Lectures & Workshops

---

Resilience: Bouncing Back When Things Get Tough

We all are born with a measure of resilience that is not fixed. Throughout life, experience weakens or strengthens us. The depth and quality of our connections and relationships contribute to how we respond to the demands of work and life. Positive experiences can be taken in and metabolized to become an enduring source of inner stability and mastery. Psychologists call this sense of agency internal locus of control. Periods of fear and regression weaken us, while mastered challenges make us stronger. In this talk Dr. Ruhl discusses how resilience is not just an individual attribute but also potentially exists in groups and their patterns of relationships and attitudes. A resilient family/group can bring out the best or worst in more vulnerable members. A resilient group supports cohesion, playfulness, acceptance, flexible and supportive structure, and benign leadership that recognizes and values difference. Unity through diversity is possible. In this program you will learn how to transform vulnerability into resilience by developing key traits, and you will come to understand why “falling apart” may be a smart step on the road to resilience. Identify the edges of the taken-for-granted sense of self where you get fearful and uncomfortable and how to extend these to become stronger and more whole, and learn sanity-saving techniques for managing traumas, hassles, stresses, and losses — each potentially an opportunity for growth and expansion;

Right Use of Power: Ethics of Daily Life

To see the critical importance of ethics in daily life all one needs to do is pick up a daily newspaper. The headlines are filled with ethical violations in the workplace, the board room, the halls of Congress, Wall Street, even the pulpit. The right use of power and influence is the core of ethical behavior. The ability to sustain relationships with skill in the face of ethical issues is facilitated by presence and practice. In this talk Dr. Ruhl discusses how ethics is a set of values, attitudes, and skills intended to have benevolent effects. Too often ethics is associated with imposed rules, blame, litigation, shame, and self-righteousness. Power is often associated with force, domination, abuse, and humiliation. Optimally, power is the ability to have an effect or influence. Influence is how we interact with others to make changes. Role power is the increased power that accompanies a professional role. While power in itself is neutral in meaning, it can be used to bring harm or well being, depending on our skill, intention and quality of consciousness/presence.

How do we know what is the good and the right thing to do? What are messages about power that are part of your personal history? Are you aware of unconscious cultural messages that you may have internalized concerning: gender, race, ethnic background, body size and shape, religious preference, class, age, sexual preference, disabilities, military experience, status? In this talk Dr. Ruhl teaches that the presence is the most under acknowledged power of all, and it must be practiced on a daily basis through the micro ethics of “know thyself.”

Slender Threads: Invisible Patterns that Shape and Guide Our Lives

It is an audacious notion in this age of science and willful determination that one’s existence is somehow inspired, guided, and even managed by unseen forces outside our control. Whether called fate, destiny, or the hand of God, slender threads are at work brining coherence and continuity to our lives. Over time they weave a remarkable tapestry. In this talk Dr. Ruhl considers the role of fate and destiny as well as rational planning in shaping contemporary life. What are these slender threads? Being in a particular place at just the right time, meeting someone who steers you in an unforeseen direction, the unexpected appearance of work, money or inspiration. Such patterns give meaning to our experiences. In our modern culture we’re pretending with tremendous skill and deception we are not all that – not the obverse pattern, not the loose threads, and not the connecting links between what is apparent and what is not. Once you recognize the power of the invisible threads you can stop worrying about trying to control everything. This gives life an intensity, a sense of safety, and less worry — if you can learn to carry on these two perspectives at once. In one-dimensional awareness we leave out of everyday consciousness two essential things: 1) Amazing beauty and, 2) a very deep thing, our identity with the total process of being.

