10Mar2026

On the Importance of Words

March 10, 2026

community, coping skills, embodied, experience, experiential, feelings, human, human experience, humanness, individuation, relationship, self awareness, therapy

On the Importance of Words

Words are hard. So are feelings. A picture is worth 1000 words. How many feelings is it worth? How many feelings is a word worth? I’m not sure those questions have been answered. What is a question worth? Maybe very little if it has a quick answer. But what about the questions that live in us, unanswerable completely? Those are priceless. Can we have a question without words?

I’ve had many such questions in my life. It’s frustrating not to have immediate answers to, but extremely valuable in all the partial answers I’ve found while living the questions and looking for answers. And those questions are formed with words. So are the answers. Well, they do start with a feeling. An impulse. A longing. A somatic experience and an emotion. A question forms with a desire, a curiosity, seeking something missing. An answer with a form. Eventually, both become more solid when we put words to them. And then it all becomes even more solid when the loop reverses direction – that is, we start to live the word, creating more somatic experience and more feelings. They all become integrated into us. One dimension alone, thought, word, intuition, somatic experience, or feeling, is incomplete. All together, they make us whole.

I practiced primarily somatic therapy for the first many years in private practice. It was very important to me as it was a neglected part of my human experience. By prioritizing the soma, we reconnect with the old patterns from early childhood, from before there were words. This can be an important and necessary part of therapy for many people. But it’s not just early childhood. Every time we have a new experience, it starts in the body and with feeling, which is some sort of valuation of that experience, and it takes us time to make sense of what the experience is, how we feel about it, and what we think about it. Further, we need to differentiate feelings. Many stay stuck in the simple notion that if something feels good, it is good, and if it feels bad, it is bad. It takes words and thought to make that happen. Without words and thoughts, it stays unconscious. An unexplainable mystery.

Images are powerful. In our modern age, we are bombarded with billions of images every day on our various screens. Each of these images creates experiences in our bodies that we are mostly unconscious of. Do you feel erotic charge with some images? Or lightness and whimsy with others? Do you ever cringe when you watch someone being hit in a TV show or movie? What about the examples of war, violence, and brutality shown on the news every day? Do you feel those things, or do you numb them and tune them out? Keeping them at a distance on the screen and in a location far, far away? Or perhaps even more challenging, do you experience them as if they were happening to you right now, unable to differentiate that you are currently safe and it is happening to someone else, somewhere else, at some other time?

Putting words to the experience helps bring clarity, definition, and separation from the raw, primal experience so that we can make sense of it. If we never take the step of putting words to our experience, it remains primarily unconscious and can continue to drive further thoughts, feelings, and behaviors without our awareness. Just as a baby learns to differentiate itself from its mother and eventually expresses its feelings and experiences in words, this is a necessary developmental step in everything we experience in life.

Just like the gluttony of images, we are also bombarded with words every day. Some of us more than others, depending on our profession, but regardless, more words than we can completely consciously register and digest. That is part of why we don’t recognize the power of words or images. They are common, ordinary, and present in an overabundance. They are easy to overlook and dismiss, but as Bob Marley sang (paraphrasing a bible verse), “The stone that the builder refuse, will always be the head cornerstone.” What we want to overlook, because it is common, ordinary, and found everywhere, can actually be the most important part of what we are building. In fact, one of the core principles of Alchemy is that the things we want to reject the most are actually the most vital ingredients of our transformation.

Words, of course, can bring more confusion because your definition of a word and my definition of a word might be slightly different, even if we read the same dictionary definition, but eventually, they bring us closer to clarity. Especially when, in a relational interaction, we can continue to use words to explore our mutual understanding and come as close as possible to an authentic connection that may or may not involve sameness but might also make room for difference. When it stays within the realm of feeling or somatic experience that isn’t discussed, there might be a felt sense of connection, but it’s often an illusion arising from unconscious projections and assumptions. Once we start to talk about it, we may realize that while we feel connected because we might be feeling the same things, the way we interpret it and the sense we make of it might be vastly different. People may not want to talk about it because they would prefer the illusion of connection, but a deeper connection is possible when these things are clarified, and both people’s perspectives and positions are valued.

