Part IV: Managing Our Fears
… make your fears your agenda.”
Hollis (1996)[1]
… by “going through,” one breaks a hold of the primal fear that holds sway over much of our lives. To go through it with the insight and courage of an adult, to make friends with it, somehow, breaks that tyrannous hold.
Hollis (1998)[2]
A significant part of this process is the apprehension and surrender of the ego to the demands of the Self. The ego must sacrifice its environmentally conditioned values…
Steinberg (1990)[3]
Things cannot be forced, and wherever force seems to succeed it is generally regretted afterwards. Better always to be mindful of the limitations of one’s knowledge and ability. Above all one needs forbearance and patience, for often time can do more than art. Not everything can and must be cured.
Jung (1954)[4]
… trust in your intuition and follow your feeling even at the risk of going wrong. …
enthusiasm is the secret of success.
Jung (1939)[5]
The hero quest today is not through the physical world but through the badlands of the soul.
Hollis (1994)[6]
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the perception that some things are more important to us than what we fear.
Hollis (1996)[7]
The quotes above from Jung and Jungian analysts reflect the Jungian approach this four-part essay takes to the topic of fear and how to manage it. Given the war in Ukraine, the covid pandemic, the plethora of mass shootings and the polarization in our society, there certainly are multiple reasons why people might feel fearful about the conditions in our outer lives. Equally or even more important, perhaps, are the fears that lie within–fears from the patriarchal nature of our society, as noted in Part III, fears from our personal histories embedded in various family matrices, fears that might still drive our lives and present problems. In this final section we consider ways to manage, address and deliver ourselves from fears.
Several key ideas undergird our discussion–ideas that are central to Jung’s thinking in general and relevant to how we might manage fears. Since some readers may not be familiar with these ideas, I review them first. A second section takes up a key step in handling fear (and life in general): choosing. Jung recognized there is a difference between self-knowledge and Self-knowledge, and, in handling fear, this means we need to choose to look both within and without. In the final part, I discuss multiple ways to handle fears, and offer some helpful tools for doing so.
Key Jungian Ideas
Telology. Jung had a teleological view of life and living beings.[8] Every being has a purpose and a goal in life. We are all alive for a reason, and every life has meaning. Part of our task as humans is to come to understand our unique purpose, and, with this awareness, to find meaning and direction in the years we exist on earth. Since, as we noted in Part I, angst, anxiety and fear are natural parts of living, it behooves us to “make our fear our agenda”[9] so as to better understand ourselves and our purpose for living.
Change as a Constant. Jung’s favorite ancient philosopher was the pre-Socratic Greek, Heraclitus,[10] whose mantra was panta rei–all things change.[11] He is the fellow who reminds us that we cannot step into the same river twice. While we might know this in a head-trip kind of way, if we are honest, we will admit that change can provoke anxiety, even intense fear at times. Jung took an alchemical approach to change, drawing on the archetypes embedded in daily life that can help us identify the type and nature of change and how we might go with the flow of that change.[12] This knowledge can help us in several ways: It can make adaptation easier from the understanding it offers; it gives a sense of the larger context within which our lives are operating; and it can calm the natural fear that arises from any type of change when we see it is patterned, purposive and has a goal or point to it.
Our Omnipresent Support System. In his own life and from his 60+ years of work with hundreds of patients, Jung came to know the reality of the psyche[13] and the trustworthiness of the Self–his term for our inner “god,”[14] source of our intuitive wisdom and guidance. As a physician and student of alchemy (much like his treasured Swiss predecessor, Paracelsus),[15] Jung knew and trusted the vix medicatrix naturae–the healing force of nature.[16] We all have this mysterious, marvelous capacity to recover from injury, e.g. last week I bumped my leg and got a bruise–multi-colored, sore to the touch–and today it is gone; I cut my finger, and it healed. We usually take this innate ability for granted, but Jung would remind us of it. In the context of this essay on fear, we need to remember that, just as we have the ability to heal on the physical plane, so we have the ability to heal on the psychic/mental/emotional plane, and on both planes we can work consciously to support the healing processes. Which brings me to the next section.
