9 Life Lessons From Carl Jung (Jungian Philosophy)

Carl Jung, together with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, is one of the 3 founders of psychoanalysis which is a set of psychological theories and methods aiming to release repressed emotions and experiences - in other words, to make the unconscious conscious. Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875 and died in 1961, leaving behind great works in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology and religious studies. Jung had Freud as a mentor for a good part of his career but later he departed from him.

This division was painful for Jung and it led him to found his own school of psychology, called analytical psychology as a comprehensive system separate from psychoanalysis. If classical psychoanalysis focuses on the patient’s past, as early experiences are very important in personality development, analytical psychology primarily focuses on the present, on mythology, folklore, and cultural experiences, to try to understand human consciousness. One of the most important ideas of analytical psychology which Jung founded is the process of individuation, which is the process of finding the self - something Jung considered an important task in human development.

While he did not formulate a systematic philosophy, he is nonetheless considered a sophisticated philosopher - his school of thought dubbed “Jungian philosophy”. Its concepts can apply to many topics covered in the humanities and the social sciences. A good part of his work was published after his death and indeed there are still some articles written by him that to this day have yet to be published.

Some of his most important books are: “Psychology of the Unconscious”, “Man and His Symbols”, “The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious”, “Modern Man In Search of a Soul”, “The Psychology of the Transference”, “Memories, Drams, Thoughts”, and “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious. ” Besides being a great writer and a researcher, he was also an artist, a craftsman and even a builder. His contribution is enormous and there is a great deal we can learn from his works, which is why in this video we bring you 9 lessons you can learn from the philosophy of Carl Jung.

1) Look inside yourself first Jung said: “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens. ” If Freud was inclined towards the empirical side of the science of psychology, Jung was seen by many as a mystic, being very much interested in philosophy and spiritual subjects, although he preferred to be seen as a scientist. Jung’s work on himself and on his patients made him realize that life has not only a material purpose, but a spiritual one as well.

By turning their eyes into themselves, not towards the external world, people can awaken, they can find their meaning in life, can get in touch with their personal story, with their personal belief systems. All too often we are overly concerned with what’s happening around us, in society, and with how other people perceive us. In other words, we are too concerned with our persona, which is a false self we present to society.

To get in touch with who we truly are, we need to look inside. By looking inside, we can better understand who we are, better know our personal myth, our personal belief system and we can understand who we want to become, and this will help us have a direction, a sense in life. If we don’t look closely inside our heart, our lives would seem like a dream, but someone else’s dream, in which we just follow a group, be it our family, our friends or the colleagues at work.

We do as everyone does. Looking inside is a process of self-exploration, is the foundation of our true self. To look inside, we need to spend more time alone, meditating, analyzing our desires and dreams, making lists of them and of our skills and our talents and figure out what would be the most logical path to take in life based on what desires and resources we have.

Doing this regularly, we can find the right compass to guide us throughout our lives. 2) Integrate your contraries According to Jung: “Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries. ” Jung is famous for exploring the concepts of anima and animus in psychology.

According to his work, they represent the contrasexual aspects of a person's psyche. Jung believed that if you are a woman, you have an inner personal masculine psyche - or animus - within you and, if you are a man, you have an inner personal feminine psyche - or anima - within you. While our understanding of gender in the way Jung expressed it has changed radically in the decades since he developed his theories, the principle of a duality of personality can still be a useful way of understanding and working with our own, holistic psyche.

The main consequence of having our psyche divided into two different parts, our external gender identity, and a subconscious one - the contrasexual part, be that anima or animus, is that many of us tend to neglect the subconscious one, repressing it and sometimes that can come back to hurt us. To avoid this conflict, it is important to not only recognize this hidden part, but to accept it. When we have the two sides in harmony, our attitude and interactions with the opposite sex tend to be more positive.

We can try to observe our own behavior when dealing with others, we can take notes and analyze the progress we make in the journey. Generally speaking, in the case of a woman who wants to integrate her animus, she should strive to be more focused, to follow her goals and do everything to achieve them, without sacrificing her femininity, and in the case of a man, he should start trusting his emotional side more, to open up more in front of other people and to be more gentle in dealing with others, without sacrificing his masculinity. Through this integration, our interactions with the opposite sex will improve.

We can measure our progress in various ways, perhaps we can write every day the way we made decisions, the way we interacted with others and made our voices heard. Balancing our identity with our shadow - our anima or animus is the key in achieving wholeness and improving the relations with the opposite sex. 3) Analyze your dreams In the words of Jung: “The dream shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is.

. ” According to Jung, many dreams seem hard to understand at first, if not impossible, but, when we analyze them in detail, they can reveal the most secretive aspects of our psyche. To understand them, to go deep into the complicated network of our subconscious, we need to break a certain resistance.

