Spiral Shower 4.13.22
The thoughts that wash over me
Alright, y’all. I set up my Substack account and the inner journalist in me is pleased. I think that I am going to get to delete Podbean, Squarespace, and Patreon subscriptions through this — which is going to save me money and make it easier for me to create.
Creating a blog and a newsletter is something that I have been sitting on for a while. Then today, I was in the shower. I was having several “shower thoughts” come in at once 🌊 (what else is new). I was overwhelmed with all of the ideas I want to capture so that I don’t forget to explore them to the depths that I desire to. I was trying to cling on tightly to the thoughts before they washed away, never to be seen again.
My typical coping mechanism with this? Twitter. (below is a literal shower thought from this morning).
But you see, I am trying to be more intentional about my use of Twitter — as it is not always the best platform for sparking intentional discussion. At best, Twitter is a catch-all for ideas. A place where information can travel in bite-sized packages at the speed of light. While I enjoy Twitter for this, it can be a distraction.
Perhaps the biggest distraction of all is the way Twitter gives me a premature dopamine boost — it gives me the feeling of articulating my thoughts, without actually sitting down to put pen to paper.
This can feel good in the moment, but it lacks fulfillment. I want to go deeper. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been sharing perspectives on Jungian personality theory on YouTube since 2015. With over 2 million unique views, I’ve gained just over 18k subs over the years.
With this experience, I’ve learned a lot about the good, the bad, and the ugly about online communities and content creation. As a perpetual overthinker, I got my start on YouTube by just doing it. Sick of sitting with latent desires, I committed to a 30-day Challenge where I posted a video per day — I gained about 300 followers that first month.
When I got my start on YouTube, I was working as a journalist at a startup online magazine. I wanted to use my YouTube channel to test out what it would look like if I marketed things my way; through authenticity and generosity, rather than a reliance on tactics. Creating content about personality typology became not only a passion project, but a way for me to put my Emerging Media Journalism degree to good use. So far, so good.
However, there was a point at which I became completely overwhelmed by how embedded I felt within online communities. I felt like no longer a person, but instead a brand.
I found myself spread thin and burnt out. I had overcommitted, overpromised, and overcollaborated. I became so “audience-first” that I began neglecting my own desires.
What is it that I really want to say?
This is the question that I’ve been sitting with over the past 6 months or so. My love of Jungian psychology led me to pursue a Master’s in Organisational Psychology. I recently spoke at an international personality typology conference (APTi) to discuss emerging trends with type, and the ethical problems I see in how it’s talked about online. I’ve got one (almost two) typology certifications under my belt. So I’m kind of sitting around here like: Now what? What’s next?
Well, I know I want to write. I want to both 1) invest in larger, fulfilling projects *and* 2) let people in on my process as I go.
Here are some of the questions I’ve been asking myself:
Where should I capture my half-baked, stream of consciousness thoughts as they come in?
How can I begin to build out larger philosophical arguments and explain wider ideas, outside of just 16 types?
What kind of energetic maintenance do I need to give to myself to prevent burnout?
So let me tell you about Spiral Shower.
I thought of the idea for this newsletter while in the shower.
This newsletter is a roundup of whatever it is that I feel like. For the thoughts that are “still washing over me” and for “stream of consciousness” writing that requires little editing.
I want to get into the routine where I regularly collect my favorite tweets and expand on them, with the hopes that these nuggets can eventually become the building blocks of larger articles or books.
I don’t want to just create content that tells people how it is or what I think. I want to let you in on my process of individuation. I want to show you how I personally use personality typology, astrology, and other tools as practices in my daily life. I think that this might be the best way to illustrate what I aim to illustrate.
I need to regularly practice writing if I ever want to get where I want to go. I want to practice consistency and improve my articulation. Spiral Shower is the practice that will feed into larger goals that are in progress. I don’t want to just go radio silent while I am working, that’s no fun.
I want a place to regularly let people know when I posted an article, a podcast, have a workshop coming up — or what have you! Without the dependence on social media. So if you subscribe to Spiral Shower, you’ll be in the know.
I am looking for a way to break out of the box of “personality typology content creator” and instead allow my core Self to be the niche. I want to reject the overreliance on labels and categorization, and instead explore more interconnections.
Yes, I still plan to talk about personality. But I am more interested in the why behind this information rather than the what. I’m not nearly as interested in explaining to you how personality type works or telling you verbatim what Jung said. I’d rather explore the implications behind this psychological knowledge and how to ethically apply it. I don’t want to beat a dead horse or split hairs over definitions.
Every newsletter will be different.
And that is all I know at this time.
I cannot remember where I found this .gif, but I think about it often. I think that in order to understand anything, it’s a matter of both 1) mapping out the grid 2) moving about the spiral. If you focus too much on categorizing things into boxes, you may not know how to move about. If you focus too much on the process, you may find yourself stuck if you bump into an unfamiliar wall. The purpose of Spiral Shower is for me to spiralically… talk about the spiral path… Grammarly claims that “spiralically“ is not a word, but I beg to differ! 🌀
Now that you know what to expect, let me splash around some ideas.
