Kenosis – Empty your Cup to make room for New Beginnings -In the Eye of the Storm – An individual response to the Personal and Global Crisis.
March 27th, 2021
The patient is unconscious of the fact that the obstacle to be overcome lies in herself: namely a boundary-line that is difficult to cross and hinders further progress. (Jung, 1953, p. 85 para 132)
In spring, there is opportunity to shape how the future will look in this garden. The structures we place can hold up what will grow in summer. They can also hold back overgrowth. The garden is cleaned. Dead wood. leaves and debris gone to the composting pile.
As we begin to anticipate spring within ourselves, what kind of clearance is going to give us a better self or better world to live in? What structures would be helpful going forward and what structures might be removed? Each frame in the garden image provides a way to focus yet is part of the entire scene. Each part of us is part of our wholeness and part of the collective.
The process of cleaning the dead wood is called Kenosis – Empty your Cup. Unless we empty the cup of the old structures, we cannot make room for the new beginnings. Often, we are excited and keen to launch new initiatives. However, to plant the new seeds, we must cull the soil of the psyche to prepare it for the planting process. So, what must we empty? In my clinical experience, this means letting go of our old ways of perceiving through distorted lens or character defects. These may include perfectionism, narcissism, suspiciousness, control, self-negation, etc. Then we must confront our Shadow; traits we attribute to our adversaries. Next, we must confront our complexes or hang-ups. All of us have complexes or rather, they have us. We may have a negative father complex […]