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Together with Sigmund Freud and Alfred 
Adler, Carl Gustav Jung was one of the

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founders of psychoanalysis or the so-called 
‘modern depth psychology’, a field of science

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focusing on dealing with the unconscious 
energies which move through each of us.

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In spite of being highly praised by 
Freud, Jung departed from his teachings,

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eventually founding his own school of psychology 
called ‘analytical psychology’. Some of the most

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important concepts in Jung's 
work are personality typology,

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individuation and also archetypes like persona, 
the shadow, anima and animus. In this context,

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an archetype is a universal model common in 
many cultures which influences human behavior.

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In spite of the fact he is mainly considered 
a psychoanalyst, Jung made huge contributions

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to the realm of philosophy. His particular take 
on the subject is often referred to as “Jungian

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Philosophy”. He wrote many books like Psychology 
of the Unconscious, Man and His Symbols,

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The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious, 
Modern Man In Search of a Soul, The Psychology

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of the Transference, ‘Memories, Dreams, and 
Thoughts’, and The Relations Between the Ego

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and the Unconscious. His entire work was 
about how to help people navigate through

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the complexity of their psyche, to help them 
understand themselves better in order to heal.

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Jung was particularly interested in the 
process of individuation, how to express

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the true essence of your personality, and how to 
develop yourself into a mature and whole person.

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When people can harmonize their consciousness, 
the part of the psyche which is aware of and

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responsive to its surroundings, with their 
unconsciousness, the part of the psyche

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in which mental and psychological activities 
take place without the individual’s awareness,

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they can understand their Self, which is their 
psyche as a whole, unifying the consciousness

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and the unconsciousness. Learning how to know 
yourself is crucial, so to help you learn more

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about how to know yourself better, here are 
7 teachings from the wisdom of Carl Jung:

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Draw Mandalas

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Carl Jung said: “The mandala is… the 
path to the center, to individuation.”

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According to Carl Jung, the self can be 
represented in the form of a Mandala,

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which is a circle containing different sectors:

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It is a diagram with different components in it, 
each one representing an aspect that reveals the

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Self. Oftentimes, it looks like a circle, which 
according to Jung, reflects a sacred space.

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When you draw your own personal Mandala,

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it becomes one of the best ways to see your 
inner Self in its most essential aspects.

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At the center of the figure, 
the core of the self resides.

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The Self is the central aspect of an individual’s 
personality and life. Then, around the circle,

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are the outer world and inner world. The top 
half is the outer world and represents our

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surroundings and environment. The bottom half 
shows the inner world, what is deep inside us.

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The outer world is in connection with 
consciousness, ego and persona. Consciousness

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is everything that we know directly, ego is the 
entity that helps us organize everything that we

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perceive, think, memorize and feel, and persona 
is essentially the role that we play in society.

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When the ego is overwhelmed with 
feelings, perceptions or thoughts,

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some of them are redirected 
to personal unconsciousness,

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often coming back into our consciousness 
for a brief moment while dreaming.

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The inner world, on the bottom half, is in 
connection with the collective unconsciousness,

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with the shadow, anima and animus, all 
of which are sources of communication

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between the consciousness and 
the collective unconsciousness.

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Collective unconsciousness is separate 
from personal unconsciousness.

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It is the part that binds people together through 
invisible ways. Jung used this concept to explain

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the similarities in mythologies around the world. 
He believed that the collective unconsciousness

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had a profound influence on the lives of 
individuals, containing symbols, so-called

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archetypes - that provide individuals meaning 
regarding the life experiences they go through.

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The Shadow, part of the inner world, is considered 
to be the most dangerous aspect of the Self,

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consisting of all the unnaceptable animalistic, 
aggressive or sexual instincts. Usually,

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people are not very aware of their Shadow, which 
is often projected onto other people and objects.

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The anima and animus duo is related to 
a masculine-feminine polarity. Anima

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is the feminine side of the male form while 
animus is the masculine side of the female form.

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Self is the overarching energy that integrates and 
organizes our personality by bringing together the

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conscious and unconscious processes. Mandala is 
not only a form of art, but also a psychotherapy

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tool which each of us can use. For a period of 
time, Jung used to draw mandalas every day and

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he analyzed the state of his psyche by looking at 
the mandala he had just drawn. He also encouraged

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his patients to draw their own mandalas. There 
are many training courses in how to draw mandalas

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and we can also try to draw one each day in 
order to understand ourselves a bit better.

