We often believe that we need to change who we are to be loved and accepted. Yet, in the process of shape-shifting to meet others’ needs and expectations, we often lose the very core–the true heart–of who we are. The cost to the self can be devastating. I have come to believe that those who truly understand what it is to love and be loved don’t ask us to compromise our imperfectly wonderful selves and the values that make us who we are. How can we stand strong in ourselves despite external pressure to conform to what others want or need? Join Dr. Carla Manly and expert Dr. Nick Literski for a captivating exploration of how issues such as the Peter Pan Syndrome can foster conflict and resentment in relationships. Discover how to shift these common concerns into powerful growth opportunities. Using a lens that employs psychology, myth, folklore, and storytelling, we are guided into experiencing deeper connection with the self and others. Professor, attorney, spiritual guide, and shamanic practitioner, Dr. Literski brings a wealth of expertise to this intriguing episode!

 

Books by Dr. Carla Manly:

Joy from Fear: https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Fear-Carla-Marie-Manly/dp/1641701218

Date Smart: https://www.amazon.com/Date-Smart-Transform-Relationships-Fearlessly/dp/1641704675

Aging Joyfully: https://www.amazon.com/Aging-Joyfully-Optimal-Relationships-Fulfillment/dp/1641701412

The Joy of Imperfect Love: https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Imperfect-Love-Creating-Relationships/dp/1641709057

 

Oracle decks by Dr. Carla Manly:

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1757477615/imperfect-love-reflection-oracle-cards  

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Imperfect-Love-Reflection-Oracle-Cards/dp/B0D1Z5M4YK

 

Connect with Dr. Carla Manly:

Website: https://www.drcarlamanly.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcarlamanly

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/drcarlamanly

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drcarlamanly

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carla-marie-manly-8682362b

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.carlamariemanly8543

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dr_carla_manly

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Watch the episode here

 

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Exploring The Peter Pan Syndrome: Fostering Growth and Harmony While Reaching for the Stars with Expert Dr. Nick Literski

Creating Balance, Growth, and Relationship Harmony Through the Power of Psychology, Myth, and Folklore!

We often believe that we need to change who we are to be loved and accepted. In the process of shapeshifting to meet others’ needs and expectations, we often lose the core and the true heart of who we are. The cost to the self can be devastating. I have come to believe that those who truly understand what it is to love and be loved don’t ask us to compromise our imperfectly wonderful selves and the values that make us who we are. How can we learn to stand strong in ourselves despite the external pressure to conform?

We’ll focus on this reader’s real-life question. My partner has a Peter Pan-type personality. I was drawn in by his carefree ways at the start of our relationship, but he’s become more selfish and is always going off on his own adventures. By default, I bear the load of the financial and daily responsibilities. I’m losing a sense of who I am. I don’t want to change him, but can you help me to get him to grow up? That question is the focus of this episode. I’m Dr. Carla Marie Manley, and this is Imperfect Love.

 

 

I’m joined by a special guest, Dr. Nick Literski, who will be sharing their experience on psychology, spirituality, and the Peter Pan syndrome. Welcome to the show, Dr. Nick. It’s such a joy to have you with us.

Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

I know that there’s a lot that makes you, you. I have read your bio, and it is quite impressive. Before we launch into our episode, can you tell our readers a little bit about what makes you, you?

Dr. Literski’s Numerous Lives

Many people who know me say that I’ve lived numerous lives in this life. I have a varied background. I came out of college and entered the juvenile justice system. Through that process, I became more interested in the law. I went to law school. I practiced law for several years, but I found that it wasn’t who I was at my heart. It wasn’t satisfying in that sense.

I began a period of transformation. I ended up taking a Master’s program in Spiritual Guidance at Sophia University, which was wonderful. I had some amazing instructors. That allowed me to begin working with clients in their own search for spirituality. Spirituality is something that’s been at the core of my mind since my early childhood memories. It has always been a strong interest of mine. Through the process of that training, I was introduced to the work of Carl Jung, and that sparked me. It made me go on further to obtain another Master’s degree and a PhD in Depth Psychology with an emphasis on Jungian and Archetypal Studies.

