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Carl Jung: Looking to the past for self-identity March 30, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Fear and Anxiety.
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When we are working on our program of personal development, the stresses and anxieties of today’s fast-paced world can make the process of reaching our objectives challenging and difficult.

We may occasionally find ourselves wishing we could live in a simpler, less hectic earlier time period.

The concept of yearning for a simpler time with less distraction and fewer pervasive worries related our surroundings is not new. It was one of the reasons for the emergence of the European Renaissance, in which thoughtful people looked back with fondness to the days of antiquity in Greece and Rome.

The psychiatrist and philosophical writer Carl Jung felt that our unconscious or subconscious mind carried vestiges of our ancestral roots and that our psyches could not always reconcile these ancestral components with the modern world.

“”Our souls as well as our bodies are composed of individual elements which were already present in the ranks of our ancestors…Body and soul therefore have an intensely historical character and find no place in what is new, in things that have just come into being…we have plunged down a cataract of progress which sweeps us on into the future  with ever wilder violence the farther it takes us from our roots….we rush impetuously into novelty, driven by a mounting sense of insufficiency, dissatisfaction, and restlessness…we no longer live on what we have, but on promises…”

In part to combat these feelings within him, Jung built a rustic, “primitive”  lakeside retreat at Bollingen, Which he referred to as the Tower at Bollingen, as it had a turret structure as the main room.

Jung said, “At Bollingen I am the midst of my true life, I am most deeply myself…I have done without electricity, and tend the fireplace and stove myself. Evenings I light the old lamps. There is no running water, and I pump the water from the well. I chop the wood and cook the food…Thoughts rise to the surface which reach back into the centuries…”

For most of us, it is not possible to have a lakeside retreat, but we can look for places and circumstances that can help calm our minds, even if this is a place we can reach only through meditation.

Note: The quotations by Carl Jung are from his book, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

 

Personal growth and the potential of attitudinal change March 3, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal development.
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Why are we so interested in creating an individualized or self-directed program of personal development, and why do many of us spend significant time doing a lot of internal work on this pursuit?

A significant part of the attraction of a personal growth program is the importance we attach to the possibility or potential of changing our internal attitudes and by extension the actions we may take in life as a result of these attitudes.

The famous psychiatrist and philosopher, Carl Jung, succinctly describes attitude as “The readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way.”

From our own experience and observation we realize that an “attitude” or set of attitudes and their resulting behaviours can often be the outcome of a two basic of factors:

(1) Our essential personality type such as: introverted vs outgoing, easy-going vs being anxious, accepting vs suspicious

(2) Conditioning from life experiences producing intellectual and emotional propensities

Additionally, of course, attitudes or emotional and intellectual propensities can be the result of a combination of both of the above factors – we may be basically accepting, but become suspicious of people’s motives if our trust has been significantly betrayed in the past, for example. Or enough significantly bad things have happened to us or to those we love to result in our acquiring a state of anxiety typified by wondering “what next?”

Either way, inborn or acquired, attitudes often become entrenched.   And if we want to change our negative or limiting attitudes, we soon discover that it’s not easy. No formulas or quick fixes – making attitudinal changes within our personality takes patience, dedication, and a lot of effort.

And by extension – and to answer my opening question – a great deal of time.

Overall, be glad that you are identifying your negative and harmful attitudes (including attitudes about yourself) and are willing to do the difficult work of changing those attitudes and thereby helping you to realize your personal potential.

Many people go through life with deeply negative and harmful attitudes and don’t even realize it.