The Soul Between Us: On the Anima, the Animus, and the Alchemy of Intimacy
- Antonia Talayeh
- Jun 30
- 17 min read
Updated: Jul 3
Relationship as an Alchemical Vessel
A vas hermeticum—where the raw materials of the psyche are heated, agitated, and slowly transmuted
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”-Jung
We are born into mystery, shaped by forces we can’t see, and carried forward by currents we barely understand. Among these forces are the archetypes of the Anima and Animus—the inner feminine and masculine figures that live within each of us.
If we can follow our process of Soul Making directing us toward those forces of the unconscious trying to get our attention, then we can see and know beyond that which we identify with.
Rather than resent or flee the mirror, we can withdraw the projection and ask: What is this showing me about myself?
Through conflict, longing, loss, and reconciliation, we are made more real, and Initiated into deeper wholeness. This is the coniunctio—the sacred union of opposites.
Healing begins when we take back our projections, digest them, and start relating to the other, not through the lens of unconscious wounds.
The anima and animus are aspects of self that are living presences in the psyche. And they make themselves known in our longings, our judgments, our erotic attractions, our moods, our dreams. They are also the ones who whisper when we fall in love.
Jung spoke of eros (love) as both divine and dangerous: a force that lifts us out of ego—but only if we surrender to the growth it demands.
One of my favorite questions is:
Who do I get to be in relationship with you?
Who don't I get to be in relation to you?
Who am I in relation to_____ fill in the blank- nature, God, this animal....etc....
Here we are introducing complexity and more context.. and more ways to relate and to be in the undefined I in any given moment... This opens up for more creativity collaboration and possibility.
Who do we get to be when we open up the many ways we can look at what is happening right now? Who do we get to be when we open up the many ways we choose to experince this? The frame- What frame are we living inside of and how much does that frame limit who we can be?
Conflict, then, isn’t a sign something is wrong. It’s the necessary heat of transformation. It is a summons to find the third-way ++ solutions. To add more context.... not regress into immature or unintegrated polarity. ( Which happens sometimes as we are humaning...and the key to intimacy is when you are conscious and can speak to that truth as it's happening.)
To know these beings-- our Anima and Animus, who speak through mood, dream, conflict, and attraction is to begin a life’s work—one that stretches across lifetimes. But these inner figures do not reveal themselves all at once. They are always in motion, shape-shifting through our healing, showing us where we have abandoned ourselves, and where the soul wants to grow.
This article is a doorway into that territory.
It is an invitation to those who have tasted the intensity of relationship—not only the outer ones, but the inner ones.
It is for those who’ve been haunted by dreams, overtaken by projections, caught in longing, swallowed by criticism or shame.
Those who are ready to listen inwardly.
To relate to the soul figures within-- we begin by orienting to the field.
Real relationship is not a comfort zone. It is a crucible. Its a living System
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”(CWJ10)
But who we truly are is never revealed in isolation. It is evoked, mirrored, and forged in the sacred fire of relatedness.
It heats us, distills us, softens and reshapes us. Like the Rubbing of two stones together, Polishing themselves… or the pearl metaphor….
Love is not here to keep us safe and comfortable… It is here to make us real. And what makes us real is the fire of truth, staying with the parts of ourselves we’d rather hide, and learning to see them mirrored in the ones we love.
The closer we get to another, the more the inner figures awaken.
The woman inside the man.The man inside the woman.The feminine within the feminine.The masculine within the masculine. Our shadows.
These are not gendered prescriptions, but soul dynamics—essential to becoming whole and co creating a vital and healthy, robust system together.
The Man & His Inner Anima
However you indentify, the Anima is the inner feminine of the male psyche. She appears in dreams as seductress, muse, critic, lost girl, healer, queen. She floods the heart with longing, softens the edge of reason, stirs the soul toward beauty, love, and despair.
When a man does not know her, he projects her—often onto the women he dates, desires, or idealizes. He chases her outside himself, never realizing that the ache is for his own soul.
Unintegrated Anima: What It Looks Like
Emotional flooding or irrational despair
Romantic obsession with women who later turn out to fail in the end
Creative highs followed by depressive collapse
Passivity, indecision, or perpetual fantasizing
Disconnection from purpose and clarity
A voice in the psyche that seduces or shames or blames
An unconscious rejection of healthy masculine expression
He may speak like a mystic, but feel ungrounded.
He may long for love, but remain unreachable.
He struggles with co-dependency
He becomes a person of smoke and dreams— soul alive, but untethered.