With that, I’ve been able to work with my clients in spiritual guidance in a much deeper way. I’m working with their dreams and various archetypes, helping them to see what they’re going through as part of the larger stories and mythologies of the world to normalize their experience and give it context and beauty. I am teaching at the California Institute of Integral Studies in their undergraduate psychology program, but beginning in September 2024, I will begin a position as core faculty at Pacific Graduate Institute in the depth psychology and creativity program. That’s my next exciting thing on the horizon.

You are one of those who don’t stop growing and evolving. We have many things in common, but we can have another conversation about that. You said many things that I find fascinating, but for our readers, many people combine spirituality and religion as if they are the same thing. Please explain the difference to our readers. The other thing you talked about, which is near and dear to me, is archetypes because I am a Jungian-oriented therapist. People might not know what an archetype is. Let’s start with spirituality and religion and move to archetypes, please.

Spirituality And Religion

We’ll tackle the hard question first because the fact is if you ask twenty scholars of religion and spirituality to define those terms, you’ll get 25 responses. No different field has a cohesive definition of religion or spirituality. In our lived experiences, I look at religion as organized spirituality. Spirituality is an inborn sense.

Jung talked about the religious instinct, our desire to reach out and connect with something that’s larger than ourselves, more powerful than ourselves, and beyond our understanding. That is spirituality. Throughout history, we’ve had different groups and cultures find ways to make that connection, and the traditions and systems they’ve created are what I look at more as religion. That’s the best definition I can give you there.

It’s wonderful, which is going to take me to another question. When you look at spirituality and religion, do you think that there is a God?

I’ve had a long spiritual journey myself. I was raised as a young child in a non-denominational Christian context. I became Mormon at the age of thirteen, which is a high-demand, structured, authoritarian, and hierarchical religious tradition. I spent several years. That part of my life was important and contributed so much to who I am. In many ways, it saved my life as a teenager. As an older person coming into middle age, it no longer worked for me, partly as a matter of my coming out. That was not compatible with that tradition, but it was time to grow and move on.

I went through a period of time for several years where I purged. I ended up in three years of training and shamanic practices with a teacher. From there, I’ve gone back to an interest that’s been with me for many years, which is the Western esoteric tradition and ceremonial magic. Our spirituality is a journey. It’s something that we need to be open to and ready to grow, adapt, and respond to. The danger comes when we decide that we have the final answer, and we dig our heels in. That stops growth. It also takes the authority away from us internally. Something I work with my clients about is learning to take spiritual authority inside instead of placing it outside in a text, a person, or some outside source.

Our spirituality is a journey. It's something that we need to be able to be open with and ready to grow and adapt and respond. Share on X

I appreciate the piece where you talk about when we think we have the final answer. I’m paraphrasing you, but when we think we have the final answer, we stop growing. Whether we’re looking at it as the God, the divine, or a spiritual journey, when we open ourselves up to evolution, to the awe that is within the universe and constantly, it’s the premise of my book, The Joy of Imperfect Love, my last book where when we keep working and journeying, continue that evolution of spirituality.

It is necessarily intertwined with the journey of the self because we are spiritual beings no matter what our religious affiliation is, even if we have one. I’m making that the organized piece that you were talking about. I’m in accord with you. Thank you for highlighting the piece about when we think we have the answers. When we think we know it all, whatever it is, in whatever area, we stop growing because of that belief that I am right, I know everything. It’s a jail cell.

In my personal practice and spirituality, I like to refer to the divine rather than saying God. There’s nothing wrong with God, but to me, the divine or the numinous is beyond our understanding. Our attempts to describe the divine or to give an image to it are always going to be imperfect. You’re joining me in my temple room, but if you were to see all the way around me, there are many figurines and images of different gods and other spiritual beings. I work with this vast pantheon from many traditions. I’m very eclectic. It’s because we can choose which masks of the divine to work with and to help us center on where our growth is needed at a given time.