Workshop: Interacting with Slender Threads In Depth

Ordinary human consciousness is, at the same time as being a form of awareness, sensitivity, and advancement, also is a form of ignorance. The ordinary everyday consciousness that we operate from leaves out more than it takes in. It leaves out things that are terribly important, things that — if we could know them — would go a long way toward relieving our anxieties, fears and horrors. If we could extend our awareness to include those things that are left out, we would have a deepened experience of life. We would all know what is profound , mysterious and in the depths. Our everyday consciousness screens this out in the same way that when you have a piece of weaving, when the top threads finish they go underneath, then they appear again over here, then they go underneath, and then they will appear again over here. So that the back will be the opposite pattern as the front. The world is like that. Our sense organs are selective. They pick out certain things that they are receptive to. These vibrations are like the strings on a harp. When you play the harp you don’t play all the strings, you are selective. You pick out certain notes to make a pleasing pattern. Each time you pick something you reject something. It’s all there, representing a basic continuity, just as the thread has an unseen continuity on the back of the weaving, the obverse of what is on the front. In this talk Dr. Ruhl asks:

Who are you really? Deep down who are you? That includes the underside of the tapestry, the things that have been left out, not noticed, hidden threads that hold the whole thing together. Look into your nooks and crannies, places where you feel inadequate, wounded, shameful, where and in what situations you’re are too quick to judge others or to please. Who are the people you don’t like or those who don’t like you? These are starting points for finding slender threads, as useful and important as the small miracles of kindness, generosity, and compassion that can also be found in daily life.

Was C.G. Jung Really Right After All?

Is the human brain born a blank slate or as a pre-programmed symbolic organ? What are the 12 universal characteristics of all people from all times? How are we “hard-wired” so that emotions frequently trump reason? Are we dreaming even when awake but are too busy to notice? Why do infants respond more quickly to images of animals than objects? How does the design of the human eye naturally produce mandala images? Recent independent research in affective and cognitive neuroscience, cultural anthropology, evolutionary psychology, and psycholinguistics all converge in addressing core Jungian ideas about complexes, archetypes, and the collective unconscious. This program explores where Jung was right and how some of his ideas are badly in need of revision. We will pull psyche out of the clouds and ground it in contemporary research.

Individuation, Impermanence, and Imperfection

Individuation is Carl Jung’s term for finding meaning and purpose in life. How do you know when you are on the right path? Why do big ideas about achievement and enlightenment just get in the way? When can you trust your inner guide and when must you apply discipline and ethics to curb the urgings of your instincts. The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believed we find meaning in life through the struggle with confounding oppositions. The struggle between opposing forces or tendencies has its roots in philosophy, but it was Jung who gave it a starring role in the drama of consciousness. Opposites such as good/evil, love/hate, inner/outer, underlie his psychology. He also suggested that there is a destination, a possible goal for life beyond maximizing pleasure, pursuing power and material goods, or even achieving our conscious goals. He called this the way of individuation, a natural process that involves finding one’s uniqueness, meaning, and wholeness. When interfered with we become ill, trapped in a backwater of the personality. Jungian-oriented psychotherapy aims at restoring the free flow of energy from our unconscious instincts to conscious life.

Wabi Sabi: The Beauty of Impermanence and Imperfection In Depth

In this talk Dr. Ruhl explores the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete, of things modest and humble. It brings attention to living in harmony with nature and experiencing the divine in the simple and ordinary. It is designed to help us embrace irregularity, simplicity, and the integrity of natural objects and processes. Lecture, discussion, and practical exercises will help you cultivate appreciation for what is impermanent, imperfect, and unfinished in life. You will learn to relate the Zen aesthetic of wabi-sabi with the Jungian journey of individuation. By cultivating appreciation for what is impermanent, imperfect, and unfinished in life, Dr. Ruhl teaches how we all can withdraw our projections, recognize our repetitive inner patterns, forgive ourselves, and better relate to other imperfect beings. Explore these compelling ideas through lecture, discussion, and practical exercises.

Cultivating Conscious Relationships

“We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with another” –Thomas Merton
Reaching our fullest potential always requires some form of relationship: family, friends, intimate partners, colleagues, a trusted advisor or mentor. This talk considers the changing nature of relationships, the necessity of conflict, and how differences of the “other” can lead to growth and grace. We will also explore the difference between dysfunctional/unconscious relationships vs. functional relationships vs. transformative ones. This presentation by Dr. Ruhl also explores how relationships may be utilized as a sacred journey of love with various outer and inner landmarks. This journey is perilous, filled with challenges and trials, but it holds a mystery and power. Practical suggestions are provided to help all of us on the path. The point of the journey is to face and embrace difficulties and trials in order to be open to grace, an infilling of spirit—and to experience a metanoia, a change of heart and mind.

