Full Transcript for # 180 - When Symbols Become Mirrors: Jung, the Shadow, and the Stories We Carry (Magical Realism - Part 2)

merely feel haunted by the past, it is haunted. 00:06:00.639 --> 00:06:04.480 The family does not simply repeat a painful relational pattern. 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:13.439 Generations begin carrying the same names, making the same mistakes, and living inside a time that curls back upon itself. 00:06:14.079 --> 00:06:18.319 And a character does not say that grief makes the world feel unreal. 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:23.680 The dead return and continue participating in family life. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:28.319 And a person's loneliness does not remain an invisible emotional state. 00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:40.160 It may appear as an endless rain, an empty town, a disappearing body, or a trail of yellow butterflies following someone who cannot be forgotten. 00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:47.519 And the symbol becomes visible, and once it becomes visible, we can form a relationship with it. 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:53.920 We can study it, we can question it, we can feel something toward it. 00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:58.000 And sometimes we can imagine it changing. 00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:08.319 And Young believed that psychological growth requires us to encounter aspects of ourselves that the conscious personality had ignored or rejected. 00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:18.399 He called this lifelong process individuation, the movement toward becoming a more integrated and whole person. 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:22.800 And this does not mean becoming a perfect person. 00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:31.439 Or as Patrick Warburton's character, Jeff Bingham, jokingly calls on the TV show Rules of Engagement, the optimal male. 00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:42.079 And growth isn't about reaching some imaginary category where we finally have everything figured out, every flaw corrected, and every part of ourselves newly optimized. 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:50.480 It's about becoming more fully ourselves, or in some cases, returning to our authentic selves. 00:07:50.879 --> 00:08:00.079 We are imperfect, yet evolving, self-aware, and increasingly willing to live in alignment with who we actually are. 00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:11.839 And wholeness does not require us to eliminate every frightening, inconvenient, jealous, grieving, angry, sensual, uncertain, or wounded part of ourselves. 00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:20.240 It asks us to become conscious of those parts so they are no longer forced to operate entirely from the shadows. 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:23.360 And we've talked about this quite a bit before on this pod. 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:34.720 But magical realism is beautifully suited to this kind of psychological exploration because it refuses to divide reality into tidy categories. 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:38.240 And the living and the dead may share a home. 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:42.000 Beauty and terror may occupy the same image. 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:45.200 The sacred may appear in the kitchen. 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:47.759 Trauma may live beside humor. 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:50.639 The past may interrupt the present. 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:52.320 That's a good one. 00:08:52.720 --> 00:09:01.120 And a character may be both victim and survivor, frightened and brave, ordinary and miraculous. 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:07.919 Magical realism tells us that contradiction does not make an experience meaningless. 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:12.399 Sometimes contradiction is the experience. 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:15.279 And there's some food for thought. 00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:20.240 And one of Young's most familiar archetypal ideas is the shadow. 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:30.080 And again, I know this is a little bit of a rerun from previous episodes, but it's important stuff and worth reviewing from time to time to keep it fresh in mind. 00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:35.759 And the shadow contains qualities we do not want to acknowledge as belonging to us. 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:45.840 These may include impulses we consider unacceptable, but the shadow is not made only of cruelty, selfishness, or aggression. 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:55.919 It may also contain our creativity, ambition, sensitivity, sexuality, courage, playfulness, or power. 00:09:56.480 --> 00:10:03.840 Especially if those qualities were discouraged in the environments where we learned who we were allowed to be. 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:14.879 And my mind immediately jumps to a fantastic little book called Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon McKenzie. 