Going Out

[Virginia]

Thanks, I am happy that you agree with some of Jung's theories, but it is the old saying, "different strokes for different folks." I know for me I started out looking at the guy dressed in women'clothing and asking why do I do this and why do I enjoy it? Jung's theory has really helped me and my wife understand more about the why. Now I can say that when I look into the mirror and see Deborah, that is who I see. A pretty girl that I want to nurture ( and control) if you know what I mean. No 24/7 no SRS, but when she is present, it's Girl just do your thing!! Dress up; look pretty' go out - whatever - just don't force herself on me or anyone else.
Love,
Deborah

[Danielle La Belle]

Immagine a CD as the number 1 and a Transsexual as the number 9. Now look at all the possible outcomes.

1.445, 1.89456, 3.254678, 5, 6.875648, 8.777786668 etc.....

Statistically the posibilities are infinite where we are concerned.

Just thought this idea from "Helen Boyd's" book, "My Husband Betty" might be worth examining.

Hugs

Danielle
Carry on Girls... don't mind me....

[Lorna]

Here's what I think of Dr. Phil...

[Virginia]

Danielle, How are you , Hon? I really respect your insight and opinions. In the past few days I have read some responses from our sisters (on different forums) concerning The Jung Theory and as usual you are right on. The interpretations and responses vary from total disbelief to total acceptance. So it is my intention to take Deborah and retrench. "We" like what Jung has said, it, for us, Deborah and I, explains to our satisifaction where we came from, how we got here and what to expect as we continue our "Magical Mystery Tour." I guess what I am saying is that I am going to stop trying to be a tour guide and let those with more experience and expertise help out our sisters in those areas. I am happy with Jung's explanation, I can relate to virtually all of it and I feel that I and Deborah are quite happy with wher we are.
Thanks again for all you have done for me and I eagerly look forward to reading what you have to say.
Love,
Deborah

[Danielle La Belle]

I am pleased to know that the information has made such an impact on your life so far. I read a great deal and apply my research background to our "community" when I have the opportunity to do so. Thank goodness someone else took the time to design and implement the web page on "Jung's Anima Theory." I hope others will read your input and know that the time spent in doing the reasearch is paid back ten fold by people such as yourself.

There can be no finer a reward to life than to make someone else happy and content with themselves. While our paths may never cross, it is enough to know that you found value in the written word, so that others may understand the power of their influence by merely participating in life.

Hugs

Danielle

[Kersten Lee]

Hi,

I find a lot of truth in the Jung theory. Through the therapy process
my therapist has helped me to integrate my personalities. The self
awareness I have gained kind of tracks with this theory for me.
A truth I agree with is that we are all a mix of infinite possibilities.
There may one day yet be a unified theory of the physical universe.
I doubt that will be true for us. I love you all so much, because of
the search and journey we share together. I know too many people
that are so secure in their beliefs, that they are never open to possibilities
in themselves or others. Their's must be a very small world indeed.

I tested androgenous (sp) but I am loving my female expression.
This last year I'm being more happy with myself full time by openly
showing my feminine feelings when ever. I pretty much have stopped
feeling guilty for who I am. There is a down side, but personally
my inner happiness is up. This last few months opening up, not about
cding but my feelings, has gained me male friends at work. I would have
never guessed. They have talked to me about what I always considered
feminine feelings. They felt comfortable to talk with me about really
private things in their lives. I feel at last I am contributing something
good in this life.

There are a lot of well educated people here. Will anyone venture
an opinion if they think what was written at the site was a close to
accurate description from actual Jung writings.

Kersten

[Danielle La Belle]

I think that I should clarify this posting. Catherine Anderson, examined the works of Carl Jung, then, with a flare for writing and interpretation, provided the "white paper" as a possibility based on her interpretation of the works. The work by Jung is very dense and complicated by itself. For any of us to wade through it and have sufficient experience to arrive at the details that Catherine did would be perhaps more than we can hope for or expect.

We can always find someone writing something pro or con about our community. It just depends on their political, social and religious bent as to how they slant the information. "The eyes of the beholder" is often how one sees any particular subject. My thinking is that if this interpretation brings peace of mind to another, good! If it provides a positive influence that permits the reader to feel satisfied with the possibilities as defined, good!

If there are those that would judge us harshly, then we too can read and enjoy those that support us and provided us with another point of view that is positive and uplifting.

Hugs

Danielle

[Anita]

What a great thread!

Carol Ann, I know how it feels to suddenly lose the enthusiasm for dressing around the house. That was your opening to this thread. Doesn't mean you never dress at home, but there's a need to express that self once you've set her up. If you've been out at all, it suddenly opens up new areas of feeling about dressing. I hope you and your wife can continue to work on that one.

