Food for the Soul: The Animus Diet

~ Deborah Gregory ~ 20 Comments

Animus Diet - Part Four II

Welcome to the concluding part of my Animus Diet, almost nine hundred nights later. Why nights and not days I hear you ask? Well for the simple reason that dreams have figured so largely on my journey. Why? Because I believe every dream that comes to us, comes in the service of health and wholeness. Be assured my inner man diet will not be ending, that’ll be lifelong I’m sure, nor will I stop adding reflections to my Animus notebook. No, this is more about being a writer and longing to get started on a new project. So I feel the need to draw a line under this one, even though I may follow up with further animus adventures in years to come!

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The Animus Diet – Part Three

~ Deborah Gregory ~ 16 Comments

The Animus Diet - Part Three

I never knew when I would write the next part of my Animus Diet, I only knew I would. So for all you “Jung Dudes” out there who’ve been following my animus journey here’s my latest instalment. I hope you enjoy! As you know I first started my Jungian “inner man” diet back in January 2016 and here in September 2017, as we approach the autumn equinox, after my six month archetypal tarot journey, it feels just right to gather up my pen once more and co-create with my animus. In this article I’m going to explore more key learning experiences since my initial adventures began 18 months ago, where in Part Two last March I met my mother for the first time in 18 years. The number 18, I realise, is an important number for me and one that reappears towards the end of this article in a truly inspiring “animus” dream.

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The Animus Diet – Part Two

~ Deborah Gregory ~ 18 Comments

The Animus Diet - Part Two

Twelve weeks ago, around the start of the year, I made a conscious decision to start something completely new in my life, I call it the Animus Diet. Yes, I appreciate that January and dieting tend to go hand-in-hand, however, this was an entirely different kind of diet because there would be no calorie counting or weighing scales involved. Not even a tape measure, as I attempted to slim down my overweight animus, ‘Brutus’ and build up my skinny anima, whom I refer to fondly as ‘Olive Oyl.’ It was only when I discovered the wonderful cartoons at the beginning and at the end of this article that I recognised the characters as archetypes for my inner masculine and feminine aspects. In the first part of this article Journey of Love: The Animus Diet I wrote about my initial thoughts, reflections and changes that I felt I needed to make and I explored a number of suggestions about how to put these in place. This article picks up where week four left off as I continue to explore my inner masculine/feminine imbalance. And so the animus diet continues.

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Journey of Love: The Animus Diet

~ Deborah Gregory ~ 26 Comments

The Animus Diet

Okay, that’s it, I’m putting my fat animus on a post-holiday diet! For too long now he’s been aggressively stuffing me full of sugar and fat and making me feel, well, quite ill, if not tired most of the time. As a student of Jung I simply have to try out this lower inner-man diet. So back to the book shelves I go, to pull out Marion Woodsman’s impressive books that help me study “Feminine Consciousness” in more depth and try to figure out how to curb my invisible partner’s hunger.

In physical terms I don’t have much weight to lose, somewhere around 4.5 kg (10 lb) in order to fit into my jeans more comfortably. I’ve decided, as I usually eat reasonably healthily, that I’m not going to change my diet too much, instead, I’m going to change the way I interact with my “internal man.” Psychologically, however, I know I need to create more of a balance by way of plumping up my skinny feminine self and slimming down my overweight masculine side. When I came across the humorous sketch above, it perfectly illustrated for me how I felt my animus was taking up too much room “on the inside.” Continue reading →