 

 

We talk for hours about this. As a Jungian depth psychologist, I appreciate this because when we look at the universal desire for religion and spirituality, there is no right or wrong to it. As I like to say, “My religion is kindness.” That’s my spirit. I love how you talk about the numinous because that’s one element that is common in all religious and spiritual traditions, the numinous, that sense of something bigger, something intangible beyond who we are.

Archetypes

Before I get us lost in that conversation, we can get to the reader’s question and the Peter Pan, the Puer syndrome. Can you talk a little bit so we have a foundational sense of archetypes? Archetypes are a core piece of Jungian psychology. When you read the word Jungian, we’re talking about psychotherapists who believe in Carl Jung’s work. We call ourselves Jungian. The floor goes to you, Dr. Nick.

You reminded me of Carl Jung when he said, thank God, “I’m Jung and not a Jungian.” One of the ways I would like to explain this to people is that there are studies of some of our small animal friends where, from infancy or birth, they will recognize the silhouette of a bird of prey. They will immediately go into panic mode when they see that silhouette, even if they were born in captivity and have never come across a bird of prey. There’s something inborn. There’s something in their nature. Whether that’s partly DNA, a memory through generations, or whatever the source of that is, there are certain things in certain shapes that are programmed in us.

Carl Jung, when he talked about archetypes, gave the image of channels of water. Those channels may run dry at times, but when the water comes, it’s going to fall into those channels. In our makeup as humans, those channels have different names. Things like mother, father, magician, sage, and crone are archetypes and general forms. They’re big picture.

How you and I experience mother may be different. Our individual experience and our archetype are what Carl Jung called a complex. When we get into spirituality, it’s useful to work on an archetypal level and think of those big pictures. When we talk about mother, it’s the earliest manifestation of human spirituality.

If we go back 32,000 years to the images and show Bay Cave, what we see is the mother goddess, the giver and gateway of life. That is our earliest religious manifestation in art and practice. That is an archetype that has followed us down for thousands of years. Therefore, it becomes useful. It becomes something that we can track in dreams, myths, stories, and personal experiences. It brings us into the context of what it means to be human.

As a firm believer in the power of archetypes, I’d like to add that we see them for people who are familiar with tarot cards or oracle cards or people who like Shakespeare or Greek mythology. We can see these characters: the king, the orphan, the fool, and whatever it is that is universal. Every culture around the world may have a different name for it, but we all know what it means when someone says father, orphan, or king.

We all know what it means to be the fool, to be the hanged man, or any of those. I love the power. I appreciate how you brought dreams into it because our dreams are wonderful. They are sometimes detritus dreams or throw-away dreams, but they have power and meaning because our dreams speak to us in code. They have messages for us.

You’re conversant on many topics, but let’s talk about the reader’s question. I don’t know the gender, and the gender doesn’t matter, but they are frustrated with their partner. You know this as a healer yourself. Often, the elements that we’re drawn to in a partner are like, “I love this wildness. I love this quietness. I love this adventurous spirit. I love this person’s tendency to dot every I and cross every T.” We fall in love with something.

As we get to know the person we love, we become jaded, especially if it continues to grow. It’s no longer attractive. It sounds as if the readers who wrote in are disenchanted with what they are terming their significant others, Peter Pan’s qualities. You and I know this as the puer complex or syndrome. Could you explain that, please?

The archetype of the puer is the youth. It is puer or puella, as far as masculine or feminine. The puer is young, excited, and energetic. The puer is constantly striving. In terms of spirituality, it’s always ascendant and going for the stars without restraint and careful consideration. The thing about the puer is we live in a culture that says, “You must grow up, be responsible, and take charge.” The puer is not a bad thing in and of itself. It is a necessary thing. At the same time, we have the senex, which should always be walking side by side with the puer.

One of the wonderful myths that I love is about Zeus and Ganymede. If you know the stories of Zeus, Zeus was not the most monogamous of the gods. His wife was a great example of Senex. Hara was responsible. She was a mother figure who always had things in hand. She always was doing the responsible thing. It’s a little bit like what this reader is describing. That’s important and vital. That was Zeus’s partner. What happens is he sees the young Ganymede. That is something that apparently he is missing. He’s drawn to that. As the story goes, he kidnaps Ganymede. They enter into a relationship. This goes on until he finally makes Ganymede his cut bearer. Ganymede is placed among the stars.

