Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded the field of analytical
psychology. He was very interested in the inner workings of a person:
their personality, desires, what is conscious to them and what is not.
He called the center of our consciousness ‘the ego’:
it regulates everything that we are conscious of and decides how to and on what to act.
However, everybody also has a great many traits and parts of their personality that they are
unconscious of: this includes what Jung called ‘the shadow.’ Jung divided the unconscious into
two layers: personal unconsciousness, and collective unconsciousness. The former is
all that is part of you as an individual, but that you are not aware of or even in
denial about. This will include hidden or unknown emotions, desires, memories, feelings, and more.
The collective unconscious encompasses those unconscious feelings, thoughts, and instincts,
that all people as a group have or have had in the past. They are the things universally
inherited by humans. Jung believed, all human beings share certain traits or affinities,
and they can be described as ‘archetypes.’ Archetypes have been a part of our collective
history since long before Jung, and commonly found in mythology, fairy tales, or religious stories.
Jung believed that bringing your unconsciousness into your own conscious mind is a foolproof recipe
for becoming the best human being you can be, or as Dr Jung would put it, a superior person,
and in today’s video we’re going to show you 7 ways to become a superior person,
according to the philosophy of Carl Jung.
Express yourself creatively
Jung says “Without this playing with fantasy, no creative work has ever
yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.”
Jung believed that the art an individual makes houses parts of their unconsciousness within
every piece. When making art, our inner states and situations unknowingly influence what we make,
and the way we make it. Jung incorporated the drawing of mandalas in his philosophy.
Mandalas specifically have been used for decades by different ancient cultures as
a symbol of the universe and wholeness - and Jung decided
that the best kind of circle motif to represent its artist is the mandala.
For a long while, Jung sketched a mandala in his notebook every morning and found that it
did indeed correspond with his feelings, emotions, and thoughts at the time. The more harmonious the
mandala, the better you are probably doing. Jung hypothesized that people have an especially strong
urge to make art - such as mandalas - when they are in phases of personal growth. When you or
your life is changing, you feel less in control and you need some sort of way to regain it.
If you draw mandalas at regular intervals and learn how to interpret them, you have
an incredible tool for self-improvement. Drawing a mandala relaxes your brain and
will help your thoughts focus on all the things that you normally suppress. Moreover,
the kinds of lines you draw and colors you choose can tell you things about yourself:
do you use round, soft shapes or harsh lines? Cold or warm colours? And what
do you think this reflects? If you analyze yourself through mandalas every day, week,
or month, you can track your growth and changes in a way you never have before.
But it’s not just limited to mandalas, all creative works you produce can help you
analyze your way of thinking, priorities, and unconscious concerns. All these insights can
then help you get to know and improve yourself - and, therefore, become a superior person.
Be conscious of your performances
According to Jung “The persona is a complicated system of relations
between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask,
designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others,
and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual.”
One of the biggest things that holds you back from being the superior person in a room,
is the fact that you probably overly adjust to the other people in it. Knowingly or not, most people
present a fake version of themselves, in some way or another, whenever they’re in social situations.
For example, they laugh at unfunny jokes, agree with statements that they do not actually support,
or lie about their own well-being for the comfort of others. It’s almost a performance,
like you’re wearing a mask over your actual self and Carl Jung called this the ‘persona.’
Your persona is how you present yourself in order for people to perceive you in
the way you want them to. You might want to seem kind and easy-going,
and thus you agree with everything and give compliments that you do not mean. Our persona
develops when we learn about social rules and the expectations of those around us during childhood.
Someone who grew up in a household where sharing your own opinion was
seen as arguing and would be punished, has probably developed a persona that tends
to avoid conflict and goes along with the most popular opinion; In contrast,
someone who grew up in a household that saw emotions as weakness has probably developed
a persona that is tough and unfeeling. But our persona is not just one thing: according to Jung,
everybody has multiple masks. The two examples we just looked at could have been the same person.
You actually wear multiple masks at a time - for example, you want to appear agreeable
and tough - and sometimes, what masks you wear depends on the circumstances. You act differently
among family members than with friends, and you certainly act differently among friends
than you do with authority figures! For all of these situations, you have seperate masks.