Choosing and the Two Orientations of Knowledge
Self-knowledge and self-knowledge. Jung recognized that we live in two worlds–the outer world of family, friends, school, work and ego, and the inner world of parental imagoes, animus/anima, shadow, puer, senex and Self. Jung decried the materialism of our culture, in part because it has led to
The very common prejudice against dreams [which] is but one symptom of a far more serious undervaluation of the human psyche in general. The marvelous development of science and technics is counterbalanced by an appalling lack of wisdom and introspection. [17]
Addicted to cell phones,[18] distracted by all the streamings, podcasts, sports stories and news headlines, we live in the ego world and give little thought and even less time to our inner world, the realm of the Self.
Why does this matter? It means that we are playing the game of life with half the deck–the deck that holds our inner wisdom and our marvelous powers of healing, as well as our ability to function outside the limitations of physical time and space.[19] The Self, our inner divine wisdom, knows what we need before our ego mind does. The psyche is constantly sending us messages to support and protect us, but, being deeply sunk in materialistic distractions, we are deaf and dumb to its efforts. And not just deaf and dumb: we are actually “afraid of the impersonal forces lurking in [our] unconscious.”[20] Jung saw this fear in his analysands, as well as in everyone on the streets of Zürich and New York, Delhi and Paris.[21]
We don’t want to believe that the other half of our human reality–our inner life–has anything helpful to offer. But Jung knew otherwise: our inner world, the world of the Self and the unconscious, will take to us the attitude we take to it.[22] If we believe that the unconscious is full of monsters and evil things, that is what will show up for us. Conversely, if we regard our “inner city”[23] as full of creative potential, timeless wisdom, and helpful intuitions, it will offer up all sorts of support, including help in addressing our fears.
Our Important Choice. If we hope to address our fears in any meaningful way, we must make the right choice, i.e. the choice to play the game of life with a full deck, drawing regularly on the wisdom of the psyche, asking for the Self’s support, and, over time, coming to trust it as a constant locus of security. Jung was clear that this is not an either/or choice:[24] he always encouraged both/and thinking, as a way to foster “holding the tension of opposites.”[25] So we are not to throw over the conscious world (nor would we want to–down that road lies psychosis!), but we must give consideration to what lies within. By choosing to regard the unconscious positively, we lessen the fear we may initially have when we look both without and within. This dual perspective is essential for managing fears, as our discussion of tools will make clear.
Ways to Manage and Address Our Fears
Tools for Managing Fear. There are two types of tools we have: those that are oriented to the outer world, that work on the ego plane, that draw on our conscious mental, emotional and somatic awareness; and those that operate in the realm of the unconscious and draw on the psyche’s gifts and speak its language. Because the former are likely to be more familiar, I will discuss some of the outer life tools first.
Personal traits. One key tool that we bring to our living in general, and certainly to our handling of fear, is our range of personal traits. Jung and his fellow analysts are clear that, if we hope to deal with fear, we must be able to be brutally honest with ourselves,[26] bold in the face of challenges,[27] resolute and committed to working through hardship,[28] focused and able to concentrate,[29] and patient in situations[30] when we want the pain to be over already! Wising up to and whittling down our fears is never a quick or easy task.[31] Sigh.