(If you are a woman experiencing this its related to your own unintegrated Anima)
Integrated Anima: What It Becomes
Emotional attunement without overwhelm
Creative expression grounded in real life
Love that listens instead of idealizing
Capacity to be tender and strong
The ability to name and metabolize feeling
Sacred eroticism rooted in embodied presence
A relationship to beauty, intuition, and soul that is inner-led
An integrated Anima doesn’t make a man less masculine.
She deepens his masculinity with nuance, rhythm, eros, imagination, and presence.
He becomes a man who can be moved—and who can move others with the truth of his heart.
Dream Practice for the Anima
The Anima often first appears in dreams. If you are a man, ask:
What women show up repeatedly in my dreams?
Do I idealize them, fear them, long for them, avoid them?
What do they say? How do they make me feel?
Begin a dialogue. Sit quietly, close your eyes, and invite one of these figures into the room of your inner awareness. Ask her why she’s come. Ask what she wants you to see. Then—listen.This is a living relationship, she is an expression of you.
The Woman & Her Inner Animus
However you indentify, the Animus is the inner masculine of the female psyche. He appears in dreams as judge-y, a tyrant, intellectual, a guide, a lover, or spiritual warrior. When unconscious, he overtakes her thoughts. He critiques, corrects, controls. He speaks in absolutes.
She may think it’s her own voice.
But it is often the echo of inherited authority—father, culture, institutions, ancestral shame. He can seem wise, but he leaves her severed from her body. He promises safety at the price of aliveness.
He punishes, not to harm, but to protect—though the protection is outdated, and the cost is her truth.
Unintegrated Animus: What It Looks Like
Harsh inner critic or intellectual rigidity
Dismissal of emotion, intuition, and body wisdom
Perfectionism, control, over-functioning
Speaking in abstract theories or impersonal cliches
Erotic shutdown or hyper-independence + control
Shame around needing, softness, or rest
Relational defenses that push away love
She may sound strong, but feel exhausted.
She may lead, but long to be held.
She may be productive, but starved of pleasure.
(if you are a man experiencing these you are experiencing your own unintegrated Animus)
Integrated Animus: What It Becomes
A clear inner voice of discernment and protection
Ability to speak truth without domination
Strong boundaries rooted in care
Alignment of intellect and intuition
Power that serves real truth and love, not control
Capacity to act from soul, not survival
An inner husband who holds space for her sacred feminine
When a woman reclaims her Animus, she doesn’t lose herself—she doesnt need to recede, she isnt ambivanent, she gains a spine. She lives from her core. Her voice returns, not to unconsciously dominate and unconsciously one up or control but to declare what is true.
My husband Roger once reflected something in me....He says “You’re the most competitive person I know,” —and I laughed, because I’ve always identified as very..very uncompetitive. He was right! The truth is, my assertiveness had been so suppressed—so avoided—that it came out sideways... in subtle resistance, hidden control or ambivalence. Not owning it didn’t make it go away. It just made it unconscious. Reclaiming the Animus means reclaiming this inner fire which is a vital strand of our wholeness....and learning to stand in clear, in embodied dynamism truth and awakened to your own shadow tactics that were originally there to protect you from experiencing some flavor of pain. For me it was there to protect me from feeling humiliation, being controled or manipulated, and 2-10 year old me taking on and feeling responsible for other peoples emotional pain.
My Own Experience: Reclaiming My Animus Through Dreams
Historically, In my dreams, men would often appear as aloof, condescending and rejecting. They'd criticize. They'd vanish. They'd hold this kind of cold authority that felt both familiar and wounding.
But dreams are not “just dreams.” My psyche was showing me something alive within an inner masculine figure shaped by my father’s emotional absence, by ancestral patriarchy, by the dismissal of my own desire, rage, and intuition.
When I sit with him in meditation, I don’t try to change him. I become him.
I take his posture. I go inside his world, and feel him that way....
And I hear what he never said out loud:
“I leave you… because I don’t want to see you hurt.
"I became the one who disappears—before anyone else could."
"I make you wrong and criticized you… because I don't know how to keep you safe from feeling the depth of pain underneath it all any other way."
"If I keep you small, no one can destroy you."" If im cold to you you, you can't hurt me."