The persona causes problems when the mask you’re wearing is unnecessary, unhelpful, or detrimental
to your well-being. Imagine the person who always acts tough among friends, even though they’re
going through something difficult. This mask prevents them from getting any help or relief.
This clashing with one’s actual needs is very frustrating and bad for your self-image. You might
start to blame yourself for wanting to open up and show emotion - even if it is totally natural
- because it would destroy your persona. When you think of your persona as the way you should truly
be, you are aiming for something impossible, and as a result you constantly disappoint yourself.
Jung called this ‘overidentification with the persona.’ You believe that you are your persona,
and get angry at yourself whenever you fail to live up to the expectations of that persona.
Not only is this a miserable, harmful, and inauthentic way to live, but someone who has been
overidentifying with their persona for too long could accidentally destroy it. This might happen
in the way of burnouts that cause you to be unable to act any longer, and might cause
you to isolate yourself. You could also lose your mask right in the middle of a ‘performance’ - the
tough person suddenly bursts out crying in front of their friends, or the agreeable person snaps
at someone sharing an opposing opinion. However, Jung also did not believe that we
should get rid of our masks entirely. Instead they are absolutely necessary for our social
existence. For example, not showing emotions in front of your boss is probably for the best;
crying in his office will definitely be seen as unprofessional, especially if it happens often,
and it probably isn’t best to share very personal and intimate or traumatic details about your life
on the workfloor. Moreover, being agreeable can help you out if you try to make a good impression
on someone. So how do we keep our masks without overidentifying with them or using them too much?
Put simple, instead of letting the mask rule you, you should learn how to rule the mask. This
process is known as restoration. By restoring, Jung means developing a flexible persona that
does not collide with one’s true self, but rather helps one’s true self navigate society.
The restored persona should be a persona one is aware of, not one that manifests unconsciously
or is seen as your ‘true self.’ In other words, you should know when you’re putting on the mask
and why! Instead of automatically concealing your emotions, you should ask yourself case by case,
what would be most beneficial to me right now? Sharing your emotions with
close friends could relieve you, while doing so with your boss might just be a bad move.
By being conscious of your performance, you can choose to integrate your true self
into it. If your true self is someone who is sometimes emotional and sometimes disagreeable,
you can choose when to let it out instead of concealing it entirely. Superior people
know exactly when to act a certain way - and you could, too! In order to integrate your
authentic self into your persona, though, you should get to know your authentic self.
Identify Your Dark Side
In the words of Jung “Everyone carries a shadow,
and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”
One of the most important parts of Jung’s philosophy is getting to know
your shadow-self. Your shadow-self consists of all the parts of yourself that you consider bad,
reject, and repress. This might include anger issues, dark thoughts, shameful tendencies,
and even sexual desires. In many cases the shadow contains traits or desires that are
rejected by society as a whole, and we have been taught from very early on to hide those
parts of ourselves. You deny their existence and hope that by doing that, you make them go away.
However, it does not work. Instead, these traits are there, will always be there, and sometimes
show their ugly head when you least expect it. For example, someone who is convinced that they are
never anrgy and that anger is a negative emotion, might one day just feel a strong sensation of
anger and have absolutely no way to prevent a massive outburst. To truly learn who you are,
you have to get to know your shadow. You have to become conscious of the unconscious. In order to
do so, you should regularly take a step back and analyze your own behavior, thoughts and feelings
during daily life. This could be done through journalling or mediation. Why did you behave
the way you did? Did it feel authentic to you? Why or why not? What was your first urge or instinct
in a certain situation? You have to interrogate yourself like you’re interrogating someone else!
By ‘getting to know’ your shadow-self, Jung means that it is important to become aware
of the shadow-self, without identifying with it. You do not have to see yourself
as all those traits you try not to show. If your shadow houses anger,
you don’t have to see yourself as an angry person. Instead,
just acknowledge the existence of these things. Realize and accept that they are inside of you.
And if like in this example, you find that you are an angry person deep down, you should think
of when it might actually be helpful to show that anger instead of always pushing it down.
