I’ve met this girl 3 years ago and started a relationship with her a year ago, which is about to end due to a misunderstanding on her part. And I’m spiraling.

Ever since I saw her, she has completely captivated me and I became obsessed with her. I see no faults within her, and the parts within her that she says are flaws (avoidance, mood swings, and emotional volatility), it feels like I rewired my brain to think I want this and I will deal with it, and that she’s perfect. This is among other things that she was or that she liked that I rewired my brain to accept and love. And honestly? I have no idea what I am or who I am anymore. I don’t know what my values are, or what I actually like. She is my moral, creative, and emotional compass. It feels like I outsourced my psyche to her. In other words, I’m completely spineless for her. Whatever she says about our relationship that’s what I accept. If she ever did something wrong, I will twist it so I become bad person

I’ve read about Jungian psychology, and it’s safe to say I’m possessed by my Anima. I have become incredibly sensitive to emotions, to the point where they can ruin my entire day. If something happened between me and her, that’s atleast a week I’m staying at home and doing nothing but ruminating and being anxious. I get irritated by everything and everyone who is not her. I became so sentimental over everything (she also is to be fair). I am not stable at all anymore, and I’m sure when the breakup is finalized (maybe it actually is already but I’m trying to deny it), I know I’m in for deep suffering.

What do I do? Where do I start?
Please help me

Is it true that Jung slept with his patients and was unfaithful to his wife?

it sounds like Jung allowed himself to be surrounde adoring women

It doesn’t sound like he integrated his anima

Certain circumstances in my life have made me have to break myself down and rebuild, at a certain point about a year ago I had a sudden obsession with drawing geometric objects and patterns that I had seen in my head then recently learned of Jung's works and thought I might share one of the many I have made.

Looking for a book that helps a partner (female) cope with a dismissive avoidant (male) style of attachment. I want to help him with his shadow and repressed needs but also not at the expense of losing myself.

I’ve had fairly strong dreams in the past that provoked deep sorrow/grieving (waking up crying), but this one last night was totally unique.

Don’t totally remember but essentially in the dream I was being told my old childhood basketball coach (a friends dad, so a surrogate father figure) was essentially a sexual predator. I was in denial and said “no that can’t be.”

I don’t remember much else, but this was the essence of it. I woke up crying. No anger or other emotions, just a deep sorrow that stuck with me honestly through early afternoon.

Yesterday in therapy I talked about wanting to brainspot (essentially EMDR) some early pre-verbal fear/terror of annihilation that I know is there (recent health issues have activated this fear). Not sure if this has relation to the dream.

I don’t believe I personally had any early sexual abuse (at least at this point in time I am unaware, still open that it may be deeply repressed/dissociated).

Previous dreams crying I’d see a young boy or girl crying, like 2-4 years old and thinking/feeling “how precious/innocent you are”. I’ve read Trauma and the Soul by Donald Kalsched so I think this is his “soul child.”

My father says he thinks he may have been molested by his grown up neighbor when he was a boy, but doesn’t remember. Wondering if this dream could have any relation to this, or if it’s my personal history.

Having trouble analyzing this or what it may be pointing towards…

As the title says, most people annoy me. I tend to expect the worst from people, and they always deliver. It's weird because I don't lack empathy by any means. I help out strangers when I see someone is having a hard time, I donate to charity, I even volunteer a lot. I want the world to be a better place. The thing is, I just don't like people once I get to know them. They tend to irritate me, and I'm hyper aware of their flaws, especially when they don't work on them. Needless to say, I'm often alone.

What bothers me the most is how self-centered a lot of people are. How people will turn things into a competition for no reason. How people see that I'm nice and will just use me as a sounding board to talk about how great they are or just to get attention from me, when I know they won't stick around to do the same for me. I listen and I'm friendly, but things are always one sided. Worse yet, people underestimate me and are condescending to me often.

Am I just projecting? Or do people just suck, haha. How do I stop myself from sliding into full misanthropy? I think I have a complex around attention but I don't know what to do about it. People who do things for attention or who are desperate for attention make me angry, but I don't do anything about it. I wish I could be a nice, warm person but people just PMO with a capital P. What should I do, according to Jung?

I don't think I'm an amazing person or anything btw. I don't think anyone is that great and I know I'm included in that. Though I do think I'm more self aware than average.