This handling of fear is also a task that requires maturity: infantile naiveté is useless and must give way to shrewdness and the intestinal fortitude to endure sacrifice.[32] We also need to stay in touch with the array of feelings we have, and these can be emotions (i.e. affects that produce physical changes) as well as somatic feelings (e.g. the pressure to urinate, stomach churnings, heart palpitations). As the old adage says, “our bodies speak our minds,”[33] and we need to stay clued in to these messages. This may be easier for Sensation types, which brings up another important tool
Know your type. One of Jung’s most well-known contributions to the field of psychology is his concept of personality type,[34] with two orientations, Extravert/Introvert, four “functions,” Intuition, Sensation, Thinking and Feelings, and two attitudes, Judging and Perceiving. It is generally easier for Sensation types to have somatic awareness, as they live more in their bodies and senses than Intuitive types do. Conversely, Sensates may find the inner world of intangibles akin to a foreign realm, while Intuitives might feel more at home dealing with the psychic world. Likewise, Extraverts relate comfortably to the outer world, while Introverts more naturally turn within. Thinking types, who rely on reason and logic, may find the non-rational nature of their inner world something of a challenge, if not an affront, while Feeling types would be more likely to get in touch with the messages in their emotions. It can be a big help for you to know your type preferences, since handling fear is never easy, and you will want to operate from your superior function.[35] If you are not familiar with Jung’s type system, there are type instruments, like the famous MBTI–the Myers Briggs Type Inventory–that are available for free on the internet.[36]
Know your history. One of the first things Jung did with a new patient was to take the anamnesis–the person’s recollection of key events in his/her life.[37] Jung recognized that the past of the person brought him/her into his office, so he took careful account of the story the patient related about his/her relationships, family background, illnesses, successes, failures, marriage(s), children, work life etc.–all sorts of personal data that play central roles in the formation of fears, as well as in the resolving of them.
Jung would particularly look for patterns in the person’s family of origin that could explain the etiology of a neurosis or psychosis. Our focus is not the same as Jung’s, but we can draw on his use of the life review to consider how we might have developed certain fears based on the circumstances and environments we experienced as children, i.e. during the time when we were small, vulnerable, defenseless and therefore more likely to feel afraid than an adult would. Over time, the child’s way of coping with fear becomes a pattern–an unconscious, ingrained response to life situations.
The challenge for us as adults is to become conscious of such patterns, because, after twenty or thirty years, these defensive strategies–understandable for the small child but no longer serving us–have come to seem a normal part of our identity.[38] James Hollis recognizes this: “If it is difficult to have a conscious relationship with our own psychological history, how difficult it is, then, to have a relationship with … that Other which is our own soul.”[39]
Since our culture provides us little to no encouragement to become acquainted with our soul, and the patterns are both unconscious and ingrained, this task is difficult. Some examples drawn from the psychological literature may help:
- the child confronting a demanding, controlling caregiver: the coping strategy becomes submissiveness, which develops into patterns of co-dependence, loss or lessening of one’s own sense of power, and the “annihilation of legitimate self-interest,” in the name (rationalization) of congeniality and concern for the caregiver[40]
- the child growing up under a hostile, abusive caregiver: the coping strategy becomes hostility or abrasiveness in dealing with others, which develops into patterns of domination over others[41]
- the child invaded by an intrusive, manipulative caregiver: the coping strategy becomes avoidance, distancing, hiding out (emotionally) while still physically present, which develops into patterns of avoiding openness, emotional honesty or intimacy[42]
- the child experiencing unreliable caregiving (e.g. chronically ill/drunk/stoned parent): the coping strategy becomes grappling with self-care amid daily fear for survival, which develops into patterns of existential depression, overlaying a terror of abandonment[43]
- the child being forced to relocate multiple times with minimal support from caregivers: the coping strategy becomes a hyper-concern for stability, which develops into patterns of obsessive or compulsive ordering of reality, seeking to control significant others or one’s circumstances, e.g. domestic cleanliness, lust for closure[44]
- the child born into a large family with over-burdened parents and negligent siblings: the coping strategy becomes longing for others’ attention, which develops into patterns of soliciting the admiration and external validation from others for what is not felt within[45]
- the child growing up in the shadow of an older sibling who garners most of their parents’ attention and praise: the coping strategy becomes identifying with the sibling, which develops into dependency and seeking validation by identifying with another admired person[46]
- the child suffering multiple forces of abuse throughout childhood: the coping strategy becomes seeking protection at all costs, which develops into a focus on security, taking the path of least resistance to feel safe[47]
The natal chart often reveals these patterns, suggesting that the circumstances of our birth are not coincidental. Jung understood how Fate and destiny are features of life,[48] and how knowledge of our soul’s choices can be helpful for clueing us into our fears. The above scenarios are not a complete list, and there are many other ways early childhood can lay down patterns for coping with fears that linger into adulthood. When these defensive patterns linger into adulthood, they thwart our happiness and growth.[49]
Mine your history. Tackling this task entails operating on both outer and inner levels. On the outer level, the ego is useful in recalling childhood circumstances–the makeup of the family of origin, the birth order of siblings, major events (e.g. deaths of caregivers, traumatic injuries, relocations or other similar events that left emotional residue), the nature of interactions with family or friends, especially if they held emotional “charges,” the quality of the childhood environment (e.g. was the neighborhood safe or dangerous?). Spend some time reflecting on your personal history, and then see if any patterns emerge.