And when we succeed in understanding them, we often are astonished at how such a silly dream can reveal the most important and serious problems from our psyche. Drams speak to us in images and they give expression to instincts, the most elementary entities of our nature. Thus, dreams are sparks from the unconscious, revealing the inner reality of the person, they reveal the truth and therefore they are extremely important in practicing psychotherapy.

Drams can be analyzed by each of us, and not just in a psychotherapeutic context. To analyze your dreams, you first need to write them down immediately after you wake up. You can place a notebook and a pen near your pillow so this can be the first thing you do in the morning.

Then, when you have got time during that day, you can find a quiet place and re-read your dream. Write down the key words in the text and make associations between them and your daily life. Maybe that cup of tea which appears in the dream is a present from a friend?

If so, you might have unfinished business with that friend. After you make these associations, start writing the interpretation of the dream, connecting all the dots. Let’s say for example that in your dream you were going towards the kitchen to find that cup of tea, but something happened outside your house, there was a loud noise and you got scared and thought of running back to the bedroom.

One interpretation of this simple dream is that you may need to confront your fear to reconnect with that friend. Drams can be much more complex than this and the more key words you can find in your dream, the more associations you can make and the more complex the interpretation will be. 4) Learn to face reality To quote Jung: “What you resist, persists.

” According to Jung, the more you resist anything in life, the more you bring it to you. The more you run away from your fears, the more life will put you in a position to face them. In psychology, resistance only amplifies your problems.

Happiness, well-being, and psychological health are related to how we deal with the negative aspects of life, not with how we run away from them. Whenever we deny our problems, or fight against them in an aggressive way, or when we are stuck in feelings of hurt, sorrow, anxiety, or anger, we are resisting dealing with the core issue of the problem. The more fixated we are in our negative or depressed attitude, the more we resist solving the problem.

Therefore, we always have to work through our feelings in order to maintain our psychological health. The more common forms of resistance are: to deny what is happening, to minimize the problem, to blame other people or situations, and to try to change other people. We often get strongly attached to the feelings we haven’t resolved or deeply analyzed.

In order to solve a problem, we need first to accept that we have that problem. Letting go of the struggle, accepting reality as it is thus is the first step. For example, imagine you are struggling to keep up at work, your relationship with your boss is worse than ever and you still have to pay your mortgage on your house.

Because deep inside you are terrified of what would happen if you lost your job, your house, maybe even your family if your spouse leaves you, you might have a tendency to minimize the problem, to not let your spouse see just what the real situation is. Meanwhile at work, instead of having an essential conversation with your boss about the issue that bothers them, you might have a tendency to avoid even being in the break room with them. The more you resist having that conversation with them, the more you hide the problem from your spouse, the more the bad situation will persist and the worse the outcome will be.

5) Be aware of superstitions Jung teaches us that: “Primitive superstition lies just below the surface of even the most tough-minded individuals. ” According to Jung, no matter how sharp we believe we are, we are still influenced by common mythology, mainstream religion and cultural superstitions. Jung believed that precisely those people who think they are immune to such influences succumb the easiest to them and therefore, it is important to acknowledge how vulnerable we are to them.

One of the main concepts which Carl Jung came to is the concept of collective consciousness, which means the consciousness that is common to all humankind. Jung thought that the great aspects of life, like sexuality, are related to some primordial images coming from the collective unconscious. In the collective unconscious, these primordial images were deposited along thousands of years and they influence our daily lives.

Our basic problems are not new, they were repeated several millions of times by our ancestors and their traces can still be found in our collective unconsciousness today. And superstitions are some ways by which humans tried to face these problems. There is no meaning to running away from primitive superstitions, it is healthier to acknowledge them and find a way to integrate them in our evolved culture, no matter how silly they may seem to be.

One of the best ways to make sure we do not succumb to primitive superstitions is first to stop believing we are immune to them. For example, according to Jung, many types of inexplicable phobias are born from the collective unconscious: fear of the dark, loud sounds, bridges, or blood. Even though there are not many snakes in Great Britain for example, it was found that many children have an inexplicable fear of snakes.

Humans have always been afraid of snakes, even the biblical myth of Adam and Eve included a snake and many superstitions were formed around them. Indeed, scientists considered that there was an evolutionary advantage given to those who avoided dangerous animals like snakes. So, instead of ignoring your fear of snakes and going into their territory without any concern, it is much better to listen to your fear and avoid those areas or at least take appropriate precautions.

It is often advantageous to integrate superstitions into our lives, but of course not at the expense of our faculties of reason. Just because there are no snakes in the grass where you live doesn’t mean you never need to wear shoes. 6) Think, do not judge As Jung once said: “Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.

