Discovering Our True Self…

Photo by Flo Maderebner

Deep within us lies an instinctive force which craves our potential. It is a motivating force behind our actions and experiences within this world. This thing drives us towards our own uniqueness, our authenticity, and our wholeness, and does so quite often beyond our conscious knowledge or intention. But we can become conscious of it throughout life.

Every budding flower seeks to produce the most vibrant appearance and color and every animal seeks to become the most suitable to its environment to thrive. This germinal seed of and for growth is a part of everything living, the human condition included.

Let’s add a touch more from the gentleman, C.G. Jung, who coined the term individuation:

Individuation means becoming an “in-dividual,” 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 “coming to selfhood” or “self-realization” (Jung, 1966, para. 266).

Self-realization is the coming to consciousness of the totality in which we are; It is knowing who we are and what we are capable of in this life; It is becoming conscious of one’s unconscious habits; and it is achieving the psychological understanding of seeing our uniqueness, and then living it. It is realizing our capabilities, but also our limits. It is seeing the various aspects of our personality. It is recognizing we are more than what we believe we are. It is recognizing our light side, our dark, our femininity, and our masculinity. And yes, each sex contain both masculine and feminine components. We simply have to unlock the hidden potential which we all possess. It is then integrating all these capabilities, traits, and aspects of personality into one. The moment they become one is the moment we realize the Self, the truest expression of who we are.

This coming to consciousness is the heart of the path of individuation.

The term Self seems to belong to Eastern religions and spiritualities in common language, but let’s look at what it means psychologically. Marie-Louise von Franz (1994), a brilliant psychoanalyst, said about the Self:

“The Self can be defined as an inner guiding center, which does not coincide with our consciousness and which can only be further explored through dreams, which show that it works toward a lasting expansion and maturation of the personality” (para. 9).

An inner guiding center… which works toward a lasting expansion and maturation of the personality… There it is: that germinal seed which promotes our growth towards wholeness.

Sadly, there are often issues which interfere with this process, rather than coming into harmony with it. Two of the common issues are of the ego and the persona.

1.      Ego

We often confuse the word, self, with ego. The Self is not our ego. The Self is “supraordinate” (Jung, 1966, para. 274) to ego. A critical part on the path of individuation is differentiating the ego from the Self. The ego in this context can be thought of as our daily ego-consciousness, but it is only a part of the totality in which we are.

The mythologist, Joseph Campbell, said in an interview with Bill Moyers about the ego:

Campbell: “The real dragon is in you.”

Moyers: “And what is that real dragon?”

Campbell: “That’s your ego, holding you in.”

Moyers: “What’s my ego?”

Campbell: “What I want, what I believe, what I can do, what I think I love, and all that. What I regard as the aim of my life and so forth. It might be too small. It might be that which pins you down. And if it’s simply that of doing what the environment tells you to do, it certainly is pinning you down. And so the environment is your dragon, as it reflects within yourself” (1988).

Photo by Tia Rawat

Campbell’s words here are one of the greatest barriers on the path of individuation, to becoming the wholeness that we are. We must come to the realization that our aim just might be too small. We must recognize perhaps we do not love something as much as we thought, or we only conduct a certain act or behavior to conform to societal pressures. Is what you believe, what you pursue, and what you seek to fulfill in life actually a desire of yours? Or does it come from outside of you?

The Self within knows our deepest desires beyond what our ego holds as verdict. How do we discover our own truths? We ask the difficult questions, we inquire within, and we work with our nightly dreams. Why dreams, as von Franz also mentioned above?

“The task consists in integrating the unconscious, in bringing together “conscious” and “unconscious.” I have called this the individuation process…” (Jung, 1967, para. 459).

As stated within my previous post, Those Nightly Dreams Are More Than You Think, dreams are messages from the unconscious. Within dreams lays the key to unlock one’s own truths, one’s own potential, and one’s own unlived life. Working with dreams is one of the best ways to unify conscious and unconscious.

2. Persona

The other issue and one of the first recognitions on the path is discovering the presence of the persona. The persona is that mask we put on while at work, or in front of friends or family, so we dare not show the world who we truly are. It is a common psychological problem for people to identify with their persona, for example: When one identifies who they are with their profession. We are much more than our profession. Or when an individual within a circle of friends identifies with the best traits which friends make apparent. In doing this, we are prone to suppress and repress the traits they do not favor. But those traits too are a part of who we are.

“Through the persona a man tries to appear as this or that, or he hides behind a mask, or he may even build up a definite persona as a barricade” (Jung, 1967, para. 269).

Photo by hitesh choudhary

We are always unconscious of the persona at first, but we must come to see the mask we put on in front of others. There is no problem with having a persona, so long as we are conscious of it. If unconscious, this mask is only a barrier to living our truest expression. One of my very first dreams, once I began recording them nightly, was of the persona. Here it is:

I was sitting at a bar next to one of my friends. I felt something begin to fall off my face. I lean over the bar and see what looks like wax melting onto the bar. My friend next to me jumped back, gasped, and she asked me, “Who are you?” Everyone in the bar turned and looked at me.

That false face I showed the world, my mask I put on in front of others, was melting off my face from the depth of self-inquiry I was doing at that time of my life. Nonetheless, this female figure within the dream was a personification of the anima (I will cover anima and animus in another post). She wanted me to answer the question. She asked me straight forward, Who are you? I had to turn this question upon myself when I awoke and ask the terrifying, exciting, and wild question, Who am I?

Who are you really in this life? What is it you desire the most? Who are you behind closed doors which you never show to a friend or family member? Deeper than these questions and simply asked: Who are you?

We must ask the questions; we must discover our truths. We reflect on our lives; we question everything we hold to be true. We ask those difficult questions within: What am I not achieving in my life that I am capable of? How am I holding my own Self back? What is my potential? Keep asking the difficult questions we never want to hear or ask. Keep going. Keep pushing. Our authenticity wants nothing more than to be realized and lived.

I have often been asked, “But what about society? If we’re entirely focused on ourselves or the Self, where is the contribution to the collective?” It’s a fantastic question. I’ll cover this quickly by referring to C.G. Jung’s differentiation of individualism and individuation:

“Individualism means deliberately stressing and giving prominence to some supposed peculiarity rather than to collective considerations and obligations. But individuation means precisely the better and more complete fulfilment of the collective qualities of the human being, since adequate consideration of the peculiarity of the individual is more conducive to a better social performance than when the peculiarity is neglected or suppressed” (Jung, 1966, para. 267).

It all begins with us. Every change and potential we wish to see among the world can only be done by first doing the work on ourselves. This is our greatest contribution to the collective and to the increase in consciousness, which consciousness itself demands. We find our calling at the culmination of the work. One’s calling becomes one’s vocation. And there is nothing more suitable we can offer the world than our realized potential for this life. I leave you with this:

“…there is no cure and no improving of the world that does not begin with the individual himself” (Jung, 1966, para. 373).

I wish you well among the journey,

Mark

References

Frans, M. L. von. (1994). Archetypal dimensions of the psyche. Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Jung, C. G. (1967). The collected works of C. G. Jung: Symbols of Transformation (Vol 5). Princeton University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1966). The collected works of C. G. Jung: Two essays in analytical psychology (Vol 7). Princeton University Press.

Moyers. (1988, June 21). Ep. 1: Joseph Campbell and the power of myth- ‘the hero’s adventure.’ Bill Moyers. https://billmoyers.com/content/ep-1-joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth-the-hero%E2%80%99s-adventure-audio/