Next, ask yourself if any of these patterns have a fear at their root. Recall your reality as a little kid and return to that time in your memory and notice feelings. Were you fearful of anyone? anything? certain environments? particular events? How did you cope when you felt vulnerable, alone, threatened, anxious? Note these memories and see if you can spot recurring themes or patterns.
Summon your commitment and courage. The next step shifts to the inner level, and it requires that you summon your commitment and courage in the face of “hard outer necessity.“[50] Jung understood that no one undertakes the challenge of working in partnership with the unconscious as a lark. It is hard work, not for the faint-of-heart or the “weak-kneed.”[51] It will not be either quick or simple, so it requires tenacity and perseverance, and to the extent that it will assault your ego in multiple ways, it will call forth the courage of the hero within you. One of more frightening aspect of this challenge is that we (i.e. our ego minds) have no idea just what will happen, how we will be called upon to show up, wise up or clean up. For a good part of the journey we will function in the mystics’ “cloud of unknowing.”[52] The ego is not comforted by this knowledge.
Ask for help. Working on the inner level means we operate on the Self’s terrain, in accordance with its rules (about most of which we are usually clueless). Various spiritual teachers help us here, providing advice and guidance, like “ask and you shall receive.”[53] This is a basic rule because the Self never violates our free will. So, set a clear, explicit intention to be open to receiving help from the unconscious and ask for it.
But, your ego is likely to wonder, just what am I going to receive?? The true answer is that the “cloud of unknowing” never completely dissipates. We can never fully know or wrap our ego minds around the Self: it is beyond all human limitations. So, for the ego which wants to run the show, becoming conscious is humiliating and uncomfortable. An ambient fear of what might turn up next seems to go with the territory, and for many it is a stretch to relax into the process. The alchemists and Mohammed got it right: deo concedente[54] and Inshallah[55]–we accede to the will of our higher power. (On reading this, at this very initial stage in the process, you probably are feeling little comfort in this advice).
Pay attention on both outer and inner planes. This is a difficult step[56] because our modern lives are so filled with distractions that it is hard to notice any of the ways life can reply to our request for help. In my experience (in my own life and my work over twenty years with dream students), I have come to identify four ways we might get responses to our request for help for identifying, managing and addressing our fears.
On the outer plane, in daily life, we need to watch for synchronicities. These “meaningful coincidences”[57] may show up in unpredictable ways, at completely unexpected times. So, lest I miss such an event, after I have put in a request to the Self, I carry around a small pad and little pencil in a pocket, and I jot down what occurs. This works well also when getting insights–flashes of intuition[58]–which is a second way we can be supported by the psyche. Later on, at a quiet moment, I reflect on the incident or the intuition and relate it to my question.
A third way the psyche may speak is through our bodies. This may be more natural for Sensation types, who “live” in their bodies more than Intuitives do. Our physical systems function in close connection with the soul,[59] so watch for aches, pains, sensations or somatic events like indigestion, sneezing or coughing, and then reflect on whether this unusual situation might relate to your request.