When is the right time to wear the mask, and when is it right to put it down? For example, getting
angry at a passerby for bumping into you seems unhelpful and unhealthy. However, getting angry
at a friend who canceled their plans with you for the fifth time in a row might need some anger from
your side for them to truly realize that they’re hurting you. In other words, you have to find ways
to integrate everything you find in your shadow into your personality instead of ignoring it.
Your shadow is not here to punish you but rather to teach you,
and your repressed traits are here to stay. So only if you accept and embrace
your shadow qualities can you improve yourself. The self-knowledge and ability
to use all sides of yourself is what you need to do to become a superior person.
4. Get To Know Your Two Selves
To quote Jung “What can a man say about woman, his own opposite?”
In Jungian philosophy, if you dive deeper into the shadow, you will find that you house two kinds of
traits: masculine, and feminine. Jung called this unconscious part of yourself the animus,
which is masculine, and anima, which is feminine. These apparently opposite,
‘genderised’ traits that you possess are called your contrasexual aspects.
Jung believed that if you are a woman, you most likely have a personal masculine psyche - or
animus - within you and, if you are a man, you most likely have an inner personal feminine
psyche - or anima. The anima and animus are based on the Greek terms of eros and logos.
‘Eros’ is associated with creativity, passion, connection and wholeness. ‘Logos’ is associated
with rationality, objectivity, power and action. However, due to the standard expectations of 20th
Century society, men are encouraged to suppress their feminine traits, and vice versa. We hide
them away in our subconscious and behave the way we think we are ‘supposed to’.
Of course it’s obvious nonsense that literally half of the global population all think in
precisely one way with one set of values, and the other half think entirely the opposite. And this
should clue you into the fact that in reality, personality traits are almost entirely unrelated
to sex or gender. Sometimes women suppress their anima, sometimes men repress their animus,
but we all have a wonderful, messy, ever-changing mix of both. The point here is not to convince you
that you are suppressing certain gendered traits, or that this is in any way a negative thing,
but to look inward and ask yourself how that mix resides in you right now and how
it affects how you’re feeling, and how you engage with the world and people around you.
In reality, everyone is contradictory in some way. A person can both value truth and be a liar,
or seem an extrovert but feel like an introvert. But since this is not commonly acknowledged,
we are often encouraged to only embrace the traits expected of our gender identity
and ignore - or worse, actively admonish - those that might contradict them. We repress.
Think of a man who loves to knit. It is considered a creative, feminine hobby,
and thus not expected of a man. He might want to try and hide this hobby for fear of insults
and ridicule, while this could be a wonderful skill to have and a way to relax. Another example
is the belief that women are generally better with emotions than men. Because of that idea,
a woman might feel like she has to talk about her emotions all the time even if she doesn’t want to,
while a man might be discouraged to do so even if he wants to. The denial of your anima or animus
is not only unnecessary, but it will twist your traits into something ugly. Men who repress their
emotions to be more manly might become cold and cruel, while women who force themselves
into certain roles because society says they ‘should’ could become bitter and distant.
Thus it is important to learn how to recognize and accept your anima and animus.
Everybody has contradictory traits, and they can live in balance,
just like your negative shadow traits can. To analyze your masculine and feminine tendencies,
you can observe people around you and see which of them you admire or think positively about,
and which you find yourself being judgemental about. Then: question yourself. Why do you feel a
certain way about one person and differently about another? Would your opinion of those people be any
different if you perceived them as a different gender? What feelings do you usually have when an
individual’s behavior doesn’t align with societal gender norms? Does this affect you? And if so,
how? And why? All these questions and practices will help you gain more insight into yourself
and can help you become more open, balanced, and successful. In other words: Superior.
5. Look Into Your Archetypes Jung tells us “Archetypes are like
riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which it can find again at any time.”
The very last part of your subconscious comes from something that Jung called
the ‘collective unconscious.’ This collective unconscious is a certain
unconsciousness shared by all human beings through their shared history
and experiences. Through our ancestors we inherit certain traits from birth,
and that is the reason for all similarities between people across time, cultures, and space.
They are the natural tendencies of the human mind to see the world around you in a certain way and
behave in a certain way. This does not mean that every single person shares the exact same traits,
but rather that there is a finite collection of traits, and everyone has some of them.