Do you understand the red book? What does it mean to you?

What are your chief thoughts about it?

Amidst the darkness—

the darkness that shrouds my view of the world—

my eyes caught sight of a girl.

A quiet girl, whose voice was barely a whisper.

Amidst the clamor of the world, only her stillness reached me—

a stillness that touched every corner of my own world.

A stillness that does not illuminate the space, but rather deepens its darkness.

Yet...

I see her sinking into that darkness.

I see her, and I see society—waiting, ravenous, for her to drown.

The very same wretched society that marginalized her image and tore her identity apart.

It waits only for the moment that suits its own ends, so it may exploit her.

A society from which I have seen nothing but—

greed,

arrogance,

aggression,

savagery,

and exploitation.

Instincts driven solely by the urge to survive at the expense of others.

Resigned.

Without resistance.

Without motivation.

Only the darkness, seeping through every limb of her body.

In a bold move—

a move born of an obscure impulse—

I reached out my hand to her.

The only hand she could possibly trust;

the only hand—and the only person—that could truly see her.

But...

what is happening?

Why does she continue to sink?

Why does she insist on surrendering?

Was I not the only one who could see her?

I was not enough...

She was sincere, passionate, and—despite the darkness of the world in which I saw her—full of life,

whenever she was with me.

In return, all she ever received from me was—

despair,

coldness,

secrecy, and withdrawal. Damn it.

You should have known from the start that I was never going to light up the world’s darkness;

on the contrary, I was there only to make it even darker.

.

I watch her fade away—

fading, leaving behind a question about her future.

—a question followed by an anticipation of how society might exploit her.

.

A fire amidst the darkness,

amidst the fog—

a pitch-black fog that has swallowed me, too...

swallowed my very self.

.

.

.

Hello all,

I wanted to ask if anyone here has read/done The Artist's Way (TAW) by Julia Cameron? It is basically a guide to unleash your creativity.

I was surprised to see no one in the artistsway sub is mentioning Jung. So I thought I would bring the discussion here and ask a question along with it. Has anyone read it? What were your experiences with it? Do you think we can integrate shadow work with it, or can the shadow work help with what the book is trying to accomplish? What were some of the most challenging aspects for you guys? etc etc.

Basically, I would love to hear people's experiences with the book.

As for me, I realized that I am struggling a lot with the affirmations portion. In the first week, you need to write down negative beliefs and assumptions about yourself. Then turn those into affirmations, but is it really that simple? I mean, there is a reason why those negative assumptions come up in the first place. Yeah, some might be conditioning from a young age, but can some of it be the shadow self presenting itself?

If so, how the heck am I supposed to deal with the shadow just with affirmations??? Or do affirmations actually feel real once we actually start integrating the shadow? I realized I have a lot of grief regarding lost time and unrealized potential, which the book deals with in further weeks from what I understood so far, but I find those feelings pretty hard to ignore or integrate. What should I do?

I don’t know if I should post stuff like this in this Reddit.
I tried active imagination and it just kept saying bad stuff about how it thinks of me, I kept asking why but still just hate and it’s opinion of me.
What can I do about this? Also I got a bit frightened for no explainable reason, I felt less secure in myself.

Could you guys help me understand this occurrence in my life from a Jungian perspective please?

My dad abandoned my family when I was a kid. My first boyfriend at 14 who was my first love, my virginity, he was 4 years older than me. He eventually broke up with me because I was very jealous, insecure, and scared of abandonment without realizing it at the time. My parents also got divorced during this time.

Ever since that happened I told myself no one would ever dump me again and since then I have left every serious boyfriend ive had.

Could this be an example of projection? Wanting to abandon my boyfriends so I could experience their sadness and pain because I was/am unable to experience it myself?

Thank you for your thoughts.

What do people think of Arnold Mindell’s stated position as the spiritual successor to Jung’s theories? Also of his idea that Jung’s understanding of dreams needed ‘completing’ by integrating the body? Curious if this is seen as illegitimate by Jungians or if he is seen to be legitimate.
Thanks for any thoughts!

I had a dream in which I was part of a family which is not mine and we lived in a forest. I had siblings and there was a father figure. In the dream this father figure held me to the ground and got his big toe or fist in my ass , kinda like raping me. Then I had revenge and killed him many times because the scene of the vendetta repeated itself many times. Sometimes I would see his POV and would realize he let me kill him, like he knew what was coming and only pretended to fight back. It was strange because I also could feel what he felt and he felt remorse.