00:10:15.120 --> 00:10:22.799 And at the beginning of the book, McKenzie visits classrooms and asks students how many artists are in the room. 00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:33.679 And he did this grade by grade to find that the pattern of responses never varied, and the higher the grade, the fewer children raised their hands. 00:10:33.919 --> 00:10:46.399 And McKinsey makes the point that every school he visited was participating in the suppression of creative genius or the gift of being an artist in whatever form that comes in. 00:10:46.559 --> 00:10:58.480 So check out Orbiting the Giant Hairball for a deeper dive on the suppression of creativity, which is also something we can stuff down or learn to stuff down into our shadow self. 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:01.600 And there are many things that we can suppress. 00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:08.320 Sometimes we exile what we fear, sometimes we exile what other people feared in us. 00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:21.519 And this is why symbolic stories often contain doubles, mirrors, monsters, secret rooms, forbidden objects, and mysterious strangers. 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:30.480 They allow a character to encounter something that feels separate but may represent an unrecognized part of the self. 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:33.519 The monster may carry the character's rage. 00:11:33.679 --> 00:11:36.879 The ghost may carry the family's unspoken grief. 00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:42.159 The locked room may contain a memory everyone has agreed not to mention. 00:11:42.559 --> 00:11:49.360 The

magical child may embody wonder that adulthood has suppressed or has been taught to suppress. 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:52.000 And that's important to note. 00:11:52.480 --> 00:12:00.480 The woman who turns into a bird may carry the freedom she could never express while remaining in her assigned role. 00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:07.679 And when we read these stories, we may recognize ourselves before we can explain what we recognize. 00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:09.519 And that's the key. 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:16.799 We may recognize ourselves before we can explain what we recognize. 00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:20.000 And this is why reading is so important. 00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:25.200 A symbol can reach us before an interpretation does. 00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:32.240 You may not consciously think this character represents the part of me that was silenced. 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:39.519 You may simply feel your chest tighten when she opens her mouth and flowers pour out instead of words. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:48.399 You may not immediately think this endless staircase resembles my experience of trying to earn approval that never arrives. 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:52.960 And you may simply know that the staircase feels familiar. 00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:56.000 And the image finds the emotion. 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:59.519 And then perhaps language follows. 00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:04.159 And this brings us to narrative identity. 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:16.159 Psychologist Dan McAdams has described narrative identity as the evolving internal story we create to connect the remembered past with the imagined future. 00:13:16.559 --> 00:13:22.159 We do not experience identity as a list of unrelated facts. 00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:33.440 We arrange experiences into a story about who we are, what has happened to us, what it means, and where we believe our life may be going. 00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:36.799 And that story is not fixed. 00:13:37.120 --> 00:13:39.679 It changes as we change. 00:13:40.159 --> 00:13:47.120 And an experience that once seemed like proof of failure may later become evidence of survival. 00:13:47.360 --> 00:13:58.960 And a relationship once described as destiny may later be understood as a lesson, an awakening, or a pattern we finally learned to interrupt. 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:09.679 And a difference we once interpreted as deficiency may become part of a more compassionate and accurate understanding of ourselves. 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:12.240 The facts may remain the same. 00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:14.320 The meaning can change. 00:14:14.639 --> 00:14:20.240 This does not mean we should force every painful event into an inspirational story. 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:28.080 It does not mean trauma was secretly a gift or that suffering had to happen in order to make us stronger. 00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:30.480 Some events are wrong. 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:33.600 Some losses remain losses. 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:40.480 Some wounds do not need to be covered in glitter

