I first met Marc Bregman in the summer of 1996, early evening of an oppressively muggy day, as I recall. He had an office in Montpelier at the time and still does, but that inaugural therapy session took place at his home, north of Stowe, where he routinely schedules clients during what most of us might consider off-hours. Even that location irked me a little, preferring a more neutral site, something less intimate, as though I didn’t even want to know where he lived. Looking around that office while he barked maintenance instructions through an open window to his step-son, I judged it as tiny rather than cozy, disheveled rather than unassuming. Expecting walls boldly displaying pedigree, I found instead mementoes, client artwork, cheesy knick-knacks staring down at me from cluttered shelves. What little floor space there was seemed entirely occupied by a panting Alaskan Malamute, obviously agitated by the heat, no idea how far he was from his native environment. He got up, sniffed my leg inquisitively, too inquisitively. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to bite or befriend me. Either way, his presence left me unnerved, irritated, until finally he slumped back down on the floor, sighing ambivalently, his head on my foot.
In those three or four minutes, there were dozens of entries into the log of my swirling cranium—“What in the world are you doing here? Who is this short, portly, shaggy-bearded shyster? Is it too late to run? Look what your life has become, stooping to this sort of hocus-pocus…There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re going to trust this guy, tell him secrets? And to what end?...blah, blah, blah.” I was there though, and it was too late to run, in many more ways than one.
Indeed it was late, very late. I was forty-four years old, lost and alone in this world, morose, desperate, even suicidal. Of course I had almost no conscious awareness of any of that at the time. I thought I was doing alright, all things considered, with one glaring exception—I hadn’t been able to find the right woman. Prepared to make one and only one hedged concession, that I might have been in some small way unwittingly complicit in disabling that search for Ms. Right, I was there in that stifling space in that white clapboard house armed with a highly specific and well-defined agenda. Marc was about to be duly notified of his charge—to fix me, and fast, such that the search for my fantasy woman might resume, this time unimpeded, cleansed of whatever it was that was muddying the waters.
As it turned out, my waters were indeed muddy, yet perhaps no more so than most of us. In fact, I’ve yet to meet the person who hasn’t fallen drastically from grace, who hasn’t become lost, blindly disoriented in the maze that is our outer-worldy quest for success and happiness. Many people, of course, are highly proficient in this arena, capable of presenting such finely honed personas that they even appear real, fit perfectly, and the rest of us seem predisposed to admiring that, applauding it. They might even believe it themselves, believe in their own capabilities to go it alone, but I don’t. I can’t anymore. What I’ve come to believe instead is this, that one and only one way exists to truly live my life these days—in the company of the Divine. All else is betrayal, debilitating self-deception, playacting falsely in the guise of my multi-faced false self.
Of course this is easy to say, and hardly revolutionary territory. Spiritual leaders all through the ages have spoken of this crucial distinction, of the need to be with the Divine and none other. But how do we do that? That’s the piece that somehow eludes us, particularly given our very human penchant for pathological self-deception? And if the realm of the Divine is both mysterious and non-rational, then how do we even know when we’re on the path that leads to the road that leads to that great and wondrous city? What are the directions and who can hear them above the cacophony of all those voices in our heads, all clambering and blabbering their so-called good advice. And, perhaps even more fundamentally than that, how in the world do we go about cleansing ourselves?
Such is the miracle of the process that has come to be known as “the dreamwork” to many of us. Because this Jungian-inspired archetypal therapy that Marc Bregman began practicing some thirty years ago is all about rooting out and cleansing us of our pathological baggage, stripping away the plethora of false masks to expose beneath that one true face. And when that face emerges, it is the face of the Divine, the face of the Divine in each of us.
It’s really no more complicated than that, excavating our real selves from the debris of our fraudulent personas. But let there be no mistake about it—this work is difficult, very difficult. Our false selves die hard and, like all masters of deception, are brilliant in the ways of disguise. They can squeeze through tiny crevices, appear so much larger than life, manipulate, seduce, take many shapes. They can hide in places we’d never think to look, undetected sometimes for years. Intellectually, we are simply no match for these cloak-and-dagger charlatans.