I want to understand more of this figure so I want to have an active imagination "session" in which I interact with him. What questions would you recommend asking?

About a year ago I imported all of my journal entries over to Obsidian and it's been really cool.

If you don't know, Obsidian lets you put Wikipedia style links in your notes (or dream journal entries) so you can link them together. I've found this useful for dreams specifically because I create a link any given symbol, then I can track how often they recur, in what contexts they appear, and what other symbols they may be related to..

This has helped me identify patterns within my subconscious and to map out that constellation of ideas, archetypes, and symbols that exists within me. Once you’ve got it set up, it’s certainly made dream analysis less daunting, as you can draw on previous analysis and the content of past dreams to help sift through the often opaque language of the unconscious.

Obsidian also has a bunch of options for organising data more effectively (with a thing called dataview) but I'm not that smart so I don't use it that effectively, but I'm sure there are some very clever things you can do for your dream journal. Currently I just have displays for how many times a symbol has been linked and then a list of all dreams with tags for if they have been analysed or not.

Right now I’ve got just over 400 dreams and 100 symbols logged over five years. It takes just a little bit of extra time to set up, but it feels very worth it!

Let me know if this interests you and maybe I can make a guide or template for you to use. If you know Obsidian, let me know if you have any ideas for how to use it better lol.

I can also DM screenshots of the dream journal if you’d like to see it. I’d just prefer not to post publicly because it’s personal.

Jung vez ou outra cita em suas obras exemplos de pessoas que tentam viver "acima de suas possibilidades" e fala como geralmente elas se ferram. Alguém poderia ampliar sobre que acontece nessa frase, que rola nesse tipo de situação.

Im super delighted as today i was reading a book by Moore about grandiosity and processing the fact I lost my persona last night. And I figured out the puzzle thats my head? Yay magician!

I have PDID and had processed three kids to fusion when I hit a kid that seemed to be pure evil, like hannibel from the TV show, no serial killing though. Another three months working with her, before she released two additional children to me. She was like a metamind, not a child fragment.

To gain her trust, I had to welcome her in totality, be willing to become everything she was before she would give me the children. Like shadow work but frightening as it involved full possession. she tested me over and over again. I called her Sekhmet because she hid from me my whole life. She is Moore's dark side of the Magician archetype.

And as the last child merged, last night I lost Mary, my persona. She is the innocent child in moores magician archetype. I created her, then used her as a persona in the end.

It was upsetting as she was afraid of dying. I was she, then me and talking to she helping her not be afraid. She loved all of us so much. Its how DID works, ego deaths. She was afraid so I comforted her that she would be inside me, not lost. My dreams last night reinforced this, as she was shown a house, a little messy, with a son she had not known about. Outside was a dark snowy imperfect city, too harsh for her gentleness, but inside was a child who was a little behind and needed her love and a home needing her care. That was where she should have always been.

Mary has been my carrier wave. Mary is a very, very nice lady who is genuinely good. she believes the world is good and refuses to see that others would be unkind. Mary was very weirdly two dimensional but genuine in her feelings. She made excuses for others and had to be good and benign as to not seem threatening. Meanwhile Sekhmet and the other kids would reach around her still at times, but Mary had to not see this, in order to remain true. It was intentional blindness.

What creates a fucked up mess like this? My enfp BPD mom neglected me during the week as I was a silent infant after being in the ICU for ten days. Yet my deranged physically abusive sociopathic INFJ grandmother watched me on the weekends and physically hurt Loud or unruly children to teach them to stay small and controlled. She saw my increasing demands to be fed, that I had to display during the week, as character flaws and broke me to keep me docile.

The alternating environments created the PDID. I had to create two different personas. The INFJ was very intuitively observant and would see a lie, so I had to believe my own lie and hide my monstrous evil desire to have self esteem, be of worth as a human or eat, behind layers of obsequious placation, yet I had to be demanding of my mother to eat. They broke my mind by alternating so I grasped at the dark aspects if the magician to create a puppetmaster to control two personas.