Enjoy this quote from Sabina Spielrien, one of the first female psychoanalysts, and former patient (and lover?) of Carl Jung. I am planning on working on an article/video about her to be posted eventually. I’m not sure when blogs will begin, but the hope is that I can provide an in-depth substack article once per month. This could then be later turned into audio and video. I’ve always dreamed of creating more polished, edited video essays for YouTube. These take a lot of work, but I’m moving in that direction. I’m also developing season 2 of Psyche Design, which will include casual chats and interviews (which I’ll also post to YouTube).
I’ve found that an overreliance on goals can leave me constantly yearning, constantly living for tomorrow. I want to get better at building as I go so I can enjoy the creative process. I believe this will help protect me from burnout, and will likely lead me to better results.
Can Psychological Type be a Barrier to Individuation? by Steve Myers
I highly recommend reading this article by Steve Myers, an independent researcher, and writer. He is the author of the book Myers-Briggs Typology vs Jungian Individuation (which I also recommend). Check out a quote from his article below. I’ve been sitting on this one lately.
Whereas for Isabel Briggs Myers being a type is a good thing, Jung’s assumption is that having a type is a bad thing. He illustrated why typological one-sidedness is a bad thing with the analogy of a civil war, which typically ends when one side wins and there is a change in the ruling power (Jung 1921, pp. 77-8). When someone becomes a type through developing a dominant function, this is at the expense of its opposite which is repressed (Jung 1921, p. 37). This creates a split in the personality, puts the person into a “collective state” (Jung 1921, p. 100) and suppresses the true individuality:
“The… superior function is as detrimental to the individual as it is valuable to society… His function is developed at the expense of his individuality… The time will come when the division in the inner man must be abolished (Jung 1921, pp. 72-74)”
Here is something I wrote last night after watching the Netflix show Bad Vegan.
The show depicts a very unhealthy relationship dynamic in which there is a victim of verbal abuse and spiritual gaslighting. The show was having me reflect on my own negative experiences in relationships.
Often, it seems like narcissistic or cult leader ish type of people twist spiritual principles or universal truth.. by convincing people to apply them to situations in which their somatic response is saying “no.” Your body and heart should be singing with you.
Yes change will feel uncomfortable and life comes with obstacles. But if the wisdom (or platitude) + the specific situation at hand combined makes you feel confused and uneasy, that’s not a good sign. The somatic emotional response should also be included.
Protecting and honoring your heart’s response can prevent you from being used. These kinds of people get what they want by manipulating your instinctual pull toward God and truth. Connect with yourself and don’t let go.
Like any principle, spiritual principles need to be deeply understood and felt in order to adequately apply it to a situation. Or to know which law holds the most weight in the moment.
For example, they may say “everything happens for a reason” to control you or make you accept an outcome you do not want. They may say “your thoughts have divine power” to make you feel like the cause of the baggage or BS THEY brought to you. Etc
True spiritual wisdom is the ability to contain multiple perspectives at once, and to be able to apply them correctly to each unique situation. It’s not just parroting back the things you hear that feel nice.
I believe that people can use your sense of truth against you, by covering the truth in a lie. This can twist your sense of reality as the person intervenes with your relationship to discernment. This is why I believe it is so important for individuals to proactively practice discernment. This is what can protect people from accidentally joining a cult or being manipulated by a romantic partner. I want to talk more about how we can strengthen ourselves as individuals to get a better sense of how to protect ourselves and remain in our integrity. If we culturally remain ignorant, I am afraid that more and more wild stories like what happened to Sarma from Bad Vegan will happen. And in these times, the world is full of 1) vulnerable people at their breaking point (maybe even you) and 2) sharks who are just as afraid, willing to take advantage of whoever, however.
On that note, here is something I said to a friend about “the current times.”
The thing is.. everything feels so divided right now. And that is becuse it is. But part of the process is that there has to be less and less people who are “neutral” in the face of injustice. Because these neutral people end up enabling the entire dynamic by going along with things. A huge mission for me is to encourage people to stop enabling. But I fully believe that awful people will create their own problems and ruin their own lives on their own. Maybe instead of going after the evil people we need to be protecting the innocent so they can detach
I plan to talk about this more in further content as well. I believe that understanding Jung’s theory of the psyche can help us recognize our inner pendulum swing, which reflects the cultural pendulum.
“As above, so below.” - Hermetic principle
The last thing I will leave you with is that I wanted to share that I am currently going insane with index cards. I bought one of these bad boys for myself after learning about this German note-taking process called the Zettelkasten Method.
You can learn more about it here if you want to check it out. I am planning to try this out and see if this system could help me map out a future book or workshop. I severely need to learn to take things one step at a time and get out of my head. So far, making my ideas feel physical has been fun. Shout out to the YouTube comment I received that recommended this to me.
Thanks for sticking through the chaos that was my very first Spiral Shower post. Feel free to browse around my Substack to listen to Season 1 of Psyche Design. Subscribe if you’d like to be notified of upcoming posts!
Default photo cred: Jason Riggs.
Love seeing the world through your eyes.