Carl Jung - How Your Dark Side Can Reveal Your Life’s Purpose (Jungian Philosophy)

Here is a brief summary of the key points from the transcript: - The transcript outlines Carl Jung's perspective on the purpose of life. According to Jung, the purpose is not about achievements, but about self-discovery, taking action, and becoming your true self. - To find your purpose, you first need to engage in "shadow work" to understand your unconscious desires, emotions, and traits. Regularly reflect on your thoughts and behaviors to bring your unconscious into consciousness. - Don't just identify the shadow traits, but learn to integrate them into your personality in a balanced way. Self-improvement is an ongoing process. - Take action based on your values and beliefs. Don't just wait for things to happen, initiate goals and plans. Challenge yourself. Action brings meaning. - Embrace fear and be prepared. Bravery requires facing fears rather than avoiding them. Where you have fear is where your next task lies. - Accept the bad with the good. Without darkness there is no light. Failures and mistakes provide opportunities for growth and self-discovery. - Appreciate all the good in your life. Finding meaning never ends, so continue to discover yourself, take action, and be proud of what you've tried.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being. Carl Jung when we learn about influential and successful people such as Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, or say Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, Nelson Mandela and so on, we often feel a little inadequate. Their lives were so meaningful. How could ours ever compare? The purpose of life according to Carl Jung has nothing to do with what you achieve. It has to do with who you are and how you act. According to Jung, the entirety of an individuals being can be described by our psyche encompassing all our conscious and unconscious aspects of at the center of our consciousness, which is everything were aware of, is our ego. But theres so much outside of the ego that we dont acknowledge in the center of our unconscious meaning, everything thats hidden to us lies our shadow or our dark side. According to Jung, in our unconscious lies the key to finding our purpose in life. This is because the purpose of your life is not something objective or universal, its something unique to you. Carl Jung was a swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who ended up founding his own school of psychology known as analytical psychology. His philosophy is often referred to as jungian philosophy. Hes also published multiple books, most notably the Psychology of the Unconscious man and his symbols, the archetypes and the collective unconscious. Modern man in search of a soul the psychology of transference, memories, dreams and thoughts and the relations between the ego and the unconscious. In this video we will talk about the steps you need to take so that your dark side can reveal your lifes purpose, according to the philosophy of Carl Jung. One get to know your darkness. Jung says your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside dreams? Who looks inside awakes. Everyone has a unique meaning and purpose in life depending on who you are and what you want. As a result, you need to know who you are before you can begin to figure out the purpose of your life. Many people believe they know themselves well. You might think you are familiar with your traits, strengths, weaknesses and desires so you might be tempted to dive straight into finding your lifes purpose. However, in order to truly know yourself, you have to do what Jung called self realization. Each person is made up of both conscious and unconscious parts. The aspects of ourselves we are aware of and those we are not. The shadow or our dark side is the hidden part of our unconscious that holds repressed desires, emotions and traits. For instance, your shadow might contain feelings of laziness, envy or anger as well as hobbies or interests that youre ashamed of or wish youd outgrown. Because the shadow resides in the unconscious, you are often unaware of what's in it. These traits have been repressed and ignored for so long that they no longer surface in your thoughts. Instead, you tend to over identify with your Persona, the role you unconsciously play to be liked or appreciated by others. This Persona acts like a mask you wear when interacting with the world and you may have multiple masks for different situations. Reintroducing yourself to your shadow requires genuine effort. Engaging in shadow work or getting to know your dark side, as Jung called it, involves regularly stepping back and reflecting on your behaviour, thoughts and feelings in daily life. This could be done through journaling or meditation. Ask yourself, why did I act the way I did? Did it feel authentic? Why or why not? What was my initial instinct in a given situation? How would I feel if the roles were reversed? It's about interrogating yourself as if you were questioning someone else. Jung emphasized that getting to know your shadow doesn't mean identifying with it. You don't have to define yourself by the traits you usually hide. For example, if your shadow houses anger, you dont need to see yourself as an angry person. Instead, simply acknowledge these traits existence. Recognize and accept that they are a part of you. Another way your hidden shadow traits often surface is through judgment of others. The traits or behaviours you despise in others are often the ones you fear in yourself. This is called projection. So whenever you find yourself angry at or irritated by someone elses behaviour, take a moment to do I ever exhibit this tendency? If not, why not? Could this be a shadow trait of mine? According to Jung, those who harshly judge selfishness often repress their own selfish thoughts. And those intolerant of impatience in others may be battling their own impatient tendencies. By taking time each day to sit down, perhaps journal and ask yourself