and assigned a positive purpose. 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:45.600 Narrative information is not the same as denial. 00:14:45.919 --> 00:14:59.840 It is the recognition that even when we cannot change what happened, we may still have some agency in deciding what role that event will play in the larger story of our life. 00:15:00.399 --> 00:15:03.200 Will it be the final chapter? 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:08.080 Will it become the only explanation for who we are? 00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:16.320 Or will it be one chapter, perhaps an important and painful chapter, inside a story that is still unfolding? 00:15:16.639 --> 00:15:29.600 Research on narrative identity has examined ideas such as coherence, agency, meaning making, and what researchers sometimes call redemptive sequences. 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:37.440 Stories in which something painful is followed by growth, insight, connection, or constructive change. 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:44.320 The research does not suggest that there is one correct way to tell a life story. 00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:53.039 In fact, constant pressure to create a perfectly coherent or redemptive story can become another form of invalidation. 00:15:53.679 --> 00:16:00.399 And sometimes the most honest narrative is I still do not understand why this happened. 00:16:00.639 --> 00:16:04.960 Sometimes it is there are parts of this story I cannot remember. 00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:10.720 Other times it may be I survived, but I am not grateful for what hurt me. 00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:15.279 And sometimes it is I do not know the ending yet. 00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:20.799 And magical realism makes room for exactly this kind of uncertainty. 00:16:21.120 --> 00:16:25.120 It does not demand that every mystery be solved. 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:32.240 It allows an event to be emotionally true without becoming logically explainable. 00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:44.240 It permits unfinished meanings, circular time, contradictory memories, and characters who carry the past in physical or supernatural forms. 00:16:44.559 --> 00:16:50.799 And in a conventional story, we may expect the ghost to be explained. 00:16:51.120 --> 00:17:00.240 In magical realism, the ghost may simply be part of the family, and psychologically, that may be closer to the truth. 00:17:00.559 --> 00:17:03.120 We carry people who are no longer present. 00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:10.079 We hear the remembered voices of parents, teachers, partners, friends, and former versions of ourselves. 00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:15.279 We enter a room and feel a moment from 20 years ago rise inside us. 00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:19.279 We inherit stories that began before we were born. 00:17:19.519 --> 00:17:26.160 The dead do not sit at our literal kitchen tables, but they continue to influence what is said there. 00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:32.480 Magical realism takes this emotional truth and makes it visible. 00:17:32.960 --> 00:17:38.799 This also connects to what psychology and neuroscience have taught us about memory. 00:17:39.119 --> 00:17:44.240 We often imagine memory as a recording stored somewhere in the brain. 00:17:44.480 --> 00:17:52.720 We assume that remembering means pressing play and retrieving the original event exactly as it happened. 00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:55.759 But memory is reconstructive. 00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:01.200 When we remember, the brain does not simply replay a flawless internal video. 00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:15.440 It rebuilds the experience using fragments of sensory information, emotion, prior knowledge, present circumstances, and the meaning we have developed since the event occurred. 00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:21.680 And this does not mean that our memories are meaningless or that nothing can be trusted. 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:25.839 It means that remembering is an active process. 00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:32.079 The person remembering is never exactly the same person who lived the event. 00:18:32.400 --> 00:18:38.319 Our present self meets our past self each time the memory returns. 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:43.599 And emotion plays an especially powerful role in autobiographical memory. 00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:52.160 Highly emotional events may feel exceptionally vivid, but vividness is not the same as perfect accuracy. 00:18:52.480 --> 00:19:03.279 We may clearly remember the light in the room, the sound of a voice, or the feeling in our body, while other details remain fragmented or uncertain. 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:06.559 And trauma can complicate this further. 00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:13.200 A person may remember sensory pieces without having a smooth verbal narrative. 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:24.640 There may be an image, a smell, a physical reaction, or a sudden feeling of danger without an orderly sequence of beginning, middle, and end. 00:19:25.119 --> 00:19:30.319 And this is one reason literal language sometimes feels insufficient. 00:19:30.640 --> 00:19:35.039 How do you explain a memory that returns first as pressure in the chest? 00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:42.160 How do you describe a childhood home that was physically ordinary but emotionally enormous? 