27 Suzanne L'Heureux: Jungian life coach

Suzanne L'Heureux, Diving Deep Coaching, is a certified Master Jungian Life Coach with specialized training in Mindfulness Coaching and Positive Intelligence. For the last two decades, Suzanne has been on a psychospiritual path of awakening, rooted in Buddhism and mindfulness practices, while studying with several spiritual teachers, most notably, Jennifer Welwood. This path continues to inspire her personal growth and self-realization. 

Suzanne’s coaching approach merges Jungian psychology with Eastern spirituality, offering a unique blend of psychological insight and spiritual wisdom. She is also a lead mentor in the CreativeMind University Jungian Life Coach training program.

Suzanne is the author of Letting Your Shadow In: A Mindfulness Deck for Exploring Big Emotions (in collaboration with People I've Loved), and the forthcoming Letting Your Shadow In journal.

Diving Deep Coaching
www.divingdeepcoaching.com

Mindfulness deck
www.peopleiveloved.com/products/letting-your-shadow-in
 

Kathie's note: I came across Suzanne through CreativeMornings. She has led at least two of their FieldTrips on shadow work. Fascinating. One of her lines I wrote in my notes was this gem:

“When we deny our shadow qualities we give them more power.” 

(cough-choke-sputter-cough) Do what? 

Oh yeah, and that the goal of shadow work is integration. Whew, boy. 
 
I loved everything Suzanne says in her workshops and in this podcast episode. She’s super smart and down to earth. Pretty impressive combination, that. And her last name means "the happy"!

Writers Rotation intro/outro recorded at Dynamix Productions in Lexington, Kentucky.

Transcript

Suzanne [00:00:00]:
I'm Suzanne L’Heureux. I'm a Jungian life coach, and writing is a way for me to understand things.

Intro:
Hi. Welcome to the Writer's Rotation podcast. I'm your host, Kathie Stamps. I love words and writing and people and talking, so I'm talking to people who write all kinds of things in different professions. It's a Writer's Rotation.

Kathie Stamps [00:00:22]:
Suzanne, how are you? 

Suzanne L'Heureux:
I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. 

Kathie:
Yes! Which came first, your study of Carl Jung or interest in shadow work?

Suzanne:
My study of Jung came first. Yes. I mean, maybe I was already doing shadow work a little bit, and I didn't actually know it until I started studying him. You know, welcoming parts of myself that I had rejected and trying to learn to meet myself with greater compassion and seeking wholeness and being on a path of growth and discovery, without knowing that some of the things that I was doing were maybe aligned with Jung's work.

Kathie:
Did you study psychology in college?

Suzanne:
I didn't. I actually have a master's in art history.

Kathie:
Oh, I love this. We go from art to psychology.

Suzanne:
Yes. And my undergraduate degree was in in fine arts. Actually, I was a sculpture major.

Kathie:
Oh! Okay, does sculpture have different mediums, or is it always clay?

Suzanne:
Oh, it has many mediums. In fact, I rarely used clay. I didn't use very traditional materials. I used a lot of found objects and built structures and installation spaces, so it was kind of experiential.

Kathie:
Interesting.

Suzanne:
I did have to learn the more traditional things. You know, I did learn different kinds of mold making and working in clay and plaster and that kind of thing, But that was not a primary medium for me.

Kathie [00:01:41]:
That is so cool. Do you still art?

Suzanne:
No. Not really. I actually, so I've gone on since then, I went on to get my master's in art history as I mentioned. And so I mostly just spent time writing about art and also teaching art history at the college level for many years, for almost 20 years, I think. And then I also ran a small, contemporary alternative art space for about 9 years in my neighborhood and showed work by local artists and curated the shows and basically did everything, because it was just me running the operation along with the artists.

Kathie:
I love it. Art history, who's the earliest that you taught?

Suzanne:
When I got my master's in art history, my focus was, actually, so I went to a feminist art history program, and I was interested in studying art history from a feminist perspective. And so my master's thesis was about abstract expressionism and about the gendering of the act of painting. Painting had already always been seen as a male pursuit. But when the act of painting itself became the subject, that got talked about in very gendered terms, very masculine terms.

Suzanne:
That was something that I explored in my master's thesis. But when I was teaching art history, the class that I taught was a massive survey class that went from basically impressionism all the way up to the 21st century. 

Kathie: Let's spend the next 8 hours talking about art!

Suzanne:
So that was my background before I decided to become a life coach and got interested in Jung.

Kathie [00:03:09]:
That's so fabulous because art is the expression of the soul, and now you're working with the soul directly.

Suzanne:
Beautiful. Thank you for making that connection. Absolutely.

Kathie:
Yes. Life coaching. How did this come about?

