Finding Your Way: Teleocycles

By Bruce Conn

You are on a road. Only you can take your next step. How will you face the challenge before you?
The messages are all around us, we are participating in a world full of meaning and yet we find no meaning. This book will help you find the meaning of your life through the challenges you face.
Life is a highway, even a Golden Road. Are you paying attention to the signs? Finding Your Way points to the struggles and challenges that become steps to your authentic life. Engage in a in-depth study of life’s patterns and how you can find your way and yourself in the struggle.

Only you can take the unique next step of your life. There will be challenges and obstacles; this book can take you through the steps of personal growth to live the life you’ve imagine

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823018456

Bruce Conn

Bruce Conn has practiced as a psychotherapist for over 30 years. A Seminary graduate and licensed as a Marriage and Family therapist, his approach is largely influenced by the self-psychology of Carl Jung. With experience across the spectrum of human struggle, he has worked with old and young, the wealthy and the homeless, addicted professionals and Borderline personalities. In practicing with a wide variety of people groups, he has learned to allow all to find their unique way. Mainly functioning in group and individual settings, Bruce is competent with the full spectrum of emotional and mental problems. He is known in his community as a caring professional with valuable clinical insight. He has been published in magazines and newspapers and is frequently on television providing insight and direction regarding current events. Bruce can be found working to integrate personal growth and relational living.

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© 2023 Bruce Conn. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/24/2024

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1846-3 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1844-9 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1845-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023922461

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Pretest

Teleocycles

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1     Life as a Story

Chapter 2     Dreams

DEPARTURE

Chapter 3     Call to Adventure

Chapter 4     Outside Help

Chapter 5     Refusal

Chapter 6     Crossing the Threshold

Chapter 7     Belly of the Whale

TRAINING

Chapter 8     The Training

Chapter 9     The Monster

Chapter 10   Spiritual Trials or Nine Ways of Guidance

on Your Path of Defeating the Monster

RETURN

Chapter 11   Apotheosis

Chapter 12   The Return

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Early in this trope I mention helpers. I would be remiss if I didn’t begin with gratitude for the many helpers who contributed to my growth and development.

My journey began in the church under the loving guidance of Reverend John Autry and then Reverends John Leonard and Tommy Lee Cone. It would be a deep dive to mention undergrad and graduate level professors like Jack Sheppard, Harold McManus, and Morris Ashcraft. I am also grateful for early Clinical Pastoral Education mentors that included Ramon Ganzarain and Julian Gomez. CPE was anchored by Jerry Jenkins, Don Cabaniss, and Franklin Duncan.

I was introduced to Joseph Campbell through Bill Moyers Power of Myth series. I never met Campbell but was hugely influenced by his writings. I was able to meet and spend some time with Robert Johnson through the Journey into Wholeness conference gatherings.

So many friends to think of in a moment like this. Bob and Jane, Charles and Karen, Rick and Charlotte Eisel, Rick Wilson and Oby Brown. And I must give a shout out to Ross Hardy for so much technical support and encouragement. My compatriots Will Bacon and Chuck Christie listen, reflect and share my journey. Mama and Daddy and siblings were and are my primary, formative school. And I am so grateful for running buddies Phil and Jenny.

Finally, I am grateful to my wife Mary Beth, and children, Andrew, Morley, and MacKenzie because these closest to me are my greatest teachers.

Pretest

1. Consider your life as a story. What would the soundtrack be?

2. Is there a theme to your story or narrative? Would you like to change this?

3. Do you feel like you know who you are and what you want?

4. Are you on a particular path with signs to attain a desired goal?

5. Is your hardest work to show up or to finish?

6. What is your weakest area?

Action: Are you plagued by procrastination or perfectionism? Do you sometimes overwhelm or put others off with your ideas and plans?

Thinking: Do you dig in so deep that you lose sight of the big picture? Do fears plague your desires? Do you feel misunderstood? Do you often feel betrayed?

Feeling: Do hurt feelings sabotage your relationships? Does making others feel good motivate you? How important is the admiration of others? Do you sometimes hear that you are too sensitive? Or maybe you fear you feel too deeply?

Teleocycles

I was on the beach, drawing in the sand, trying to work out some piece of rough graphic art to depict a symbol of the stuff in the story—life’s story, our common story. I was scrawling bicycles, frames, chains, and handlebars into loose assemblages of meaning, something akin to a mandala. Then, the word came.

Teleocycles captures the motion of life. Cycle is easy enough to understand, a going around and around. Teleo, from Greek, captures the idea of completion, perfection, or fulfillment. We all understand the prefix tele in telephone, suggesting that we say a word in one place and it is heard in another. I am trying to describe in teleocycles the ongoing action of life moving toward fulfillment or completion. If we pay attention, we are always finished and never finished every day. The word and this book try to describe the common journey of our lives.

The symbol that seems to capture this word is the curving circle, sometimes recognized as a spiral or the nautilus curve. It is found in Fibonacci’s code and also in the golden ratio. It’s easily brought to mind if you can recall Dorothy’s first steps on the Yellow Brick Road. The path curves around and away, and off we go to Oz!