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:49.039 How do you convey the way one moment seems frozen in time while the rest of life continues around it? 00:19:49.279 --> 00:19:53.279 Perhaps you write about a clock that stopped the day someone left. 00:19:53.519 --> 00:19:59.920 Perhaps the childhood home grows another hallway every time the character tries to remember what happened. 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:06.480 Maybe an entire town forgets a woman's name while the woman begins finding it written in the stars. 00:20:06.880 --> 00:20:14.160 These images are not factual reports, but they may express something psychologically precise. 00:20:14.559 --> 00:20:27.119 And because memory is reconstructed, revisiting an experience in a safe, supported context may allow new information and new meaning to become connected with it. 00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:41.759 And this is sometimes discussed in relation to

memory reconsolidation, the process through which a retrieved memory can become open to updating before being stored again. 00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:44.559 And we should be careful here. 00:20:44.799 --> 00:20:53.599 A symbolic story does not magically erase trauma, and reading a novel is not the same as receiving trauma-informed clinical treatment. 00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:59.680 But stories can create new emotional context around old experiences. 00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:02.640 And they can give us a witness. 00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:05.759 They can offer language we did not have. 00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:11.599 They can show us a character surviving something we thought could not be survived. 00:21:11.759 --> 00:21:21.200 They can help us imagine a different response, a different interpretation, or a future beyond the moment where our own story seemed to stop. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:26.400 And the brain does not treat stories as meaningless collections of sentences. 00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:31.759 When we become absorbed in a narrative, multiple systems participate. 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:47.359 We process language, of course, but we also draw on networks involved in memory, emotion, sensory imagery, and social understanding, and our ability to infer what another person may be thinking or feeling. 00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:54.400 And researchers sometimes describe deep absorption in a story as narrative transportation. 00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:59.279 We temporarily enter the world of the narrative. 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:01.359 Our attention narrows. 00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:07.759 We simulate places, actions, emotions, intentions, and relationships. 00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:19.599 Neuroscience research suggests that reading about an action, sensation, or emotion can recruit some of the systems involved in representing those experiences. 00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:32.160 This does not mean that reading about running is neurologically identical to running, or that imagining pain is the same as being physically injured. 00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:39.519 But the brain uses prior experience to simulate aspects of what a story describes. 00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:46.000 And when a character reaches toward a locked door, we anticipate what might be behind it. 00:22:46.319 --> 00:22:56.960 And when someone walks alone through a dark forest, we create the forest from pieces of forest we have seen, imagined, feared, or dreamed. 00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:04.319 And when a mother in a story fails to recognize her own child, we do not process that only as a fact. 00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:07.759 We simulate the emotional implications. 00:23:08.559 --> 00:23:11.519 And we wonder what the child feels. 00:23:11.839 --> 00:23:14.880 We imagine what the mother has lost. 00:23:15.119 --> 00:23:21.440 We search our own memories for experiences of being forgotten, misrecognized, or unseen. 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:30.640 And research on fiction and social cognition has explored whether reading stories

may support our ability to understand other minds. 00:23:31.039 --> 00:23:42.559 And some studies have found associations between fiction reading and social cognitive abilities, although the size and consistency of these effects continue to be debated. 00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:45.680 And stories are not guaranteed empathy machines. 00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:50.079 People can read widely and still behave without compassion. 00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:58.559 But narrative offers something facts often cannot offer by themselves, sustained access to another point of view. 00:23:58.799 --> 00:24:01.599 A fact may tell us that a person is lonely. 00:24:01.920 --> 00:24:06.480 A story can place us inside the room after everyone else has left. 00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:11.119 A statistic may tell us how many people have been displaced. 00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:20.400 A story can show us one woman packing a single suitcase and deciding which family photograph she cannot bear to leave behind. 