As we look through art, particularly on that relationship, we continually see this idea that the two need each other. We see images and sculptures of Ganymede offering water or food to Zeus in eagle form. Sometimes, we even see images of Ganymede dominating Zeus, which is contrary to what we might expect, but it shows up in art. This is a continual exchange. Senex needs to be invigorated by the puer. The puer needs to be restrained and channeled by the senex.

I love that this reader is saying, “I don’t want to change my partner.” Your partner is going to be who your partner is. Any of us who’ve been in a relationship for any length of time see aspects of our partner that may have even attracted us in the first place. We wish we could adjust to our image of how they ought to be.

One of the important things here is to realize that the goal is not to eliminate the puer. The goal is to feed, encourage, and nourish the puer with this senex aspect. When we sit back and see something that we see as problematic, we want to take it and replace it with the opposite. When it comes to the senex and puer, it’s not something that can be replaced with the opposite. It’s something where we need to merge the two because both of these archetypes have a deep need for each other.

The goal is not to eliminate the Puer. The goal is to feed, encourage, and nourish the Puer with this Senex aspect. Share on X

It sounds like you’re talking about creating balance, not extracting the puer from this partner, but helping the puer find a balance so that the other partner does not feel like they have to be responsible for everything. When we infuse that sense of balance and help draw some of the puer to take some responsibility to become down to earth as Peter Pan has difficulty doing, it lightens the load for the individual who’s been bearing the responsibility, which allows them to feel some lightness of being.

It gives the puer a needed rest. It seems paradoxical. We say take more responsibility, but the puer has this continual upward energy. James Hillman wrote marvelously on this topic. The puer needs to find the valleys and the low places.

I love James Hillman’s and Joseph Campbell’s work. All of these are wonderful authors who are also archetypally Jungian-oriented scholars. When we’re talking about this, Dr. Nick, and you’re saying, “Let’s imagine this puer who’s reaching for the stars, going upward, enjoying not at all, having the feet touch the ground.” That’s what the puer is like. They like to be off on the adventure. When you’re working with a puer, it does not want to come down to rest. They don’t understand that there is the possibility and the necessity of coming to earth to rest, recalibrate, and possibly grow other parts of the personality that are not all about the self and the self’s adventures. Please talk about that.

I’m not a therapist. I deal with spirituality. If a client were coming to me with this and invoking this Peter Pan image, I would say, “Let’s go into the Peter Pan image. Let’s go into the story.” What does Peter Pan do? We see him flying between worlds. We see him doing all these upward things, but he also has a responsibility in Neverland to the lost boys. There is still that piece, even though Peter Pan brings love, caring, nurturing, and responsibility for those who need him.

If we’re going to take the Peter Pan image, let’s carry the image through. How does this individual who is caught up in the puer? How does this individual understand that they’re needed, their gifts are important, and what they bring to the relationship can nourish their partner? That’s a way to help tie them into this senex sense of responsibility. They realize, “This is all wonderful, but I am also needed in the mundane.”

 

 

I appreciate that. It made my heart get activated and tingly because I am such a believer in the power of story, myth, and fairytales to teach us. It’s why before they were sanitized and romanticized, fairytales were handed down from generation to generation because they were infused with wisdom from ancestors. We turned them into Disney-ish variations where a lot of the deep meaning was lost.

Peter Pan Syndrome

Let’s look at the full story of Peter Pan, of how Peter Pan was able to see, “It’s wonderful up here, but I am also useful and needed down here with these lost boys and individuals who need me.” I also want to pause with this of how important it is if we’re staying with the story, and we are, that there was no compensation for Peter Pan by coming down and helping others.

There was nothing emblazoned in the stars that Peter Pan is the good guy. It became self-gratifying because it filled other parts of the Peter Pan personality. It created some balance. We often lose that image that he did come back down. He did do acts of service. That helped create a fuller personality. That’s what you’re saying. The puer needs.