Here, I’m learning his origin. And of course, I had attracted men who carried these very Animus distortions—I had a previous partner earlier in my life who was forceful, fast, and uncompromising and chaotic. He projected his unintegrated wounds onto the path of “healing”. He was weaponizing non-duality. As both a prominant Doctor, and controversial figure as a medicine man.... It was confusing... because he was partially right about a lot of things he'd point to. But It was one of the subtlest forms of spiritual bypass.... it wasn't overt control--it was his use of ultimate truths to dismiss relative, human ones.
He could name dynamics. He could speak to illusion. He could see through vails......But he also used those truths to avoid accountability. To sidestep emotion. To silence my and other's instincts with concepts like:
“There is no self.” “It’s all a projection.” “You’re attached to a story.”
And sometimes—I was caught in a story. But other times, I was feeling something real. And raw.. and worthy of being acknowleged.
There were patterns and contributions that I was tracking about me, him and the relational system itself that was being totally denied. (i'll talk about the system more later) And it wasn’t awake presence I felt from him in those moments—it was a clean, cold disassociation masked as clarity.
So all that to say....The psyche, in its exquisite design, doesn’t only show us what we lack through others.
It also teaches by turning the mirror inward.
Have you ever noticed that after one relationship ends, you find yourself—almost mysteriously—in the very position your former partner once held? In some shape of it? As if the roles have reversed. As if life, in its strange symmetry, is offering you the other side of the experience?
Where once you were the one pushing, now you’re the one pulling.
Where once you felt unmet, now you are the one who cannot meet.
A chance to see from the other side of the mirror.
This is the art of our psyche’s choreography.
When a projection is withdrawn from one partner, it doesn’t disappear; it often returns in another form oftentimes through us. We live the polarity from the other side as the soul’s way of rounding us out.
When we become the very energy we once couldn’t bear in another, the psyche whispers:
“Now you will understand. Now you can relate.”
In one of my most pivotal relationships, the polarity flipped.
I became the very force I had once braced against. I became the Animus enacted toward him. And also toward myself...
It looked spiritually justified. It looked intelligent. Even “helpful.”
But underneath, it was the same pattern in a different outfit:
Speaking from my mind and protections with certainty instead of vulnerable truth
Using logic to override emotion—his and mine
Correcting instead of connecting
Withdrawing affection
Getting annoyed when he would not take action because "I knew what was best for his growth"
Holding a subtle superiority
Using insight as a weapon insead of a bridge
This is how the Animus moves when he’s not met—he takes over.
And if we don’t slow down, he can wear the mask of wisdom while doing violence to the very intimacy we long for.
In the moment, it can feel like strength. But underneath, it’s fear disguised as clarity. It’s control disguised as care. Its supressed chaos disgused as order and cleaninliness.
And so from this way of having to take ownership of my own unintegrated immature masculine, I began the work— to hold a conversation with my beloved Animus in the yes-ness of my/our own becoming.
In doing so, I reclaimed my own inner husband.
The one who can hold my chaos. Witness my grief. Stand with me through terror and rage. Feel shame without collapsing, protect without silencing. Listen without needing to solve.
….It’s incredibly humbling to admit whats really going on in the deeps. It’s so freeing! That is Real truth intimacy, reclamation and Soul making.
This is the work of love. Not outer love first—but the love that holds the inner world as sacred ground.
I remember I had a dream. We were camping with a group, I was leaning into a man, this man was the guide of the group.. as we walked and then entered a river. We began floating down this river and the river got faster and faster and it was super fast I was scared and enthralled at the same time I trusted fully I was surrendering my being into the chaos and terracitement. This dream was a turning point in my relationship to my own inner masculine.
Where once the Animus was critical, distant, or punishing (as he often does early in individuation), now he is a trustworthy inner escort. He does not stop the river. He doesn’t resist the acceleration. But he is with me= I am with myself as my own inner animus
That is the integration:
Its a reorganization of the inner system: masculine and feminine beginning to hold one another in a more conscious way.
A deepening of surrender: not collapse..but sacred participation in soul movement.
A trust in the unknown: the velocity of the river = the velocity of my own becoming. I don’t need to slow it down—I am capable of riding it.
I began having more dreams like this with more integrated Animus figures.
So ladies, If you are a woman upset about your man not manning up, it’s because you are projecting your own unclaimed inner masculine onto him—expecting him to be the sword you won’t yet wield, the safety & clarity you don’t yet trust, the direction you’ve abandoned in yourself. When he collapses, withdraws, or dominates, he’s mirroring your own unconscious relationship to power. The parts of you that feel ambivalent about power—your ability to speak your truth from your heart- consciously not going into blame shame or victimhood. Here you walk in your truth, take a stand... you no longer evade avoid or couch things or hide.