The fourth way we get guidance and answers from the Self is my favorite (and is also the most time-saving and efficient): dreams.[60] For 39 years I have gotten explicit guidance through dreams. Initially I didn’t ask for this. I was as clueless and closed to anything psychic or intangible as most Americans, but my grappling with a spate of directive dreams lead me into Jungian analysis, and then 38 years of living the processes I am describing here.
I consider the dream method as “time-saving” because we are sleeping, just as we do every night. But, if you put in a request for guidance, you must be prepared for the psyche to respond, and it might show up as a dream, so put a notepad or journal on your bedside table (ideally with a booklight, so you can write down the dream without turning on a bright light) and then the next day or soon thereafter, read over the dream and interpret it in light of “day residue”[61] (the events that occurred in the day or two before the dream), and in reference to your request to glean information about your fears.
Working with dreams means learning the language of the psyche. Sometimes it actually comes to us in words (often for me, but apparently rarely for most people). More commonly, the Self speaks in images, actions, symbols, or stories, often with mythological themes.[62] Your reaction at this point (assuming you have not by now been thoroughly put off) will be to put a dream interpretation book on your shopping list. Jung would not agree: He had no use for the “cookbook” approach.[63] Instead, he asks us to rely on our own abilities, to make our own associations to words, images, and/or actions that the dream contains. He handled a dream on three levels: the objective (relating the dream to recent outer life events, people etc.), the subjective (in which all the elements of the dream are seen as part of us), and the archetypal (which is valid for those dreams that seem “big,” portentous or feel mythic). Jungian analysts study symbols, myths, legends and fairy tales for years during their training to be analysts, so as to be able to deal with the archetypal level.[64] Don’t worry if you don’t get this level: If the message was important and you missed it, the psyche will send it to you in another dream, an insight, or a synchronicity.
If a dream produces a vivid character, symbol, or scene, you might try the technique Jung invented called “active imagination.”[65] In this activity you call back the dream in your mind’s eye and then, in a passive process in which you just set the intention to “dream the dream forward,” you watch and see how the dream might continue. Don’t try to make anything happen[66] and don’t censor what comes up. If you have a way to record while this goes on, you can speak into the recording device what you are observing. When the process ends, handle what came as you would a dream.
Besides synchronicities, intuitions, body sensations and dreams, Jung suggested a technique he called auseinandersetzung[67]–a German portmanteau word referring to a process of dialoging with yourself, or with a character that turned up in a dream. This is similar to the approach used in active imagination: you don’t try to make anything happen but set the intention to “have it out with yourself.”[68] Your ego (i.e. the part of you that feels annoyed, at sea, confused, disgruntled, displaced, affronted–however it feels) confronts your inner energy, vents, and then listens. As with active imagination, it helps to have a recording device to capture the dialog (with you repeating what you “hear” with your imagination-ears).
Be patient. Our wealth of fears did not develop in a day. The work of wising up to them likewise is not something accomplished in a day, a month or even a year. It might take longer than a year. Especially for those of us who prize efficiency, it is annoying to learn that the unconscious does not share our time concerns: the process of clearing “stuff” takes as long as it takes, because the Self operates in kairos time[69]–the time of natural unfoldment (which is almost always too long in the ego’s opinion). As long-time dream work (or a Jungian analysis) reveals, the unconscious does not take the direct, linear approach to a situation: it “circumambulates,”[70]going around and around, “gradually getting closer” to the core issue. It requires all the trust we can summon to assure ourselves that all this indirection is allowing for some sort of incubation to occur within us.
