Cuppa Terrific
Looking for a fun podcast traversing the dreamscape? Sometimes exciting, sometimes erotic, sometimes a terrifying nightmare; in any case, we use the world of dreams as a safe place to explore feelings and experiences. Analysis of dream elements can reveal deeper meaning and applicability to our conscious self. Bring your favorite cup of whatever while we dive into dream interpretation. Just think, what stories will we venture together?
Cuppa Terrific
Jungian Psychology, Shamanic Practice, and Dreamwork
What if the most reliable compass for your next decision lives beneath your thoughts? We sit down with Dr. Carl Greer—Jungian analyst, retired clinical psychologist, author, and shamanic practitioner—to explore how the unseen layers of the psyche and spirit can reshape your life in practical, measurable ways. From a crisp explanation of the collective unconscious and archetypes to vivid stories of shamanic journeys into what he calls “the Quiet,” this conversation maps how symbols, dreams, and rituals help you act with clarity instead of habit.
We dig into the how. You’ll learn simple methods to spot when an archetype is moving through your day, how to journal dreams for insight without relying on one-size-fits-all meanings, and why active imagination, tarot, and shamanic tools like journeys or throwing stones can externalize your inner dialogue so you can finally hear it. Dr. Greer shares why nature is a powerful clinic—barefoot in the mud, lying under a tree, listening to running water—and how these small practices calm your system, clear your energy, and open perception. We also talk about neuroscience, altered states, and the conditions that make mystical experiences more likely, connecting ancient practices to modern understanding.
If you’ve ever felt chased by a recurring symbol or dream, you’ll find a new stance: turn toward it, set boundaries, and ask what it wants. Monsters become messengers when we listen. We challenge the Western habit of ignoring dream work and show what gets lost—creativity, integration, and a direct line to tailored guidance. Whether you’re stepping into a new chapter, seeking healing from old wounds, or simply wanting better daily decisions, these tools help you loosen the past, align with a future worth choosing, and act from a steadier center.
Listen, share with a friend who’s curious about Jungian psychology or shamanic healing, and leave a review with the symbol or archetype that’s most alive for you right now. Subscribe for more conversations that bring depth into everyday life.
May your dreams speak clearly, your archetypes guide gently, and may your cups overflow. ☕🌙
⭐ Credits
Hosted by: Sheree Dawn Jolley Cheshinski
Guest: Dr. Carl Greer, Jungian Analyst, Clinical Psychologist, Author, Shamanic Practitioner
Podcast: Cuppa Terrific — Dreamwork, Symbolism & Self-Discovery
Production & Editing: Sheree Dawn Jolley Cheshinski
Podcast Script and Organization: ChatGPT 5.1
📚 References Mentioned or Influential to This Episode
Books by Dr. Carl Greer
Change Your Story, Change Your Life (2014)
Change the Story of Your Health (2017)
The Necktie and the Jaguar (2021)
The Many Facets of Grief (2023)
More at: https://carlgreer.com/
Works by C.G. Jung (for archetypes, dreams, and the unconscious)
Man and His Symbols
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Dreams
The Red Book (Active Imagination foundational text)
On Shamanic Practice & Indigenous Traditions
Michael Harner — The Way of the Shaman
Sandra Ingerman — Soul Retrieval
Alberto Villoldo — Shaman, Healer, Sage
On Dreamwork & Symbolic Interpretation
James Hillman — The Dream and the Underworld
Clarissa Pinkola Estés — Women Who Run with the Wolves
Robert Moss — Conscious Dreaming
Scientific / Psychological References
Sleep research on REM cycles, memory integration, and emotional processing
Jungian concepts of complexes, shadow, anima/animus, and symbolic language
Shamanic cosmology, journeying, and energetic models of healing
Until next time, may all your cups overflow.
Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Cuppa Terrific, where dreams become doorways, and curiosity is the compass. Today we are joined by Dr. Carl Greer. He is a junkian analyst and he is a retired clinical psychologist and author as well as a shamanic practicer. Practitioner, excuse me. Dr. Greer, thank you so much for coming today.
Dr. Greer:Well, thank you for inviting me, Sheree.
Sheree:Yes, I'm so excited. Um it's been a little while that I have wanted to have you here, but just um trying to take in a lot of things. Uh, I personally have gone through a retirement uh from the military. I started a new job and um I'm kind of doing some life searching of my own. So it's kind of perfect that um your your team reached out to me uh when I've restarted my podcast back up. And it's because your book has been fantastic, by the way, um just kind of helping me like reground reground myself and thinking about some of the spiritual work that I'm doing. Um but yeah, so uh the book that I'm talking about is the the Go Within to Change Your Life book. You've written a couple of other books that are also about changing your life. Um, but this I think is your most recent book, if that's correct.
Dr. Greer:Yes, it is okay.
Sheree:Um and that one came out, is that this year?
Dr. Greer:Yes, yes, it did.
Sheree:Okay, lovely. Yes. And I did see that just recently you were posting that um your book is on sale for folks.
Dr. Greer:Yes, the uh uh digital book is right now.
Sheree:Wonderful. Well, for those of you who are looking for the ebook, that's great. You can uh you can look at it there, but also so you know it's a workbook. So you're able to actually write for those of you who are kind of like me. I like to use my hands. I like to write things um with my actual hands. It's nice to have something that you can write in and take notes in and highlight stuff. So um that's kind of nice. And you can have it right by your bedstand. Um, so if you want to uh work on something because you you have a night where you wake up and you can't sleep or or you just have a dream that you want to quickly capture something, it's really nice to just have it right there. Um but with that, I'll go ahead and start going into some of my questions for you. Uh to give listeners a foundation, uh would you please share a summary of um in like what is Junkian psychology, particularly focusing on um what are archetypes and discussing the collective unconscious, and also what drew you personally into that world of study and practice?
Dr. Greer:Well um Jungian psychology got uh uh started in the uh early 1900s when Carl Jung, uh had been doing psychiatric work with schizophrenic uh patients, uh started a relationship with Sigmund Freud. And uh the two of them collaborated for a while and then they became rivals and went their separate ways. Um but both of them believed that uh uh we had unconscious factors in our lives that were impacting what we said and what we did. And uh eventually the Jungian psychology approach uh viewed it a little differently than Freud's, in that Jung said we not only have a personal unconscious that results from things that happened uh in our lifetime, but we also have in our unconscious something he called the collective unconscious, which uh was common to all people. And in it there are energies that influence how we think, act, and feel. And he called those archetypes. And he said, because we like to as humans uh personify things, he said, Well, this one archetype was like the mother archetype, and this was like the father archetype, and this was like the warrior archetype. And that meant that sometimes we are in the grip of these energies that influence how we think, act, and feel, and we don't really know what's going on. In other words, we can be very uh motherly, which in some ways is nice, but it sometimes it's not serving us. Or similarly, we can be a warrior, and uh sometimes that's terrific, but sometimes it's it's not. And so to tease out how those factors are influencing one, Jungian psychology would have a person do uh approaches like work with their dreams. Uh they would do something called sand tray work where they would be putting into a uh a tray of uh sand objects that they would hope would start to give them insights into their unconscious processes. And then he uh uh talked about a process called active imagination, where under right circumstances you can let your unconscious just express itself and then with your conscious mind trying to make sense of what it means, all to the purpose of uh helping somebody live their lives a little differently than they would had they not done the work. I got uh interested in this. Um having uh had a more uh traditional life as a businessman and uh uh teacher and uh but having al always had an interest in psychology and went back to school, got my degree as a clinical and training as a clinical psychologist, and then went on to become a union analyst. And uh the last half of my life that's been a real big part of what I have done and what I've been interested in. The shamanic work that you mentioned has been equally important to me, and I've been involved in that for probably more than 25 years.