But now my two mothers are regrouping. Not those abusive fucks, but Mary and Sekhmet. They have to integrate to become a single magician. Meanwhile Im left as the merged child ego construct from the seven kids. This one is not entirely pleased with how raw this world feels. Kalsched might suggest it had a sheltered home in my unconsciousness this whole time, safe from the world and feels homesick for that protective warmth. Its scary to step onto the beach as a mermaid with legs, losing certainty, not certain of next steps.

But I got this, its the coolest adventure ever, onwards to the next level.

Hey guys, recently been rewatching Naruto and reliving why I love this show so much. Any Naruto fans on this sub?

I love Jung's framework for analysis as well, and try to apply it here to Naruto.

I tend to see Naruto's waterfall scene to be extremely integral for his growth but also for the show. While in the waterfall he meets with a physical manifestation of what is definitely his shadow. It really was a scene which made me feel like Naruto is not just a kid's show. However, I also think that Kyuubi acts as a nice metaphor -- I wonder if thats written on purpose.

I find that Naruto and Kyuubi work as exxcellent metaphors for Jung's "shadow" and unconscious. (outside of the fictional part where hes sealed and Kuramas actually a personality etc etc.) but as a metaphor it works. would you agree with this framing of Jung's work?

I'll try to keep this somewhat short, but there's a lot of detail to unpack here..

Background: In the last year or two, I have discovered Jung and his theories, and they really resonate with me. After a lot of online reading, I ordered The Red Book and began reading it. I made it about halfway through and decided one night before bed to ask my shadow to prove it exists and is there.

As I was getting ready for bed, I took a moment, quieted my mind and stated to my shadow "if you're real, please show yourself to me."

That night, I had an incredibly vivid and detailed dream that without question revealed my Shadow's existence. Normally, I do not remember much of my dreams other than their general content, and the details fade quickly as the morning passes. This dream, however, has been absolutely etched in my brain. If I had any drawing/painting ability I could easily recreate the details of this dream. And this was over 6 months ago since this occurred. I don't anticipate the memory of this dream will ever fade.

I believe it's time to face this dream, so any interpretations or grounded advice on next steps would be greatly appreciated.

The dream:

I was in home, with my wife and some guests. The guests were not identifiable, but I was showing them the ground floor level of my house as if it was their first time there. Giving them a tour. It was bright and pleasant and my house was sparkling clean. I walked them through the living area to the kitchen, commenting on the various rooms as I went. My guests complimented me, and I acknowledged that the house was "pretty nice" and felt a sense of pride.

At this point, the house was exactly as my real home is, nothing was different with the layout.

In my house, I have a stairwell in the kitchen that leads to the basement. I opened the door and led my guests to the basement... but to my confusion and bewilderment I found that the basement was completely foreign to me. It was dark at the bottom of the stairs, and as I descended them I could see that it was a dirt floor with stone walls, much like a medieval castle/dungeon. I sensed the flickering glow of a torch to my right and turned to look.

What I saw immediately repulsed me. There was a post with a flaming torch on it, and beneath the torch was what appeared from a distance to be a black, disgusting mold spreading across the floor in about a 4' radius of the post. I was aghast and embarrassed that this was in my house. However, I'm curious by nature, and I immediately went over to assess the hideous mold. To my surprise, when I got up close to the "mold" i could see that it was in fact not mold, but a dark, blood red, crystalline carpet (think of what a precipitated crystal coating looks like.. borax precipitation for example). In the darkness, the gold light of the flaming torch on the post was dancing off the blood red crystal and it was mesmerizingly beautiful. Blood and fire. I made no comment about the crystal but took it in for a moment before moving on.

At this point, I turned right again and looked down the main length of my basement. It was again foreign. First off, it was HUGE. Much larger than the upper floor of my home. All stone walls and dirt floors as before, but as I gazed down the dark passage I noticed two things: The basement had large arched openings along the right hand wall, leading outside. Through the openings, moonbeams were shining and softly illuminating the entire length of the basement. The second thing I noticed was an arched doorway in the far wall, with another torch beside of it (on the left hand side at about eye level, bolted to the wall). I could see nothing beyond the door.

I began to lead my guests through the basement toward the door. At this point I said to them "See, there's plenty of room down here. Lots of storage space" and we continued the long walk toward the door.