Suzanne:
I was looking for something new, but I wasn't quite sure what it was. And it's interesting because the process that I was going through, I've now come to understand, is something that is really common for people in midlife who I I primarily work with people in midlife, and that there is this call, you know, where we start feeling like we want to live more deeply and we want to live more in alignment with who we really are. I went to this program called the Mindfulness Coaching School, but I think I thought it was more about spiritual coaching, and it really was more about mindfulness practices with within coaching. And that wasn't really exactly what I wanted to do. I was more interested in something deeper in terms of helping people in, like, their spiritual growth journey, the journey of self-actualization and living as the true self. And I wound up doing all the classwork that you had to do for that program, but then deciding not to get my accreditation through them and wound up finding out about this Jungian Life Coach Training Program through an organization called Creative Mind University. And when I read about it, I was just it was perfect for me because it actually merges, it teaches a model of coaching that merges Jungian psychology with eastern spiritual practices. And that spoke very deeply to me because I had worked for, you know, 10 years working with different teachers. One spiritual teacher in particular, with a kind of Buddhist psychospiritual path of awakening and, going to retreats and doing that work. So this program really merged, you know, two approaches that felt really rich to me in terms of how I could support people on their journey and also just was stuff that I really wanted to learn more about for my own path of awakening.

Kathie:
And never ending learning.

Suzanne:
Oh, yeah. I used to love to read fiction, and all I ever read anymore is books about psychology and spirituality.

Kathie [00:05:06]:
Carl Jung was interested in astrology.

Suzanne:
That's true. I don't know much about astrology, I have to say, but I am interested in different symbolic ways of understanding ourselves. I use runes, and I know a lot of people who are really into tarot and a lot of Jungian cultures use tarot in their practice.

Kathie:
I wanted to get a minor in psychology, but there was that class in statistics and, you know, I don't really do math. But I was always fascinated with Carl Jung. He studied under Freud. And then his, was it four archetypes? Was that the precursor to the Myers Briggs assessment?

Suzanne:
Yes. His model, of understanding not even necessarily just the archetypes, but actually understanding the difference between extroverts and introverts. I could be wrong, but I think he was the first person to explore that idea.

Kathie:
It's how you process when you have a challenge or you have a situation. Do you need to talk it out with someone, or do you just go deeply within? Is that more the extrovert and introvert?

Suzanne:
That's how I understand it. I don't actually kind of use those categorizations that much in my work with my clients, but that is definitely how I understand it.

Kathie [00:06:12]:
It sounds like this shadow work and accepting all of integrating all of the parts of yourself is very similar to the IFS?

Suzanne:
Yes.

Kathie:
Internal Family…

Suzanne:
Systems. They're different models, but they do have similarities in the sense that there's this idea that we have these inner voices that are, you know, different parts of our self. But we don't in Jungian psychology, we don't necessarily talk to these different parts and name these different parts and but I think they complement each other very well for sure.

Kathie [00:06:41]:
Okay. And what type of clients gravitate toward you? Are they the creatives or the business or both? I mean, I think

Suzanne:
the kind of coaching that I'm doing speaks to people who are in all kinds of different fields because it's really more about people who are feeling called. And as I mentioned, specifically working with people in midlife who are feeling that call to live more deeply and to discover who they really are and overcome their conditioning and their ego driven identities so that they can expand into a more powerful and integrated version of themselves and, you know, live the second half of life in a deeper, you know, more authentic way.

Kathie [00:07:19]:
How does writing factor into that? We have your journaling, which I'm assuming is very important.

Suzanne:
Yes. Of course. Journaling dream journaling is very important. I don't always get my clients to do it, but I try to encourage them to because I think keeping track of our dreams is very can be a very empowering and very interesting and informative way of getting information about ourselves. It's funny. I do so much different kind of writing because I am an entrepreneur as well. I'm trying to be a life coach and I have to promote my work. I have to, you know, do that in a lot of different formats. So it's like I have a blog, I have the newsletter, I have social media posts. There's all these different ways that I'm using writing and then thinking about how I can convey these complex concepts of the work that I'm doing in these different ways to support people, to offer resources to people, but then also to hopefully inspire them to want to work with me. I love to write as a way of understanding things. I think that's how I've always loved to write. And it's like when I'm taking in so much information and it's all in my head and it's not always, like, totally clear how all the different connections, but I'm kinda like seeing this web of connections. When I write, it enables me to start making those connections. And I was actually just doing some writing about thinking about the connections between Joseph Campbell's work and Carl Jung's work.