Before this is integrated, your power goes underground and comes out sideways as the destroyer. And sometimes we all have to go down that descent either consciously or unconsciouly. But consciously is way less painful.... This is a part of our soul making process and our humanity and purpose.
If you are a man upset about your woman not being feminine enough or too controlling or critical, it’s because you are projecting your disowned inner feminine onto her—expecting her to carry the softness, intuition, and eros you have not yet claimed toward yourself. And when she refuses to be that for you, the unintegrated feminine within you rages, retreats, couches, evades, or rejects blames, criticizes—and what does this inner anima want? She is begging to be met by you.... explored and listened to and tended to --not managed.
Becoming Lovers of the Inner World
To relate to the Anima or Animus is to step into a lifelong conversation with the unconscious.
It never ends.... It is a practice of reverence, a way of bowing to the mystery that shapes us from within. These inner figures will not be tamed or controlled. But they can be known. They can be honored. And through relationship with them, we become more whole.
This is what Jung meant by individuation.
To become who we truly are is not to fix the psyche, but to become intimate with it. To learn its moods and its messengers and somatic expressions.
To notice when we are overtaken—and choose to return to psychic dialogue. To discern when the voice or sensation is a creative force, or ex expression of love, or legacy. To ask not only, “What do you want from me?” but also, “What do you protect? What do you love?”
We do this not only for ourselves, but for every woman who never had a voice. For every man who was punished for feeling. For our mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers who silenced themselves to survive. For our fathers and grandfathers who only knew how to disappear or be tough. For the lineages that passed down stories of conquest and shame. And for the soul within, who remembers something older than all of that.
The Anima & Animus In relation to the Living System
A relationship is not just two people. It is a system—an ecology of emotions, needs, protective strategies, and unconscious patterns that dance between two nervous systems.
As my mentor Rob Fisher teaches, this system has its own intelligence. It seeks equilibrium. It communicates through subtle cues—tone, posture, silence, breath. And when one person shifts, the entire system responds.
In a healthy relational system, each partner tracks not only their own experience, but the field between. They attune to what’s happening in the system, not just in the story.
We learn to say:
“Something just changed between us.”
“I notice I feel further away right now.”
“My chest tightened when you turned away. Can we pause here? Can we explore together and see what we find?”
This kind of awareness invites the relationship itself to become a co-regulated container for healing, adding more context adding more complexity and not a battlefield of unmet needs blaming, resenting, shame spirals or unspoken wounds.
When we forget that the relationship is a system, we collapse into blame or personal pathology:
“You’re too much.”
“You always withdraw.”
“Why are you so needy?”
But when we remember the system, we become more curious:
“What happens in me when you pull away?”
“What are we co-creating right now that neither of us wants?”
“What’s the pattern we keep reenacting—and what does it protect?”
"What are 10 other ways we can frame this that is more creative and freeing where we get to be more?
This is the beginning of conscious relationship: when we stop trying to fix each other, and start listening to what the system is showing us. It gets to be much more fun and playful when we stop pathologizing....
Because often, the conflict isn’t a sign that something’s broken. It’s the system trying to evolve
And thats what relationship is - relationship is a series of painful conversations that you are infinitely privileged to have. True intimacy isn't built through harmony or comfort, but through the willingness to face discomfort together, over and over again—with honesty, humility, and responsibility.
“You don’t get to choose not to negotiate. You only get to choose whether you’re negotiating consciously or unconsciously.”
In other words: you're always co-creating the system—either by having the difficult conversations consciously, or by silently reinforcing the dysfunction.
Those painful conversations aren’t just between you and the other. They're also between you and the inner figures who would rather control, collapse, dominate, hide/evade or disappear.
COUPLES EXERCISE
Draw two circles with an overlap of the two circles in the center 1 circle is:
1. Partner A’s Inner World
Feelings
Sensations
Unmet needs
Protective parts
Personal history
The other circle is :
2. Partner B’s Inner World
Feelings
Sensations
Unmet needs
Protective parts
Personal history
The overlap:
3. The Relational Field ("The System")
This is the space between—the atmosphere both people create and co-regulate, whether consciously or not....It includes:
Subtle cues (tone, body posture, breath, micro-expressions)
Cyclical patterns (pursue/withdraw, fix/collapse, caretake/dismiss)
Energetic distance or closeness
Shared unspoken agreements (“We don’t talk about this,” “You always carry that,” etc.)