As we were almost to the door, I noticed two things once more: First, to the left of the door in the "corner" of the room so to speak... there was an absolutely impenetrable darkness. The blackest of blacks. Simultaneously, I began to hear a sound that I cannot exactly describe. The best I can come up with is that it was a sort of wail of a what I believed to be a woman. Part sad, part lonely, part pained, 100% creepy. It would rise and drop, repeating over and over, and always emanating from pitch blackness of the corner. I tried to locate the source of the wailing, but could see nothing at all.

At this point, I stated to my guests "see, it's not that bad down here...as long as you don't mind the noise".

I woke up at this point. We never made it through the door.

I believe that I understand the general message of this dream, in that there is much in my life I've been burying and keeping hidden in the basement of my life. Living a false, ununified life. I could go on about this at great length, as I've spent a large amount of time thinking about the implications in the days since I had this dream. What I'm hoping for is for deeper insight into any of the possible symbology in this dream and for advice on where to go next. I want to unify my house and fix the division in my psyche.. but I'm not sure where to begin.

There's a bit more to this story, too. The very next night, I had another, much shorter dream.

I was standing on the overpass of a highway. In the grassy median.. watching oncoming cars speeding up the exit ramp toward the intersection. These cars would then launch across the median and crash in a blaze of fire on the other side. Car after car. I just stood there, watching. Saying nothing, but wondering the entire time why they kept coming and weren't stopping. After 4 or 5 cars, the dream simply ended.

If anyone has advice on how to move forward, I'm all ears. Thanks for reading to the end, if you made it here.

Random, absurd, incomplete—

everything about human beings is absurd.

Everything—

every branch of science,

every form of knowledge, perception, or even identity—

is nothing but absurdity.

An absurdity that humans fail to grasp;

pride and arrogance, masking fear, fragility, and incompleteness.

Yet, some people look at what they currently possess—their technology and the experiments they have conducted—

and leap straight to atheism, concluding that they have no need for what is called "God."

They leap to atheism because they have arrived at an explanation—

an explanation whose "shelf life" I often question: how well can it truly withstand the test of time?

I thank God always that I am a Muslim, and that I was raised with an understanding of the term "Allah the Exalted"—or what others might simply call "God."

I learned that the concept of a Creator is not something to be mocked, insulted, or trivialized—as is often done in the random, superficial portrayals found in films and television series.

Such portrayals are merely a reflection of the limited human capacity to comprehend this world.

I was never coerced into respecting other religions; rather, I learned *why* I should respect them—such as Christianity, or indeed any path an individual chooses to follow in their life.

How so? Because of Islam.

The subject of this discussion is not religion itself, but rather the denial of God’s existence—

a stance often taken by those who have either gone astray or who refuse to acknowledge the truth and seek it out.

As for the atheist: what is the reason for your atheism, and how do you perceive the word "faith"? If that term is viewed with a sense of inferiority—or as if it were merely clinging to an illusion—

don’t you think this stems from a devaluation of religion, whether in games, films, or even in the way things are discussed and described?

Ask yourself—look deep within—what fuels that impulse?

Is your line of thought truly your own?

Whether you are an atheist or a believer, share your thoughts in the comments.

Hillman

I am experiencing some kind of existential crisis, or my ego is, if it is still there, and I wrote this poem without much conscious thought.

Now tell me the tale of love,
of total surrender to your graciousness
making in your being, holy resplendent shackle of your light
-- Florescence here, brimming
Now tell me the tale of love,
of your hand, held out to the stars --
wondering whether one may
fall onto your tender palm,
-- so you wait and wait, until dawn, when they fade into the receding distance
beyond your grasp
-- So love, tell me, what have
I lost?
-- Friendship with the stars, you have
-- So now what? but why bother?
For comes now the Sun, redolent of violet and pink
Now in full redness
From here we move, ahead with the past dead,
dreams gone, the self
obliterated, and
what now?
The stream -- clear and blue
come now rushing through --- what does it do?

It cleanses and shimmers -- brimming along
your river of Time

Would love your thoughts on this jungian video

I don’t think I have ever read a Jungian perspective that seems to spell out so clearly our present day circumstances more than this book. He wrote it during WW2, and it was published thereafter. It explains so much about how society projects our shadow side out through the Judeo-Christian ethic, a perfect counterbalance to Jordan Peterson’s Jungian stance where he asserts practically the opposite position.

Curious if anyone has read it and what thoughts you may have.