{"id":201,"date":"2011-10-26T18:01:14","date_gmt":"2011-10-26T22:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/insweetcompany\/?p=201"},"modified":"2011-10-26T18:01:14","modified_gmt":"2011-10-26T22:01:14","slug":"halloween-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/10\/halloween-two.html","title":{"rendered":"Halloween Two"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>&#8220;I also believe there is an evolutionary movement towards love in the universe, a self-organizing process around love that\u2019s moving us toward what we call higher levels of consciousness.\u201d<\/em> &#8212; Riane Eisler,\u00a0 IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE<\/p>\n<p>Trying to decide what to \u201cbe\u201d for Halloween is sort of like trying on a new life: Will I be the jester or the witch? the princess or the current pop super star? the Lion or the Tin man or the little girl from Kansas with the shiny red shoes?<\/p>\n<p>Part of my training when I donned the costume of therapist was in a transpersonal modality called Psychosynthesis, a blend of Eastern and Western psychology that, among other things, believed we each have a cast of \u201csub-personalities\u201d (a.k.a. old tapes) that unconsciously run our lives in times of great duress: \u201cThe Scaredy Cat,\u201d\u00a0 \u201cthe Cop,\u201d \u201cthe Witch,\u201d \u201cthe Savior,\u201d \u201cthe Martyr,\u201d and so on. Our task is to pay attention to and befriend these distorted versions of Self so we can transform their dysfunctional expression into some higher aspect of the Soul &#8212; Scaredy\u2019s inherent courage, the cop\u2019s self-discipline, the witch\u2019s transformational power, the savior\u2019s selfless service, the deep spiritual surrender of the martyr, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Once I learned about sub-personalities, I began to use Halloween as an opportunity to explore some of my \u201csub\u2019s.\u201d I wrote Halloween plays for my community and worked out a lot of my petulance\u00a0 as a witch. (I must say that to screech and scowl in front of an audience of 5,000 people is immensely therapeutic, and I always felt lighter come November 1 st!) Over the years I\u2019ve settled up with my cranky teenage self dressed in a thrift store poodle skirt find and saddle shoes, I tapped into my inner joy as a clown, exchanged entitlement for a modicum of dignity as a princess, and learned to listen to my inner voice as a gypsy. Every costume\/ \u201cself\u201d I put on taught me something of value I could integrate into my Whole Self and prosper from.<\/p>\n<p>I have boxes of Halloween\u2019s Past I will search through this week &#8212; spider earrings, silver slippers, fake noses, wigs and great white wings. I\u2019ve not yet decided what I shall be &#8212; or \u201cun-be.\u201d I do know that underneath the tricks, a treat awaits me.<\/p>\n<p>Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I also believe there is an evolutionary movement towards love in the universe, a self-organizing process around love that\u2019s moving us toward what we call higher levels of consciousness.\u201d &#8212; Riane Eisler,\u00a0 IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE Trying to decide what to \u201cbe\u201d for Halloween is sort of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[85,87,86],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-transformation","category-spiritual-journey","tag-halloween","tag-psychosynthesis","tag-riane-eisler"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Halloween Two - In Sweet Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/10\/halloween-two.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Halloween Two - In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;I also believe there is an evolutionary movement towards love in the universe, a self-organizing process around love that\u2019s moving us toward what we call higher levels of consciousness.\u201d &#8212; Riane Eisler,\u00a0 IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE Trying to decide what to \u201cbe\u201d for Halloween is sort of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/10\/halloween-two.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-26T22:01:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Margaret Wolff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Halloween Two - In Sweet Company","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/10\/halloween-two.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Halloween Two - In Sweet Company","og_description":"&#8220;I also believe there is an evolutionary movement towards love in the universe, a self-organizing process around love that\u2019s moving us toward what we call higher levels of consciousness.\u201d &#8212; 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She speaks and writes about things women care about: how to make our lives and our work be about what we value most; how to navigate challenge and change; how to live with integrity and grace, to look at error in ourselves and others in a forgiving way and view life as an invitation to transform ourselves into instruments for the Greater Good. \"I laughed, I cried, I was silent, I cheered. Most of all, I loved.\" Spoken by a woman at In Sweet Company Retreat, these words express what women experience when Margaret engages them in dynamic, soul-searching conversations about their lives. Margaret holds degrees in art therapy, psychosynthesis, and leadership and human behavior. Her work takes her to universities, to conferences and retreat settings, to living rooms and board rooms -- wherever women gather. Her articles, essays, and stories are featured in numerous magazines; her women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spirituality retreats are held throughout the U.S. Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last book, In \"Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living a Spiritual Life\" (Jossey Bass), is a collection of intimate conversations she had with 14 famous women of various ages, faiths, and backgrounds about how their spirituality nourishes them and serves as a steady compass for their decision-making. Olympia Dukakis, Riane Eisler, Zainab Salbi, Margaret Wheatley, Sri Daya Mata, Lauren Artress, and other women artists, activists, religious leaders, and visionary thinkers shared their lives with her. You can too!","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/author\/mwolff"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/231"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}