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For example, one patient of Jung drew 
these three mandalas, at different times:

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The first one shows the four stages of the moon, 
then on the second mandala, the sun appears,

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which reflects a bigger difference between 
the surroundings and unconsciousness - thus,

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a lesser connection between the self and the 
surroundings. Then, in the end, in the third

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mandala, the sun is about to set. The patient had 
drawn the last mandala shortly before his death.

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As colors, yellow usually represents intuition, 
blue represents the mind, red represents feelings

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and brown represents sensations. Based on what 
colors and shapes we use when we draw the mandala

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- ideally with the help of a psychotherapist 
- we can identify the corresponding

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archetypes that could then be interpreted 
to make sense of our internal struggles.

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Understand your subconscious impulses
According to Jung: “Everyone carries a shadow,

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and the less it is embodied in the individual’s 
conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”

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The Shadow is one of the most important 
archetypes according to Jung. It is a part of our

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subconscious that comes to the surface in the most 
unexpected moments, often taking us by surprise.

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The Shadow is that part of ourselves that we 
fail to recognize and which comes to the surface

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through dreams or through subconscious impulses 
in daily life. We’ve all had moments when we did

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something yet immediately after had no clue why 
we did it. Perhaps we got angry at something or

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someone out of the blue, went into a different 
room, or we answered a question in a bizarre way,

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without knowing the reason. Perhaps 
it was the Shadow that directed us?

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The more rigidly you act in real life, the 
more you follow rules made by others or your

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self-imposed rules disregarding your emotions, 
the more you fail to acknowledge your Shadow.

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If you do so, you will fail to know yourself. 
Ergo, you can only truly know yourself if you also

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know your Shadow. And this process of knowing 
your Shadow can take a good amount of effort.

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Often the things we discover in our Shadow 
are unpleasant as our Shadow includes the

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dark parts of ourselves, our aggressive 
tendencies, and repressed sexual desires…

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anything that we cannot accept 
in our everyday social behavior.

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But the bitter irony is that the more we 
try to keep away from those dark parts,

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the more they control our lives in invisible ways. 
And when this happens we often project all those

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negative attitudes onto others. For example, 
every time you talk intensely negatively about

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someone else, you can be confident that all 
those negative traits are also inside you,

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in your Shadow, otherwise you would not be so 
passionately involved in that discussion. When you

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judge someone for how they look, perhaps you say 
they are overweight, badly-dressed, or too skinny,

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chances are you are insecure about yourself as 
well and to avoid feeling anxiety, your psyche

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makes you project those negative feelings 
which are part of your Shadow onto others.

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To stop projecting and start 
taking control of your Shadow,

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you need to first become aware 
of when you are projecting.

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Stop yourself every time you think or talk with 
passion about something negative in other people

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and examine yourself in the same way. Is there 
any other negative feeling that you need to be

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aware of and is it related to you personally? 
For example, if you catch yourself speaking

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badly about a colleague who uses their charisma 
to get away with anything at work, it is likely

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that you actually wish you had that charisma 
yourself to get ahead in life in the same way,

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but you don’t know how to do it, so instead you 
prefer to accuse the other of playing unfairly.

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By questioning yourself, you can discover 
many unpleasant things about yourself, and,

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by discovering them, you will know what you need 
to work on so you can become free of them and that

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way they won’t control your life anymore. Knowing 
your Shadow is a part of knowing your true Self.

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Know your fears
In the words of Jung:

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“Find out what a person fears most and 
that is where he will develop next.”

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Jung treated many patients suffering from anxiety 
disorder and he understood that what they needed

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most was the courage to face their own fears. 
He found it to be good practice to analyze their

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fears, because, after that analysis, he could 
understand in which direction they should develop.

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Unfortunately however, many choose 
not to take any risks in life,

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preferring to give up on their dreams than 
to fail and potentially embarrass themselves.

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When this tendency overwhelms 
individuals, they can become neurotic.

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No matter how courageous we look to 
society, we all have our own fears.

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Nobody in the world is truly fearless.

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What we can learn from Jung’s studies on his 
patients regarding facing their inner fears,

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is that, by analyzing our fears, we can discover 
which area of our life we should work on.

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If we permanently avoid facing our fears, we 
will remain in a cocoon, in a comfortable space,

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but that will not make us happy in the long 
run. By refusing to look inside ourselves,

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by refusing to know ourselves better and finding 
solutions for our fears, we will stop growing.

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For example, your fear of public speaking might 
prevent you from advancing in your career,

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you avoid speaking up during big meetings or 
participating actively in business conferences.

