Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, laid the groundwork for a psychological framework
focused on personal growth and self-discovery. He introduced the concept of "individuation,"
which is the lifelong journey of becoming the person one is meant to be and realizing
their unique potential. Individuation involves integrating different aspects of the personality,
both conscious and unconscious, to achieve a sense of wholeness.
His philosophy, often called 'Jungian Philosophy,' emphasizes understanding
oneself for personal development. He authored several books, such as ‘The Psychology of the
Unconscious,’ ‘Man and His Symbols,’ and ‘The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious,’
among others. Jung's wisdom offers a roadmap for self-discovery, helping individuals understand
their true selves, overcome challenges, and enhance relationships. In this video,
we talk about how to improve yourself by applying Jung's philosophy to your life.
1. Understand Your Subconscious
Jung says “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into
your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”
According to Jung, one of the most crucial parts of life is discovering
your subconscious - especially what he calls ‘the shadow.’ The shadow is the most intense
part of our unconscious: in it are all the parts of yourself that you are in denial about. These
can include character traits you’re ashamed of, reject, think are bad, and so on. As a result,
you try to convince others and yourself that you don’t have these traits. Examples of such traits
are explosive anger, jealousy, envy, greed, pride, laziness, frightening impulses, and so on. You
might think that suppressing or denying yourself the freedom to express those qualities makes you
a better person but all the things that you try to suppress don’t actually go away - they fester.
What we try to push away tends to come out uncontrolled in our weakest moments. The
shadow is thus the cause of outbursts, emotional blowups, snapping at others, unwanted thoughts,
unfairly blaming others, and more. For example, someone who is considered to be a gentle person
but who has lots of repressed anger that they have failed to acknowledge might furiously snap
at another in a moment of weakness. These moments then feel like they come out of nowhere and they
have numerous unwanted effects: they might decrease your confidence, make you feel like
you’re not in control of yourself, and might cause others to want to stay away from you.
Or, for example, you might be extra negative about people you perceive as lazy,
because deep down your subconscious knows that you have lazy tendencies as well,
and so without realizing it you bring others down to try and separate yourself from the
concept of laziness. This doesn’t make you any less lazy, but does hurt your overall mood,
enjoyment of life, and relationships with others. All in all, suppressed
traits influence you negatively, no matter what and the only remedy is to face them head-on.
Facing your shadow means that you will have to follow three steps:
Getting to know your shadow
Accepting your shadow Integrating your shadow
The question at the heart of the first step is: ‘Why do I behave the way I do?’ To get to know
your shadow, you can think back to situations where you feel like you acted badly and analyze
them. Did you have a strong reaction to something? What was it? And why do you think it caused you to
get upset? You might just find the traits that you are most afraid to have. It’s very hard to become
conscious of these reactions because it might bring up emotions like shame, embarrassment,
guilt, and the strong desire to deny them. Thus doing so requires a quiet and calm space,
an empty mind, and a strong will. Meditation, for example, is a very good way to do so. Journaling
about your feelings and experiences is as well, or drawing to ease your mind.
Then, when you’ve figured out what your shadow seems to contain,
you have to accept the traits you’ve found as yours. You cannot look at them with an
air of distance - you have to realize that these traits are a part of you. Questions
that might help you doing so are, ‘When do I usually behave according to this trait?’;
‘Why am I ashamed of this trait?’; ‘Where does this trait come from?’ And, most of all,
realize that you are suppressing again if you don’t accept this trait as truly yours.
Finally, the last step is to integrate your shadow into your daily life. This doesn’t mean
that you should suddenly give in to all your selfish, angry, or lazy desires. But instead,
when you feel the urge to react in a ‘negative’ way coming up, you can analyze this urge and see
if there’s anything useful to get out of it. Maybe exploding in anger isn’t helpful during a fight
with your partner, but pretending not to be angry ignores the problem. Instead, acknowledge and
accept your anger, ask yourself why you’re angry, and then use this knowledge to explain yourself
better. Or when you have the urge to be lazy and procrastinate from doing work, ask yourself why
you feel so lazy. Does your work satisfy you or not? Have you been sleeping well lately? Is there
anything holding you back from doing this work? If not, it might be advisable to push through,
but if so, maybe you’ve now found something that you otherwise would have ignored completely!
Your shadow isn’t here to sabotage but rather to teach you, if you let
it. Acknowledging your shadow makes you happier and enables you to take actions
that are more authentic and effective. This is why Jung claimed that working on your
subconscious - especially the shadow - is one of the most vital steps of self-improvement.
2. Work On Your Individuation Process
According to Jung, “Individuation means becoming a single, homogeneous being, and, in so far as
‘individuality’ embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies
becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as… ‘self-realization.”