The person is saying, “I’m tired.” How would you invite that reader to without restraining? Puer does not like restraint. They do not like to be told what to do. They do not like to be any sign of control, even if it’s not controlling but any sign of, “Could you please be more responsible.” It will feel like a threat to Peter Pan. How might one invite?

I love two things that you said. I’m tired and invite. Those are the two keys here. First of all, your readers are familiar with the nonviolent language. The individual can come to their partner and say, “I am tired. Not I’m tired of you, or I’m tired of what you’re doing, but I am tired. I am in need of support and nurturing.” The invitation becomes something to allow the puer to feel an accomplishment and an ability to be there to support, a feeling of being truly needed.

Sometimes, that invitation includes some specific things like, “Can you please vacuum?” In my own relationship, my husband has the most amazing relationship with the physical world. He can drive down the road and tell you why the road was designed incorrectly and how it should have been built in the first place. He is a natural engineer. That is not me. My stepson once joked, “How can people trust you with the metaphysical when you can’t see the milk is gone bad in the fridge?” It is a running joke in the family.

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Sometimes, my husband has to be direct and say, “This needs to be done because Nick, you’re up in the clouds somewhere, and you’re not paying attention to some of these mundane needs.” It is that direct, specific invitation. We want our partners to read our minds. We want our partners to see everything we see and see it the way we see it. The puer is up in the sky. The puer is in the heavens, flying between worlds. The purer doesn’t sometimes even see that these things in the valleys also need attention. We can invite, but it is in that sense that, like you said, “I’m tired. This is my experience. Can you help me?” As opposed to, “You’re wrong, and you’re not doing this right.”

Dr. Nick, you got to what I was going to invite you to explain. For our readers who might be unfamiliar or might need a refresher with nonviolent communication, what we’re talking about here is, for many of us, we were raised with the word should as a leading word. You should do this. You should do that. No, you’re wrong. All of that we have come to find is violent. It’s called violent communication. The word should have been called by some high-level experts one of the most violent words in our language. Why? This terminology or verbiage can feel shaming and can cause another person’s defenses to come up.

If we learn to be gentler on ourselves and others and use things as Dr. Nick was saying of what is called I Messages. If we say, “I feel. I perceive. I feel hurt. I feel sad. I perceive that this situation is getting anxious for me.” We tend not to trigger somebody else’s defenses. Communication tends to be smoother.

 

 

Non-Violent Communication

Dr. Nick, please say more about why nonviolent communication, especially for this reader who’s frustrated and it sounds like they’re at a breaking point almost. We want to help them understand how they might be able to communicate with their significant other to get good results. Not that we can always get the best results no matter how nonviolent our communication is, depending upon where somebody is emotionally, psychologically, emotionally, and mentally. They cannot absorb even the kindest remarks in a good way. Please explain.

I Language is couched in the experience of the speaker. When this happens, this is how I feel. Not when you do this. You make me feel this way. My husband has this wonderful connection with the world around us. The toothbrush charger is on my side of the bathroom, and we use one. He puts his toothbrush on the charger when it needs it, and he sets mine to the side. When we were first married, he would do that and leave my toothbrush off to the side when he was done using the charger. It’s a little thing, but it bugged me.

I have this issue of people moving my things, and you can interpret that however you like for a diagnosis. I came to him and said, “When you leave my toothbrush off to the side, I feel disrespected. I feel as if I wasn’t worth putting my things back.” I made it about me and what I’m experiencing, not what he did. Not saying you did wrong. This is how I feel. I know this wasn’t your intent. He started doing that.

I came out late in life. I was married to a woman for several years and raised children. The breakdown of the marriage was contentious and frustrating for a while. It was several years later, after some of my own growth and unlearning some bad habits, I was able to come and have a conversation with her. I was like, “I realize I contributed this to our marriage being what it was. I’ve learned that I made these mistakes. I wish I had understood myself better several years ago.” I said nothing about any frustrations I had toward her. I’m owning my part. From past experience, I didn’t expect that to necessarily even land, but I felt good closure needed me to do that.

