

Since the problem originates in our most important, early relationships, where our experience of hierarchy begins to take shape, we must go deeper, and understand where it is that we ourselves are unwittingly continuing to further the systems that are causing us so much pain.

There are many tools to do this available to us today, and as this wonderful documentary shows, sometimes even very strange things happen to help evolution along. The bullies are somehow taken down a notch, and those who were formerly victimized, come together in a new way. Those are rare and wonderful moments where a new set of values, based on collective wellbeing and nurturing, can become the predominant ones.

But as the documentary also points out, unlike baboons, we have an incredible creative ability to think of new ways of being and bringing them into reality, for ourselves and others to experience and enjoy. That is our great gift – and difficult responsibility – as human beings.

It is rare that someone who gets high on dominance questions their role, even though this addiction, too, generally has its roots in intergenerational neglect and abuse (Hitler is an eloquent example of this: he was brutally beaten by his Jewish father in childhood… and we all know what he then did on an incredibly grand scale, to satisfy an unconscious and insatiable need for revenge).

It can happen, when dominating and abusing self and others stops feeling so great, or when the person in question has some other kind of major health or relationship crisis, and their consciousness begins to shift.

On the other hand, those who are being scapegoated or abused must also change the way they have been trying to solve their problems.

Rather than try to change or even “help the abusers to become better people – it’s amazing how the more gentle, sensitive members of a family or a business or any kind of organization are the ones who are most abused, and also the ones most desirous of helping their abusers! – we need to ask ourselves what we need to do to shift our ways of thinking and acting.

We need to take ownership of our health and wellbeing and realize that even though today we may not know what it is to feel loved and to thrive, we can move in that direction.

Our sensitivity does not need to be a detriment: it can become a super-power, a lighthouse for ourselves and others.

To do any of this we need to first believe that our discomfort is worthy of our attention, and that our lives have value. That our ability to love ourselves and make choices that best meet our own needs is what we must decide to cultivate.

We often need help doing this, because if we grew up in families where our parents were themselves not free of their intergenerational traumas, where we were subjected to family patterns of dominance/submission or entanglements, were victims of attitudes or actions that were harmful to us, we may have ingrained beliefs about our worth or our right to challenge the status quo, and demand dignity and respect.

It can be very difficult – if not impossible – to change these things by ourselves.

I would also add that it is not enough to just change these things on an intellectual level. We need to be able to have an emotional experience that is different from what we are used to, which is felt within the body.

We need to be able to FEEL what respect feels like, to be able to discern when we are receiving it from others, and be able to offer it to others ourselves. We need to be able to know what love “feels like” to be able to begin to choose to move towards it, rather than remain stuck in definitions of love that are either only halfway satisfying, or are abusive, draining, based on power and control dynamics, and thus, ultimately damaging for everyone.

I would even argue that those who are stuck in an addiction of dominance over others would even choose the wonderful feeling of “right place” and balance – of inner, spiritual Beauty, as Antonio Mercurio called it – over the high of dominance, if they could only feel it.

This is why I have really fallen in love with the Family Constellations method, developed by the German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger. It offers an opportunity to not only “see” what is going on in a deeper level in the circumstances in our lives that may be causing us pain, but to actually FEEL what the solution can be.

This somatic/body experience of real solutions is truly incredible, and hard to describe in words. You simply sense that you have found your right place. As one recent participant in one of my workshops stated “After the Constellations experience … I started to … feel more comfortable, like you do when you find the right place to put something while you’re organizing your home.”

Sensing this “right place” is the solution to the distorted and dysfunctional power dynamic, because it brings us out of the addictive cycle of desperately looking for some kind of temporary relief for our discomfort. It is a sensation of being rooted in your deepest inner self, connected to Life, knowing you belong.

You don’t have to fight for it, nor do you have to try to take someone else’s place.

You can stand strong in who you are: the unique human you were created to be, in profound and authentic interaction with others.

And the really beautiful thing is that when one person starts to feel where the “right place” is within a family system or a group of any kind, the whole group organism undergoes a subtle shift. Therefore, this is a method that assures that our personal work also has a positive effect on others, but in a subtle, organic way. The ripples we set forth by shifting our own attitudes and energies and experiences touch others in mysterious ways, and I have seen some really incredible shifts occur, not only in myself and my families and life, but in others’.

I could write forever and ever on this, but I will close for now, and just invite you to come to one of my in person Family Constellations Workshops or to one of the online ones, which I plan to start up soon. You can also do an individual session with me, where we can apply the Constellations method by using either figurines, or drawings.

Whether you experience it individually or in a group, it is truly a beautiful approach, that can energize not only your own healing and growth, but can bring you the wonderful feeling of knowing you are contributing to the greater good, by doing something really great for yourself, your family and all of humanity.

We DO have a choice today, to cultivate a more loving, mutually supportive reality, where we can all thrive. The first choice starts with ourselves, by activating our willingness to …. Learn from the baboons …. And, as Antonio Mercurio used to say, remember that

Today is a new day, and I can choose to create Love and Beauty, for myself and others.