Using words with the stance of compassion, curiosity, and empathy brings us authentic connection and interpersonal subjectivity. In my opinion, that’s the only way out of this increasingly intensely divisive world we are living in. Using words disconnected from any sense of feeling is a tool for distancing rationality, or, at worst, for manipulation. I think this is why words sometimes get a bad rap. While words can bring us closer, words can also divide and distance us. It is all about the words we use and the feelings they evoke in the people who deliver and receive them.

We are simultaneously both all the same as humans and vastly different, even within easily perceived categories such as gender, skin, color, education, political affiliation, ethnicity, etc. In any given moment, we prioritize sameness or difference, which has the cost of excluding the other. When we focus on our sameness, we forget our differences. When we focus on our differences, we forget our sameness. It’s actually a defensive maneuver: choosing to prioritize sameness or difference. We combat our aloneness by focusing on sameness, and we protect ourselves by separation, focusing on our differences. Using words to talk about our thoughts, feelings, and experiences enables us to dance together, moving in and out of our differences and sameness into a more accurate reality and a more authentic relationship that honors both.

Due to the glut of images, the speed of life, and countless digital connections, it’s rare to slow down and take the time to put words to our experience. We reply with an emoji, assuming we know exactly what we mean by it and that the other person will receive our message. Does that really happen? Like pictures, each emoji and GIF can have 1000 meanings. What meaning is received? Usually, whatever meaning the person wants to make of it, it carries the illusion of being effective, but I’m not so sure we’re actually communicating the same message. We wouldn’t actually know unless we ask and talk about it.

I’ve been offering groups I call “Tending the Waters of Psyche and Soul” to invite us into this process of navigating the relationship between self, other, and the archetypal images in our lives. We work with the images that come to us in our dreams and through our screens to explore the feelings, somatic experiences, and meanings that arise in our lives. And we do it in community because each of us has an important piece of the puzzle that our isolated, limited individual perspectives can only grasp a small part alone.

Admittedly, as powerful as this group work is, it is still slow. We can assume we understand the message in a big, intense experience, but I’m not sure we do if we can’t put words to it. It takes time to unpack, process, digest, metabolize, and use that as fuel to change our lives and live differently. But perhaps slowness is exactly the medicine we need in our manic times. For me, taking time to find the words can be a humbling experience. The right words don’t seem to come; I don’t know the right words. I may misunderstand the meaning of the word, leading me to feel stupid. I’m confronted with my limitations and inadequacies. When I try a word, it doesn’t feel quite right. I feel alone and disconnected while struggling to find the right words from deep in my psyche. But the effort is worth it. Because words are a perspective. A standpoint. A lens through which to look at the situation and develop a connection or relationship to it. It’s only through finding our words that we can truly change something. Otherwise, we continue to live through the same unconscious patterns. There is a reason that when magic was a thing, it was invoked with words. Finding the right words casts a spell. A spell that can change us, others, or the situation.

In Harry Potter, a boggart takes on the form of what the person fears most. To neutralize the boggart, it required a combination of somatic, emotional, and mental activity. Remus Lupin explains, “The charm that repels a boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing. We will practice the charm without wands first. After me, please … riddikulus!” The boggart is immortal. You can’t kill it, but you can recognize what it is, and using the power of the word, calling it what it is, while somatically pointing your wand, feeling a feeling of amusement, mentally picturing something amusing, and calling it what it really is – “ridiculous”, you can change its form.

Over and over again in life, we will have feelings and face difficult things. We can’t escape that. But we can study ourselves, we can study history, we can study words, and we can call things by what they truly are, using the power of words. Not just empty words, but words imbued with feeling, with soma, and with imagination. Just as in Harry Potter, we often project our greatest fears and unconscious, unspeakable patterns, which appear to us as monsters – usually in another person. But when we name them, they lose the power to harm us. Speaking the unspeakable thoughts, feelings, fantasies, and experiences is a key ingredient in the transformation of our psyche, soul, and ego. Speaking words is a vital part of being human that can’t be replaced. No other creature on the planet communicates with words. Words make us human, make us whole, and help us become masters over our lives and psyche, especially when paired with emotion, imagination, relationship, and somatic experience.

Chuck Hancock, M.Ed., LPC, LMHC, is a licensed psychotherapist and Analytic Psychology Training Candidate practicing in Colorado and New York, guiding individuals, couples, and groups into greater wholeness. Inner Life Adventures.