00:24:20.960 --> 00:24:22.720 We need facts. 00:24:22.960 --> 00:24:30.480 Facts help us understand scale, test claims, shape policies, and remain accountable to reality. 00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:35.200 But facts and stories perform different psychological work. 00:24:36.079 --> 00:24:38.319 Facts tell us what happened. 00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:41.920 Stories help us imagine what it felt like. 00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:45.519 And symbolic stories can go one step further. 00:24:45.759 --> 00:24:53.680 They allow us to experience realities that cannot be fully represented through literal description. 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:59.680 A grief that lasts for years can become a winter that refuses to end. 00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:08.000 Generational trauma can become a house where each generation discovers the same crack spreading across the ceiling. 00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:16.240 Emotional neglect can become a child who slowly turns transparent because no one looks directly at her. 00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:22.319 Hope can become a stubborn green vine growing through the floorboards of an abandoned building. 00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:31.759 The impossible image gives the mind somewhere to place an experience that otherwise has no clear boundary. 00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:42.319 And neuroscientist Daniel Schechter and other researchers have examined the relationship between remembering the past and imagining the future. 00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:57.359 These processes draw upon overlapping brain systems, and the same mind that reconstructs pieces of prior experience can recombine those pieces to simulate possibilities that have not yet happened. 00:25:57.759 --> 00:26:01.599 Imagination is not the opposite of memory. 00:26:01.920 --> 00:26:06.480 In many ways, imagination is built from memory. 00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:10.720 We take known pieces and arrange them into new forms. 00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:13.680 The staircase came from somewhere. 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:16.559 The clouds came from somewhere. 00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:20.319 The feeling of climbing came from somewhere. 00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:31.599 But imagination can place the staircase in the sky, make the clouds purple, and allow the character to climb toward a home she has never seen. 00:26:31.839 --> 00:26:41.519 And this ability is sometimes called episodic future thinking or the capacity to project oneself into a possible future event. 00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:47.279 It allows us to rehearse, anticipate, plan, hope, and prepare. 00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:50.799 And of course, the same ability can fuel anxiety. 00:26:51.039 --> 00:26:59.759 We can imagine rejection, disaster, humiliation, abandonment, and loss with extraordinary detail. 00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:07.279 The mind can build an entire painful future from a single unanswered message. 00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:11.759 But imagination is also the birthplace of possibility. 00:27:12.319 --> 00:27:16.720 Before we make a change, we often have to imagine that change. 00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:19.839 Before we leave, we imagine a door. 00:27:20.079 --> 00:27:24.319 Before we begin again, we imagine a life beyond the ending. 00:27:24.559 --> 00:27:27.759 Before we speak, we imagine having a voice. 00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:34.640 Magical realism expands the range of what the imagination is permitted to consider. 00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:45.039 It loosens the rules of ordinary reality long enough for us to see emotional and psychological possibilities from a new angle? 00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:51.119 And what if the road home grew only when you walked away from the life that was hurting you? 00:27:51.440 --> 00:27:56.240 What if every boundary you set caused another star to appear in the sky? 00:27:56.559 --> 00:28:05.279 What if the part of you that disappeared years ago had been living quietly inside a painting, waiting for you to return? 00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:14.720 We know these things are not literally happening, but the mind can use the image as a rehearsal for something that might. 00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:18.400 And this brings us to expressive arts therapy. 00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:28.559 Expressive arts therapy approaches may involve visual art, movement, music, poetry, storytelling, drama, imagery, or combinations of different creative forms. 00:28:28.799 --> 00:28:36.559 In a clinical setting, these practices are guided by trained professionals and adapted to the needs and safety of the individual. 00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:52.559 And the goal is not necessarily to produce beautiful art, the goal may be exploration, expression, regulation, communication, meaning making, or the creation of psychological distance from an overwhelming experience. 00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:57.519 And sometimes talking directly about an experience is difficult. 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:06.480 Language may feel too exposed, too limited, or too organized for what the person actually feels. 00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:09.920 But perhaps the person can draw the feeling.