Sheree:Mm-hmm. Yeah, was there a moment like when you were going through school and you know, to become a clinical psychologist and studying um Zhang Yian psychology where everything, the work just kind of clicked for you, or did it just start off that way? Were you just drawn to it somehow?
Dr. Greer:I I don't know if it's ever really clicked. I've been working, I've been I've been I've been uh working on it. I get uh uh you know, if the clicking is kind of opening a doorway here and seeing through a window, uh I I get those still. Uh and uh you know, kind of uh as I see it, both in any kind of healing work, shamanic or otherwise, uh a person explores their past so that it doesn't live within them in the same way that it did, so that in the present they can make better decisions than they would had they not done the work. But shamanism in Jung and psychology also has this idea that we all have a future and we have some ability with spirit, however one thinks about spirit, to have a good, better, best future. And once we lock into a future that's desirable for us, that also influences what we do in the present. So all the work psychology, shamanism, is to help one, in my opinion, make better decisions in the moment than they otherwise would. A little bit freed up from their past, hopefully a lot that's possible, and in sync with the most desirable future they can be intending in the moment.
Sheree:Mm-hmm. So that that leads into my next question. I was gonna say, how were you introduced to shamanic traditions and starting to go and meet with other shamans around the world? And how has that it shaped your understanding of of spirit and of healing?
Dr. Greer:Um when I when I was um um nine years old, my mother had died uh about a year earlier. And uh I had a very severe uh ear infection. And this was back in the 1940s when such infections could could kill you. It was mastotitis. And um uh so I was at home, not going to school by myself for you know a few months. Uh so it was like uh part of August, September, October, and part of November. And during that time I read a lot of stories about mountain men and women and Native American people. I was just attracted to that. Uh never since that time. You know, I I read uh books about it and uh I explored uh various mystical paths, mostly at an intellectual level or reading about them, uh, but not necessarily experiencing it. But I started to have some dreams, you know, I'm in my fifties uh that were uh medicine dreams. They were Native American uh themed and I encountered a variety of people in it the year 2000 thereabouts. My wife uh gave me a book called uh Shaman Heater's Sage by Alberto Riotto, which I read, and uh he said that uh he had classes. So I signed up and uh started to go to his classes. I went to all of them and became a teacher with him and started to go down to uh Peru and I was in Bolivia as well, and uh had many trips down there uh in conjunction with uh him, but also subsequently on my own. And uh met with many shamans, had many experiences and uh came back to the States, did uh a fair amount of teaching on my own, wrote wrote the books. And it's been a uh really important part of my life in that it's allowed me to experience some of the things that uh I read about, wrote about, and talked about. So it just was a a grounding for me that has become part of me, and I think about life in the world differently than I did before I started on that journey.
Sheree:Mm-hmm. It's almost like um shamanic practice kind of gave you a a new 4D thinking in a spiritual sense that you just didn't you couldn't quite get yourself around before.
Dr. Greer:Yeah, that's very true, Sherry. It uh uh it relativized things for me. It made me really uh uh feel and understand that I was part of a much larger picture and that I was somewhere before I was in this existence right now. Uh I have some purpose. Uh continually I'm trying to figure out that and uh and live it. Uh and uh I know I'll be someplace afterwards in some form. And it's made me have realizations about those things that I didn't have before I started the work.
Sheree:Mm-hmm. So how do you define spirit um in this context now that you've had some shamanic practice? And I imagine with the a lot of the shamanic practice, there's more meditation and what what the Western world is is more opening up to in mindfulness. That's been a thing in the world for a very long time, but we're really starting to embrace that more here on this side of things. But there's a there's a spiritual reward um or or or place in it in a spiritual sense that it sounds like in in shamanism that you probably or shamanic practice where you get to experience this on a spiritual level. Is there um is there a lot of meditation or and or is that related to dreams?
Dr. Greer:Uh that's obviously the big question, you know, that everything we're talking about, spirit and God and uh um uh on one of my shamanic journeys I uh found myself propelled through a tunnel-like space and came to a crystalline-like matrix and I was kinda switched through that and I came to some energetic place, which the word that came to me when I got there was the quiet. And its essence to me that I felt was it was a place before any ideas, before the form of an idea, before the energetization of an idea, just pure potential. Uh I've since thought about it and I think uh you know, pure awareness, it just it just was. Uh and this was before the Big Bang. So this is the energy, the primordial energy before the Big Bang. And uh being in that energy, and I subsequently, just because I felt this, felt that it had a very loving, compassionate aspect to it. Um not necessarily uh one that can explain why people do bad things to other people, but it just had a compassionate, uh mysterious feel. And I felt it. I mean, I was there in that space and and felt it. And uh since when I read about the Kabbalah and uh you know this the Ainso and uh you know Hindu traditions of this thing and it it's it's kind of uh a space before gods, the idea of gods and so forth. It's just uh uh an energy that I also come to believe is with us all the time. I mean, it's five years back before the Big Bang. We you know, we live in that. That also is the space that people who do shamanic and spirit work go to help things happen in this reality that otherwise wouldn't had they not had their interventions. You know, that's say where you pray for that, you have miracles for that. Um almost by definition is a is a big mystery. And for your question about how does one get to it and relate to it, um you know, we we have um uh you know lots of aspects to our our brains and our minds. You know, we have a uh uh sympathetic nervous system, a parasympathetic nervous system, and so we have uh you know our uh uh cognitive work, you know, we're thinking clearly and we have to respond to stuff. But when we're in a so-called altered state, when we're open to connect to that energy of the quiet. And if it is the place before creation, then by definition, it can it contains everything, uh and everything is contained by it. So when you hear, you know, the the one and the many, so this quiet and everything, and the many and the one. And uh and that's a hard thing to get our heads around. And so we have this pure essence, and then we have all the stuff that we make of it, and the different people make different things, and to kind of sort that out, and and then uh if you sort it out a little differently than me, and we get into a fight, and how that's gonna work, you know. So that that gets into all the dramas of life, but nonetheless, I have a feeling that that's the way it works, and uh I try to get to it by uh quieting my mind, and this would be back to what you were suggesting for meditation and things. However, you can just uh as I talk in the Zen so forth, you know, get rid of the monkey mind, and you're you're just uh and that's speaking for myself, uh not easy. Uh, but you know, you work on it, you work with your dress, you try to have concentration on things, and uh so you are more open to the energy, the the primordial energy of what I call the quiet.