One of the most important teachings of Carl Jung was his work on what he called the ‘individuation
process’ - the process in which a person separates themselves from a group and becomes
a unique individual. When being around other people, one usually tends to put on an act. This
can be completely unintentional, but it happens anyway. You laugh at jokes you don’t find funny,
you pretend to be enthusiastic about something, you act more important or more confident than you
actually are, you lie that you’re doing well when you’re not, et cetera. Being out in the world can,
often, feel like an acting performance. We present ourselves to other people in a way
that makes sure they will see us in a way we want them to. Carl Jung called this the ‘persona.’
This persona can roughly be described as ‘a mask,’ like an actor would wear on stage. The
persona is the way you present yourself in social situations and the impression you try to make on
the rest of the world. According to Jung, we develop our persona early on in our childhood,
when we learn about social rules and manners and form connections with other people. Our persona
often doesn’t consist of just one mask, but rather multiple masks, depending on the situation you
find yourself in. You might act differently among friends than at work, but both could be parts
of your persona. When you overly identify with your persona you disappoint yourself constantly,
because it’s just not who you authentically are. It’s damaging to your confidence and self-image,
and it increases the hold your shadow has over you. Thus it’s incredibly important not to fixate
on an idealized version of yourself, and instead work hard to see yourself for who you really are.
The way to individuation, according to Jung, is by integrating your conscious and subconscious.
Doing the shadow work, as we discussed earlier, and finding out what is part of the persona and
what is truly you. This doesn’t mean that you have to get rid of your persona; a persona can
be very helpful in your social image. For example, a persona helps you stay professional at work even
when in actuality you are fed up with something, it helps you prevent escalation of conflicts,
pass job interviews, and generally ‘grease the wheels’ of social interactions. But it’s
important to personally know the difference between your persona and the rest of you,
and also to exercise full control over your persona, instead of having it control you.
If you find through reflection that you do have some angry tendencies that you try to suppress,
then you don’t have to start acting angrily all the time or express your anger every time it
bubbles up. Instead, you can ask yourself in each situation: would my anger help me
right now? For example, when you’re at work and your strict boss does something wrong,
anger probably wouldn’t help. Instead, channeling your anger into taking a more
constructive form of action, such as having a calm conversation with your boss, would be more useful.
However, if you have a friend who keeps canceling plans at your inconvenience,
maybe expressing your anger will help them realize that you truly are bothered by it and that they
can’t walk all over you. In both cases, you use your anger in a way that benefits you,
either by expressing it or having it motivate you to do something more
helpful at that moment. If you get to know your urges and your persona separately and
try to integrate them whenever possible, you will start to take actions unique and
beneficial to you. You will both be more yourself and put yourself first more often.
The outcome of this individuation process is to find your true Self. The Self stands for who
you are, past, present, and potential future. It’s full of opposites peacefully co-existing,
such as the unconscious and the persona. The Self is ever-evolving, and thus the
individuation process is never truly over: you have to keep working on and exploring yourself.
Continuously exploring your subconscious, your persona, and the Self is the key to individuality.
However, individualization is not an easy process. It requires deep dives into your
subconscious and a lot of self-care. You have to learn how to analyze your emotions, behavior,
motivations, and reasoning. This can be done after social interactions but is best done
in solitude when you have the time and energy to sit down and truly think or even write about it.
3. Take Care Of Yourself
To quote Jung, “Your soul is in great need, because drought weighs on its world.”
Doing shadow work and engaging in the individuation process are extremely
beneficial for your mental health. And one of the most important things you do is take care
of yourself well. That said, it’s important to note that one cannot turn inwards if one’s
external circumstances aren’t sufficient. You can only worry about who you are if
you don’t have to worry about more basic needs, such as food, relaxation, safety,
amongst others. In other words: you have to find a stable basis for your life before you can even
begin doing any other work on yourself. You have to have a goal - whether it’s educational,
in the form of a job, or family-oriented -, you have to have a home, people around you that care
about you and can help you. In other words: you have to take good care of yourself. This means
eating healthy, sleeping enough, exercising, and taking time to de-stress every day.
Jung had many tips for how to improve your external life. First of all, he stressed the
importance of setting professional boundaries and standards. These standards shouldn’t be big
and unreachable. You might not end up with that job or in a situation you’d wanted,
but you can always try to see the light in your work. Having your dream job isn’t a
necessary requirement for taking pride in your work. Instead, to find that feeling with the
work you do have, ask yourself the following questions: Are you trying your best? Is there
any way to put a personal touch in your work? What parts of the job do you see reflected in
your work?Of course you’re not limited to these questions, but they’re a good start. The point is
that these standards should concern you just as much as if it were a task you’d rather be doing.