Delivering Ourselves from Fear
One of the things I like about Carl Jung and his psychology is that he knew how we might go about feeling safe. A major part of such a feeling is knowing that we can manage and address our fears, to the point of release from being driven by them. As the above paragraphs have indicated, this deliverance is not the work of the ego, although the ego has an important part to play: It can choose to love (love being the true opposite of fear)[71] and it cede control of life to the Self,[72] living in the world while not being of the world, relying on and acting on the guidance of the Self for as long as it takes to create deep, abiding trust in the Self.
The three loci. Jungians identify three loci–placements of aspects of living–that we must internalize in order to grow, evolve and individuate. These are the locus of control, the locus of authority, and the locus of security.[73] This last is key to our achieving a release from fear. Since these three are not widely known, I will define each, and then focus on the third and its relevance to our topic of fear.
Part of becoming a mature adult implies internalizing a locus of control. This process begins for most of us around the age of two, when we get “toilet trained,” i.e. we learn how to control when we urinate and defecate. Ideally, additional years develop this control further: we learn how to control our emotions, how to drive a car in our teen years, how to take on and fulfill successfully the demands of a job, home and family. I say “ideally,” because some people grow up to adulthood still playing the “blame game”[74] of the four-year-old. Jung encountered this in some people and he was blunt in response to their complaints:
There are a whole lot of facts in your letter which you’ll just have to face up to instead of tracing them back to the faulty behavior of other people…. There are countless people with an inferior extraversion or with too much introversion or with too little money who in God’s name must plod along through life under such conditions. These conditions are not diseases but normal difficulties of life. If you blame me for your psychological difficulties it won’t help you at all, for it is not my fault you have them. It’s nobody’s fault. I can’t take these difficulties away from you, but have merely tried to make you aware of what you need in order to cope with them. If you could stop blaming other people and external circumstances for your own inner difficulties you would have gained an infinite amount. But if you go on making others responsible, no one will have any desire to stand by you with advice.[75]
As long as we see our problems as “out there,” caused by others, as long as we focus on assigning blame, we are refusing to face our own responsibility for dealing with the hand that Fate has dealt us. In terms of handling our fears, placing responsibility for our lives in the hands of others–externalizing a locus of control–engenders more fear, rather than lessening it.
Much as our society does not encourage us to look within, recognize the value of dreams, or appreciate the Self, so it does not encourage us to internalize a locus of authority. From childhood, we are taught to look up to our parents, teachers, the police, doctors and other professionals, and to honor these authorities.[76] While he was no revolutionary, Jung would not suggest anyone turn over ultimate authority for his/her life to an external figure. Doing so, he felt, was a sign of spiritual immaturity[77] and an abdication of our personal task to search for the truth. Not even Jungian analysts are to assume a role of authority,[78] and for people who took up with a guru, Jung reserved his most sarcastic comments:
… the joy of becoming a prophet’s disciple… for the vast majority of people, is an altogether ideal technique. Its advantages are: the odium dignitatis, the superhuman responsibility of the prophet, turns into the so much sweeter otium indignitatis. The disciple is unworthy; modestly he sits at the Master’s feet and guards against having ideas of his own. Mental laziness becomes a virtue; one can at least bask in the sun of a semidivine being. He can enjoy the archaism and infantilism of his unconscious fantasies without loss to himself, for all responsibility is laid at the Master’s door. Through his deification of the Master, the disciple, apparently without noticing it, waxes in stature; moreover, does he not possess the great truth—not his own discovery, of course, but received straight from the Master’s hands? Naturally the disciples always stick together, not out of love, but for the very understandable purpose of effortlessly confirming their own convictions by engendering an air of collective agreement.[79]
Put on a pedestal by his followers, the master/prophet teeters precariously and almost inevitably eventually succumbs to the moral evils of power, lust and/or greed.[80] The disciple is infantilized and sorely disillusioned when his guru turns out to have feet of clay.
There are multiple benefits to internalizing a locus of authority: We make our own decisions; we are guided by our own inner “guru,” to whom we can turn anytime; and, most important, we have more self-esteem,[81] in the knowledge that we are acting like adults, with the awareness that we have an ever-present guidance system that we can trust.
