Tag: Jung

Accepting our nature…

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Carl Jung had a few years when he suffered from some type of illness, which meant that he withdrew from teaching at university and found himself unable to read any serious scientific literature. He also was unable to write much during that time. However, this outward inactivity led him to a very important interior realization, which is close  to what we work at in mindfulness practice each day  – to accept the “conditions of existence” as we simply see them. It seems to be a strange psychological truth, affirmed by him and by Carl Rogers, that when we accept something in this gentle way, shifts begin to occur and change happens more easily. Being fully open to whatever is happening means that we can let go of fear and control and of our tendency to place demands on this moment, insisting that it be other than it is:

Something else, too, came to me from my illness. I might formulate that it was an affirmation of things as they are: an unconditional “yes” to that which is, without subjective protests – acceptance of the conditions of existence as I see them and understand them, acceptance of my nature, as I happen to be.

Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections

The meaning of the journey

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The real goal of a depth therapy is not a “cure”, for the human condition is not a disease. Yes, real, resistant problems of daily life can and must be addressed and the resources of consciousness brought fully to bear on their resolution. But the real gift of a depth therapy, or of any truly considered life, is that one achieves a deepened conversation around the meaning of one’s journey – a conversation without which one lives a received life, not one’s own, a superficial life, or a life in service to complexes or ideologies.

James Hollis, What Matter most: Living a more considered Life

Finding a partner within

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Jung writing here – beautifully – on the slow, lifelong process of individuation and how it means a deep befriending of all the parts of ourself and our life story. It is what we are learning as we “stay” in meditation, becoming more and more at ease with the divisions within ourselves. It reminds us that we move towards the full potential of our own maturity through the struggles of life and that we can get “lost” many times along the way.   To become fully ourselves means that we pass through these numerous “psychic transformations” and finally come to see that the happiness we were seeking for all along is based on what is already present within us and a reconciliation with what has made us who we are.

It is the state of someone who, in his wanderings among … his psychic transformations, comes upon a secret happiness which reconciles him to his apparent loneliness.  In communing with himself he finds not deadly boredom and melancholy but an inner partner; more than that, a relationship that seems like the happiness of a secret love, or like a hidden springtime, when the green seed sprouts from the barren earth, holding out the promise of future harvest.

Jung, Mysterium coniunctionis

Letting go of the outside search and turning within

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Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naively suppose that people are as we imagine them to be. Although the possibility of gross deception is infinitely greater here than in our perception of the physical world, we still go on naively projecting our own psychology into our fellow human beings. In this way everyone creates for himself a series of more or less imaginary relationships based essentially on projection.

C. G Jung

We can often feel divided and conflicted. We wish to integrate all the contrasting parts inside ourselves and develop a greater harmony within, a sense of direction that is solid and does not change from week to week. The first step in achieving this is to listen deeply to our own interior intelligence and find out what it is seeking.

Sometimes we notice that we are projecting onto others, or onto some outside  things,  the search for happiness which need to be anchored within first. We can see this  if we pay attention to our daydreams or our fears. It can happen that  an interior need becomes attached to another person or to our job or some plans and ambitions. In other words, we expect that the other person or the outside event fill in the missing parts of ourselves, rather than looking to do that work within ourselves first. We project the unconscious stage of our development onto another, and then act as if that person is what we imagine him or her to be. Frequently, however, the person is actually a mirror of our needs, which we have not yet come to recognize in ourselves. And as I have said before, our relationship with others reflects the current level of our relationship with ourselves.

It can be a great liberation to become aware that  our projections actually represent our interior unlived capacities. We turn within for what we sought outside, recognize our needs and hold them gently. We start to grow, because a part of us which was hidden is now coming to light. Sooner or later in life, we all have to come face to face with the question of who we really are. If we do not run away but  hold this question in ourselves, it can be the beginning of the greatest adventure in our lives. We can find the missing pieces inside ourselves, and in this way let go and move on to becoming whole.

Preparing for a new year

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As yesterday’s post said, people begin to look forward to the new year as an opportunity to start again. This is natural, but frequently does not lead to any real change, unless we understand the patterns within our own heart. Any lasting growth comes from  an understanding of our heart, with all its needs and hopes, its vulnerabilities and wisdom.  This means that we can drop all pretense and the need to blame others for what is lacking in our lives.  In many cases the desire for change around this time is based on comparing our lives with others and feeling we are lacking.  Instead of looking outward, we turn within and gently look forward – not based on fear of where we are now or criticism of this past year – but rather accepting who we are and opening to the new opportunities which will unfold.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.

Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

C.G. Jung

Do our lives and work embody the essential?

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The more Jung worked with people, the more he came to believe that the key problems facing most who came to him for therapy were not psychological illnesses but whether they were in touch with the deepest parts of their being. This is probably even more true today, as more and more of peoples’ material needs are fulfilled and yet more and more people express unhappiness with their lives. In Jung’s view,  most suffering today stems from the fact that we have lost a connection with the mythic dimension of life. Our capacity to be in a relationship with something more profound than what is seen is what makes for real, ongoing growth. We have a depth dimension and to become fully human requires that we keep an openness to this in our work and in our relationships. When we find ourselves in situations where this aspect is not reflected we feel impoverished and unfulfilled, often without knowing why. Life can seem too short to be spending our time on activities that are too narrow, or too trivial to nurture our roots.  This is true for relationships also; they are most alive when they include space for something beyond the self.  Relationships  which are truly fulfilling have a luminous quality and as such they make us feel fully alive.

The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life…. Only if we knew that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life. He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change. In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted. In our relationships to other men, too, the crucial question is whether an element of boundlessness is expressed in the relationship.

Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.