Sheree:Yeah, I love that you you have this idea of the quiet. When you were talking about it, the the thing that kind of comes to mind for me as you were like explaining it is there are certain types of people that tend to be a cup half empty kind of person and the cup half full kind of person, you know. And if you look at the quiet as emptiness and nothingness, it is emptiness and nothingness. But if you look at it as it is the everything, it is the everything. It is it is both of those things. So the really the power is in how how you are viewing what it is, you know. So you can you can put yourself as a part of that or as not a part of that. So there's a there's a certain sense of of choice there that's um that's really beautiful, um, that you have to, you know, take a responsibility to like work yourself towards um if you're um if you're aware of these kinds of spiritual development things. But that that's what it makes me think of when you um think of people that are kind of in this trapped state of thinking, you know. Um that's a really great metaphor for it though, is um I think the quiet as you use it is um because it is both things, both are true at the same time.
Dr. Greer:Well, that I think you you've uh said a what I consider to be a very profound thing. You know, what is the quiet? Well the quiet's everything. Oh that's interesting, Sheree. What is the quiet? What's nothing? It's nothing, yeah. Nothing and everything. Well it has to be both. That's just what it is.
Sheree:Because it has to be both. It has to be both. It's just like a circle. It can't be a beginning or an end. But how how does it exist if it doesn't have a have one? It is a conundrum in and of itself. You have to just there's this leap of faith that you just have to know that it is. And that's that's part of the human condition, I think, is is learning to um to develop that spiritual trust.
Dr. Greer:May I ask you a question too? Oh sure go ahead.
Sheree:You're stationed uh overseas or here or uh I was never stationed overseas but I did deploy and serve in combat situations. So I do have some problems from that. I do have some trauma early in my childhood that um kind of rears its ugly head similar to your um childhood trauma that kind of plagues me that the shamanic energy stuff that you're kind of talking about is very interesting to me um that I'm thinking about like learning about and seeing how I can align better with those kinds of energies. And I'm currently in more of a um paganistic like uh role I guess you could say experiencing what I believe is uh spiritually rewarding for myself it's like somewhere between paganism and druidism I guess um I'm a I'm a gardener and I'm an avid gardener I find that to be very very rewarding and um something about that and learning about plants and um being close to it has kind of just kept feeding me which made me want more of that. And um the more I wanted of that the more I realized that there was something in me that wanted that. It wasn't just like what Jung would say is the self. There's something else about me that wants that. So I'm like what is this drive? What is this drive you know so I think there is some kind of divine presence that's kind of pushing me towards things.
Dr. Greer:Yeah.
Sheree:I'm not really sure um and it doesn't have to be defined for myself. I'm okay with just letting spirit kind of guide me for things.
Dr. Greer:Yeah.
Sheree:Um and taking life as it kind of flows, you know, and just trusting that things are going to um make their way on the river of life if you will you know as they need to and um it's not always going to be a a safe and easy ride. Sometimes it's kind of bumpy and sometimes you fall out the canoe, you know but you know you get back in and you start over if you have to um like this podcast I started it back in 2022 um for just reasons of uh we'll just say for for sake of just uh preservation for making sure I wasn't putting anything out that was dangerous, right? That could be misconstrued. I paused the podcast and I pulled back my episodes. But now that I'm no longer actively serving in a capacity that is um could be like revealing of anything, I feel confident that what I'm doing with my spiritual work and with my analysis of dreams and sharing with people is very helpful for others and is hopefully helping to lead a front in the West that's going to help improve um our our dream work across the board and the value that we are um we are able to gain from it. But if it's okay I'd like to transition back to some more questions for you.
Dr. Greer:Thank you beautiful what you said thank you.
Sheree:So we talked a little bit on the spiritual side of things but I really want to know how you stand on both these worlds you you straddle them so so very highly you you are on both the psychological you know point and then you're on the shamanic point but you are in both of those worlds firmly planted how do you merge your spiritual knowing with your scientific understanding of the mind and how do these two languages complement each other well the uh the Jungian world of the collective unconscious uh if you think of the quiet as having everything and then there's uh levels of uh abstraction within it some things are more abstract than some things are you know if you go down to you know concrete concretization when you're in your garden gardening uh a lot of things have concretized but in the world of nature you as I believe that's there's a certain natural balancing uh nature can kind of figure it out and um in in Young psychology uh there's uh this abstraction I talked about the uh collective unconscious world of the archetypes so that would be one of the things that came from the quiet I think the quiet shamans might some that are particularly adept might be able to even experience its energy before it's become particularized even in the world of the collective unconscious and so it's this it's it's this ground from which all these other things come and the things that come from it we humans need words to describe things and I'm just giving some words to describe the um you know collective unconscious.
Dr. Greer:I mean it's not like a mother or a warrior but to understand it we put those labels on it. So that understanding for me I mean that's not that's my own understanding has been useful and I I operate from it and uh the world that I'm inhabiting, you know, which have been uh those worlds uh teacher businessman uh uh it's possible for me to do so because I have that uh base work belief that guides me yeah so I think compartmentalization probably is really important but also knowing uh when to pull out certain things out of those boxes to relate to each other um to reinforce things or maybe challenge things in different arenas right because absolutely yeah right so it's good to kind of have things that are a little bit different but can complement each other because it kind of strengthens it right yeah it it does uh what came to mind when you were talking about that is uh it's just like uh when I uh some of my writings I talk about you know we all have a life that a story can be told about and uh it has chapters and if we make changes in one chapter oftentimes the changes happen in the other chapter for example we change our health our relationships may change our our our workplace may change you know if if we change our relationship to a higher power things change as we change our uh uh uh you know all the everything you know can can help influence everything else and uh uh for me a lot of my trainings I I I just my life was such that I needed to compartmentalize things but uh it and that's useful in some ways but uh it's also nice to start to get the synthesis again where everything is kind of coming together.