Thank you, Danielle, for that article. It was a very well-written view of Jung's theories. I'd been aware of his ideas for years, but they were indeed too dense for me to want to wade through.

A week ago, I'd just decided that I was going to bring more of Anita into my work-a-day male mode. I had already seen that I'm NOT going to move in the direction of making Anita more masculine! So if I want to integrate, it's going to mean more feminine traits in my male life. Even a year ago, this would have made me uncomfortable. But being two people can be a strain, and I look for ways to cut down stress, not live with it.

It's less effort to express the female, and there are greater returns.

I'm lazy in my old age.

So I'm moving toward the center. That personality IS much stronger than either alone, as the article said.

Anita was a partial "answer" to middle-age crisis, for me. Now that she's been in place for three years, I can venture a look back at how bleak it would have been if she hadn't come to my attention!

My heart really goes out to all those men who don't have this particular way of dealing with it--it's a very agonizing time of life. We can all see that Corvettes and younger women don't really solve the problem--they just numb it a little. I do wonder what percentage of men could benefit from recognizing the anima? It has worked for some of us, without a doubt, but for the general populace? Maybe someday it'll be common knowledge that it helped say, 50%, but right now it's a big unknown.

I do see that for both men and women, staying stuck in "breeder" roles just sucks when you get older. Both sexes have to get away from their gender ID being so dependent on how good you are at reproduction. And we don't want to give it up without a big fight.

Barbara Sher has written books about following your dreams, even as an older person. Her latest book talks about this whole topic in great detail, and she's given it a lot of thought. The book is called, "It's only too late--if you don't start now!"
Anita

[Laura]

Hi all,

Thanks Danielle for introducing this topic and all of you girls for contributing. I'm enjoying it. Perhaps, we should have a separate thread under the topic of "spirituality and crossdressing" or "Jung and crossdressing." I have long been convinced from personal experience that Jung's anima theory holds a large degree of truth. For me the key idea is the anima as a "psychopomp." It is implicit in the article you suggested, but I would like to make it explicit.

The psychopomp for Jung is a mediator between the conscious and the unconscious, a kind of spirit guide (like one of the Greek gods) to the larger soul, which is at first hidden from our ego. In other words, our "inner woman" (brought to us through our urge to crossdress) may be taken as a guide to our soul (that is, to our own depth), rather than as an end in itself.

Jung pointed out that the young man's first acquaintance with the anima was usually in the form of projection--onto a female love interest. Thus, the worshipping of one's romantic love partner. Later, one learns to hold onto the anima rather than project, which is the first step to becoming whole. For me, that step occurred in the course of therapy with a beautiful woman. At first I worshipped her like I had worshipped my wife. I literally saw her as a Goddess; I could see her aura, like a hazy light emanating from her body. The next step was to explore spirituality for myself and within myself. I accepted myself as having a divine essence or soul and began to explore it through dreamwork and pastlife regression. For me, exploring spirituality was always at the urging of my anima. And the result was always greater integration--and integration is the hallmark of the soul formation (the soul must be born; it takes labor!).

But, there was always my masculine side's need to work and achieve. That got me away from my soul. I see now--as never before--that Laura represents the path to greater personal fulfillment and happiness and for that reason I both named her (to give her more reality) and decided to pursue crossdressing and feminine personality characteristics as conscious goals. Whenever I find myself pulled away from her I (just these last two weeks I haven't posted a message on this forum because I have been so busy with work), I find myself estranged from my soul's path.

In the past I thought that I could perhaps jump directly to my soul, and not have to deal with crossdressing. Social and marital pressures and my own fear of challenging them pushed me in that direction. But, it didn't work. At least for me (following in the path of the Hindu saint Ramakrishna), there is no path to the soul except through a fairly literal presentation of the feminine. Perhaps for other men, the path is different but not for me.