00:29:10.079 --> 00:29:12.319 Perhaps they can choose a color for it. 00:29:12.559 --> 00:29:17.519 Perhaps they can write a conversation between themselves and the locked door. 00:29:17.839 --> 00:29:24.640 Or maybe they can create a mask showing what others see on the outside and what remains hidden underneath. 00:29:24.880 --> 00:29:33.119 Maybe they can imagine placing fear inside an object, giving that object a name, and deciding where it belongs in the picture. 00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:45.119 And research on art therapy and creative arts therapies has produced promising findings in areas such as trauma symptoms, anxiety, depression, stress, and quality of life. 00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:52.960 At the same time, the evidence base varies by population, method, and study quality. 00:29:53.440 --> 00:29:57.920 Expressive art should not be presented as a universal cure. 00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:03.200 The creative work can sometimes bring difficult material to the surface. 00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:10.480 And that is why clinical support and attention to safety matter, particularly when trauma is involved. 00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:16.400 Still, the underlying idea is deeply relevant to magical realism. 00:30:16.960 --> 00:30:20.880 Not everything inside of us arrives first as a sentence. 00:30:21.279 --> 00:30:36.160 Some things arrive as images, some arrive as rhythms, some arrive as characters, some arrive as a color we cannot stop using, some arrive as a house we keep drawing, even though we no longer live there. 00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:41.839 And creative expression allows us to externalize an internal experience. 00:30:42.400 --> 00:30:54.000 And once the experience exists outside us in a poem, painting, movement, story, or symbol, we may be able to look at it from a different distance. 00:30:54.880 --> 00:31:03.200 We can say, this is something I made, this is something I feel, this is something that happened to me. 00:31:03.599 --> 00:31:11.119 But perhaps eventually we can also say this is not the entirety of who I am. 00:31:11.759 --> 00:31:29.039 The monster is on the page, the storm is in the painting, the grief has a chair, the memory has a doorway, and the self is now in relationship with the image rather than completely engulfed by it. 00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:32.799 And symbols also provide psychological distance. 00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:39.519 If I ask someone to describe their fear directly, the question may feel overwhelming. 00:31:39.839 --> 00:31:45.279 But if I ask if your fear were a room, what would the room look like? 00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:47.359 Something may shift. 00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:48.960 Is the room dark? 00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:50.400 Is it crowded? 00:31:50.640 --> 00:31:52.000 Are there windows? 00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:56.319 Is the door locked from the inside or the outside? 00:31:56.640 --> 00:31:58.640 Is anyone else there? 00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:01.920 What would make the room feel safer? 00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:07.519 The

metaphor allows the person to approach the experience indirectly. 00:32:07.920 --> 00:32:13.359 The fear is still present, but it is no longer formless. 00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:17.759 And then imagination introduces movement. 00:32:18.319 --> 00:32:20.079 Could we turn on a lamp? 00:32:20.319 --> 00:32:22.319 Could we open one window? 00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:25.440 Could we place a chair near the door? 00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:32.160 Could an older version of you enter the room and sit beside the frightened version? 00:32:32.880 --> 00:32:36.400 This is not about pretending that a lamp solves fear. 00:32:36.640 --> 00:32:45.839 It is about discovering how the psyche represents fear and what the psyche imagines safety might look like. 00:32:46.559 --> 00:32:50.640 Magical realism does this on a larger narrative scale. 00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:55.279 It creates worlds where emotional laws become physical laws. 00:32:55.599 --> 00:32:59.119 A person who has been ignored may literally fade. 00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:04.480 A secret may become so heavy that the house begins sinking. 00:33:05.039 --> 00:33:08.799 Unspoken words may gather as birds along the roof. 00:33:09.039 --> 00:33:15.119 A family may be followed for generations by a storm no one is willing to name. 00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:24.319 And when the symbol changes, we feel the possibility that the psychological story might change too. 00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:29.440 And someone finally speaks and the birds lift from the roof. 00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:33.599 The truth is acknowledged and the house stops sinking. 00:33:33.839 --> 00:33:38.000 The invisible woman is seen and color returns to her hands. 