Sheree:So yeah and you said the coming together so I'm interested I know you you went to school a long time ago and you were a practicing clinical psychologist and then retired and then over 20 years now you've been through shamanic training and then have been practicing. So it's you're kind of a little bit stepped away from but I don't know how involved you are in academia still but do you do you see neuroscience beginning to like reinforce some of the ancient practices that you've seen in shamanic uh practices um you know we we know that there are um you know chemicals in the brain that uh help us uh keep from being overwhelmed by a lot of stimuli and uh and yet uh when people do mystical work they want to kind of uh druidic work for example they want to uh uh ameliorate those not have them be so active so that you're more open to everything coming in and I think uh uh scientists neuroscientists are able to uh you know think about those things as I talk about uh neurotransmitters uh you know which which ones you want to operate which ones you don't they all have uh impacts on your health you know the idea that uh a lot of our our our mind and our wisdom is not it's just in the brain it's other parts of the body those things are starting to become more looked at and uh it's hard to like prove you know that we don't have a lot of good experiments on it but but we it we're finding out it's a little bit more complicated than we think and uh there's certain states of mind that allow a person to be more open to some of these mystical experiences.
Dr. Greer:I think we know that and then how do you get to those you do some of the meditation psychwise drugs and you know stupid deprivation, you know, things things like that. So we know those things and that's you know been happening. In my own case you were asking a little bit about how I you know wedded these different li you know lifetimes um probably the the first part of my life until I was close to sixty I was I was in a competitive acquisitive kind of a world you know to get stuff and to accomplish and compete. Uh but uh after particularly the shamanic work and I think uh Jungian works was uh helped lay a foundation for that and just the things that I did in my life. I was interested in martial arts for many years and some of the places that that has taken me just in terms of practice and thinking about it has also contributed to what I'm gonna say next and that is uh at about 60 I decided instead of accumulating I wanted to start giving stuff away such that I become very active and still am in in in giving stuff away in philanthropy. And uh so I think uh uh all those things for me have been possible because I've been fortunate enough to live longer than most anybody else in my family. And uh so I just feel my house is money now and enjoying it and trying to you know do the best I can with the time I have left.
Sheree:That is so beautiful a life well lived is a gift anybody could hope to obtain um and hopefully be able to reach out and ripple towards others who are lucky enough to be um close to you that sounds so wonderful there's some kind of harmony there that just kind of hums for me in hearing it. That's so nice. All right so so we're okay another oh interesting question so we're talking about the different archetypes right in in jungian psychology.
Dr. Greer:All right so I've been thinking about this for a while and maybe you can enlighten me but how can you tell when you're like under the influence of a particular archetype or what does it feel like or how can we become present to or aware of when they're acting through us um as part of my life and training I I I like to go sometimes from the specific to the general general to the specific and you know you know so if that is if that is just a uh you know a a a statement I went real general so a lot of times I don't no no no okay it's good okay sorry no so I get it and uh uh so to to know what you're under uh you know you first would say to yourself no am I under something you know and so the question kind of presumes that you're under something uh you say all right I don't know what it is I want to understand it well kind of what how is it working on me and so then you're doing a little self uh reflection say well what are my emotions recently well I've been feeling this that and the other and uh and what what have I been doing recently so you're describing some stuff and so your your uh intellectual mind your your left brain so to speak is it's just kind of getting data on all these things from which you want to draw a conclusion as to in in your question to me what archetype's going on. So you've done all that you different times in the day you say what am I feeling what's going on then and you just you get a little bit of a picture but you still may not know really what that is. And then and this is kind of the work in my book we have parts of ourselves that we're you know we're trying to uh with our conscious mind make sense of but then you have this this uh uh inner wisdom that I believe is there in all of us and it's accessible that one has to relate to it and we're not gonna do it now Sheree but let's just say you we were going to do some work and you say oh okay uh the question you pose to me I want you to get into this meditative space and here's how you're gonna do it. And I just want you to kind of ask uh uh this inner wisdom uh to say uh what's going on for me I I'm feeling under the throes of certain things uh help me get a name for it and uh you you start to have these inner dialogues and uh having done this work for years with a number of people uh if you do it long enough you'll always get an answer and and it surprises you and if you don't get an answer then you just can ask the question you know why am I not getting an answer so there's always a question and answer. The beauty of this kind of work is it's it's not right or wrong, you know right it's just it's evolving and you're doing it. And so by through that process I would say a person can get a better sense of what's going on. Now you may not get a classic you know you may you may not be uh Mars or you may not be uh Hestia but you may find out you know you're a a woman in transition that has these characteristics uh of of other women that all of a sudden come to your mind that you wouldn't even have thought of had you not done this work. And then and then that gives your conscious mind a little bit more understanding of what's going on. And that's this dialogic process where you know this uh conscious unconscious you know you have a thesis and a thesis and a new synthesis and then it goes on and on until we die.
Sheree:That's so that all jives with like what I do with my podcast. Um I want to dig just a little bit before it though of what you said. Everything is built on the presupposition that you know you're under some kind of influence to help my listeners and even myself kind of become a little bit more aware in the moment what kind of things could they pay attention to like maybe are there some kind of emotional pools that they could feel or symbolic forms that they see whether in a dream or they keep seeing in their life that seems to keep popping up that they are present to they're like wow I keep seeing this particular symbol or set of numbers maybe there's something to this would you say that maybe that there's something to that that they need to sit and think that are they under some kind of influence that they're aware of that.
Dr. Greer:Well you were asking me what are things they can think about you know that would allow them to feel they're under an influence you just gave a nice list and you are things kind of popping up in their life that they're a little uh not distraught about but uh they're affected by and they don't quite know what what what's going on. And that may be you're not sleeping the way you're used to you may be dreaming a little bit uh you may be absent minded uh you may in this world of synchronicities you may be seeing certain things uh you may have a symbol uh you know all of a sudden you you never since your childhood thought about a top but all of a sudden you you're picturing a you know talk spinning around and then you're asking yourself gee what what can that mean? I'm making this up now but you know hey uh that talk that that that talk that I'm seeing it's on its side you know aren't I supposed to be spinning? Well is it something about my balance it's like geez that's right or all of a sudden and maybe it's going to lead you to a physical neurological balancing or maybe hey you know my life is out of balance you know I'm working you know 20 hours a day I'm not doing this you know so it's all those it's having the ability to step back a little bit from what's going on and try to make sense of it. And when you can't make sense of it completely with your rational mind, you start doing the stuff I'm talking about in my book. You know your your journey, you work on your dreams, you j you know you you you journal, you spend time in nature uh I mean uh I mean you'll clearly from what you said believe in the healing power and the restorative power of nature by if you like to be in it. Well I think everybody can afford themselves of that if they spend time in nature.
Sheree:Mm-hmm Yes, that's that's definitely true. Even if it's just to go outside with your shoes and socks off, just to put your feet in the mud just for a little bit and feel like you're five years old again, just for a little bit, and let your spirit retouch the earth and just be silly for just a little bit. I know it might feel that way, but it can be so rewarding to just lose yourself in the moment of feeling that connection. Um, and then you're just a little bit lighter for just a few minutes. You can do the same thing by just laying under a tree and seeing what the tree tells you.