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Overcoming your fear can only happen once 
you start getting to know your fear better;

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identify it, acknowledge it, then find 
reasons why this fear is unfounded.

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In the case of our example, analyze 
the ideas you had in your mind

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and why you didn’t put them forward. Were 
they better than those of your colleagues?

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If yes, then, you had no reason to 
not express your idea in the meeting.

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To start speaking more in public, you can 
practice in front of a mirror, or better yet,

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record yourself and review the video. Not only 
will you be able to see what you do and don’t

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like and correct for it, you will also get more 
comfortable hearing your voice and seeing yourself

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in that context, which means you will feel more 
confident, which will improve your performance.

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If your fear has deeper roots, perhaps caused 
by a traumatic event during your childhood,

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then you need to look deep inside your 
memory, ideally with the help of a licensed

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psychotherapist, to identify and confront those 
moments. To really know yourself and evolve,

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one of the best ways is to face your 
fears and the roots of those fears.

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Face your emotions
Carl Jung tells us:

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“People will do anything, no matter how 
absurd, to avoid facing their own souls”.

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According to Jung, psychological 
diseases like neuroses have always been

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at the base of legitimate suffering. This 
suffering is often buried so deep inside us

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that it becomes very difficult to deal 
with. The painful emotions that we often

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fear to face are developed from trauma, 
rejection, loss, failure or abandonment.

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It is not enough to be mentally 
aware of those buried emotions,

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it is also important to have the courage to feel 
them in their raw form, to truly face them. When

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we are too afraid to face them, we mask them, 
we go into self-harming activities, addictions,

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or we close our hearts, adopt more rigid 
behavior, and are afraid to show our suffering.

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The way to stop running away from facing our soul 
is to understand first that it is not the event

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that traumatized us, but rather the set of beliefs 
we built afterwards around that event. Maybe after

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you suffered that traumatic episode, you started 
to see yourself as a worthless human being,

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not good enough or deserving enough. 
Once you identify these beliefs,

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you need to start questioning them, find 
evidence in your present life that these

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beliefs are not true and build a better, 
more positive belief-system about yourself.

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For example, imagine you were raised in 
a dysfunctional family, with alcoholic

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parents that regularly neglected you, making 
you feel worthless, but also ashamed of them.

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Just as your parents neglected you as a child, as 
an adult you find your partner is doing the same

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and all those past memories now come and 
haunt you. The sadness you feel because of

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your partner will be amplified by the sadness you 
have from your childhood, making everything worse,

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preventing you from focusing on even your most 
basic daily tasks, potentially even resulting

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in clinical depression. You should not run away 
from those early memories about your childhood,

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but rather investigate the belief-system 
you inherited from it, and question it.

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One example of a belief that influences you 
negatively can be that you think you are not

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lovable enough, that you do not deserve love, that 
if someone got to know you better, they wouldn’t

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like you and, if they do show they like you, you 
believe there must be something wrong with them.

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You need to change such a belief system with a 
better one. One that better reflects the worthy

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person you are today. An example of a belief 
system that would help you feel more lovable

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could be to start telling yourself that indeed 
you are not perfect, but nor is anyone else,

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and that’s fine. You try to work on yourself every 
day, putting effort into self development, trying

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to be fair with other people, you give your best 
in your work and go all-in on your relationships.

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Have your own validation first, then 
look for other people’s validation.

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You can only build positive emotions on a solid 
foundation of self love, a good knowledge of

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yourself and what you are capable of. Your vision 
of yourself will become clearer if you investigate

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your deepest emotions, your inner suffering and 
the beliefs you’ve built around it.You cannot

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really know yourself if you don’t have the courage 
to examine your soul and emotions inside out.

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Understand your dreams
To quote Carl Jung:

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“Dreams are the facts from which we must proceed.”

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Jung considered dreams as being messages from the 
unconscious. They have the role to reestablish

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the psychic equilibrium. Whatever was not fully 
processed by the conscious mind during the day

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comes back to haunt us in our dreams. Jung 
believed that dream material mainly contains

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repressed feelings that we don’t want to face 
anymore, so he created a method for interpreting

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the dreams that he called ‘active imagination’. 
First of all, the patients had to write their

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dream just after they woke up from sleep. Then, 
they had to identify the key symbols appearing in

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the dream and make associations between them, 
connecting them with their daily life events.

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Through this process of active imagination, Jung 
guided his patients through a process of reliving

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the dream, while still awake. The purpose was to 
get to the story inside the story of the dream.

