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Welcome to another monthly, yet delayed, update where I tell you everything you will learn when you purchase issue 15 of my online magazine You Are Gothic But You Don’t Know It.
For many people, August has probably been a month for harvesting the results of their efforts during the last months or last year and connecting with themselves during their holiday time.
For me, this is also true, although I don’t feel I’ve had much of a holiday since we’ve used this time to clean up our living and working space.
After closing my language school during the COVID-19 pandemic and trying to reinvent myself in the literary and psychological space ever since, I have been avoiding facing lots of material and documents from my past life as a business owner and a language teacher.
This summer, however, my husband and I decided it was time to do this mental and physical cleansing exercise. Not only because our house was cluttered with the remains of a dead business, getting in the way of us moving on to the next phase, but also because it has been a healthy and bonding exercise with our kids.
Between us, we decided what to keep, what to donate and what to ditch forever. There are still things to reorganise, such as the kids’ wardrobe, now that they're going back to school next week, and also finishing decorating their bedrooms. This year they decided it was time to have separate rooms.
In the middle of all this, I still had to write, edit and launch a new issue of my magazine and prepare a webinar that took place on the 24th of August called The Shadowy Truth Behind Modern Horror and Gothic Trends, which I hosted together with my collaborator and friend Tugce Kutlu.
If you missed the webinar you can still watch the recording here:
I have also been working on my one-to-one coaching sessions and offering three free discovery calls to people who are struggling with their life transitions and want to know how to make it successfully to the other side. This offer will run out on the 15th of September, so if this resonates with you, this call may be what you are looking for.
Just click the following link before all the spots disappear:
August Magazine Background
With all the above in mind, issue 15 is built on the Celtic idea of August as a month for the harvest, dedicated to "wisdom and magic" as we can read in The Celtic Wheel Of Time; Christian & Pagan Prayers & Practices for Each Turning Paperback by Meg Llewellyn. That's why chestnut trees, apple trees, and hawthorns acquired great importance during this month.
With this in mind and with what the month of August tends to represent and mean for a lot of people, I picked topics that can help you, not only during that month but also until the middle of September, as you will still be readjusting to the new timetables, if your kids are going back to school and you are going back to work.
As always the magazine is divided into three sections and an ongoing Gothic story that I started writing last year.
The sections are all connected to the Gothic and Jungian psychology and help you:
Create self-awareness
Develop your Critical Thinking
Make the most of your self-expression.
Let’s begin:
Self-awareness
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In the section on self-awareness, this month I tell you about how being grateful for all the good things that happen to you every day, and start seeing results, can all begin with the creation of vision boards.
In this article, I talk about the scientific proof behind vision boards, and how your approach to the way you see your life can have a positive or negative impact on your body and your life projects. This scientific proof comes from the hands of neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dra. Tara Swart Bieber and Marian Rojas Estapé.
I also provide you with a personal example of one of my vision boards and make use of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde to analyse the power of the visuals in Gothic literature characters.
Critical Thinking
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In this article, I tell you what happens in your brain every time you walk into a bookshop and/or a library.
If you listen to what’s behind your reading choices you will find a lot of wisdom and information that you might be misregarding in other contexts.
To support my argument I talk about David Bueno i Torrens, Doctor in Biology and professor and researcher of the Section of Biomedical, Evolutionary and Development Genetics of the University of Barcelona.
He develops the idea that “any learning that has associated emotions is interpreted by the brain as an important factor for survival,” which would explain why you have that feeling of completion or of doing something important after you purchase certain books.
Like in the previous article, I tell you about my own experience with The Interpretation of Dreams by psychologist Sigmund Freud, how this is connected with my journey becoming a student of C.G. Jung, the people he influenced and I give you some tips for you to follow.
Self-Expression
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In this article, I talk to you about a real case study that I carried out with one of my students when I had my language school, and how that study led me to want to study the human psyche to find the core of my student’s language struggles. I also tell you how I ended up using Gothic literature as an excuse to work on the language, and how this helped her, as a side effect, to learn more about herself.
In this article, I also tell you how helping one person had a knock-on effect on other students with similar profiles and how I started creating courses and products after this experience.
Final Thoughts
I hope you have enjoyed this read and that it has got you thinking about your own self-awareness, critical thinking, and self-expression through the Gothic-Jungian lens.
If you want to have the full experience, you can buy this issue by visiting my website Alice In Gothic Land, or by directly purchasing my magazine by clicking here:
If you liked this content, I’d love to hear from you.
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See you next month.
Thanks for reading!
Alice