Our emotions speak through images. Going down into the dark silence of the body.
Grounding.
Listening.
Settling.
The unconscious speaks.
When we pause long enough to sense what stirs beneath the surface, something begins to shift. The body starts to speak through small, intimate signals: a tightening in the chest, a flutter in the stomach, a fleeting image before sleep. These are not random. They are invitations from the unconscious. It’s also your nervous system regulating.
Why Slowing Down Is Part of Healing
There is a gentler way that isn’t about do more, plan more, or throwing yourself into an intensive. That really feels like going off the deep end to me. Intense doesn’t mean integration. A lot of times the integration is the slow stuff that happens during the resting, the dormant period.
After a peak moment this can happen. It also happens after the crisis has subsided. Sometimes we just need to recover. The field needs to be fallow for a while. The artist needs time to commune with self and nature in order to allow something new to arise. The bread has to rest for the yeast to work!
In a descent process, sometimes you have to let things fall apart and rather than rebuilding immediately, part of the descent is to recoup and decide what new thing should emerge in the process before assuming you already know what it is.
It is okay to not know. It is okay not to have treatment goals on the first day of therapy. Not everything worthwhile is stronger, faster, more powerful. Ooof! Ever heard of overtraining? Wholeness is often not about becoming a “better person.” A lot of things aren’t about being more productive. That isn’t everything. Life is more than profit.
Do birds make profit when they sing?
How Dissociation Protects Us When Life Feels Overwhelming
Dissociation is often misunderstood. It is not simply “checking out” or spacing out. It is a form of self-protection. The psyche creates distance from what feels unbearable until we have the strength to face it. It is the psyche making sure we don’t break something forever.
It can appear as numbness, chronic busyness, or a sense of watching life from the outside. These are not failures. They are ways the nervous system guards us.
Dissociation vs. Depression: Understanding the Difference
Listening differently is the beginning of the return. When we notice our inner signals without judgment, the body begins to guide us back into presence and safety.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell we are dissociated because it doesn’t feel like anything. It can also be because it was so habitual it feels normal and safe. Hiding in food or sleep or alcohol or sexual gratification can be a great distraction from feeling. However, a lot of Jungian thought points us toward embodying the feeling and understanding it on a nuanced level.
I often do this work with my patients through art making. When we are able to relate to an image, process the feeling in a safe, metered way that isn’t rushed, then something shifts. We understand it better and it can bloom within us.
I really have trouble talking about any of this without using natural metaphors. Psychic energy are natural energy patterns, so to return to our natural pattern, it makes sense that we look to nature to understand archetypal patterns.
Reconnecting With the Body: Learning to Feel Safely Again
The unconscious communicates through symbols, sensations, symptoms, patterns of behavior, and images. A recurring dream, a symptom that draws our focus, or a sudden emotional wave, in waking life or from a nightmare, all are forms of communication from the psyche.
Rather than rushing to decode them, we can begin by observing gently, with curiosity. The phrase, “if it isn’t dead when you start dissecting, it will be when you’re done,” comes to my mind here. Over time, patterns emerge and reveal the deeper story the conscious mind has not yet grasped. It is a balancer from an over developed, one-sided point of view or mode. Our ego is comfortable with that one-sided mode but that doesn’t mean it’s a balanced one.
What Dreams Reveal About the Unconscious Mind
Dreams, especially, carry healing intelligence. They often show us what our waking self resists or neglects. Jung described dreams as “compensatory,” balancing what is one-sided in consciousness.
How to Recognize Messages From the Unconscious
Sometimes when we start exploring the nature of a confusing symbol in dream work, we start understanding it through connecting it to other life situations or feelings. It is through those weaving pathways that we find a similar energetic pattern. It is through this process that we find a better appreciation for the pattern of archetypal energy.
Art Therapy as a Bridge Between Consciousness and the Unconscious
Art allows a direct dialogue with what words cannot hold. Through movement, color, and image, we create a bridge between the conscious and unconscious realms.
When we create intuitively, the hands bypass the intellect. The image that emerges becomes a mirror for the inner world. This process is not about making something beautiful. It is about relationship, staying present with what arises and letting it speak in its own language.
How Art Therapy Helps With Emotional Regulation
In Jungian dreamwork and art therapy, this creative dialogue can reveal forgotten emotions, hidden potentials, or archetypal themes seeking expression.
Often even in the first session, a client will dialog with their art and start to find a stirring within them, a response in their body to a particular description or realization that describing the art is in fact, voicing their internal situation. All art is a self-portrait according to Picasso.
Beginning Jungian Analysis: What the Individuation Process Looks Like
If you find yourself drawn to listen differently, to your body, your dreams, and your inner imagery, you are entering the territory Jung called individuation.
Jungian analysis is not an intellectual exercise or a linear method. It is a living relationship with the unconscious, an ongoing dialogue with what seeks to be known within you.
What to Expect in Jungian Therapy
Through dreams, symbols, and inner images, you begin to understand the wisdom behind your suffering and the purpose in your conflicts. This work asks for patience and courage. It unfolds in its own rhythm, guided by psyche itself.
Over time, analysis helps you bring more consciousness, wholeness, and authenticity into your life.
I don’t start our work with pages of you detailing on a form your most traumatic moments, we explore gently, based on what is most pertinent for you right now. Maybe you’ll have a dream in the first or second session that helps us understand the initial conditions of the therapy. Or we’ll start by playing with abstract art so you can get comfortable with the art materials, and we can get to know each other.
Reconnection with your Unique Self
We learn together how to be present with your unconscious, your fantasies, your fear, your moods, and your art aesthetic. And yes, everyone has a unique visual artistic language. Even with no art training or talent, I promise.
So, some of this explores how I work with art, dreams, and Jungian analysis with my clients. We might do sand tray together or explore your waking life. Everyone is different. I’m not going to fit you into a manual, a program, or a box. I never appreciated that either.
But the best way to get to understand this process is through feeling it. If you have come across this blog synchronistically, I look forward to hearing from you.
Maggi Colwell
Maggi is a licensed art therapist at Columbus Art Therapy who assists their clients to discover more of themselves through dream analysis, art therapy, shadow work, and depth psychotherapy. They specialize in working with grief and loss as well as c-PTSD. Click the button to sign up for Maggi's newsletter to get notifications about new blogs and upcoming events including workshops, groups, rituals, and art.