these probing questions. You begin to bring the unconscious into consciousness. Truly getting to know yourself. It is important to continue doing shadow work regularly. As you change, theres always more to discover. Making a habit of shadow work is key to continuously getting closer to a meaningful life. Two, work on yourself. In the words of I dont aspire to be a good man, I aspire to be a whole man. Now that youve found out about your unconscious and perhaps less desirable dark traits, you might be wondering, how can this help me save my life? In fact, you might feel worse about yourself after your self realization because you can no longer ignore all your bad sides. Jung acknowledged that figuring out who you truly are is an intensely painful and frightening process. Many people think that by repressing bad parts of themselves, by never showing them, is a good way to get rid of them fully. I mean, arent those who can hold in their anger the most gentle people? And those who push through their laziness, arent they the most productive people? Well, yes and no. While it is good to want to be better, ignoring traits wont make them go away. Repressing shadow traits often gives them more power. They fester deep inside you, and then when you're tired, stressed, emotional or at a breaking point, they suddenly burst out of you. People that don't acknowledge their anger are the ones who have scary angry outbursts every now and then, people that ignore their laziness end up experiencing burnouts. Ignoring something doesn't make it go away. So now that you actually know your shadow, you can finally do something with it. Whatever you find in your shadow, your dark traits make them useful. Anger, for example, is only bad if it's excessive or unwarranted. But when someone genuinely hurts you, anger can actually help you advocate for yourself. So the question you should ask yourself is, when is it right to act on an emotion and when is it better not to? When should I lean into my mask and Persona? And when do I not have to? By thinking about your emotions in this nuanced sense, rather than thinking of them as bad or good, you will improve your life and well being tremendously. Envy can be a motivator. Laziness can get you well needed rest. Impatience can make you more active if the context is right. 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 isn't here to punish you, but rather to teach you and your oppressed traits are here to stay. So only if you accept and embrace your dark qualities can you actually improve yourself. The self knowledge and ability to use all sides of yourself is what you need to find out your life's purpose. Once your shadow is self integrated, you become more yourself. You'll be more balanced, harmonious and authentic. Once you've figured out how to use your shadow, you have figured out who you truly are, and thus itll become much easier to figure out what you truly want and need from life. Self improvement is another form of shadow work that never ends. Theres always more to improve. When you continuously keep improving yourself, you are adding meaning to your life. Three. Take action. According to Jung, you are what you do, not what you say youll do. When you know who you are, how you can best handle your dark traits and what you believe in. You have to show it. The purpose of life cannot be found in thoughts, but in practice. Jung thought that self realization had to be shown in what you do rather than what you say. After all, you can only say you are a certain way and want certain things if you act like it. This means that you shouldnt live your life reactively. Dont only react to what happens to you, but also initiate something in your life. Instead of waiting for people to befriend you, go out of your way to make friends. Instead of waiting for that promotion, come up with a plan and pursue it. And instead of waiting for your life to achieve the meaning you want it to make your life meaningful with your actions. Currently, most of us do live reactively, even those who actively seek out their shadow and improve themselves. Working on yourself is a great first action one can take. True, but it's not enough to truly start taking action in other areas of life either. In fact, after doing shadow work, one might think they can now sit back and relax. But sitting back in your life is what gets you stuck in meaninglessness. Ok, but how do you start living actively? Simple. By challenging yourself. When youve taken steps to continuously explore your shadow and improve yourself based on what you find, you should also keep taking some extra steps frequently. Ask yourself questions 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 want to do this year and the next five years? How do I want to contribute to the world? What do I expect from others? You could journal about these questions or meditate on them. The answers are clear clues as to what kind of actions to take. You might, for example, want to become a published author. A lot of people do. But a lot of those people that do want to become a published author also don't take many steps to achieve that goal. They wait for inspiration to strike, for their agenda to clear up, and eventually for the book to write itself. They still live reactively. When the time is just right, the book will just flow out of them. Or so they think. So what would someone who wants to become an author have to change? An aspiring author that actually takes action would write on a frequent, scheduled basis, whether they feel like it or not. When they get stuck, they'd actively seek out advice or exercises to help them move along. They would finish a story, if not thanks to motivation, then due to discipline. And then they'd proactively reach out to people in the publishing industry, such as literary agents, of course, many people don't derive meaning from career goals. Instead, their personal ideas about their lives might be a little more abstract. You might want to positively influence new generations. For instance. This