Most adults internalize a locus of control. Many adults internalize a locus of authority. Few adults internalize a locus of security. Why so few? In large part, because of the materialism of our culture, which encourages us to put our trust in the “treasures on the Earth,”[82] to use Jesus’ phrase. Our society lodges notions of security “out there,” in parents, spouses, roles, jobs, savings, pensions, titles, ranks, a guru, being famous etc. But none of these can offer us true security. Why? because anything external is subject to loss. Parents die; spouses can die or serve us with divorce papers. Roles can disappear (just as children have the habit of growing up and moving away). Savings and pensions can be lost or rendered worthless in massive inflationary cycles. Ranks and titles come to mean little if/when the company bellies up. The guru can turn out to have feet of clay. Fame can transform into infamy if the public becomes disenchanted. Moths and rust might consume our stuff, and thieves can break in to steal what we clutch in order to feel safe.
Jesus tells us that true security lies in “laying up treasures in Heaven.”[83] Jung agrees, but few people in our modern world understand what is meant by Jesus’ phrase. Given our materialism, most Americans focus on the word “treasures,” envisioning a big lottery jackpot, but Jung would have us focus on the verb–“laying up”–which implies a long-term habit of building or amassing–of what? “Treasures in Heaven” doesn’t resonate with most people, but it did with Jung. He knew it referred to trust in the Self, mentioned above as a key tool we can use to become aware of our fears. It is also essential if we hope to deliver ourselves from them. The key to inner security is the years-long process of building a track record of trust in one’s inner guidance and contact with the Self.
Jung minces no words with regard to the long-term effort required to become aware of the Self and then to relinquish control of one’s life to it:
… the self has somewhat the character of a result, of a goal attained, something that has come to pass very gradually and is experienced with much travail. …[84] Always we shall have to begin again from the beginning. From ancient times the adept knew that he was concerned with the “res simplex,” and the modern man too will find by experience that the work does not prosper without the greatest simplicity. But simple things are always the most difficult.[85]
Time and again we take up the work, submit the ego to the Self and taste the bitterness of that experience, as Jung reminds us that “… the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego.”[86] And regardless of the pain, we have to go back to the beginning and start over and over. Eventually “… the whole of the conscious man is surrendered to the self, to the new center of personality which replaces the former ego….”[87]
Awareness might come in an epiphany or flash of insight. Knowledge can develop quickly if one works at it. But understanding takes time to develop. And against the forces of our materialistic culture—all clamoring for our attention and pulling us off a focus on things spiritual—we have to summon extraordinary determination to keep at this work of building a solid, personal relationship to the Self, in all sorts of situations. In nothing else do we have a true locus of security.
“Security” means the “freedom from danger, care or fear; the feeling or condition of being safe.”[88] If we hope to be delivered from fear, now and in the future, the only certain way is to develop trust in the Self, our inner wisdom.
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[1] Hollis (1996), 115.
[2] Hollis (1998), 72.
[3] Steinberg (1990), 142.
[4] Collected Works 16 ¶463. Hereafter Collected Works will be abbreviated CW.
[5] CW 3 ¶539.
[6] Hollis (1994), 121.
[7] Hollis (1996), 115.
[8] CW 9ii ¶123. For more on Jung’s teleology, see the essay “Jung on Perfection and Completeness,” archived on the Jungian Center web site: www.jungiancenter.org
[9] Hollis (1996), 115.
[10] Edinger (1999), 32.
[11] CW 14 ¶503.
[12] The archetypes of change, like all archetypes, have intent. The transits to the natal chart indicate which of these archetypes is significant at a particular time, making it easier to go with the flow. For explicit examples of how this works in life, see my Living Alchemy, available on the Jungian Center web site as a pdf and hard copy.
[13] CW 11 ¶751.
[14] CW 7 ¶399.
[15] CW 13, p. 110.
[16] Whitmont (1993), 194.