Trauma loops and unconscious loyalty contracts
Moments of expansion or rupture
The system is not caused by either person—it’s co-created.
COUPLES PRACTICE 2
Tracking the System Together
You can call this: "Stepping Outside the Story"Do this practice seated face-to-face or side-by-side.
Step 1: Regulate First
Each partner takes 1 minute to track breath and body. Ask:
What’s happening in my body right now?
Can I find a place that feels settled or neutral?
Step 2: Speak from System Awareness
Take turns saying:
“Something I notice happening in the system is…”
(e.g.,“I sense a tension in the field" " im pulling away,” “There’s a wall up that wasn’t there this morning.”)
“Something I sense in myself right now is…”
(e.g., “I feel defended in my chest,” “A part of me doent want to feel this discomfort and I feel stuck,” “I notice I’ve gone silent inside.”)
“A part of me wants to protect us by…”
(e.g., “Making it your fault,” “Shutting down,” “Trying to keep the peace.”)
You can pause here and let each partner reflect. No need to fix just track together.
Step 3: Ask the System
Invite both partners to speak to the relational field:
“System, what do you need from us right now?”
Listen for images, metaphors, felt senses—not just thoughts. You might hear:
“Slowness.”
"Authenticity"
"Truth"
"Depth"
“Warmth.”
“Space to breathe.”
“Less pressure to fix.”
“A hand held, not words.”
Let the next move come from that listening.
Why This Matters
Most couples try to fix content without addressing context.
This practice trains the couple to become attuned to the field between—to shift from blame or collapse into mutual authorship of their shared emotional ecology. From there, healing arises not by solving the other, but by honoring the system that holds you both.
Dream Practices & Inner Dialogue: Walking the Path Home
1. Dream Tracking
Each morning, write down or record via voice to transcription app your dreams—without judgment. Ask:
Who showed up?
What was the emotional tone?
How did you feel towards them?
How did they feel toward you?
What archetype did they seem to embody (critic, lover, ghost, guide, wise elder, )?
What part of me does this figure reflect or protect?
Let your dream images become companions, a living relationship and active image you live with. Begin to see them as mirrors of your own soul, longing to be remembered.
2. Initiate a Morning Dialogue
During your meditation, sit with one of the inner figures you’ve met—through dream, mood, or projection.
Breathe. Feel them with you or within you. Ask: ( just examples but follow your intuition here. It could just be an energetic conversation or transmission.
“What do you want me to understand about you today?”
“What do you long for me to feel or remember?”
“What do you wish I knew about the cost of banishing you?”
Then listen, not with your mind, but with your body.
3. Reclaim the Rejected Trait
Don’t “correct” it. Or try to “heal” ot transmute it... live with it as an image, a feeling...
Then, underneath the image and feeling check in to find—feel what’s there:
What desire is it trying to hold down?
What untamable part of you does it fear?
Did you destroy someone or something?
Did you desecrate someone or something?
What is that behaviour a mirror of in you that is judged denied suppressed?
What power is this giving you... asking you to reclaim?
Let the image live.
This is your ticket to freedom and wholeness and this is what will help us as a humanity stop warring in the way it’s happening on Earth.
4. Symbolic Integration
Draw, sing, sculpt, or move the energy of the inner figure. Let them speak through art or ritual. Name them. Bless them. Offer a gesture of peace—not to tame them, but to recognize their sacred role.
5. Bedtime
Each evening, speak to your inner world:
“Show me what I need to see tonight.I’m ready to relate—Speak to me in symbols.I will listen with my soul.”
Final Word
Maturity is knowing that there are forces of malice in existence, and that you have them in you as do I as does every soul. “A harmless person is not a good person. A good person is a very dangerous person who has that under voluntary control.”
In other words: true peace isn’t created by the absence of power—it’s created when both parties have power, and choose not to use it destructively.
To mature is to carry our capacity for destruction in full view.
Not to use it carelessly—but to own it, so it doesn’t use you.
Because this path is not about purity or perfection
The soul does not ask you to be flawless.
It asks you to stay in relationship.
This path is not linear. We will forget. We will project again. We will fall into old patterns, old voices, old longing.
That’s okay.
The soul doesn’t ask you to be perfect. It asks you to relate. Again and again.
To return to the dream. To meet the inner beloveds and characters and teachers. To become a vessel of contact.
And so the Anima begins to trust you. The Animus begins to soften. And you begin to feel the deeper union not outside—but within.
Welcome to the inner marriage.
Welcome to the long remembering.
Welcome home.
Comments