Some examples of archetypes that Jung describes are
The Hero
The hero is a brave fighter who thinks that if they work hard enough, they can achieve
anything. They're pretty stubborn and believe in themselves a lot, maybe even too much sometimes.
The Caregiver
This archetype prioritizes others over themselves, often putting the needs of
others before their own. They tend to say yes instinctively, guided by their caring nature.
The Trickster The trickster is a playful
character who seeks enjoyment and fun above all else. Even when facing challenges, they are
inclined to use humor, negotiation, and mischief to navigate their way through the situation.
Doing research on the Jungian archetypes and trying to determine which ones you see
yourself the most can tell you a lot about your subconscious. When you start to think
about what archetypes you identify with you will get to know yourself in an entirely
new way. It can also help with shadow work, determining the anima and animus,
and your persona, because every archetype carries positive and negative traits.
For example, imagine someone who is part of ‘The Caregiver’ archetype. Their positive
traits consist of their kindness and helpful nature, which results in lots of loyal friends
and good reputation. However, they might take care of others to the point of neglecting themselves,
or even grow bitter thanks to their own insatiable urge to ignore their own needs.
When you get to know what archetypes you identify with, you will get to know some
of your strong and weak points, and will know better how to balance them out.
6. Explore your self
Jung once wrote "The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are."
Another part of our inner workings is what Jung called ‘the self.’ If you imagine yourself as a
circle - or mandala, as Jung loved to use - the middle of the mandale is the ‘ego’,
which is the conscious part of you, and around it is the self. The self can be represented
by a whole mandala; it contains every single nook and cranny of your mind, the conscious,
unconscious, and everything in between. As the center, the ego is only a small part of
the self. There is also the shadow, anima, animus, persona, and so much more in you.
The self generally contains lots of opposites: you are both an anrgy and calm person,
part introvert and part extrovert, sometimes stressed and other times relaxed. When the
self is in balance, all the parts of you get their chance to shine when it is most helpful.
It contains everything we are, everything we once were, and everything we can be.
The self is something so vast that it can be explored throughout your whole life and you
will always find something new. Your search for your self is never over. Continuously exploring
the self is the key to individuality as well as confidence in yourself and your own decisions.
This is because your goal should be to make the ego, your consciousness, as big as possible:
to know as much about yourself as you can. The self is a sign that we should
always continue to challenge ourselves and ask ourselves questions - and the actions
we take should be part of that, too.When you have an important decision to make,
it is the self - the entirety of you - that you should explore. You have to look inwards,
not outwards. As Jung said, ‘Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.’
You can only live the very best life and become superior as a person if you always,
always try to keep exploring your self. By doing so, we can truly get to know
and improve ourselves throughout our entire lives. This ends with us being finally free
to explore who we truly are as individuals, to find balance and to become anything we
want to be. When you freely explore the self, only then can you become who you truly are.
7. Find Your Meaning In our final quote from Carl Jung for this video,
he says “The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”
According to Jung, one of the biggest reasons for unhappiness and the inability to feel better as
a person, is when you don’t have anything to believe in. Without religion, spirituality,
science or philosophy, our lives do not only seem boring, but also very arbitrarily unfair.
Or in other words: hopeless. We need to have certain beliefs to find meaning in
our lives. According to Jung, meaning will grant you purpose: if your life has meaning,
you know what you’re living for. So there must be some form of religion, spirituality,
a philosophical maxim, scientific principle or something else that you truly believe in.
So, look inwards and think to yourself: what do I believe in? What spiritual or religious beliefs,
what moral principles, what values? How do I act on a daily basis? What do I expect from others?
You could journal about these questions, or meditate on them. Finding what you believe
in gives you the power to use it even more, and consciously transform it into the most
effective version it can be. It helps you to both motivate yourself and see more in life.
But don’t worry. None of this means that you have to become religious or a philosopher . It
just means that you shouldn’t view life as meaningless. Find a goal to work towards or
ideals to adhere to. All superior people in the world consciously know what they live by
and why. It is their way of taking control, and it is what makes them so superior.
If you enjoyed this video, please make sure to check out our full philosophies
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