Thus the importance of our dreams. They speak to us, if we are willing and able to listen, from that deep reality within, and their truths do not lie. Shining light into the darkest corners of our psyches, they expose the hiding places and the faces that lurk there. Our dreams, I’ve come to trust, are divinely-sent individually-tailored messages that invite us to see our own pathological faces. To see them, to fully acknowledge the damage they inflict upon others and ourselves, to genuinely wish to rid ourselves of their presence, this is all that is asked of us. Seeing, acknowledging, genuinely desiring change—such is the limit of our human capabilities. Beyond that is healing, God’s work, and I’m here to tell you that it’s possible, that it’s real, that it’s even inevitable.
This is precisely how it has worked for me during these past nine years, and my life has changed immeasurably in the process. My wife of five years is undeniably the human love of my life. I’ve known that in my heart since well before we were married, but what truly amazes me is just how much we’ve grown as husband and wife since then, together with the realization that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of our relationship’s potential. We both long for deeper intimacy, and know in our hearts that it is available to us. To feel this love, its seemingly limitless capabilities, is something I never expected to have access to in this life, let alone the right partner to share it with. We have a four-year-old daughter, the most phenomenal and light-infused child on this entire planet, and seldom does an hour pass when I don’t feel welling tenderness toward her and the very existence of this beautiful family. And it’s mine, all mine. There are times when it’s hard for me to believe it, pinching my biceps or thighs for confirmation. Having framed myself in some sulky still life, the image of a bottomfeeding loser, for so long, it almost feels like dumb luck. But I know better.
I owe it all to Marc Bregman, the diminutive former postal worker who is so unlike the therapist I expected to encounter on that summer night in 1996. He saved my life, or rather, gave me a life. On multiple occasions, simply overwhelmed with gratitude, I’ve willingly given in to the teary-eyed urge to bear-hug him, thank him for all he’s done. He smiles deeply, takes it in, yes, but not in the way you might think. For, you see, he isn’t responsible for the miracle of my life and he knows it. In many ways he facilitated it, of course—nine years of one-on-one hourly sessions certainly attest to that. But he himself is no more responsible for that miracle than I am, and Marc reminds me and others of that all the time. He takes no credit for the work God does through him. How could he? Well aware of his own human limitations, Marc is as much in awe of the gift bestowed upon him as those of us who get to witness it frequently in action. He knows that without his commitment to listening, following, of honoring thoroughly his connection to the Divine, he is nothing but a putz (his term, not mine). This is not self-deprecating humility, which is nothing more than inverted pathological pride. Rather it is fact, simple truth, and Marc knows he has no choice but to appreciate this fully. His gift is not his technical ability to intellectually probe and analyze the psyches of others. His gift is his remarkable connection to God. Without this, his life’s work, the so-called brilliant invention of Archetypal Dreamwork is nothing, and he knows that in his bones. His role is to be the conduit, the vessel through which the healing process can flow. His job is to remain open to that, to facilitate, to be wholly obedient to the directions he is given regarding how to utilize this gift with others.
Marc is not someone inherently blessed with a finely-tuned set of people skills, or a genius’s aptitude for reading people and being able to see through their masks. Indeed, in the people skill department, he tends on occasion toward insensitive bluntness. And, were it not for the benefit of this connection I refer to, he would see the disguises of others no more accurately than most of us, prone to distortion, misinterpretation, projecting personal ideals and wounds onto those around him. Certainly he is capable of this, just as we all are, but there is something highly unusual about this man’s clarity, which I believe is directly related to the power of his relationship with the Divine. This does not entitle him to be God-like, larger than life, though occasionally that projection does land in his lap. On the contrary though, it arguably necessitates that he be smaller than life, which is to say child-like. And such is my impression of Marc, in general, that he is somehow more willing and able than most to be the child, vulnerable, open, and therefore entirely dependent upon the Father. To be that unknowing child, without agenda, without preconception, without attachment, is to both facilitate and invite the Divine into our lives, into everything we do in the outer world. What comes with that connection is empowerment, the likes of which I couldn’t even begin to appreciate until fairly recently. Marc has been empowered with God’s grace, which I have come to believe is only made available to those who are truly capable of living from and through that place of connection.