Suzanne [00:08:40]:
When I was in college, my dad taught a class called the inner journey, and it was based on Joseph Campbell's work, the story of the hero's journey and all that. And so I've kind of been relating to Jung and the idea of the path of individuation and self-realization ever since then, but I didn't even know it, at the time. So I've been kind of like, oh, that's interesting. I actually my dad planted these seeds in my head a long time ago, and I want to think more about, you know, the connections and all that. And writing to, you know, help communicate complex ideas so that my clients and my audience can understand them in a way that's relatable is something that I really enjoy doing, and then it also helps kind of integrate that information into me as well. For example, on my blog recently, I wrote about the golden shadow. Oh. Because a lot of people think about the shadow as only being like the darker sides of ourselves and the parts of ourselves that, you know, we push away because we think of them as bad. But sometimes it's also just that we were afraid to embody them. Wow. And maybe even like we could have been a performer or an artist, but those expressive qualities weren't valued in our family when we were young. And so we learned to repress them and turn towards something more practical, you know, as, you know, as, might have been viewed by our family. And so the golden shadow is our hidden strengths and our creative potential, just our potential in general. So I'm very interested in that idea that we, you know, that also within shadow are these radiant qualities that maybe we've been afraid to claim for ourselves and integrate into who we are. And so I I wanted to explore that idea more. And so by writing about it for my blog, it becomes a way for me to tackle the ideas and get more familiar with them myself, but also then communicate them to other people.

Kathie [00:10:24]:
That's very cool. I also just heard you say that we get screwed over in so many different ways as we're growing up.

Suzanne:
Well, I mean, the way that the shadow gets formed is through our conditioning as children, and it's by our parents and our cultures and our teachers and our peers. We learn information about what is okay and what's not okay and how to behave. And in order to fit in and survive because we all want to belong, we suppress certain qualities. You know? We form our personalities around the qualities that we think are going to gain acceptance and help us to fit in, and that's called our persona. And everything else gets repressed into the shadow.

Kathie [00:11:02]:
What did reading and writing look like when you were growing up?

Suzanne:
I read a lot. I have a lot of memories of reading books and just really getting lost in my books. And the only funny memory that came up of 1 night, like, reading late into the night in my bed was reading The Shining. And being terrified. That was uncommon. I didn't I didn't commonly read horror, books. I I more I was you know, I read Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou and Margaret Atwood. I think those are people I was reading in in high school and college.

Kathie:
Good for you.

Suzanne:
My mom was a writer and a reader. So she taught English and she never really published anything, but she did a lot of her own writing. She did a, like, several of her own collections of short stories, and she was an avid reader. So, you know, she recommended books to me all the time.

Kathie [00:11:51]:
Yeah. You kinda grew up in it. Good for you. Are you writing a manuscript of some sort?

Suzanne:
Well, I have lots of ideas, so I'm working on a lot of blog posts. So I'm starting to realize that what I want to do more is start writing articles, and I there are a few venues out there that I've been thinking of that would be well matched for the kind of writing that I want to do. And so I'm thinking more about kind of compiling a lot of the writing that I've been doing and doing that kind of writing, so I can reach a wider audience. I also did create a deck, a mindfulness deck, for exploring your shadow with this wonderful artist, Carissa Potter Carlson, who has a project called People I've Loved. And so I created all the content and then they did all the design. And so you can get the deck from them, but it's a mindfulness deck that has 19 prompts for exploring your shadow and 19 mindfulness exercises. And the idea behind that is that, you know, shadow work can be kind of upsetting because we're stirring up a lot of stuff from our childhood, and we're talking about insights about things that we pushed away and how that has impacted us in our life. And so the idea is that you can kind of do a shadow prompt, but then balance it with one of these mindfulness exercises to kind of ground yourself in the present moment and get that kind of internal support for the work. That was an interesting, you know, writing project to think about. Like, how do I present these prompts? And it's in a deck so people could shuffle it all around, so it had to work in a way that, you know, didn't have to go in order. There are insights and affirmations throughout. So it was kind of like, oh, well, hopefully, after people have read through all of throughout. So it was kind of like, oh, well, hopefully, after people have read through all of these prompts and looked at all of these different insights and affirmations, they might have a pretty good sense of what the shadow is in shadow work. But it wasn't like I can say it in a really linear way. How did you settle on 19? Well, you know, I think we wanted it to be like a deck of cards, 52 cards. So there's, like, 19 shadow prompts, 19 mindfulness activities, and then I think it's, like, 9 probably not doing the math right, but, like, 9 insights and 9 affirmations or something like that. The hardest, most challenging thing about it is that the cards are small. And so you have to, like, really condense the information in a way that it can still have, like, potency and be impactful, but also fit really nicely design wise on the card. So that was an interesting challenge.

Kathie [00:14:11]:
Yeah. I think there are two kinds of writers, builders and sculptors. And a builder goes from scratch. Oooh, blank page! And the sculptor takes all the stuff and whittles it down.