Anatomy of the Emotions: Yearning

“I don’t think the struggles of desire can ever be won. Ages of longing and willing, willing and longing, and how have they ended? In a draw, dust and dust. Desire for thousands of generations. Child, father, father, child doing the same…This cannot be what life is for, over and over and over. Any good man will try to break the cycle.” –Saul Bellow

What is this disturbance in the heart, a voice that speaks for ceaseless yearning? When we try to suppress it, it gets even stronger, proclaiming: “I want, I want!” What is this flow of desires that we all chase? Where does this deep longing come from? Is it a pathology to be removed, an opening to greater wholeness that links memory and body, causing us to ache, as when images or music stir something in our emotional systems that connects the present, past, and the future? Nostalgia for the “good old days” may be a regressive yearning, a desire to return to the safety of the womb rather than risk life’s adventure. Yet often we yearn for invisible things, things we have felt emotionally but have trouble articulating, things we cannot easily express because they are not fully conscious in the moments that we experience them. We may notice our yearnings in the middle of the night, in daydreams or reveries, by sudden events that jolt us out of ordinary consciousness. Privileged moments are too full to take in all at once — they require reflection and time to process. And there is sadness at their passing, fear that they won’t return or perhaps recognition of their fragility. Yearning has a relationship to death, as we yearn for people and moments that cannot be pulled back. As we yearn in the present we hold images and memories of the past and intimations of the future. We all yearn to belong, to find home, to recover the lost self, to be completed and whole, and to share love. In this talk Dr. Ruhl explores the youthful yearning for identity, falling in love and yearning for the “magical other,” and the ultimate yearning for the divine. The highest form of seeking is the disappearance of seeking, the realization that one is Life.

The Christmas Complex (and the Hanukkah Blues)

Holidays frequently magnify underlying problems that we have managed to push under surface. For most Americans birthdays are a big deal, anniversaries are a notable event, but Christmas and Hanukkah are mythic, familial, social, and economic forces that annually promise so much while leaving us depressed, discontented, and in debt. We consume billions of dollars and hours of time and energy every holiday season. In this talk, Dr. Ruhl asks: Can we celebrate ordinariness instead of specialness? Can we embrace the impermanent rather than get depressed with the passage of time? Can we maintain healthy boundaries? Can we manage social pressure to consume food, alcohol, consumerism, compulsive overspending? Can we turn loneliness into peaceful silence? Can we keep expectations from rising like helium balloons? Can our natural desire to receive love be moderated by loving ourselves, nature, and humanity? We all long for a sense of belonging, of home. In a sense, all holiday sickness is home sickness. For most, the Norman Rockwell image of family harmony does not exist. Those gathered around the dinner table are neurotic mortals, with wounds, hopes, disappointments, volatile complexes. Family image carries an archetype of childhood innocence. We strive to recreate that magic. We also will explore the psychological depth of gifts. A gift is something bestowed upon us, provided without compensation. The best gifts often come as surprises, not delivered out of duty or obligation. Many have trouble accepting and gifting. If it is truly a gift, we are not in control of the process. Can you honor and accept simple gifts: energy, stopping, nature, dreams, confusion, hidden purpose, spontaneity, forgiveness, compassion, reparation?

Spiritual, Not Religious

“We may be outraged at the idea of an inexplicable mood, a nervous disorder, or an uncontrollable vice being, so to speak, a manifestation of God.” — C.G. Jung