[17] CW 11 ¶28.
[18] Cf. Twenge (2017), 29l, and Young (2022), 3ST.
[19] “Letter to Pastor Frtiz Pfäfflin,” 10 January 1939; Letters, I, 256.
[20] CW 11 ¶23.
[21] These were cities Jung visited, but the fear is present everywhere.
[22] CW 6 ¶574.
[23] Jung’s term was “inner world;” CW 7 ¶327.
[24] CW 16 ¶63.
[25] CW 7 ¶34.
[26] CW 7 ¶323.
[27] CW 5¶551.
[28] CW 7 ¶323.
[29] CW 8 ¶214.
[30] CW 4 ¶168.
[31] CW 16 ¶463.
[32] CW 10 ¶572.
[33] Whitmont (1993), 63-64.
[34] CW 6 ¶468.
[35] This is the function Jung describes as “reliable and … amenable to our intentions,” unlike the inferior function (the one we use less), which is “inaccessible to our will.” CW 9i ¶431.
[36] Go to https://www.truity.com>test>type-finder-personality-t…
[37] CW 17 ¶177-180.
[38] Hollis (1998), 71.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Ibid, 68.
[41] Ibid., 69.
[42] Ibid., 70.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Ibid., 70-71.
[45] Ibid., 72.
[46] Ibid.
[47] Ibid.
[48] CW 16 ¶463.
[49] Hollis (1998), 72.
[50] CW 7 ¶258.
[51] CW 12 ¶60.
[52] This is the title of a 14th century work by an English mystic; Anon. (1961).
[53] Matt. 7:7.
[54] Literally, Latin for “with God conceding;” Lewis & Short (1969), 564 & 396.
[55] The Arabic means “If it is the will of Allah.”
[56] At this point, are you making a comment like “when will we get an easy step? I know–only heroes need apply. Sigh.
[57] CW 10 ¶593. For in-depth discussion of this concept, cf. CW 8 ¶816-968, and Hopcke (1997).
[58] CW 3 ¶539.
[59] Whitmont (1993), 99.
[60] For how Jung used dreams in his analytic practice, see CW 16 ¶s294-352, and two-part essay “Jung on Dreams,” archived on the Jungian Center web site; www.jungiancenter.org
[61] Jacobi (1968), 70.
[62] CW 7 ¶289.
[63] CW 18 ¶573.
[64] Jung (1984), 550.
[65] Cf. CW 8 ¶599, CW 9i ¶319 & CW 12 ¶448. For more on active imagination, see the essay “Jung on Active Imagination,” archived on the Jungian Center web site; www.jungiancenter.org
[66] Jung drew on Chinese wisdom here, in the Taoist concept of wu wei, which translates as “action through non-action,” a paradox that tends to give Westerners a mind cramp. The point is that we give up driving and striving, and simply allow the psyche to unfold what it intends; CW 13 ¶20.
[67] Hollis (1993), 108.
[68] Monick (1987), 107.
[69] CW 10 ¶398.
[70] CW 9ii ¶352. The advantage of such a process is that it provides multiple perspectives on the situation.
[71] Hollis (1998), 70.
[72] Steinberg (1990), 142.
[73] Greene & Sasportas (1987), 58.
[74] Jung describes how this “game” shows up in life in his “Letter to a Swiss Fraülein,” 23 January 1941; Letters, I, 292.
[75] Ibid.
[76] CW 16 ¶227 & CW7 ¶99.
[77] CW 16 ¶227.
[78] Ibid. ¶2.
[79] CW 7, ¶263-264.
[80] CW 18, ¶1398.
[81] CW 9ii ¶48.
[82] Matt. 6:19.
[83] Matt. 6:20.
[84] CW 7, ¶404.
[85] CW 14, ¶759.
[86] CW 14, ¶778. Italics are in the original. Perhaps Jung wanted to stress this point.
[87] CW 14, ¶704.
[88] World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, II, 1754.