We live our lives as though it is linear: yesterday, today, then tomorrow. Or we experience life as I am here. What’s next? But we know it’s not that simple, that somehow, life is circular. The Oglala Sioux medicine man Black Elk said, The world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.

We live in seasons. The school year begins and ends. We call graduation a commencement, a beginning, even as it is an end, as we acknowledge the next phase of the cycle. We do ourselves a disservice when we disconnect from the cycles of life. Calendars seem to start at one and count through thirty-one. But as we watch the lunar calendar, we see the new moon, waxing moon, and full moon.

We experience this movement in both a linear and a circular fashion. Life moves forward, and yet it circles. The sun, that god in the sky, perfectly illustrates this. Day breaks with dawn; the sun moves in a straight line through the sky; and it sets at dusk, thus completing, finishing a day. Beginning and completion—linear. And yet, we know it doesn’t move through the sky; indeed, we turn. We are seeing it pass overhead, this fantastic dance of cosmic circles. And we’re along for the ride.

Earth is moving at 1.3 million miles an hour through the universe. And yet, our experience is that we are sitting still. To illustrate this metaphorically, people on a sailboat may look like they are going somewhere; but probably, they are exactly where they want to be. That is, the experience of sailing is the desired end, not the traveling to the destination.

Life moves forward in circles, and teleocycles is a way of capturing this truth. The prefix teleo comes from a Greek word that means a form of completion, last, or ending. And so, as we move through the phases of our lives like the moon moving through its phases, we have the opportunity to learn new things—waxing and waning, growing and culling. We each are moving toward completion. But we are doing it in cycles. You graduate from high school and move on to college. Maybe you even completed a doctorate and know surely you have arrived. But it is only a new beginning. Beginnings and endings—two steps forward and one step back, always heading toward our goal, but the living of life is not in its completion.

A friend just wished me a happy birthday. He said they come around once a year, and though it seems that getting older is a bad thing, he highly recommends it to me. Life is a series of lessons that offer us the opportunity to grow. Each one of these lessons refines us further and makes us into better people. We even have to be careful about the end of life. Folks die mighty quick when they retire and don’t continue to live through hobbies, volunteering, or other interests.

We see an example of growth through life stressors in the movie As Good as It Gets. Jack Nicholson plays a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder. He meets a beautiful waitress, and this stretches him. He is challenged to overcome his deficits in service of having a relationship with her. His desire moves him beyond his own barriers. He sums this up in a toast to her: You make me want to be a better man.

The same theme echoes in the Christian New Testament passage in James 1:2–4. The writer offers that we might find joy when we find ourselves in trials. The trials can bring us to maturity or perfection, as the King James translates. Our first reaction is not joy when we face a challenge. But if we can live from a longer view and carry some hope that this is a good trip, then we can imagine growing stronger and gaining clarity about our mission and ourselves.

And so this journey is a process of moving toward completion, some final version of ourselves that is …what, perfect? Whole? My Christian upbringing taught me that one’s goal is to be saved. And that was it. I learned from an early age that once saved, always saved. My ticket was punched, and I was going to heaven. But I’m not sure that is what Jesus meant. His call was a call to grow, love, and serve, not be finished.

Teleocycles is an effort to describe life as a journey that is always challenging. It develops in richness and meaning throughout the life cycle. And yet, we are pressing on toward a mark that is the next goal. No need to think about what’s after that; today has enough worries for itself.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to harmonize the truth of linear and circular. Hopefully, we’ll be able to hear the music of our own lives that is full and unfinished, complete and unfolding.

Again, in my own religious language, we are saved by grace; and at the same time, faith without works is dead. Saved by grace suggests we find completion or wholeness as a free gift from God. "Faith without works is dead’ suggests that our belief or trust in God for said salvation only has value if we are working or living the life taught by the Teacher. These two important beliefs seem to be in conflict with each other, and yet, they each can stand on their own merit.

Holding this tension of opposites guides our journey. We have arrived, and yet we must work to arrive.

We can integrate the truth that we are already there even as we are trying to get there.

You must be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

The fish is in the Sea

The sea is in the fish.

(Rumi)

Introduction

Chapter 1

Life as a Story

The yesterdays of a thousand ages have made us what

we are, and yet it has given each one the power to

make tomorrow different from all of them.

—C. M. Stevens

W e only have to look down to see we’re already standing on the path. The yellow brick road waits at our feet. It was already there—always there. But we need to take note, become aware of the path, and be clear about direction. We greatly help our journey as we clarify who our helpers are, recognize the signs, and face the challe nges.

The journey always begins with the strangest of inconsequential occurrences: a letter, a tidbit of news, a change of the TV channel, or maybe a night of passion that yields a child. Somehow, the world shifts or changes; and our trajectory is slightly altered, yielding unexpected results and seemingly chance meetings later.

Major events can happen too. Disasters, such as floods and earthquakes, can reorient our lives. The event we Americans call 9/11 altered the assumptions and life stories of many. Fathers and mothers have gone off to war; children have been raised in a household where the family has made major sacrifices in the service of our country. These events can change the basic suppositions that are opposite