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       PSYCHE'S JOURNEY

      A serious illness takes us into a time which is both strange and scary for almost everyone. It is a life-changing, major event that brings the possibility of death or disability close to us. “Biting the bullet”—that western-frontier expression to do with submitting to surgery that absolutely must be done with no available anesthesia, and biting down rather than crying out—is now what is called for metaphorically. It means having the courage to face the reality or possibility of having an illness that may kill you. It means suffering pain that goes with the disease or the apprehension of it. It means enduring the treatment. What ails the body is at the immediate forefront, but attending to what ails the soul and is not right with our lives is often not far behind. Any serious medical condition—a heart attack, a bleeding ulcer, malignant hypertension, a malignancy— may have an impact on the psyche by cutting through layers of denial. An illness may confront us with what we know in our bones about being unhappy or self-destructive and have thus far disregarded or denied. Biting the bullet then applies to more than the medical problem; it's facing what is wrong with other aspects of our lives and what must be done. Once we face a medical truth and submit to what must be done to survive, barriers to other truths often come down as well. When this is so, it is a harbinger of change that will come next on the soul level.

      When an illness is life-threatening, we can usually recognize how insignificant and unimportant many of our everyday concerns are. We may find that we are, for this time, free of neurotic preoccupations; what matters, for a change, may be what really matters. “Cancer can be an instant cure for neurosis” was how several women at a conference for breast cancer survivors put it.

      At this same meeting, women who had made major changes in their lives as a result of a cancer diagnosis and were not just surviving the cancer but thriving remarked how their illness was “the worst thing that had ever happened to them and the best thing that had ever happened to them.” Men who were work driven, aggressive, and ambitious until they were felled by heart attacks, who slowed down and refocused, say the same thing. Usually these women and men took a good, long look at what was wrong in their lives and acted decisively to end what was bad for them—at the body and soul level—and moved toward what sustained and nourished them, also at the body and soul level.

      It may be that they (finally) ended dysfunctional, soul-draining relationships with narcissistic, controlling, needy, abusive, or chronically angry people, who responded in their characteristically self-absorbed fashion to the news of the life-threatening illness. Or they (finally) stopped self-destructive additions to cigarettes, alcohol, or work. Usually, they (finally) acted on their own best behalf because they knew that their life depended upon it. In this, their ill-ness served as a wake-up call that enabled them to face what they had resisted.

      Enacting the Psyche Myth: Illness and Soul Growth

      In the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche⁵ (Love and Soul), Psyche's story is about the growth of the soul that began with her decision to face the truth and led to her being on her own, challenged to complete four tasks that were initially beyond her ability to perform. Psyche is the Greek word for soul as well as the Greek word for butterfly. Implicit in the name Psyche/soul/butterfly is transformation and danger. The caterpillar enters a chrysalis phase before it can emerge as a butterfly and in the process might not survive.

      The Lamp and the Knife

      In the myth, Psyche's unseen bridegroom would come to her in the dark of the night and be gone by morning. Metaphorically, she was in an unconscious relationship. Fearing that he could be a monster, Psyche followed her sisters’ advice, hid a lamp and a knife, and waited until he had fallen asleep. She needed the lamp to see him and the knife to cut off his head if indeed he were a monster.

      These two symbols, the lamp and the knife, are both necessary for a psyche—for a soul—to act decisively when we know the truth. The lamp is a symbol of illumination, of consciousness, the means of seeing a situation clearly. The knife, like the sword, is a symbol of decisive action, of the capacity to cut through confusion, to sever bonds when necessary. The lamp without the knife is not adequate: it is insight into the situation without the capacity to act upon this perception. Usually if we cannot act upon what we know, clarity dims—it's too uncomfortable to be aware; adaptation, rationalization, and denial work against staying conscious.

      That her life could depend upon severing bonds with several people who depleted her was an intuition heeded by one woman who, on getting a diagnosis of cancer, met with each one to tell them of her diagnosis and with tact and nonnegotiable clarity say that she would no longer be available for phone conversations or time together. For another woman, once she learned her diagnosis, it became possible to distance herself from her narcissistic mother and to weather the guilt and accusations that accompanied it. That her life depended upon divorcing her husband was made clear to a third woman, who for the first and only time in her life heard an emphatic voice in her head say, “You must get a divorce.” This, when she was in her doctor's office to hear the results of a biopsy that confirmed that she had cancer.

      Insight followed by decisive action—the lamp and the sword— are needed for people to change or end difficult, damaging, or destructive relationships. Before the diagnosis, many of these women had the lamp but not the sword; they knew that they were in relationships that took a toll on them, but did not feel entitled to act upon this knowledge. Women are often held captive by the emotional needs or intimidating demands of others, coupled with an inability to say “No!” These demanding people are draining, they take from us; there is a cost in emotional and physical resources, in time and energy. Resentment grows when we know this but do not speak up and act to change or end these relationships. Continuing to be in them has a depressing effect on our mood and well-being, which in turn can depress our immune system and reduce our resistance to disease.

      Inner Wisdom

      There are crucial times when health or death are held in delicate balance and could be tipped in either direction. It is at these times that heeding what the soul knows or the body needs may make all the difference. There is an inner wisdom that knows such matters, which comes through to us as strong intuitions, as gnosis or felt knowledge, as an interior certainty beyond logic, or even as an audible voice; it is what we know in our bones.

      Myths and symbols are in the language of the