The Soul and The Sea, with Author Benig Mauger

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I recently was able to connect with a special guest, Benig Mauger, hailing from the picturesque Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland. Benig enlightens us on her unique approach of blending Jungian psychology and spirituality to accomplish higher states of peace and introspection. She shares about her journey and the transformative power of connecting with nature, even in the most urbanized environments.

Benig Mauger is an internationally known Jungian psychotherapist, inspirational teacher and workshop leader. Author of a number of critically acclaimed books, she is a frequent speaker at national and international events on psychological healing, spiritual wellness and how to live an empowered and soulful life. A pioneer in pre and perinatal psychology, her ground-breaking book ‘Songs from the Womb’ (1998) led to media exposure, seminars and workshops in the following years in the USA and Europe. Aside from her work as a speaker, teacher and author, Benig maintains a private practice. Informed by her own spiritual journey, her recent work and writing is aimed at helping others learn how to heal from within. Born of Breton parents, she lives and works in Connemara, Ireland. Her work is featured on her website.

Connect with Benig Mauger

Website – www.benigmauger.com
Facebook – SoulConnectionsIreland
Youtube – benigmauger
LinkedIn – benig-mauger-96809633/

For more information on all things Jimmy Tingle

Transcript – Please note, this Transcript is AI Generated. It has not had the discerning ears of a real human to edit it, as such, there are bound to be a few errors

0:00
Tell me from a personal perspective, did you have experience with a trauma or healing from some traumatic event in your life? And how did that unfold to inform you to the point where you can write authentically on these subjects?

Hello, everybody, this is Jimmy, welcome back to the Jimmy tingle show we have a really special episode today. It is not often that we get a real healer, a spiritual healer to join us folks, and especially one from Ireland. But today our guest is Benig Mauger, and she presents a new model of healing based on the unique interweaving of depth psychology with spirituality. And she lives the wild Atlantic way of Ireland. And she’ll explain that to us in a moment. But she’s an author, a spiritual healer, and she comes out of the Jungian as in Carl Jung, the Jungian Philosophy of Psychology, please welcome to the show, with her new book The soul in the sea, essential healing for everyday life, the one and the only Benig Mauger, hello, Benig. How are you?

1:13
Hello, Jimmy, how are you? And thank you so much for asking me to be on your show I very happy?

1:20
Well, we’re happy to have you. We always like the beautiful broke the gentleness of Ireland, you’re bringing a sense of peace to me as I look at you today. And as I just hear you speak and especially knowing that you’re living in the wild Atlantic way, what exactly is the wild Atlantic way?

1:39
Well, the Wild Atlantic Way is is was designated as a special place to travel from you go north, down south, and you always stay by the sea. So it takes in Donegal, males like Oh, Galway carry right down to the south. And so

2:02
it’s all on the coast, the western coast of Ireland, it’s all on the

2:05
western coast, and it takes in some of the most remote and wild Atlantic areas of Ireland.

2:13
Excellent. I bet. It’s very beautiful and very inspiring. So tell me beneath How did you get in to the whole idea of psychology and using psychology and combining it with spirituality to actually achieve goals of greater peace, greater serenity, and what is the secret

2:32
I came by this very naturally in my own life. And through through my years of working I trained as a therapist I was maybe 30 years ago, 35 years ago and worked as a psychotherapist using, you know, insights from depth psychology and soul tracking, etc. But I also maintained spiritual practice and more and more I found in my work and in my own life, that in order to really bring about lasting healing, if you like, and to heal ourselves, we have to combine psychology itself isn’t enough, especially today, in a time of unprecedented spiritual awakening, really, people need to feel that they can look after the take responsibility for their own health, and, therefore connect with the wisdom that we have within we have a healing wisdom within which we don’t necessarily tap into because we’ve been conditioned for so long to look outside of ourselves for answers to, to our suffering, and also even to find love outside of ourselves, you know, so. So it was a gradual process for me and then the pandemic and during the pandemic. I found it incredibly easy to write it was as though I have permission to do nothing but stay at home and connect with nature, which I do anyway, I have cows on either side of me and the mountains and the sea, right, right beneath me. And there is the book that I found myself writing, again about healing was you know, very much about how we need to combine the insights of depth psychology, but also with spiritual practice. Because I’ve learned in my own life that when we seek help, or when we connect to the wisdom and the healer inside ourselves, we can actually create what we need. Do you understand what I mean? We can

4:55
I do a tell me in a from a personal perspective, did you have X perience with a, you know, trauma or healing from some traumatic event in your life? And how did that unfold to inform you to get to the point where you can write authentically on these subjects?