The numinous is the non-ethical aspect in the idea of God or the holy. In this age when more and more people declare themselves to be “spiritual, not religious,” this concept of personally-experienced spirituality is of growing concern. The German religious scholar Rudolf Otto used the term for a reality which is wholly other, beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible and the familiar. The numinous contains something, a quality that transports us into a greater dimension of experience, a bliss which embraces those blessings that are suggested by the doctrine of salvation. The psychological effects of numinous experience are ambiguous. They may be healing or destructive, but never indifferent. They give depth and fullness of meaning to our lives. On the negative side, the numinous is difficult to engage and often feared or denied. It may be manipulated. Loss of the numinous leads to moral and spiritual collapse, but identification with numinous experience can lead to inflation. It can let lose dangerous psychic reactions in the public sphere. In this talk Dr. Ruhl suggests that we have no power to coerce numinous presence into experience. Yet it exists, in potential, in every moment of our therapeutic practice. At best we pray, invite, surrender or create a potential container that may be filled with grace. This container is the meeting of participants. The numinous emerges as an unexpected but welcome in-filling of inner content. Between the participants a potential has been created that allows something more and greater to arise – a mystery and power that allows for connection to a greater whole. Self-transcendence is not just for Mother Teresa or Gandhi. It is a form of awareness available to each of us.

Living the Unlived Life

“The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parents.” — C.G. Jung

“Zarathustra goes to the grave with the unfulfilled dreams of his youth. He speaks to them as if they were ghosts who have betrayed him bitterly. They struck up a dance and then spoiled the music. Did the past make his path so weighty? Did his unlived life impede him and consign him to a life that seems not to pass?” — F. Nietzsche

In this talk Dr. Ruhl explores the essential developmental task in the second half of life – rectifying the loss of abandoned dreams and unrealized potentials to achieve our ultimate life meaning and purpose. What is unlived life? It consists of those potential aspects of ourselves that have not adequately entered into our experience. Of course, no one can live out all of life’s possibilities, but there are key aspects of our being that must be brought into life or we cannot realize fulfillment. We all carry with us a vast inventory of unlived life. Even if we have achieved major life goals and seemingly have few regrets, there are significant experiences that have been closed to each of us. For everything we choose (or that has been chosen for us), something else remains “unchosen.” We can hear the distant drumbeat of unlived life in the mutterings that go on in the back of our heads; “Woulda-coulda-shoulda.” Or in second-guessing our life choices. Or those late night longings. The unexpected grief that arises seemingly out of nowhere. A sense that we have somehow missed the mark, or failed to do something we were so sure we were supposed to do. Where did we go wrong, and what is this life that we find ourselves living, so different that what we set out to do? When brought into consciousness, unlived life can become the fuel that propels us beyond current limitations. By exploring unlived life we learn to rise above fears, regrets, and disappointments, to expand our vision beyond the narrow confines of the ego, and to embrace the full measure of our being. An enlightened vision is our most profound unlived potential, and bringing it to fruition is the worthy purpose of the second half of life.

The Power of Symbolic Life: Reconciling Life’s Painful Contradictions

We humans are given the most conflicting job description imaginable. We must be civilized human beings, and that requires a whole list of “dos and don’ts,” culturally determined virtues. Simultaneously, we are called to live everything that we truly are, to be whole – this is our duty to the higher Self. This collision of values makes life confusing and painful. We all are faced daily with innumerable decisions: some easy and inconsequential, others troublesome and far-reaching. Apparent contradictions tie us in knots. It seems that we could not get through life without being divided. Everything that human beings experience consciously is brought to us in pairs of opposites. C.G. Jung wrote that the medieval mentality is “either/or,” but if humanity is to survive we must learn to cope with “both/and.” This change in the prevailing attitude of our culture demands a leap of consciousness from opposition to paradox. In our spiritual quest, we must be weaned, not from materialism, but from dualistic thinking.

Drawing upon the myth of the twin stars in the Gemini constellation, this workshop explores the unity that exits behind every duality. The ancient Greek myth of Castor and Pollux has extraordinary wisdom and relevance for us today. Unified in their childhood, this pair came to be separated, fragmentary, and miserable. One is mortal, the other divine. Only after much struggle are
they reunited in heavenly embrace. Dr. Ruhl presents this timeless story as a prototype and navigation point for all humans on the journey into wholeness. When we allow both sides of any issue to exist in equal dignity and worth, a synthesis is possible, bringing new insight, meaning, and contentment to our lives. Symbolic life provides the “keys to the Kingdom.” Well-grounded Jungian psychological concepts, this workshop will provide practical tools to help us: surrender old limitations; enliven friendships, relationships and career; unlock new life options and hidden talents; seize the “dangerous” opportunities of midlife; master the art of being truly alive in the present moment; and revitalize a connection with the higher Self, and thereby achieve peace and purpose in our mature years.