Dr. Greer:Yeah, lying down in the grass, you know. And if you have a little hill and you haven't done it for a while, roll down the hill. And uh we just listen, there's a lot of fun things that life.
Sheree:Yeah, don't take yourself too seriously. Nature lets you be a kid.
Dr. Greer:Yeah, yeah, and that's I think fun and healing and good.
Sheree:I agree. I agree. So thinking about um the the jungian side of um archetypes and then the shamanic energies, um I think that when you start to feel like you're under some kind of pool, you could say, I don't know if you agree with me or not, but would you say it makes sense that perhaps you're under influence of spirit or divine energy that maybe is helping to guide you towards what I mean, Carl Jung might be saying the collective unconscious is trying to help guide you towards a more practical answer towards things, maybe that you do need to get more sleep. Maybe you do need to believe in yourself a little bit more, maybe you do need to be a little bit more firm with your children or or whatever the message might be there in the archetypes that are present, right? Um, versus like in shamanic energy where you're, you know, asking for a little bit of um a little bit of peace and clarity from your past self and to inform and get permission to, you know, live more at peace in your present self. Could you be under some kind of like I need to meditate with this to grow to that peaceful state? Like you need, you know, you need to meditate because something is off, like you're spiritually sick, I guess, in at least in the in the shamanic sense of what I'm saying. But both of these are like related to spiritual guidance, even though I know Jungian psychology is science. A lot of the archetypes I find very useful whenever I'm doing tarot. Yep, because I see tarot and the tarot helps to unlock a lot of things in my mind when I'm thinking about something. And it's less about me thinking from my solidly logical self and more from that collective unconscious of like, oh, I didn't I didn't even think of that before, but maybe that's what's going on here. And then I try to put pieces together, and I'm like, oh, okay, maybe that is what's happening here. And it just helps me solve things and and feel a little less like I'm grasping at air, you know, it gives me a rope.
Dr. Greer:Yeah. And that's what you're doing is both shamanic and junion. Uh both shamans would do that. Uh you know, we we throw stones or we uh you know, have have uh uh throw cocoa leaves. Uh you know, and then you project on to that in the tarot cards. You can look at the major arcana, the minor arcana, and and uh and and and what do you project on to what you see and how you threw them in that moment. And you know, and uh so shamans and jungians when they're dealing with these abstractions and trying to make sense of them, uh do the same thing. They may have different languages and in uh uh the shamanic work, a lot of the places where these folks have grown up, they have their own symbols and their own uh they they just have different things that they can uh project time to and get information from. For example, you know, in uh when movie in uh shamanic uh worldview that I happen to be involved with, you know, each direction has uh an animal associated with it. And it all does you know, and and there's above and below. And uh in similarly in many other traditions, there's things associated with the directions. And it can be an animal, a gemstone, a sound, a psychological attribute, uh, you know, many things. And if people are wanting to gain or get rid of some things, they may tack onto that particular methodology and work with that symbol and uh and find transformation can come from doing that kind of work.
Sheree:Yeah, it's it's great. And I I definitely use it too. Um because um, like you're saying, like sometimes it's like I don't want to say like you become two people, but it enables you to kind of externalize because I have a very strong inner voice, but sometimes I I don't allow myself to have a discussion. So like um when you do that, you're able to kind of like finish a thought before another set of thoughts are able to like come back for that back and forth conversation, right? So that this is the the communication piece is so important because for communication to occur, at least two parties has to transmit a message and the other person has to receive it and then confirm that yes, this is what I understood about this, right? Then communication has occurred, right? Without this uh back and forth, you really can't say communication occurred, maybe just noise occurred. So my brain is mostly just noise sometimes, and um in meditative states, right? Whenever I'm in ritual state, I'm uh I'm able to get to a state where I'm able to have like a communication session, right?
Dr. Greer:Absolutely.
Sheree:So it sounds like that is what's happening when you're talking about throwing stones. Sounds like that to me.
Dr. Greer:Yeah, yeah. It's um uh as you were saying, sometimes there'll be two voices in your head. Um for uh most people I know they have have had times in their life where they have said to themselves, gee, why did I do that? Or why did I say that? And an answer I think is because some part of yourself wanted to do it. And can you, as you were describing with your dialogue between maybe two voices, can you have a conversation that allows both to be heard so that that conscious part of you in the next encounter out in the world will maybe not say something you wish it hadn't or do something you wish you didn't, and that only comes from having some I think conversations with those parts of yourself that cause you to do the opposite. So go ahead. No, I believe in that.
Sheree:Oh, yes. I I was just gonna say that perhaps the deeper spiritual meaning there that you could get to with um some dream analysis like dream work and um with meditation, you could actually realize the deeper message here, your unconscious could help you unlock is that you are taught and programmed to feel shame for that person who decided to behave a certain way. But your yourself is trying to decide whether to keep that programming or to cast it away. And it is hard to think of that when you're in your logical self because you're trying to sustain both your feelings and who you identify in the moment with as who you are, right? In your dream, all of that is flexi-bendy and it's wonderful. You're able to let go of that and just let things exist however you need to expand and contract. Um, and if you can write it down, sometimes that deeper message to heal you and not keep getting stuck comes out, I find.
Dr. Greer:Yes, but you have to, in my opinion, after you've done that work, have a strong enough ego to make sense of it all, because the ego is gonna make it's gonna decide what you're gonna do next in the next moment. And and maybe you say, Well, there's more parts of myself than an ego. I'm just using that as a short-hand for language. You know, given all the information you describe that you might come up with by doing the work, somebody, some aspects of you has to decide, okay, what am I gonna do next stop as a result of all that? And I'm calling that the ego. The other thing that you said, Sheree, I thought was uh was really important. You know, you have to in uh any communication, you have to have a little bit of a pause. Uh yeah, I I think uh before you know you you have the uh action and the reaction, you have a little space, uh, both to be sure you understand it, but also to uh as you pre-programmed to respond in certain ways to certain things, give it a little space so you have it start to make a choice. Do I really want to respond the way I have in the past? And it it's not a big intervention, but it's a very useful one. So you just you know, a little pause, the pause that refreshes.
Sheree:Yes, I think that that is that's good to take into all life, not just your meditative space or or in dream work or or whatever, but just in life in general, just to take a pause and you know, check in with yourself. Is this in line with my higher self?
Dr. Greer:Yes.