00:33:38.240 --> 00:33:44.559 The winter does not vanish at once, but one flower appears through the snow. 00:33:44.880 --> 00:33:49.359 Facts alone rarely give us that experience of transformation. 00:33:50.079 --> 00:33:52.799 A fact can correct a belief. 00:33:53.279 --> 00:33:56.720 A symbol can reorganize a world. 00:33:57.200 --> 00:34:01.279 And there is another reason symbolic stories can change us. 00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:03.920 They invite participation. 00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:08.559 A direct statement often tells us what to think. 00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:12.239 A symbol asks us what it means. 00:34:12.559 --> 00:34:17.039 A white bird may mean freedom to one reader and loss to another. 00:34:17.280 --> 00:34:22.400 A river may represent rebirth, danger, time, cleansing, exile, or return. 00:34:22.719 --> 00:34:29.280 The meaning arises partly from the story and partly from the life the reader brings to it. 00:34:29.599 --> 00:34:35.039 And that is why this same book can meet us differently at different ages. 00:34:35.519 --> 00:34:38.880 At 20, we identify with the character who leaves. 00:34:39.119 --> 00:34:42.559 At 40, we understand the person who stayed. 00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:48.400 At 50, we notice the silence of someone we barely saw the first time. 00:34:49.119 --> 00:34:52.480 The words on the page have not changed. 00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:53.440 We have. 00:34:54.079 --> 00:34:58.480 And because we have changed, the symbol opens another door. 00:34:59.039 --> 00:35:03.519 Stories become mirrors, but they are unusual mirrors. 00:35:03.760 --> 00:35:06.400 They do not always reflect our faces. 00:35:06.639 --> 00:35:12.079 Sometimes they reflect the parts of us that have not yet reached language. 00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:20.880 And this is also why it is important to resist the temptation to reduce every symbol to one fixed interpretation. 00:35:21.519 --> 00:35:24.400 A snake does not always mean betrayal. 00:35:24.639 --> 00:35:27.119 Water does not always mean emotion. 00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:30.239 A house does not always represent the self. 00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:38.159 Symbols are shaped by culture, personal history, context, and the story surrounding them. 00:35:38.559 --> 00:35:44.400 An image that feels comforting to one person may feel frightening to another. 00:35:44.719 --> 00:35:50.480 And good symbolic interpretation is curious rather than authoritarian. 00:35:50.960 --> 00:35:55.519 Instead of asking, what does this symbol officially mean? 00:35:55.840 --> 00:36:01.519 We might ask, what happens inside me when this image appears? 00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:05.440 What memories or feelings does it stir? 00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:10.079 What does it seem to carry in this particular story? 00:36:10.559 --> 00:36:14.000 What changes when the symbol changes? 00:36:14.559 --> 00:36:20.400 What might this image allow the character or the reader to acknowledge? 00:36:20.719 --> 00:36:24.639 And the purpose is not to solve the symbol like a code. 00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:28.880 The purpose is to enter into conversation with it. 00:36:29.119 --> 00:36:36.320 And let me be clear, honoring symbolic truth does not require abandoning factual truth. 00:36:36.639 --> 00:36:46.719 We need evidence, we need history, we need accurate language, we need the ability to distinguish imagination from external reality. 00:36:47.039 --> 00:36:56.079 And we need facts when people are harmed, when decisions affect lives, and when power attempts to disguise itself through a comforting story. 00:36:56.400 --> 00:36:59.840 But human beings do not live by facts alone. 00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:06.320 A medical diagnosis is a fact, the meaning of receiving it becomes a story. 00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:09.440 A relationship ending is a fact. 00:37:09.679 --> 00:37:14.320 The way the ending rearranges identity becomes a story. 00:37:14.719 --> 00:37:17.519 A person dies, that is a fact. 00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:24.000 The way their presence continues inside the lives of those who love them becomes a story. 00:37:24.320 --> 00:37:30.480 We are not only information processing creatures, we are meaning-making creatures. 00:37:30.719 --> 00:37:36.639 We want to know not only what happened, we also want to know why did it matter? 00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:38.400 What did it

change? 00:37:38.639 --> 00:37:40.000 Who was I before? 00:37:40.239 --> 00:37:41.440 Who am I now? 00:37:41.679 --> 00:37:43.440 What do I carry forward? 00:37:43.679 --> 00:37:45.199 What can I release? 00:37:45.440 --> 00:37:48.719 And what kind of ending might still be possible. 00:37:49.199 --> 00:37:53.840 Facts can tell us that the storm lasted seven days. 00:37:54.159 --> 00:38:00.159 A story tells us what the family said to one another while the water rose. 00:38:00.480 --> 00:38:07.760 A symbolic story tells us why the rain continued inside the house long after the sky became clear. 00:38:08.159 --> 00:38:12.239 That inner rain may be the detail we remember. 00:38:12.880 --> 00:38:17.840 It may be the image that allows us to recognize our own delayed grief. 00:38:18.079 --> 00:38:27.280 It may help us understand why everyone else seemed to move on while some part of us was still standing in the storm. 