Creative Uses of Conflict

Conflict is the way that nature, people, and, organizations respond to change, and we can learn how to use it creatively rather than destructively. At some point in nearly all situations involving two or more people there will be explicit or covert conflict. How this is handled is significant for functioning of the relationship or group. Too often we avoid and let conflicts simmer, but when they go underground they do not go away — instead they ripen and undermine cooperation, change, and productivity. This talk identifies the critical signs of unresolved conflict and teaches us how conflict can be creative. Disagreements and differences can give rise to new and innovative solutions, deeper understanding and relatedness. Anger and confrontation can provide the impetus for development when it is contained and resolved appropriately.

Conflict generates anxiety and avoidance due to habits and learned responses we acquired early in life, such as: “difference/disagreement = aggression”, “let’s all be nice and get along,” “disagreement will be met with anger and retaliation,” “people won’t like me if I express my opinion or assert my needs,” “what’s the point, I will be ignored and abandoned,” “in an argument I will get angry, out of control, and embarrass myself or damage my position in the hierarchy,” “it takes too much energy to fight and achieves nothing in the end.”

Want more detailed information about Conflict Resolution? An in-depth workshop provides exercises, readings, and a deeper understanding of the topic of conflict resolution.

Creative Uses of Conflict In-Depth Workshop

In this workshop Dr. Ruhl will help you see how conflict in inevitable and universal. People are all different with diverse ideals, values and beliefs, and there must be disagreement. In any setting with a power differential the potential for conflict increases. Learn how conflict is potentially destructive in relationships when feelings of anger, competition, and hostility spiral out of control. This spiral of conflict can become stuck, ritualized, or institutionalized to the extent it is key to group identity or relationship of the participants. You will understand the psychological patterns of unresolved conflict: denial, avoidance, displacement, dissociating, discounting, projection, scapegoating, splitting, introjection, and acting out. And you will develop essential tools of conflict resolution, including: active listening, brain storming, non-judgmental play of new ideas.

Balancing Heaven and Earth

How should we balance the inner and the outer, the masculine and the feminine, the eternal and the every day? In struggling with goals and duties, how do we also attend to the workings of destiny and the cosmos? Utilizing a three-thousand-year-old story from India, The Ramayana, as guide, Dr. Ruhl explores the Eastern genius for the development of consciousness. Each of the characters in this individuation tale represents a part of the human psyche – all of which must be dealt with during the journey of life. This story takes a very different approach to the feminine and to evil than individuation stories in the West, and provides unique insights about living through a time when cultural traditions and values seem to be breaking down.

Exploring the Power of Myth

“There’s a large journey to be taken after the birth of man…consciousness must be transformed.” –J. Campbell

The Hero’s Journey belongs to each individual. Where have you struggled and met the challenge of the hero in your own life? Joseph Campbell suggested that the ultimate aim of the “quest” must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and power to serve others. Themes of hero and transformation are inseparable from the archetypal theme of life as a journey. One thinks of the Odyssey, the Aeneid and Divine Comedy. This is developed through stages of life, each with its own psychological/spiritual task defined by the intersection of biological potential and societal custom. Following Campbell’s lead, Dr. Ruhl suggests that the first half belongs to nature while the second half of life belongs to culture. We will explore the four functions of myth, the mystical, cosmological, sociological, and psychological. We will then raise the question: Do we any longer have any myth? This talk suggest a move from the quest for meaning to an experience of Being, which renders all specific mythological forms as something to be seen through, as vehicles to assist in that journey to catapult us into experience. It is the way of art and the artist that we all can apply, as we all are artists of our own lives.