It took a few hours, but she reached out to me and did the same thing. That experience made such a shift in our conversations and interactions since then. It becomes healing, but it was a matter of me owning my part, reaching out, and saying, “I’m sorry that I brought this to the table, and thank you for what you contributed to my life.” We’re not talking about that breakup here. It’s an example of the language. It’s magical. When we come with our open hearts, realizing, “I know this isn’t your intention, but this is how I feel when this happens.”

Dr. Nick, both examples are beautiful, and we are aligned in many ways. In my book, The Joy of Imperfect Love, I think about how every action we take is generally either positive, a reach toward, or pushing somebody away from us. That’s our choice. Few of our actions on this planet, in and out of relationships, are neutral.

You are talking about the beautiful example with your former wife, where you reached out and apologized. You made a sincere, heartfelt I Message apology. It stimulated something in her. We can never say how another person is going to respond. We can only take control and have power over how we act. The gorgeous example of the toothbrush with your husband, because we all have those things, and it doesn’t make us diagnosable. It means we have our preferences in life. I love how you brought it down to the basic of respect.

In my clinical work and personal life, many of us get triggered by the thing. It’s not the thing. It’s not the toothbrush, spoiled milk, the car left without gas, or we vacuumed, and they didn’t. It’s the fact that we don’t feel respected. When we use healthy communication tools, basic I Messages and mirroring, mirroring is simply when each partner speaks their truth, we do it one at a time, and the other partner shows they’re listening by non-judgmentally, mirroring it back, reflecting it back, we can see how when you say to your husband or said, “I know you didn’t mean it, but I felt disrespected when you did this.”

The other partner doesn’t feel blamed or judged. It’s like, “I can reach out to my husband and put his toothbrush back where it belongs, back in the container, or wherever they would prefer it to be.” That’s a wonderful example, looping back to the reader’s concern and question. Although these might sound like simple steps, as you said, Dr. Nick, they’re magical.

When we get into some of these habits and as we learn, it’s a long road. Things don’t change overnight. We want to become more aware of how many reaches we’re doing and how many push-aways and not try to change a partner’s core values, but we can certainly invite them to engage in behaviors that don’t feel like push-aways to us. What do you think, Dr. Nick?

If we take the story further, look at Peter and Wendy. Peter wants Wendy to be a mother. That’s almost the dynamic of the reader of the question we have here. Peter wants somebody who’s going to take care of him and take responsibility. There’s some pushback. Wendy realizes that and says, “That’s not who I am.” At the same time, why was Wendy even pulled into Peter’s orbit? It’s because she needed some of that magic.

This is all a mutual adventure. If we are going to be all about the responsibility and we’re frustrated with this puer, part of that is that we’re neglecting the puer in ourselves. Part of that is we’ve pushed the puer in ourselves into the shadow. It’s frustrating for us to see it reflected outward. We can also ask ourselves, “Where can I join with the puer?” The dishes still have to be washed, and the mundane still needs to be taken care of, but where can we join in with the puer? We feel part of that magic and that adventure instead of having to be the opposite of it.

 

 

Dr. Nick, as you’re speaking, I’m getting that image of Wendy perched near the window sill or on the window sill, longingly looking toward the stars and the sky. We get her yearning because she is down-planted on the earth. That is where we go back to the balance. We all want to be in the stars. When we work to create balance, we can fly up there, come back, have our partners fly up with us, and create this beautiful dance.

We are sure maybe one of us spends more time in the stars, and the other one spends more time on land. We are creating balance, unity, and harmony where we all get a little glimpse and play in the stars. It’s good for us. It’s good for the soul to learn to leave the lockdown of being grounded and being that person who does it all.

Go play. Go fly up in the stars. My husband is good at playing. He’s also good at working, but he’s far better at playing than I am. I love that capacity of his to play because it draws me up into the stars. When we look at this reader, they’re seeking that balance. I love how you concretized it to say, “Invite the puer in your life to share some of the responsibilities.” You can both spend some more time dancing in the stars. Dr. Nick, I want to have you back. I want to talk fairytales with you and more. I’m such a fan. Is there anything else you’d like to highlight on this particular topic? I’ve taken you here and there.