Another good lesson to put into practice in your external life is finding balance. Just like your
Self consists of balanced opposites, so should you try to do so in your life. For every hour
you work, make sure you get enough rest. For every moment spent socializing, make sure that you also
spend time alone. Eat food that makes you feel good as well as that is healthy. Don’t sleep too
much but definitely don’t sleep too little. While financial security is a basic need, wealth is
not - and trying to chase after it will likely become destructive in the long run. Something
that can help you find balance in a busy and demanding world is to start building a routine,
follow schedules, or to at least set daily or weekly goals for yourself. This will give you
an idea of what you need to do in the day or week ahead and will allow you a better overview of when
you have time for certain things, and when you should spend time and energy on other things.
Having an overview in the form of schedules or goals will help you find balance in your life:
they can help you plan to reach your basic needs without going too far.
Lastly, Jung preached the practice of admiration. One of the most essential skills to learn in
your life is the skill of appreciation. Jung considered our ability to appreciate beauty to
be a vital part of life. If you are unable to appreciate what’s beautiful and good,
you’ll never feel satisfied with what you have and never feel like you have
your basic needs met. According to Jung, one of the best ways to cultivate this ability was
to observe art and nature. So, for you to be able to work on self-improvement,
your subconscious and persona, you have to take good care of yourself and meet your basic needs.
4. Reflect Every Day
In the words of Jung, “To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is
needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is.”
One of the most important goals to set for yourself and ways to take care of yourself
is to take the time to reflect every day. Reflect on your day, what you did and why,
how you felt and why,and how it compares with other, similar days or situations. Remember
that this is also an incredibly important step when it comes to shadow work and the
individuation process. Reflection can be done in the way of meditation and seeing what comes
up in your head. But it can also be done by just taking the time to sit or journal and ask
yourself specific questions. The things Jung recommends you reflect on are the following:
Your worldviews and beliefs. What are they? Why do you have them? What do they say about who
you are as a person? Do they hinder you in your day-to-day life? If so, how do you change them?
Your actions and what motivated them. How did you behave today? Are there any acts that stand
out to you? And if so, why? And what motivated your actions? Do they feel authentic to you?
Why or why not? Who do you want to be? Did you work towards that goal today? If not, why not?
What stopped you? What personality traits do you find despicable? Why? Can you find traces of them
in yourself? Try to be as honest as possible. Your dreams. What did you dream of the last
few nights? Could it symbolize anything about your own life? According to Jung,
dreams say a lot about your subconscious - often, they reveal hidden emotions or
feelings that might be bothering you without you even knowing. By analyzing your dreams,
you will bring them to the surface. And finally, Archetypes. Jung theorizes
that people’s personas are made up of human archetypes, such as The Mother or The Hero.
Which archetypes do you identify with and why? And are these behaviors destructive or helpful?
By journalling, meditating, or just thinking about these questions,
you’ll get to know yourself in ways that will be completely new to you.
And when you get to know yourself, you know better how to care for yourself,
what your shadow looks like, what your persona looks like, and who you truly are.
5. Find Meaning In Your Life
In our final quote from Jung for this video, he says;
“The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
Considering the world to be completely arbitrary, unfair, or even cruel,
is becoming more and more common. While this might feel natural and logical,
this is a fatal flaw, according to Jung. Whether or not it’s true, completely surrendering to
that idea is one of the most negative things you can do. Finding something to believe in,
Jung argued, is one of the most motivating and healthy approaches to life you can take.
It was his view that someone who believes in nothing at all can be defeated by every
single blow life throws their way because there is nothing to cling to. See an overarching belief
or meaning as a branch that you can grab when you’re about to fall over a cliff. The branch
holds you up. It could save your life. You need something to hold onto. When you have that,
you will always be able to make a certain sense of the chaos in the universe, your life, and
yourself. It gives you something to believe in and there’ll be a deeper meaning to everything you do.
How can we work on personal growth if there’s no specific lens through which we see the world? In
Jungian philosophy, if the world is completely arbitrary, then so are we. If the world is cruel,
then there is no point in trying anything at all. But this is not true - we have complete power over
ourselves, whatever our circumstances are. So, Jung says, it’s absolutely necessary to find
something through which to see the world. This doesn’t have to be a religion, although religion
is a perfect example of such a view-point. Other lenses through which you could see the world
include spiritual viewpoints not associated with a religion, a certain philosophy or psychology
that resonates with you, or even broader scientific principles like evolution or entropy.
Explicitly allowing yourself to believe in something bigger helps you to ground yourself
and contextualize your experiences. Someone who believes in karma, or the importance of kindness
has a great motivation to do good deeds, and thus feel good about themselves. Someone who
believes that hard work will be rewarded has great motivation to work hard and try their
best every single day. Someone who believes that all people are just looking for love and
to be loved has a good way of understanding other people’s behavior and how to achieve things when
it comes to other people. Each belief motivates and helps you further in life. Ultimately this
means that whenever something bad happens to you or things don’t work out the way you
expected them or needed them to, there is a viewpoint that can bring you comfort - either
by explaining how things ended up this way, or by outlining a possible new plan of action for you.
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