Sheree:Um, because that can just help you be more aware in general. Um, I've I find too, um, like whenever I get really out of balance, I find myself more stressed out and more anxious and more angry and easier to fall into bouts of depression. Um, I I have triggers for, you know, trauma-related triggers. Um, and those kinds of things will will pop up more. Um, so I realize, you know what? I need to spend some time regrounding myself, you know, I need to come back down and I need to clear out my energy and make sure that I'm I'm coming from a space that I mean to be coming from. And that I think is uh it's basically a healthy cleansing, just like we take a bath, you know, we are doing the same thing with our mind. Um, and when you do this kind of work, um, you I'm telling you, you have to do it even more because you do so much work in it, you you become so creative. Anybody who can tell you that if you're creative and you make things, you get messy. I'm not thinking about all the papers I tear up and throw on the floor when I'm writing, but I'm you know, afterwards I do need to clean up though, you know. Same thing is happening in your mind when you're coming up with ideas and stuff. You need to clean up that space. And if you let it pile up, ah, your mind, ah, you know, and it comes out in other ways you don't mean it to. Um, so sometimes I realize when I get a little bit spun out, I'm like, oh, I might need to like reground myself. So regrounding could really help me.
Dr. Greer:Yeah, and and uh, you know, the Russian uh nesting doll kind of metaphor, you know, everything in, you know, if you have uh a physical body, a psychological body, you know, maybe split into let's just say an emotional body, which is a psychological body, and a uh a soul body and a spiritual body and an energetic body, all of which are similar but a little different, uh, you know, the this the the big one would be your energy body. And if you're clear clearing your energy body, then that's going to give respite to all the other bodies. And when you were just saying, hey, I like to bear feet walk in the mud, you know, that's a way to clear a lot of stuff. Uh lying on the grass can clear a lot of stuff, you know, sitting by a running water can clear a lot of stuff uh in those other bodies, which then can go back into the other things we're talking about, you know, your your emotional state, your physical state, and so forth, in my opinion.
Sheree:Yes. So I have another question that has to do with archetypes. Yep. Um I guess it does have to do with archetypes. Um all right. So we're kind of talking about dream work, and I was wondering, can we work with archetypes consciously and unconsciously? And what I mean by that is when we're both awake and asleep. I don't mean intentionally and unintentionally. I know that we can intentionally work with things and unintentionally work with things. I mean to say that both when we are in our present waking mind self versus our sleeping state self-unconscious, can we work with archetypes? And is there a way to strengthen our inner spiritual sensor, if you will, for recognizing these energies?
Dr. Greer:Um I I think the more we try to work with those unconscious ones, the more ability we have to work with them, and the more they may uh reveal themselves to us. And how does one do that? One does that by imaginal work, you know, uh dream work. You know, so you have a dream that has you know a lot of uh images to it, you know, you write them down and uh then you maybe associate, well what comes to my mind when I do this? Not like in a textbook that says this means that, but you you know, for you, you know, you write them down. And then you say, Okay, why did I have this dream right now at this time? And uh uh you may or may not get uh get a hit on that, and uh uh or or or all of a sudden it starts to make sense, and then you may say, gee, this is a kind of an interesting theme that's going on. I haven't really been aware of it, but I I am now that I'm thinking about it like this. And you can imagine, is it going on any place else in my life right now? And did it go into my my life earlier? And uh so you get a little sense of that dynamic, and then you may say, Is this like an archetypal thing? You know, you know, once again I'm the victim. And uh I never thought about it like that, but you life has screwed me over, and once again I'm being reminded of that. Okay, well, that's that's kind of a a sad realization. But then you're gonna say, All right, now I see that. You can ask yourself, do I like that? Well, I guess in some ways I've liked it because I've allowed myself to be in it. Uh, but do you really like it? Well, being honest, I like I like not to feel that way, but I don't know how to do that. And then you you know you have these conversations, and then and then you're going to your inner work, and so so dream work um this is just a little quick example, but uh but then you can do a shamanic journey. You can do a shamanic journey to the lower world, and you try to maybe get a sense of uh some origins of uh the victim. And if you made some contracts in your life that uh you know you you you're unconscious of, and if you lost uh some thoughtfulness, you know, over the course of your life, you know, some some gifts that you had as a as a kid, but you've lost them, you need to get some of that back. And so there's there's different ways to do that. And and then you can go on a uh another world journey, which there are a lot of the mythologies and my own trainings, is more the world of the future, the world of the becoming. And then you go into different chapters and things that you know, this might happen if that happens, and what do I need to do in order for it not to happen? So you're you're having those types of uh works. And then you can similarly, you know, go out into nature and just uh be open and say, hey, just uh spirit, if it be thy will, always saying, thy will be done. Uh you know, if you want to give me a message about all the stuff that's going on that's showing your side of me, I'd appreciate it. You know, all of a sudden you may see a leaf just come and die. You say, What does that have to do? And you say, I'm not gonna pay attention to that. And then you look at some other look at the leaf again, it's just kind of on your lap, and you're looking at the colors and you're looking at the points, and you're looking at the way the little stuff all of a sudden it's giving you information that you had no idea that it would. You say, What is so it's that it's that type of work uh and you know, it's playing in the fields of the Lord, Sheree. Just being playful with yourself, uh, and and uh being uh ruthlessly compassionate with yourself because part of you wants to change. You know, I'm I'm not saying you do, but part of part of us maybe want to change. We don't know how to, we we can't. And all these practices may help us find a way to do that.
Sheree:Yeah, right now I'm I'm I just turned 40 this month. So I I I'm reaching a new state in my life where I'm realizing about myself that I have been um kind of doing what I thought was leading the way and kind of making a way for myself. And and I have been, you know, I'm very proud of what I've accomplished and what I have created with my spouse and and with my life thus far. But I'm also realizing that I have allowed a lot of things to happen in my life, and I have grown very comfortable with just letting things uh spiritually come to me as they do. Um and some part of me is kind of encouraging me to reach out and actually take the wheel on things. And I'm I'm at a a crossroads right now where I'm trying to develop the the courage um to actually not be an overthinker and just grab it and figure out where the hell I'm taking it. Because um I'm in the ship anyway, right? I might as well play the captain if I'm in it. So I mean, that makes good logical sense. Um and I know it's not gonna sink. I mean, I trust everything that it's gonna work out and it's gonna be great. There's gonna be challenges. Um, and every time we come into harbor and we depart for another adventure, it's gonna be great because life is great. Um, whether it's, you know, enjoyable or difficult, those, you know, the peaks. And values of life, right? Um, but I know it always works out. There's something right now that's uh uh kind of challenging me to actually be more of the captain. And I'm that's where I'm at as far as the change that you mentioned, the transformation, if you will. So part of you has to completely die to take on this new role. Um, that's not to say that uh who I was is no longer, you know, because all of that is still part of me. But in order to change, you know, great transformation, transformation requires a great amount of struggle and challenge to create this change. And I feel the pressure of that right now. Um, so I'm kind of at a boiling point on some of my own change, but that's really exciting though, too, you know, because that means things are coming, you know. I'm not at a state right now where it's things are boring or I'm watching everything else happen. Um, something's happening for me in my own story. So that's something to um to uh take ownership of and be very um involved in and not just sitting back and watching it happen, right? Um so so that's why I started my podcast, my podcast backup because I no longer want to be a victim, if you will, of the things that I'm afraid of. You know, some of my trauma is back there, you know, and I am scared sometimes of the things that come up. But um there are resources and there are people, and I have lots of friends and family and wonderful people like you who are constantly mentoring me and encouraging me. And I have to kind of trust that network that it's gonna keep catching me as I go. And uh, you know, as I kind of go along, I'm gonna be doing the same thing for other people. But if we don't do it and we don't bravely go, nobody goes. There's nothing built, you know. So we gotta we have to bravely go, you know. So that's where I'm at.