5Feb2026

Pluribus Carol emphatically grabbing a doctor

What Pluribus Reveals About Us

February 5, 2026

[email protected]

Archetypal, community, feelings, group, growth, human experience, individuation, Movies and TV, personal growth, relationship

If you have not yet watched season one of Pluribus, go do it. I’ll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, focusing on the archetypal patterns we are all facing today. You really should go watch it for yourself and do your own reflection. This is written after the end of season one, so some plot points may change as more episodes are released.

Show synopsis: “In a world overtaken by a mysterious wave of forced happiness, Carol Sturka, one of the immune few, must uncover what’s really going on – and save humanity from its artificial bliss.”

It begins in a remote place. With people really hungry to discover something. They asked what it means when the day comes that they finally discover something. They are excited in their frantic efforts to decode it. They are clueless about the danger that is in store.

Not too long after, suddenly, everybody in the world is now “all one.” All except 12 random people scattered across the world who are somehow immune to “the turning” to join the collective hive mind. Much like our digital hive mind, which has been rapidly growing over the last 30 years, everyone in the collective has access to everyone else’s knowledge. Suddenly, everyone knows literally everything and how to do everything, including medical procedures and flying airplanes.

Most interestingly, the collective is very nice. They give the 12 survivors literally anything and everything they want. All they want in return is for the remaining 12 to consent to join the collective. They honor their sovereignty, but they do want them to join them.

The number 12 symbolizes completeness and cosmic order, often associated with significant concepts such as the 12 months of the year, 12 signs of the zodiac, and 12 disciples. It represents a balance of energies, including the combination of masculine and feminine traits. Perhaps an indication that the 12 foundational archetypes are still present in the world and will be available to correct the situation, despite the catastrophic leveling that occurs.

The main character, Carol, is a reluctant, chaotic, alcoholic hero who wants to save the world and restore it to its former state. At first motivated by her grief and loss, which eventually gave way to loneliness. She begins befriending the collective and settling into the new normal. Eventually, though, she recognizes all that is lost and the moral problems obscured by the collective’s kindness, and she starts to investigate, discover, and analyze everything she can about them, hoping to find a way to set things straight.

Of the other 12, we one meet a few in any detail. Each is practically a one-dimensional archetypal character. Carol initially tries to recruit them to help her restore the world. None of them is willing to help; each of them is content, now that the collective willingly gives them everything they have ever wanted. Getting everything we want causes complacency. Why would we want to give up having what we most want? One guy exemplifies this the most clearly. He is a man-child, enjoying the luxuries of material riches, private jumbo jets, luxury penthouse suites, beautiful women, and parties.

Another woman still has her son (in appearance only, he is part of the collective), and won’t help because she believes her only role is to mother him. She calls Carol angrily whenever something happens that upsets him. When the only goal is not to upset the children, we miss key aspects of development that are necessary for the maturation of both parents and children. It’s even more striking commentary as an image when we recognize that the mother only wants to possess her child and not ever upset him, and that he is not an individual person with his own dreams and purpose that are being cultivated, he is unable to think or feel for himself and only plays a role that the mother and the collective demand of him.

Each of us is a complex person, not an archetype. We hold many roles, many ways of being in the world. Whenever we are reduced to a one-dimensional archetype, we are possessed, unable to access the rest of our humanity. A mother is much more than a mother, a father is much more than a father, and a worker is much more than a worker. We have to recognize when we are being reduced to an archetype, or when we willingly claim one, because it limits our consciousness and potential actions and cuts us off from our wholeness.

Towards the end of the season, one character, Manousos, who initially refuses contact, eventually becomes the only one willing to help save the world when Carol has fallen into her own contentment to combat her loneliness and grief. He refuses all food and contact, sacrificing greatly to clearly define the situation and make a plan to fight the collective takeover. Only after emerging from a paranoid, withdrawn seclusion does he decide to join Carol, recognizing he can’t do it alone.