It’s a wonderful topic and conversation to have. It comes back to spirituality and to realize that our spirituality needs both the senex and the puer. We need some structure and play. We need to be able to reach for the stars as well as valleys. That is the dance. That is what’s life-giving. We cannot be the senex. Being just the senex is every bit as harmful and dangerous as being all the puer. Those two need to be brought together and nourish each other.

 

 

That’s where we get concepts like Yin and Yang, light and shadow, and peaks and valleys. If we didn’t have the valleys, we would never know what a peak is. If we only had peaks, we wouldn’t have the juxtaposition of the valley to know how far we’ve come and the delights of what we can see up above. It’s contrasted with the beauty of the valley down below. We wouldn’t have the Grand Canyon without the majesty of that. Without the valleys, it’s not possible. Thank you for blessing us with your delightful presence. It’s yummy. I am appreciative. Can you tell our readers where they can find you?

The easiest place is DancingAncestors.com. That’s where I center my spiritual guidance work, as well as my other writings. Readers can certainly reach out to me there. I am also on Facebook as Dr. Nick Literski, but the website is the easiest way to reach out to me and learn more about what I do.

There’s a lot to learn about when you see the papers that they have written and the beautiful wealth of experience and knowledge that Dr. Nick has to offer. You can find him at DancingAncestors.com. Thank you for being with us, Dr. Nick. It has been a privilege, a joy, and a delight. My thanks to our audience for sharing this wonderful journey into the stars and the valleys with us. This is Imperfect Love.

 

Important Links

• Dr. Nick Literski – LinkedIn
• The Joy of Imperfect Love
• DancingAncestors.com
• Facebook – Dancing Ancestors: The Work of Dr. Nick Literski
• https://www.Facebook.com/LGBTQSpirituality
• https://www.Instagram.com/DrNickLiterski
• Website: https://www.DrCarlaManly.com
• Instagram: https://www.Instagram.com/drcarlamanly
• Twitter: https://www.Twitter.com/drcarlamanly
• Facebook: https://www.Facebook.com/drcarlamanly
• LinkedIn: https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/carla-marie-manly-8682362b
• YouTube: https://www.YouTube.com/@dr.carlamariemanly8543
• TikTok: https://www.TikTok.com/@dr_carla_manly

 

About Dr. Nick Literski

Nicholas (Nick) S. Literski, JD, PhD (they/them) served as a juvenile probation officer before earning their Juris Doctor and working as an attorney in private practice. Dissatisfaction with that career, together with the experience of coming out as part of the LGBTQ+ community, led them to rebuild their life and pursue their passion for the intersection of spirituality and psychology.

After three years of training as a shamanic practitioner, Nick’s desire to help facilitate the spiritual journey of others led them to earn a master’s degree in Spiritual Guidance at Sofia University. This work, in turn, inspired Nick to pursue their PhD in the DJA program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Their dissertation work involved a depth psychological analysis of Paleolithic cave art, through Jung’s technique of active imagination, with an eye toward what these images could reveal about the human religious instinct.

Nick has published in Psychological Perspectives: A Quarterly Journal of Jungian Thought; Immanence: The Journal of Applied Mythology, Legend, and Folklore; and Somatics Magazine-Journal of the Mind-Body Arts and Sciences. Nick’s article, “Declining Divisions: Non-binary Gender Identities and American Cultural Consciousness,” was included in Thomas Singer & Andrew Samuels’ compilation, The Reality of Fragmentation and the Yearning for Healing: Jungian Perspectives on Democracy, Power, and Illusion in Contemporary Politics.

Nick also co-authored Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration, published in 2022 by Greg Kofford Books. Nick also served briefly as Assistant Editor of the journal, Anthropology of Consciousness. Nick’s research interests include spirituality, LGBTQ+ studies, anthropology, magic, and the work of C. G. Jung. They live with their husband, Chris, just outside Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Nick teaches in the undergraduate Psychology program at CIIS and is thrilled to announce his professorship at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California.