Dr. Greer:Well, that's a um uh a shuttling place to be, but it's a great place to be too. And uh when you're on that ship, you know, you is it gonna be a sailing ship with uh you're gonna have that wheel, is it gonna have a motor to it? Is it gonna have both? Are you gonna be on an ocean? Are you gonna be in a lake? Are you gonna be in a river? Is it gonna be a ship that can go on all those? And what happens when you have a big storm? Are you gonna have uh ways to batten it on? Who's gonna be your crew? And you got lots of uh how you what are your provisions gonna be on it? What uh what what you're gonna have sports to go to to kind of get refreshed and lots of fun things to think about on that ship.
Sheree:It's so funny when you say it like that. I kind of think of um like big fish, you know, I think of like sometimes I walk through life and I have this very fantastic imagination of what actually is occurring in my life. But to a lot of people, I have a very mundane life, you know, uh from the outside. But to me, I'm on an epic journey, you know. I've got a battle of epic proportions going on over here, and it's very interesting to me because hey, it's my life, okay? So of course I'm gonna make sure that it's interesting and exciting. Um, and there's a whole story that goes along with it. Um, and if I'm on a ship, of course it's a pirate ship, and there's a whole adventure that goes along with that and treasure and whole nine yards, okay. Um, but I may actually just be on a little, you know, boat with 60 horsepower on the on the lake and putzing around. But in my mind, I am on a captain ship and I am I'm living the best life, you know. So I guess cap half full kind of person, right? So, you know, enough is enough, right? You don't have to have everything, but if you have enough, enough's a good as a enough is as good as a feast. You know, it's what you make of it. That's kind of my mantra. Um as long as you have enough, that's that's great. You can make a lot out of that. Um and may we all have enough.
Dr. Greer:Yes. There I forget some Greek philosopher um said nothing is enough for the man or the woman for whom enough is too little. And uh I have to think about that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just uh, you know, for some people, nothing is ever enough.
Sheree:Uh yes, that's very sad.
Dr. Greer:Yeah.
Sheree:I don't want to live that life, you know, it is a it's a very hollow existence. Um but back to some questions for you. Um for our less uh for the for the listeners out there who want to deepen um in this work of like archetypes and intuition and awareness, um, what would you say is the potential power that they could have in developing these skills of like dream work, um, shamanic practice, um, maybe studying jungian psychology or even learning to use tarot?
Dr. Greer:You mean Shri, the the power they would gain from so practicing? Or is that is that is that the question? What would they gain from that?
Sheree:Yeah, what potential power.
Dr. Greer:Yeah. Well, I I think to uh rel to learn how to relate to the non-conscious parts of ourselves is useful. And to do it in a way that's respectful and uh learning how to take a stand against it and not be overwhelmed by it. You know, some people get into the do the other work and you you encounter some figure that says, Grow, I don't like you, I'd like to kill you. That's very scary to some people. You know, they get that in a dream or something. And and so the ego part that just turns that says, Oh, you know, I I hear you, I understand that. Uh I'm not gonna let you do that. And uh I'm not gonna give you a lot of airtime if you're gonna continue to talk like that. But before we hang up, so to speak. Uh why do you feel that way? How how what's that about? And then maybe you get some sense. So it's learning how to take stands against all these parts. And sometimes people say, hey, I don't want to do the work because it's too scary. And uh yeah, just have to take a stand against that stance. Uh and either say, I'm not gonna do it because it is too scary, or I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna take a stand against those parts of me that right now are hostile to me.
Sheree:Mm-hmm. So you you you mentioned like something scary in in your mind, right? That visits you. So um I'll share one for myself, for the listeners. Um I actually was kind of uh tortured on many nights dealing with some of my past trauma by being visited regularly by a bear. Sometimes the bear was far away, but very often the bear would chase me, and regularly the bear would actually catch me and eat me. And it was a very terrifying experience, as you can imagine, like actually waking up to the feeling of being eaten by a bear.
Dr. Greer:Yes.
Sheree:Um, it was immensely terrifying. Um, and so I, you know, I was going through bouts of not being able to sleep, you know, and I had therapy that I was going through. Um, and obviously I was, you know, going through medication and trying to figure out what might help me. Um, and really I talked to a therapist who eventually said, you know, maybe the bear represents something good. And I was like, what are you talking about? How could the bear represents something good? And he just struck a chord with me that kind of stuck with me that I kept thinking about. And it took me months to really work with it and be okay with it because I'm a fearful person.
Dr. Greer:Yep.
Sheree:But I realized that the bear really was uh a way that it was a part of my life and it was a part of me that was trying to catch up with me and get my attention, that I was trying to bury and keep away from myself.
Dr. Greer:Yes, yes.
Sheree:And I couldn't understand it because I was completely out of touch with the spiritual side of myself. Yes. I was only listening to the very logical side of my brain, as you would say, like your businessman life. I was in performance mode, I was in success mode, I was in, I'm gonna do well, I'm going to succeed. I was not paying attention to, you know, some of the stuff that I needed to be working on that was bothering me as an individual. And it took me a while to kind of work through that because I hadn't developed a ritual practice to kind of help me pick apart what was going on. Um, but rather than being afraid of it, you know, I now I'm able to, I have because I have some ritual practices, I'm able to go, okay, there's something I'm scared of. Let's name what it is, you know. And if I see it again, rather than just running away or or just waking myself up or being afraid to fall asleep, find it in myself to ask it what it wants.
Dr. Greer:You bet.
Sheree:That doesn't mean I have to give it. That doesn't mean that I agree. It just means I want information.
Dr. Greer:Absolutely.
Sheree:That's it. Yeah. So so leading with a sense of curiosity about this just allows me to realize like my mind is actually a safe place and just trust it. It's you know, spirit is going to help you work through it. You know, uh that that's kind of what helped me. And I hopefully it will help others, but that's what's worked for me.