5:13
Yeah, well, I had no one, no one episode, but I would say my birth definitely would have been a marker for me formative, because I was born very premature, in the middle of the west of Ireland, in the 50s, when there was very little medical help. And so I was in an incubator for a long time. And, you know, life wasn’t particularly easy. And I guess, another other experiences like divorce and breakdown of relationships that sort of led me to, to look at, you know, what is this? How can we actually heal ourselves, because we all have emotional complexes, or baggage or issues. And we all want to heal ourselves so that we can, you know, have more empowered, and spiritual lives if you like, I found so much inspiration in nature, because we were so close to nature. And we we didn’t have much growing up, you know, my parents were refugees in inverted commas, because they came to Ireland after the Second World War. And, and the land was very poor, in terms of being able to make a living, and you learn how to be resilient, and how to really connect with your inner resources.

6:49
So tell me about nature. Tell me about how being out in nature can actually help bring healing, solace, more serenity? How does that work?

7:00
I think it works. Because when you are outside, if you give yourself time to just be and sit down on a rock, or walk along the beach, you’re connecting with something elemental, which is actually a new to the heartbeat of the world nature as it has cycles, like we have it, it’s, you know, it grows and the sea comes in, and it goes back. And there’s a great wisdom in nature, as well as, as, as the animals, you know, nowadays, everybody talks about mindfulness and spending time being mindful, you watch animals, they’re very mindful cows can sit and stare into space and just chew forever. And

7:56
when I do that, sometimes trust me,

8:02
but it’s well known that nature is very therapeutic. And for many people, in fact, I know that the there’s a brand of of therapy, if you like, for very troubled children, that you bring them into nature and let them connect with animals. And so that develops their sense of love for the animal, and animals will, especially dogs, I had my dog here as she passed away when the book was written, but she passed away after that, and I missed her I miss her. But dogs can that you can really connect with animals and see unconditional love and action, I believe. So we can learn from that.

8:53
Right? So I imagine living on the west coast of Ireland and close proximity to the ocean, you must sleep really well. Between the air coming off the North Atlantic and the and the just the rhythm of the sea and being out there in the country. Has that been really helpful in terms psychologically in terms of your healing?

9:18
Absolutely. I mean, after after a breakup of a big relationship for me, I spent time and I have children but they were at school. I spent time on my own like being solitary. And it was really nature that and the dark, which which, which brought me into being very comfortable with my solitude to the point now where I do have a partner but I, I would consider myself quite hermetic I could become a hermit quite easily, especially in nature.

9:57
So tell me in your book, tell us give us some Exam. impulse of how people can become more centered become more connected to nature to life to the lifecycles. Even if they live in an urban area in the United States or urban area in Europe, how does that happen for people?

10:15
I think that the there are several ways I think that even in an urban area, there are beautiful parks, there are places where one can go and sit and enjoy nature. But also, I think, another element and one can get out obviously, and go for go out into the country, but is having a spiritual practice. Now, what does that mean doesn’t mean that you have to do, you know, a strict yoga or meditation of a particular type, but having some kind of spiritual practice. And by that, I mean, it could be actually just writing your dreams in the morning or sitting, sitting, looking out at the trees, or even looking out on the street, but but just going within. And in the book, I also talked about lots of other tools, which we use in Union psychology, and that is writing your dreams, connecting with your dreams. So you are actually you’re actually listening to your inner voice and what you might need to know right now. So writing your dreams are just spending every day, some time to be with yourself and going with it and writing it down.