So, like Deborah and Anita and others CDing is a means to an end. Now, here's a question to continue with: what exactly does personality integration look like? And what spiritual manifestations have resulted from one's experience of the "second self"?

love,

Laura

[Virginia]

Hi Laura,
Thanks for asking this blonde questions that make her think. Personally, I don't feel Deborah has much of adifferent personality than I do. I would like to think that we are both nice people, and if Deborah was in a social situation that she would act or react much as I would. However at this point in my "Magical Mystery Tour," we are still in our infancy, and still finding out things about eachother. Little things like I know she does not want to go out in public unless she looks nice, where as I could care less what people think of me. As for her influence on me she is making me see things differently and think more about the results instead of just reacting. I can say this, I am glad she was not an influence when I was flying fighters in the Navy - I would probably be dead now! We were taught to react then think, she is the opposite and at this point in my journey it is wonderful.
As for the balance fo the questions - I am still trying to "get a handle" on this whole thing. I think I went through the stages that most of my sisters did only I transitioned a lot faster, and parts of the transition have not caught up with others - I hope you know what I mean. I guess it is to say we are just not all on the same page right now, but we are all reading the same book - and enjoying it. Thanks girls for all you have done, my sisters, too numerous to mention all, but, Danielle, Sally, you Laura, CJ, Beauty, the SO's - what a wonderful group - be happy in the fact that you have helped launch this girl in the right direction.
Love ya,
Deborah

[Danielle La Belle]

Emma Jung, the late wife of carl Jung, furthered her husbands work on the "Animus and Anima."

to quote from a review at Amazon.com:

An important work, March 1, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Ottawa, Canada
Written by the wife of psychologist C.G. Jung, who first proposed the terms Anima and Animus in the psychological context presented here, this book by Emma Jung provides a fuller and more balanced description of these two functions of the psyche than exists in her husband's collected works. C.G. Jung, who also coined the terms Extravert and Introvert, developed the idea of the Anima and Animus from his analytical practice and from examining his own psychology. Jung recognised that there is an inferior feminine orientation in the male psyche which he named the Anima, from the Latin word for spirit, and an inferior masculine orientation in the female psyche which he called the Animus. From Jung's observations during the analysis of his patients, he recognised the Anima and Animus to be unconscious elements of the psyche which needed to be developed, or made conscious, by the individual in order for the individual to maintain a healthy, balanced outlook in personal relationships and on the world at large. The Anima in a man, Jung maintained, is a mostly personal image of Woman within his psyche which each man carries with him through life. This image, or inner psychic reality, is a composition of a man's experiences of feminity from childhood on, which is combined also with ancestral and archaic collective impressions of feminity. Jung maintained that it was the Anima which was responsible for a man becoming attracted to women, but only certain women, those who are close in character to this inner experience of femininity in the man's psyche. In women, the Animus plays a similar role of defining the masculine side of a woman's personality. Emma Jung's major contribution with her book is her expansion on the concept of the Animus. C.G. Jung wrote much less about the Animus than about the Anima and Emma Jung's further development of the Animus concept in this book provides for a balanced comparison of the two concepts which were simply not available in such depth and detail before. Certainly no mere restating of what C.G. Jung already said, this book further develops the frame of reference established by Jung. It has maintained its status as a landmark work in this difficult yet relevant and very human field of psychological investigation."end of Quote.

I have supplied this additional information for those that may wish to pursue further this subject from a "woman's" point of view. While Emma placed emphasis on the "Animus" (the male component in a woman (gg)), she also provides further insight into the "Anima" from a woman's point of view. In either case, the Jung's did not propose, pro or con, the concepts that we have spoken of in this thread. Rather, their investigation was more in establishing the fact that men and women are more hybrid that once thought. A mixture of gender personalities that while they may not ever appear on the surface in physical form, these traits none the less, exist in all of us. How these traits are implemented perhaps has more to do with choice or genetics in some instances and I think that will continue to be of great debate as science and medicine push the envelope this century, past anything that we have seen before. All willing, I should be here for about 30 more years, so lets help push the concept forward and outward on to the political table of unrest.

Hugs

Danielle

[Virginia]

Hi Danielle,
Yes, I hope you are around for 30 or more years, cause this blonde will need constant maintenance!! ha ha. Anyway, the statement about, "it" being choice or genetics begins to make sense in that those of us who have repressed the Amima then allowed it to "blossom" vs. those who started at a young age. Of course there are those (the majority) who repress it their entire life and take it to the grave with them, that is assuming that we all have both traits which is what the Jung's evidently proposed. This is so fasinating to me not only because I am living it, but in reading the posts from our sisters and seeing what they are dealing with and really wanting to help them. I am of the opinion that even if "science" doesn't have some any or all the answers, it seems that it would behoove us to "pick" something that fits what we are experienceing and that we are comfortable with and develop our own comfort level with where we are in all this. I still love dressing up, but it seems not as much of a priority now as it was. I seem to be as interested in integrating Deborah into my psyche and attempting to understand where she is coming from. Just a side note, I have noticed that when Deborah wants to go out she wants to look as nice as possible, sexy even! When I go out I could care less what people thing of my appearance.
I can only hope you will continue to be there for us, Danielle. 50 years, maybe!!??
LOve,
Deborah