” According to Jung, the process of judging says more about the person who judges than about the person who is being judged. It is all based on the process of projection. What disturbs us in others is what is wrong within us.

Thus, knowing how to observe others and how what they do upsets us can help us understand ourselves more and fix our personal issues. Also, it is a matter of showing empathy to not judge other people and it is more moral to think before opening your mouth to criticize someone. As the old saying goes, do not judge someone until you’ve a mile in their shoes.

There is a fine line between being sincere and being judgemental. Being too honest and not filtering your thoughts before speaking can lead you to make the mistake of reacting too fast, judging people unfairly because you didn’t go through all the details of their lives to understand them first. Thus, beware of being too honest, too fast.

Take your time to really think things through, analyze a situation from all angles, consider other people first before considering their actions. For example, if you have an assistant at work whose work has become noticeably and unusually sloppy in recent weeks. Instead of rushing them, criticizing their mistakes aggressively, have a short conversation with them, ask them why they are behaving like this, whats happened or changed recently and how their problem can be solved.

A simple conversation can save professional - and personal - relationships. 7) Avoid excessive pride Jung tells us: “Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.

” According to Jung, we often fear looking inside ourselves and we fear the hard work we need to do for self growth. When this fear finds justification in the social context like in our workspace or in front of our friends, then it is easy to get stuck in a certain behavior pattern to protect ourselves against this fear. One form of this self protection is pride, which Jung sees as self deception, preventing us from living an authentic life.

As such, showing pride is oftentimes a sign of weakness, not of strength. Neurosis is often associated with having excessive pride. Neurotic people usually have certain activities or people they avoid that can hurt their ego or pride.

Sometimes they even avoid a certain career path due to pride. This avoidance happens automatically, without them even being aware of this tendency. For example, in spite of the fact that most of us love to draw or paint, we don’t dare to buy the necessary materials out of fear we are not now nor can ever be any good at it.

We avoid painting simply because we don’t want to see at what level our skills are and we do not want to hurt our pride. We prefer to think we don’t have time to paint than to see that we are at the very beginning level and that we have a great amount of work to do in order to become an expert. Another example may be when we get stuck in a job out of the fear of starting the job hunting process and failing as we might well find out that we cannot get that dream job unless we develop more skills first.

Pride prevents us from growing in any sector of life. To develop ourselves on all levels means to be more humble, to dare to face the reality that we are not as great as we think and to start on working on improving ourselves. 8) Be eager to grow older Jung wrote: “Life really does begin at forty.

Up until then, you are just doing research. ” Carl Jung lived a long life and he enjoyed a stable family life, a very good financial situation, having a successful career and achieving international fame. At the beginning he was an apprentice of Freud but later, and when he was around 37 years old, he departed from him, becoming an independent focusing on his own school of psychology - analytical psychology.

The moment of the break up with Freud was when Jung published his work “Psychology of the Unconscious”. From then, Jung walked on uncharted territory and all his friends left him, except two colleagues. Around the same time, Jung left his medical post at Burghölzli and he broke up with his famous mistress, who was also his research assistant.

Thus, there was a lot of turmoil in Jung’s life, until he reached the age of 40. After that, Jung became an independent figure, following his own path, having his own psychological school. As Jung could find his way at 40 years old, so can each of us.

Until 40 years old, we often walk on a path opened up by others, we learn from experts or mentors and we are afraid to go sideways. Around 40, we reach the point when we understand how short life is and that we should do everything it takes to find our own voice, no matter the cost. At 40 years old, we have just lived about half of our lives and there are still so many possibilities ahead.

At 40, we have learned how to be more comfortable in our own skin, more confident in our abilities, having a good amount of professional experience, we care less about what others think of us and have more courage to make radical changes. Therefore, we should focus on learning from others as much as possible until 40, to try to find what the right field is for us and then, when we reach 40, we should become independent, have our own voice and our own established principles of life. 9) Tell your story In our final quote from Jung for this video, he said “The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.

” As a psychotherapist, Jung understood how important it is to give space to the patients to tell their own story. During a confession, there is a process of transfer, by which the subconscious elements of the patient, for example their subconscious desire to hurt someone is brought to the surface of their consciousness. Jung called this long-term process of integration - individuation.

Individuation can also be performed in a context outside psychotherapy. A simple form of such a process is writing your story. All you need is a pen and a paper, some time and quietness.

You could also talk to a close friend or record yourself telling your story if you find that more comfortable. Do not write only what has happened to you physically, but also about what happens in your dreams, everything that is in your mind. We are not only what has happened to us, but also the way we interpret the things that have happened to us, as well as what we dream and what we envision for the future.

Writing down helps you shape your own mythology. By shaping our own mythology, we can reach a state of wholeness, where all our latent potential is brought to our consciousness. Only then can we live our life with self-awareness.

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