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No matter how silly the story of the dream is, 
Jung believed there is always a deeper meaning.

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By reliving the dream, we force ourselves 
to interact with the dream figures actively,

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emotionally and, by living that emotion, we get 
in touch with the deepest layers of ourselves.

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If Freud interpreted dreams only as ways to 
discover repressed sexual instincts, for Jung,

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a dream can have more dimensions, including 
archetypes and cultural symbols. It is said

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that Freud interpreted dreams at the objective 
level, while Jung did so at the subjective level.

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According to Jung, if you dream that you talk to 
an old man that you don’t know and that man is

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telling you something very important, it means 
that you should listen to his advice. That old

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man represents the old wise man, an archetype, who 
is supposed to be your guide, a helper. When such

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archetypes appear in your dreams, it means your 
life is going through a period of transformation.

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The unconscious is not a harmless territory; 
therefore, we must be cautious if we are to

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embark on the journey of dream interpretation. 
It is better to start with simpler dreams and

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then to advance to more complex ones - 
maybe with the help of a psychotherapist.

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By analyzing our dreams, we can understand a 
great deal about ourselves, who we are inside.

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We can learn things that we 
never imagined about ourselves.

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Take time to be alone
Carl Jung teaches us that: “The highest,

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most decisive experience is to be alone 
with one’s own self. You must be alone

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to find out what supports you, when you 
find that you cannot support yourself.”

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For Jung, solitude was highly important, 
declaring that for him it is a form of healing,

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making the rest of life worth living. Empty gossip 
drained Jung of his energy and he often preferred

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the company of his own thoughts. The experience 
of solitude gives you more power to face life’s

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challenges, you then better understand the 
cause of any problem which affects you,

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you find out what resources you have inside to 
face that problem. Also, it is a great time to

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come up with creative ideas concerning your next 
steps toward anything you want to do in life.

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Solitude is different from loneliness, solitude 
being a voluntary act, while loneliness

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is an unfortunate situation when you feel 
disconnected from people without wanting to be.

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In solitude, you can know yourself much 
better than when you are with other people.

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When you are with other people, there is a large 
chance you will involuntarily start to copy some

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of their behavior and, somehow, the authenticity 
of yourself becomes blurry in that interaction.

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To really know ourselves, we need moments of 
solitude, when we are alone with our thoughts.

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We should try to have a personal space in our 
home, a space where nobody disturbs us, where

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we can meditate, write personal notes, write in a 
diary or, if this is not possible, we should take

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long walks outside, alone, preferably in nature. 
You will soon feel the benefits of such alone time

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and we will all get to know ourselves a 
little better each day we practice solitude.

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Ask others what they think about you
In our final quote from Jung for this video,

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he says: “We may think that 
we fully control ourselves.

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However, a friend can easily reveal something 
about us that we have absolutely no idea about.”

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Although Jung spoke many times 
about the benefits of solitude,

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which offers one of the best opportunities to 
investigate your soul, to know yourself better,

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he also recognized that there are some aspects 
of our personality that might escape us

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and only someone else, like a friend, family 
member or a lover can really spot those aspects.

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During his lifetime, Jung met several 
people who had a strong impact on him,

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helping him know himself better. Some examples 
are two of his mistresses, Sabina Spielrein

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and Toni Wolff, who were both his lovers as well 
as his assistants. They not only helped Jung

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understand himself better emotionally, 
but they also helped him in his work.

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Wolff was the one who actually helped him define 
and name the concepts of anima and animus.

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We should never neglect the role of others 
in our quest to know ourselves better.

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For example, you might think that you are a 
kind person and a very good listener. To test

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if this is true, ask your closest friend what they 
think about that. They might well tell you that,

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yes, they know you care about them and they can 
count on you when they have serious problems,

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but, when they try to tell you more 
details about the issues that they face,

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you are too eager to try and fix the problems, 
cutting their speech short rather than letting

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them explain properly and ‘get it off 
their chest’ which can often be more

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helpful than trying to offer solutions based 
on partial information. What others can tell

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us about ourselves might make for uncomfortable 
listening sometimes, but we need to ask anyway,

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and ask for an honest reply, if we really 
want to know the hard truths about ourselves.

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If you enjoyed this video, please make sure to 
check out our full philosophies for life playlist

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00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:21,440
and for more videos to help you find success and 
happiness using ancient philosophical wisdom,

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don’t forget to subscribe. 
Thanks so much for watching.