00:38:27.840 --> 00:38:33.119 And before we close, I want to invite you into a gentle, imaginative exercise. 00:38:33.440 --> 00:38:37.840 You do not have to force an answer, simply notice what appears. 00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:44.719 If your current life were a magical realist story, what unusual thing would be happening? 00:38:45.039 --> 00:38:48.960 Would flowers grow from the places where you finally learn to say no? 00:38:49.599 --> 00:38:54.159 Would the clock stop whenever you abandoned your own needs? 00:38:54.719 --> 00:38:59.280 Would an unopened letter follow you from room to room? 00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:05.360 Would your exhaustion appear as a small animal asking to be carried? 00:39:05.679 --> 00:39:13.119 Would the road divide into two paths every time you tried to choose what someone else wanted? 00:39:13.440 --> 00:39:22.719 Would your hope be hidden somewhere unexpected, inside an old coat pocket, beneath the floorboards, or in a garden you thought had died? 00:39:23.039 --> 00:39:27.360 And then ask, what might this image be trying to show me? 00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:29.519 What does it need? 00:39:30.159 --> 00:39:32.719 What changes if I listen? 00:39:33.360 --> 00:39:38.800 You do not have to interpret it perfectly, just become curious. 00:39:39.360 --> 00:39:42.960 And perhaps the image is not a puzzle demanding an answer. 00:39:43.199 --> 00:39:45.039 Perhaps it's a doorway. 00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:52.159 So magical realism reminds us that the imagination is not merely an escape from reality. 00:39:52.639 --> 00:39:56.719 Sometimes it is how we enter reality more deeply. 00:39:56.960 --> 00:40:10.800 It allows grief to become weather, memory to become architecture, desire to become flight, silence to become stone, and hope to bloom in places where logic insists nothing should grow. 00:40:11.119 --> 00:40:17.199 Young gave us a language for archetypes, shadows, symbols, and the human longing for wholeness. 00:40:17.599 --> 00:40:26.960 Narrative identity research reminds us that we construct evolving stories to connect who we were, who we are, and who we may become. 00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:41.920 Neuroscience shows us that memory and imagination are deeply connected, and that stories engage systems involved in emotion, simulation, social understanding, and the creation of meaning. 00:40:42.239 --> 00:40:53.599 Expressive arts approaches show us that what cannot yet be spoken may sometimes be drawn, moved, imagined, painted, or placed inside a story. 00:40:53.920 --> 00:40:57.360 And magical realism gathers all of this together. 00:40:57.679 --> 00:41:02.480 It tells us that reality is more than what can be measured from the outside. 00:41:02.800 --> 00:41:17.840 There is also the reality of longing, the reality of memory, the reality of inherited silence, the reality of a body that remembers, the reality of a future we cannot prove but are beginning to imagine. 00:41:18.159 --> 00:41:22.480 And sometimes a fact enters the mind and becomes knowledge. 00:41:22.719 --> 00:41:27.920 A symbol enters the imagination and becomes a relationship. 00:41:28.239 --> 00:41:33.840 A story enters the heart and quietly begins rearranging the furniture. 00:41:34.239 --> 00:41:38.559 Perhaps that is why certain books stay with us for years. 00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:46.800 We may forget entire sections of the plot, but we remember the woman rising into the sky. 00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:49.440 We remember the yellow butterflies. 00:41:49.599 --> 00:41:52.000 We remember the house filled with ghosts. 00:41:52.239 --> 00:41:57.119 We remember the child who discovers another world behind an ordinary door. 00:41:57.760 --> 00:42:03.440 The symbol remains because some part of us continues living inside it. 00:42:03.679 --> 00:42:10.000 And perhaps somewhere in that impossible image, we recognize something true. 00:42:10.239 --> 00:42:15.280 Not factually true, not literally true, humanly true. 00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:18.000 Okay, so there you have it. 00:42:18.480 --> 00:42:28.400 If this episode spoke to you, consider sharing it with someone who sees the world not only as it is, but as it feels and as it might still become. 00:42:28.639 --> 00:42:38.719 And as always, this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy diagnosis or individualized mental health care. 00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:47.360 If today's conversation brought up difficult emotions, please give yourself permission to pause, ground yourself, and reach out for support. 00:42:47.599 --> 00:42:57.280 If you are in the United States and experiencing a mental health crisis or thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline. 00:42:57.440 --> 00:43:00.400 And if you are in immediate danger, call 911. 00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:07.760 If you live outside the United States, please contact the crisis or emergency resources available in your area. 00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:09.599 And until next time, this is Dr. 00:43:09.679 --> 00:43:10.960 Allison Sukamelli. 00:43:11.440 --> 00:43:20.800 Stay curious about the images that follow you, the stories that call to you, and the quiet symbols through which your inner world may be trying to speak. 00:43:21.039 --> 00:43:24.079 Take care and I'll see you next week.