Inner Work

Isak Dinesen three circumstances of true happiness: the exhuberance of youth, cessation of pain, and the knowledge one is following the will of god. What are you called to do next? What is life asking of you now? To answer these questions that matter most requires inner work. To ignore them risks ending up disenchanted and in some backwater of the personality. In this talk Dr Ruhl explains how the
ego is that point of reference, that radar trying to keep us safe while minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure. As such, it is thus the organ of anxiety. To the extent that we live only from the conscious position, our lives alternate between fear and desire. We will explore the power of dreams, conscious rituals, and active imagination as tools for development of greater awareness and richer lives.

Navigating the Stormy Seas of Grief and Suffering

‘Tis a fearful thing To love what death can touch.

To love, to hope, to dream, and oh, to lose. –Emmanuel of Rome, 12th century

Jobs end, homes burn down, children move out. Your husband (wife) has an affair. Your child becomes ill. You are assaulted. You are diagnosed with an illness. A parent dies. Emotional suffering is a fact of life, not a mental disorder, and grief can be a path of spiritual awakening. It is not an easy path, but it can be a most profound one. Grief is the physical, emotional and mental responses we have to a major loss. It is not one emotion, but a blend of more basic emotions including sadness, fear, guilt, relief, anger, resentment, and loneliness. The experience is different depending on the person and the circumstances. It follows that there is no one way, no “right” way to grieve, no prescribed length of time that is normal to be “in grief” no formula for how to be supportive to others in grief. In this talk Dr. Ruhl explore how to be alive requires grief — no one gets away without some share of it, as losses are inevitable. As a result, we all fear the inherent uncertainty and vulnerability of existence and the suffering when our best-laid plans go awry. Dr Ruhl suggests we ask: What does the soul want in grief? Does it have its own rhythms, its own time? How can we have our emotions, instead of trying to suppress or mute them? There is power in going through rather than over or around pain. Grief adds gravitas to the personality. It can lead to wisdom and compassion. There also can be gratitude for the present moment. The hard truth is that everything and every one we love we will eventually lose.

Dream Enactment: the Rapture of Being Alive

Dream Enactment is a form of play, but a bloody serious one. Not every voice or image appearing in a dream is an unerring spiritual director, and the ego be open to new perspectives without falling victim to magical thinking or giving over its ethical and moral obligations.Dream enactment is a dialogue that you enter into with different parts of yourself that live in the unconscious — some of these energies are divine-like, some can be demonic. At the most basic level it occurs in two stages: Allowing the unconscious to come up as you dream the dream on, and then coming to terms with the content of the unconscious. Interpretation of dreams is often oriented toward the past, including referring images backward to prior cultural images, Greek Gods, Sumerian goddesses. This is fun and interesting, but in our pursuit of the archetypal we may miss relating to the
actual myth-inducing quality of the psyche in our own time. Myth is not something that has only happened long ago. It is the speech of the psyche- Dr. Ruhl suggests that a dream is a spontaneous, undisguised expression of the unconscious, the roots of your own nature. Why pay attention to dreams? For partnership rather than warfare with nature, nature as it manifests in and around you. Dream work is valuable, not just to resolve
conflicts in our lives and correct neurotic behaviors and stuck symptoms, but to find source of renewal, strength and wisdom. The most valuable aspect of working with dreams often is not understanding, not reflection, but enactment.

The Wisdom of Uncertainty

Spiritual teachings are sometimes interpreted as advising us to let go of material things – but to advance consciousness we need to be weaned, not from material things, but from our allegiance to duality. The essence of ego-centered consciousness is to have preferences. Confusion and uncertainty are often seen as a mistake, even a madness. In truth, our potential for growth reveals itself in moments of disruption. The wisdom of confusion and uncertainty must be honored to clear a space in our lives for something new to claim us. There are times, too many to count, in which we fall back into chaotic and uncertain states: of anger, fear, confusion, ignorance, meaninglessness. Dr. Ruhl suggests that it is precisely in moments of chaotic breakdown, of individual or collective nature, that new potentials begin to emerge.When we rush too quickly, in a panic, to make order of the chaos, we also kill the Eros, the seed of the new spirit. We will explore Jung’s admonition that the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insolvable. They must be so, for they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.