11:42
Do you have experience with a connection to a higher power? Or a god or any formal religion or organized religion? Is that part of it? Can that be part of somebody’s healing process? I

11:53
think it can. I think it can. But in my case, yeah, you know, we were nominally Catholics, if you like, but I don’t see religion necessarily. As spiritual I see that as more documented spirituality, I think, I go by the words of of Rumi, who said, spirituality is the private relationship to the mystery, of everything that is alive is either spirituality in nature. For some people, organized religion may maybe right for them. But in general, I think for, for me anyway, we need to connect with sort of deep spirituality, which is in our own souls, but which we find a nature which we can find, for somebody else. Their spirituality might be listening to a wonderful piece of music, anything which takes you out of the material and into the more transcendent realm. Because that’s where the healing happens.

13:02
Right? Have you heard of the book The artists way? Yes. So the woman I’ve read that book 20 years ago or so, and I picked it up again recently, and one of the tools the woman’s name is Julian. Julian. Julia Cameron. That’s right, I believe his name is Julia Cameron. And she wrote the book in the early 1990s. I think, anyway, it’s the artists way. And one of the tools that they use in the artists way is journaling. They call it the morning pages. And they she suggest when you wake up, you get a notebook, a new journal, for three pages, you just fill three pages on a notebook, you can write prayers, you can write your newest novel, you can write, you know, a play, you can write sentences of just you can write down your fears, your resentment, your anger, your worries, anything, you get it on paper, and she says that this clears the mind. So the person your creativity has room to actually express itself in your in your worldview or or that day, do you find the journaling? Helpful? And do you practice that as well?

14:14
I do, but for it in with a different a different motivation or a different outcome even in the sense that in in, in depth psychology or union psychology, journaling is a way to connect with your inner self, which is very similar. And also writing your dreams because our soul speaks to us during the night through dreams. And although people may find that they can’t remember their dreams, or that the dreams are strange, there’s nothing strange about them and speaks in symbols. So symbols and image. So if you if you journal, you can journal but you can also write your dream and what it makes you think of and oh my goodness, I haven’t dreamt about him for ages. What might that mean? And you’ll also find that there’s a pattern as you go through me, I have been doing it for since I was a young therapist, because in our profession we are training is to be therapist, we have to be analyzed in order to become therapists. So I have a lot of dream books. But yes, I absolutely agree. And it is a way to sort of, to speak about what’s inside all the words that want to come out. And in there, there are gems.

15:51
Right? I imagine, like if you asked me to write down my dreams, I would be hard pressed unless I wake up in the middle of a dream. And it’s very vivid, and I get out and start writing it down. I’m not going to remember by the time I wake up, generally speaking, but that’s a really interesting dimension to this whole conversation, writing down your dreams. I’ve never, I’ve never heard that before. I suppose you have to be a big dreamer. In order for that to be effective. Well,

16:21
I think what happens actually, is that when you start becoming aware of it, for example, people who start therapy start coming for therapy, and I say to them, you know, write down your dreams. Oh, well, I don’t remember the dreams. And it might be true. But the unconscious, your unconscious, your psyche, it knows that Oh, my goodness, I’m going she’s going to therapy. Right? Okay. And so the unconscious starts to become more alive. So I bet you if you said to yourself, you Jimmy, if you said to yourself, you know what, I’d like to have a dream tonight because I’m confused about something. Just see what happens.

17:02
Okay, I’m going to try that. I’m going to try to dream about my podcast. I’m looking for direction in my podcast. Give me a dream. Yes. Tell me, you started speaking earlier, when we first started the conversation about this unprecedented awareness of spirituality in the world. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody describe where we are right now. And in the human race, as a unprecedented awakening, a spiritual awakening, what is your evidence that we are in a time where people are really seeking out spiritual answers or guidance or direction? And what do you think that has brought that about?