Suzanne:
I'm somewhere in between, I feel. What I do like to do is what I would describe as building because I like to just I've really gotten comfortable now with having something be very messy and rough with a lot of, like, movable text that just keeps getting moved around as I kind of think through relationships and flow and then developing one little area. But then later, that area winds up going at the beginning and, you know, and then I think there is a whittling process, of course, that winds up having to happen.

Kathie [00:14:50]:
Yep. What about handwriting versus computer?

Suzanne:
Computer, for sure. I love the ability to move around text on the computer. Although sometimes I do like to work just at first just to kind of just do, like, more of, like, a stream of consciousness kind of thinking about what I want to do in my journal so that I can just get the ideas out. But, you know, it's funny. I heard someone say that you do your best thinking in the shower, and I think that's true for me. I oftentimes, if I'm struggling with my writing and, like, how I want to put things together or what I want to say, I'll be like, I'm just gonna take a shower and think about it in the shower. And somehow it really helps.

Kathie [00:15:24]:
Oh, that's fun. Honey, we need a swimming pool. I need to do more water!

Suzanne:
I do want to mention that in addition to that that deck that I made, I'm actually working with people I've loved on creating a journal now. Oh. So it's going to be a lot of the same prompts, but with space for writing. And because it's now a book, I'm able to put the information together in a more linear way. So it's been a kind of an interesting process of going from the deck to now bringing a lot of that information back together and into this other form.

Kathie [00:15:52]:
Oh, that's very cool.

Suzanne:
Yeah. And they are doing the design work. You know? And it's been really helpful actually working with Carissa because she's more relaxed about it's okay to let this not be so explicit. And that can be hard for me to, like, allow things to just have a little bit more openness and without trying so hard to make sure they understand it in a particular way. And it's kind of necessary when you have less space and, you know, you're thinking about design elements as well because she's an artist and the work is really, you know, designed in a particular style.

Kathie [00:16:24]:
That's very cool. And do you want to write a book one day?

Suzanne:
I do. I mean, I have so many ideas for books I want to write. So I'm just kind of just letting myself be really in this work and, enjoying the process of coaching, the learning and growth that's coming from the experience of coaching. But also, you know, one thing I love about doing this is it's like, I'm constantly reading books, as I mentioned, and it's, you know, so many different kinds of psychology and spirituality books. And what I love now is that now that I'm a life coach, when I'm doing that, it's not only supporting me on my own journey, but it's helping support me in having more resources to support others. And so it's been this incredible thing where it's like it's not only supporting me, but then I can become like a conduit for that and, like, bringing it into the lives of my clients. And so I'm not really sure. I have some ideas, but I'm not sure really sure, you know, where it's going, and I'm kind of just trusting that something's going to come out of this.

Kathie [00:17:18]:
Power of books. Yeah. That's amazing. What is midlife to you, and how did you pick that for targeting your clients?

Suzanne:
Well, I think a midlife could be anywhere from 30 to 65. So I have a pretty broad definition of it. And I think what it really is, is it's that middle period of life that can sometimes come younger for people, but that period where we start to be called on our journey to go deeper and go more inward on our spiritual path. And so, you know, Jung beautifully talks about midlife as this phase that where that is actually the purpose of our of that phase of our life. He says that the first phase of our life is developing a healthy ego, and the second phase is letting go of it.

Kathie [00:18:03]:
Wow.

Suzanne:
He also talks about how, you know, midlife is a time to overcome an over dominant ego in order to go deeper and contemplate the, you know, spiritual significance of human life. So this idea that this is a rich phase of our life that is actually intended, you know, we of course know about the midlife crisis, so to speak, where people start feeling stuck and confused and, you know, dissatisfied. And that can play out in a lot of different ways, unfortunately, because if we're just letting our ego guide us, we might wind up repeating a lot of the same patterns and a lot of the same mistakes. And but if we really heed that call, what it is, that kind of inner discontent is that it's calling us into a deeper life. And that was something that Jung believed and, you know, and the and what it calls us into is the path of individuation, which is the psychological journey that Jung talks about and that I use as the model from working with my clients is the journey of self-realization and becoming whole by welcoming in and integrating the different parts of ourselves that we've pushed away and that are repressed into the unconscious so that we can, yeah, just become whole human beings and live authentically as our true selves. There's so much I want to write about. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. I have, like, so many pages and pages of ideas.

Kathie:
I know. It's crazy.

Suzanne:
I know! And then I'm just like, okay. I just need to start writing. I just gotta write one of these.

Kathie [00:19:28]:
There you go. Yes. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Suzanne:
My pleasure. Thank you for asking me. Take care. Bye.

Outro [00:19:37]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of writer's rotation. Like and subscribe for more. And remember, writing is a marketable skill. Smiling is a remarkable skill.