An extreme masculine archetype, he demonstrates rigidity, sticking to his beliefs and values, which strengthens his conviction and mission, but he is unable to relate to Carol and her care and relatedness to people, and is therefore ineffective. He has to soften and learn to relate to her. He wants to just kill everyone to solve the problem, but Carol, in her feminine Eros, still cares about the people underneath the collective brainwashed hive mind and wants to find a more subtle and skilled way to end the collective takeover and save as many people as possible. His values and convictions help snap Carol out of her slide into joining. Her relationality helps him recognize his extreme aggression. They don’t trust each other, but they need each other.

The show’s name, “Pluribus,” is part of the phrase, “e pluribus unum,” a Latin motto of the United States found on the Great Seal of the United States and all printed currency, which means ‘out of many, one’. The show is an excellent example dangers of the current misinterpretation of the phrase. The phrase was not intended to mean out of many – same. The founders of the US used the phrase to describe the joining of the 13 independent, distinct, individual colonies into a stronger alliance. As I have written about in previous articles on Individuation and groups, groups of people are stronger and richer when diverse individuals enter into healthy relationships and alliances. Much like a band, orchestra, or American football team, where everyone has different skills and different roles, something beautiful is created that would not be possible if everyone were the same. Yet, that is exactly how our culture has been moving – into sameness rather than relating through differences. Pluribus beautifully illustrates the sinister moral problems masked by sameness and kindness, exploiting people’s need to belong and avoid loneliness.

The show is beautifully written to illustrate how collective thought, behavior, and assumptions, as well as our own personal emotions, needs, wants, and desires, can guide us into extremely unhealthy positions and trap us there. It’s one of the many ways in which modern therapy has misguided us into prioritizing our personal feelings and needs. Some people and therapists even go so far as to believe that our personal feelings, needs, and beliefs are truths that others must abide by. The show also illustrates what happens when we take things at face value. What others say and show may look and sound good, but we always have to balance that with our own understanding of our own motivations, feelings, values, and morality. Our work is not to mindlessly join any collective thought based on how it sounds, appears, or feels, but rather to develop our own understanding, our own compass, and our own position while maintaining healthy relationality with others. It is not easy. The collective’s desire to consume and absorb others is strong and aligns perfectly with our wounds around belonging, isolation, and loneliness.

Again, here is the show synopsis: “In a world overtaken by a mysterious wave of forced happiness, Carol Sturka, one of the immune few, must uncover what’s really going on – and save humanity from its artificial bliss.”

Where have you experienced forced happiness or artificial bliss? Maybe you have even been told to be grateful, to count your blessings, to look on the bright side, and not to be such a downer by well-meaning friends, family, coaches, or therapists. And when and how do we cling to what little bits of happiness and bliss we experience, like every character in the show except Manousos? Don’t misunderstand me, it is important to be grateful and happy for things that warrant those feelings. And we can’t neglect our duty to “uncover what’s really going on.” At least in ourselves and our own lives. Not to just get excited by a new discovery as they do at the beginning of the show, but to take the time to discover what it really is and what the consequences may be. Manousos does take the time to discover what is really going on, but he too neglects an important part of the equation. This is a lesson too for what happens when we cling so rigidly to our ideals that we lose the ability to be relatable and cooperate with others, a much-needed skill to tackle problems in the world beyond our own personal lives.

We’ll see where Vince Gilligan takes the show in the future. But from my vantage point at this moment, Pluribus is a fantastic story of individuation and the development of individual character in relation to the collective. In individuation, all the characters are transformed by their unique souls’ needs. Carol is an engaged public figure, successful but not fulfilled in her career, just going through the motions. She wrestles with her own grief and clings to the past, temporarily falling for the seduction of getting what she wants, and eventually coming back to navigate what is best for both her and the world based on what she can offer. Manousos has to move out of his isolated, withdrawn position and learn to relate to someone who is completely different in culture and gender to form a healthy partnership that will fulfill both of them in their mission and individuation. Individuation – development into a whole, healthy presence in the world is different for everyone.

As with any great story, we can ask, who are we most like in the story, and where in the story are we? Are we like Carol? Manousos? Any random person in the collective? Identified with the mother archetype, man-child playboy archetype? Or any other one-dimensional archetypes illustrated, such as public figures, doctors, nurses, consumers, managers, loyal friends, or nameless, featureless extras? With careful reflection and an earnest desire to see ourselves, Pluribus offers a rich mirror for us in our current times.