17:50
That’s a very, very big question. And I don’t know if I can do justice to it right now, in a few words, but with the planet is there’s incredible time of transition, there’s been this pandemic, there’s the climate change, everything is, is sort of up in the air, all the traditional institutions and authority. You know, what, what people may have clung on to before is sort of disintegrating. So in a way, we are left to, to actually, I think it’s like being pushed to awaken to our own possibility to what we can do to what how we can heal ourselves, to our own wisdom to and evidence, you’re asking for some kind of evidence. I mean, nowadays, very many people are looking for alternative healing modalities, books on spirituality, wellness, healing meditation, like when I was growing up, there was no such thing as meditation or mindfulness. Now they bring it into schools, even to tell children, you know, to be more mindful. So there is a sense that we are getting closer to that, because we don’t have much time to do you know, we can’t keep looking outside of ourselves. It’s not working really,

19:26
right. Materialism is finite, in terms of what the happiness are the joy, it can bring us, even the security that it can bring us. It can be very fleeting. So this is a positive development in the world. Yeah, that people are looking inward and they’re trying to find just some, some peace, some balance in their own lives looking inward. I know that I because of the nature of my work, I’m always connected to the news and to the media. And if you are just connected to the news and the media after a while you start thinking the whole world is entail chaos. And I took a, I took a break in 2020, I took about two or three weeks, or actually maybe a month and a half away from the media just not obsessing about the news every day, not getting it on my phone, not checking all these different things. Like it’s not like world peace is going to break out and I’m going to miss it. But I have to tell you by taking three weeks or so off, from not engaging in things that I can’t control, I felt much better.

20:34
That’s that’s absolutely it. Absolutely it. And I think that the pandemic gave a lot of people pause to think, and to actually think about what’s important, what really is important, such as who you love your friends. I don’t know whether you remember this. But at the very beginning, Italy was very badly hit and was in a lot, very severe lockdown. And we were getting images of all the Italians standing on their balconies in the big cities in their apartments singing, singing. It was very moving, because it’s the Connect beautiful human connection. So I think a change was happening and people realizing what is actually important. Is we are is our hearts actually and our connection with each other.

21:28
Right? Very well said. So where can people get the book and when is it going to be out and available online or in bookstores.

21:37
So book is called the soul on the sea essential healing for everyday life, it is already in Amazon available to order to preorder Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the usual outlets, you can order it now, it will be released in on the 26th of this month. And I believe in the US it’s the first of June, something like that. And if anybody wants to learn more about my work, or my books, they can also go to my website. And I’m very always very happy to have comments and to write letters to people

22:15
are great. So if people connect to you on your website, you will respond back to them. I would depending on

22:21
what they say. Right?

22:24
Very wise. Well, Benig, it’s wonderful to have you today. And thank you so much for taking time out of your, you know, your schedule, and in the wild Atlantic way. And the west coast of Ireland. Obviously a very beautiful area just talking about it makes me want to go there. Oh, I

22:43
hope that makes sense. Have you never been there?

22:46
We have been my wife and I went back in the 90s. We went to Ireland and we went around and we went we actually went out to the western part of Ireland. But it makes just talking about it in the sea. There’s something very spiritual, very healing and very soothing about just talking about nature. So you’ve got us in a great mood today. And we’re very, very much appreciated. And, and people can get the book and there are tips and there is advice in there. And there’s some strategies on how to get yourself back connected to yourself and to the world around you.

23:25
Yeah. And if I may add up that it’s, it’s because I’ve had that feedback. I’m a poet, you see. So it’s it’s very easy to read. It’s like reading poetry from the west.

23:39
Oh, good. Well, that’s what we need in America, poetry from the west of Ireland. Thank you so much for joining us today. I wish you the greatest success with the book and continued success in your personal journey of healing, and equilibrium, and lifework balance. I think we all need it. I say that for myself. That’s why we do this podcast. It kept connects me with other people and connects us with things that are bigger than ourselves. So thank you so much.

24:10
And thank you all. So thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.

24:15
My pleasure. And by the way, all this material all these links will be in the show notes to Benig’s website to the book, how you can get it a synopsis of the book, and all our different social media platforms as well. So thanks, everybody for joining us for another episode of the Jimmy tingle show. We will see you next week. And we have more wonderful guests coming so stay tuned. Thanks

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