Dr. Greer:Yes. And as you have uh described that, uh, you know, the bear came many times, and one approach is to ask the bear is say, you know, uh, why do you keep coming into my dreams? And why do you want to aid me? And the theory that, you know, our dreams all they're all parts of ourselves. And so when you're when you're asking the bear, hey, you know, what do you want from me? Why do you want to aid me? Uh what's it gonna be like for me if I'm gonna be inside of you? So you're really kind of having a conversation with this energy, which is part of you, in a way that uh is kind of as a co-equal to it. And uh and then it's gonna tell you stuff or not. Uh and it's all it's all data for the career that's just talking now to make the decision what do you want to do the next time something like that happens. Because if it is all parts of you, which in some real way it is, uh then it's just it just that's information. It it may not be a part of you that right now you're in sick with, and it's uh you know, you got a good relationship with, uh and you may never so so what?
Sheree:Fortunately for me, I made peace with the bear. Yeah. And every other time I've ever seen it in my dreams, it's always just been a reminder to keep the peace. Yes, it's never come at me again, it's always just been a hey, remember that the forest is here and that you need to respect things. And I just always am like, yep, got it.
Dr. Greer:You know, I that's a great message. Yeah, force is always here with people and things in it that we don't know.
Sheree:But it's not a fearful thing, it's it's like a just remember that you have a pact, you know, to you know, be respectful and acknowledge when things come to you that you'll listen.
Dr. Greer:For sure.
Sheree:And and you said that you'll listen, so listen, and I do. And then I'm just like, okay, I saw the bear again. And then it's just like I take a moment to have gratitude that I've you know said, okay, I'm gonna listen to the things that come to me. You know, thanks for reminding me of my pact, you know.
Dr. Greer:You bet. Yes, yes.
Sheree:So um I've got uh an interesting question for you that has to do with um dream work still, and it's kind of the closing question. Um why do you think uh many in Western society struggle to feel connected to the collective unconscious? And do you think that we undervalue dream work? And what do we lose when we overlook it?
Dr. Greer:Well there are some cultures that from the time kids are little, they value dream work, you know, so they talk about their dreams and they they have group dreaming and so they grow up in a culture where dreams are just part of life. That's just not in general what we do, although I'm sure there's some groups in America that still has uh some of those those practices.
Sheree:Sure, yeah.
Dr. Greer:And and uh you know, in a world that uh you know, values, uh analytical thinking and thinking, and and even now I I'm not much of a uh knowledgeable about social media and things, but I do know people often are spending countless hours a week on it. Uh oh yeah. Uh it's just so you don't have to think too much of getting information that's kind of uh um pre-packaged, you know, maybe in many cases to try to influence you. Uh you may not have a lot of uh brainwidth or you know, it just doesn't, you know, well, a dream's just a nuisance and maybe scary, but you know, I'm gonna drink or do a drug so I don't dream or you know, whatever people do to self-soothe. Uh I'm oversimplifying it. Uh and many people have learned that their dreams are useful information just as you do, uh and I have. But uh I think they have to have some experiences if that is so. And um so I just think it's the world we live in in uh in the way we uh value consciousness and science over the unseen things. Um but there's a growing, you know, for every force there's a opposite force. There's a I think there's a you know, like you're saying a lot of people are into paganism, they're into uh you know, these mystical uh practices because they feel that uh that they're missing something. Um the trick is, as we've been talking about for the time we've been talking, how do you integrate those into one's life so that your day-to-day is better to find by you what better is than it would be had you not done it. And in my belief, and I think from talking to you, your belief is your life is better if you can learn to have relationships to these worlds that we're talking about.
Sheree:Yes.
Dr. Greer:And many people are you know, they're they're they want to do the psycho psychedelic drugs and they wanna go on uh meditation retreats and uh you know, yoga, and there's a lot of uh uh calls, you know, yogian psychology to explore these things. And everybody in their own way is gonna have hopefully experiences that are gonna allow them to have more information from which they can choose to live their lives differently or not. Uh but it starts off in many cases with somebody asking themselves, hey, am I happy with my story now? And if you say, um, not so much and say, Well, why don't you change it? And then you say, Well, because of this, this, and the other thing, uh can you work on this, this, and the other thing in ways so that you can change it?
Sheree:Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's a certain set of ownership that people need to have that I feel like in our society right now, it's just what is fast and easy and hot and ready, just give me that thing and feed me that thing. And there's so much of it, and there's like a culture of gluttony of give me all this stuff, but that doesn't mean it's good for you. Right. It doesn't mean that it's wholesome or um you need enough of the good stuff that's gonna help you to live uh a life with purpose, as you mentioned before.
Dr. Greer:Yep.
Sheree:And nobody has promised you that you're gonna have X amount of days on this plane of existence.
Dr. Greer:Yep.
Sheree:You've not signed a contract to give you that, you know. And if you have, please have a conversation with me because I skipped that I skipped that session.
Dr. Greer:Sure, sure, sure.
Sheree:But you know, or maybe I don't want to know what that contract looks like. But anyways, um, because who wants to know when they die, right? That's always a question, too. Like, if you could know when you're gonna die, would you want to know? I don't know. Um but yeah, we we don't necessarily have like all the time in the world, but when the time does come, you want to have, you know, said that. Did I enjoy that that was my very last sunrise? Or did I forget to look at the sun when it came up that morning?
Dr. Greer:Yes.
Sheree:You know, um, yeah. And uh it's just a closing thought. I just kind of came up with it's it is one of the reasons my husband fell in love with me was that even when I was in my 20s, he said, you just see the world in a different way. I've never slowed down to look at things the way that you look at the world. And I think that certain people are just more sensitive in general to just get in touch with spirit. And if people just slow down just a little bit, just a little bit in your day and be a little bit intentional, you can find that thread and strengthen it like a muscle, just like going to the gym. Just start by little little by little, give yourself some intentional space to either look at the sunrise, put your feet in the mud, or have a meditation, do a guided meditation. I mean, some of these guided meditations are only 10 minutes long and they can be very, very rewarding for clearing out your energies and your and yourself and resetting you for the entire week. And you'll see increased performance across the board. Because, like Dr. Jung was or Dr. Greer was just saying, you can um improve the very center of the Russian nesting doll. Will you know expanding? Expand across the board, all of those become healthier. Um and and before we wrap up, can you please tell our listeners here today where they can find your books and some of your upcoming work and just keep in touch with you?
Dr. Greer:Uh well my books are in Amazon, Barnes and Noble, uh places like that, some some bookstores. And I have a website, Crowgrow.com. And I'm not uh you know currently doing any teaching or seeing clients, but I'm having periodic uh conversations like I'm having with you now. And uh I appreciate Sheree the conversation. It's been fun to talk to you.
Sheree:Oh my gosh, I I'm so grateful that you came. You are a lovely human being and a delight to talk to, Dr. Greer. Thank you so much for coming.
Dr. Greer:And thank you.
Sheree:And to everyone listening today, may your dreams speak, may your archetypes guide you, and may your cups overflow.
