Through a Jungian Lens

Brown Thrasher

This little guy is getting to be a regular visitor to our yard.  We have not had this bird variety in our yard during the nine years we have lived here.  It’s a good thing I keep a handbook on birds close at hand.  I was particularly taken by the common name for this bird, a Brown Thrasher.  It makes me think of how the mind finds itself “thrashing” about at various points during life.

It seems that whenever I find myself with choices that are poles apart, I end up squirming and thrashing around for a good time while holding the tension of “not choosing” so that I can allow other possibilities to emerge.  It never fails, other options do emerge, ones that are not found at either pole.  I will give a somewhat simple example of how this works for me.

I found myself seemingly caught between a black and white set of choices such as when in my work  a school administrator, I had the choice of giving up administration to remain in the same school to continue teaching, or to seek another school administrator position in another school, or retire.  I struggled with these choices for quite a while, for months when I realised that I needed to do something different if I was to get a different result in my life.  As the weeks, then months passed, I was tending towards retirement though I was still rather young.  I didn’t want to move again as this community had become home for both my wife and myself.

While reading through a newspaper, my wife saw ads seeking education administrators on northern reserves.  Life on a reserve for an outsider is temporary.  Without status as a First Nations, status within the tribe, one is always “just visiting.”  If I took a northern position I would keep my home outside of the reserve.  It seemed I could keep all of the choices at the same time – I retired, I got a new job, and I kept my home.  When all of the pieces came together I finally made the decision to retire and prepare for the next stage.

We all face small situations (and not so small) which could use a bit of wait time before we make a choice.  Of course there are many decisions we need to make that must be immediate and leave us living with the choice made.  When we fail to make a decision, a decision will be made for us making our discomfort and thrashing around pointless, leaving us feeling like a victim without being aware that we placed ourselves in the role of victim.  There is a difference between holding the tension and not deciding for ourselves.  Holding the tension is to invest time and energy and to stay present with the choices and the situation requiring a choice.  Removing oneself from choice is an act of abandoning, even denying the need to do something, dissociating.