could be done in many ways by becoming a parent, a teacher, starting a charity for youth, becoming a youth counselor, a politician. More its then on you to decide in what way you want to achieve this goal and what actions that requires. Whenever you ask yourself questions about your morals and beliefs, youll then have to decide what way you can work towards them and what actions you might need to take. Its quite possible to survive when living reactively, but its not possible to find meaning in a reactive life. Meaning requires action. Four embrace fear. Jung once said, where your fear is, there is your task. One of the main reasons people live reactively is not mere laziness and often not even a lack of motivation. Most of the time, the avoidance of action results from fear. Action requires risk, which can be scary. When you have an idea for a book, you have to risk being disappointed by your own writing in order to get it down on paper. Once youve written a book, you have to be ready for many rejections if you want to get it published. Every single action you can take can result in something negative. You need to be brave to be active. Bravery doesnt stem from a lack of fear. Fear is not to be avoided. If you do, it would go back into your shadow and rule your life even more. Instead, it should be acknowledged when you have to take a certain action but feel unable to do so. Ask yourself, why are you scared? What are you scared of? What are the things that could go wrong and how could you deal with them? Fear is often contained by preparation. But dont confuse preparation with rumination or anxiety. Focus only on likely scenarios, not outlandish ones. When you want to publish a book, be prepared to be rejected by many agents, or even to find no one interested in representing it, but also be prepared to find an agent or to have it published. Do not, however, ruminate about how agents and publishers might reject you, or about someone stealing your book idea, or about being laughed at. Those thoughts are unlikely and unhelpful. By analyzing your fear and handling it in the form of preparation, you have already dealt with a great deal of it. The feeling will most likely never fully disappear. So when youve done what you can to minimize your fear, theres only one thing left to dive into the deep. Bravery requires you to face your fears rather than get rid of your fears. Nobody who has ever done anything special has done so by avoiding what theyre scared of. As Jung said, where your fear is, that is where your next task is. Once you know what youre scared of, you also know whats likely to give your life the most meaning. Five accept the bad in our final quote from Jung for this video, he even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. Lets see you know yourself. Youre always improving yourself. Youre taking actions and taking risks. Is this the recipe to a perfect life? No. Nobodys life is perfect. In fact, the most influential people in the world have often experienced the most hardships. And this is because the most influential people are typically the ones that take the most risks. Don't let the bad situations get them down and push through, no matter what. So accepting the bad and disappointing things in life is integral to finding meaning and purpose. In fact, meaning is dependent on it. A life that consists solely of triumph and joyous is not a meaningful life because joy is only as impactful as it is. If you also know sadness, you can't win unless defeat was also an option. There can be no light without dark. This means that whenever something bad happens to you, you have to recontextualize it. Don't despair, but rather think whatever good happens from now on will feel even better. Now, aside from contextualizing the good in life, misfortune and mistakes are only opportunities to grow. Every time something happens, your reaction to it tells you something new about yourself. Bad things, then, are integral to your self discovery. And it's helpful, too, when it comes to getting to know your shadow. Nobody finds out. They should try to be a little more pragmatic, unless they failed to be at some point, and nobody finds out. They're resilient and strong unless something in their lives has required them to be. Let's say your novel gets rejected by all the publishing houses you've sent it to, or you gave up your stable job to go back to school, but you failed. Sure, you now have more context to enjoy good things later on in life, youve learned something, but does this give your life more meaning? The meaning of life, according to Jung, doesnt lie in achieving those goals you set yourself. Its in the taking of action and self discovery. With this, he means that your life doesnt become meaningful because youre a published author or a successful politician. It derives its meaning from what you did to get there, and thus, even those who end up not getting there now know they're the kind of person that takes action they're not dreamers. They're active. They're uniquely and unapologetically themselves. And that in and of itself is the most meaningful part. Adding meaning to your life never ends. You have to keep discovering yourself, your goals and taking action. You will continue to experience good and bad things and this is what makes your life so special. Your unique combination of disappointment and joy, your unique actions and attempts, and your determination. Always be proud of what you tried. That is where the purpose comes from. And finally, appreciate all the good in your life. Whatever youve achieved, no matter how little it is, be proud of it. Whatever works out for you in life, be grateful for it. And no matter what happens, know that your life has a purpose as long as youre the best you you can be. If you enjoyed this video, please make sure to check out our full philosophies for life playlist and for more videos to help you find success and happiness using beautiful philosophical wisdom. Don't forget to subscribe. Thanks so much for watching.