JUNG THROUGH DEEPIKA

Understanding Self through Reflection

INTRODUCTION

The Objective of this practical is to gain understanding of our ever evolving self through the
theories of Carl Jung and his famous “No one develops his personality because someone told
him it would be useful or advisable for him to do so.. Nothing changes itself without need, and
human personality least of all”. Carl Jung has talked about how Personality is not dynamic in
nature and yet it changes when the need is felt from within, when a crisis had to be met with
adequate solution.

Reflection is a state of mind, an ongoing constituent of practice, not a technique, or

curriculum element. Reflective Practice can enable practitioners to learn from experience about
themselves, their work, and the way they relate to home and work, significant others and wider
society and culture. It gives strategies to bring things out into the open, and frame appropriate
and searching questions never asked before. It can provide relatively safe and confidential ways
to explore and express experiences otherwise difficult to communicate. It challenges
assumptions, ideological illusions, damaging social and cultural biases, inequalities, and
questions personal behaviors which perhaps silence the voices of others or otherwise marginalize
them.

This practical is looking at yourself through a telescopic view. It means a great deal to go back to
instances of life and reflect, why what and where? But what is difficult is getting the answers of
the questions that are deep buried, and long repressed. What happens to these long-buried
questions? Do they come out as fresh, will I be able to reflect with the strength needed and to
accept for my actions and thoughts? But if not today then when.

Carl Jung beautifully puts it in one quote; “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly
are”. You can’t change the past, but you can change the ending. You can still make that dream
come true. Thoughts become things, you become what you believe.
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REFLECTION

“No one develops his personality because someone told him it would be useful or advisable for
him to do so.. Nothing changes itself without need, and human personality least of all”.

Carl Jung the Self, according to Jung, was the sum total of the psyche, with all its
potential included. This is the part of the psyche that looks forward, that contains the drive
toward fulfillment and wholeness. In this, the Self was said to drive the process of individuation,
the quest of the individual to reach his or her fullest potential. Jung believed, unlike many of his
contemporaries, that all the elements of an individual’s nature are present from birth, and that the
environment of the person brings them out (rather than the environment creating them). Jung felt
that people are born with a “blueprint” already in them that will determine the course of their
lives. Our personality that is already present during our birth, is difficult to change and no one
asks us to change it because we might need it. Only when we encounter certain events and
situations in our life, we change our personality or adapt for our betterment. Thinking on these
lines I am reminded of a certain incident that happened to me as a kid and my life till date
revolves around it, I was in second grade and my father was transferred to Calcutta, new school,
new friends. I have always been someone reserved, timid, never wanting to go up and speak to
anyone but something happened during those two years. I had a cultural shock, children there
spoke their mother tongue that was Bengali and rarely Hindi and I did not have a good grip over
my English. And the problem of making friends and adjustment started, I cried every day, I still
remember telling my mother to pack and leave, I still remember how I wanted to fall ill to avoid
school. But later I adapted and changed and became an extrovert, went to people to talk to
because I was a minority, I made initiation even though they made fun of me and dismissed me
but I took the courage and after those 2 years I finally made a few friends, but it was too late, my
father again got posted and new location but this time I was ready, I knew what to say, I knew
how to approach and here I was with a new personality that of an extrovert. But today I realize
that it was a necessity for me adapt that part as my personality for survival. But today I face
another problem due to that personality is the fear to be alone, to be friendless, to be left without
anyone by my side, I have never acknowledged this part of me, these insecurities but always
dismissed them thinking they are nothing. Why do they arise and what are they a product of is
what I have to find an answer to. It is difficult to stay this way but I am usually wary of people
Understanding Self through Reflection

and don’t let them come too close, for they might leave without notice. Is this also something I
developed in my childhood? I don’t know.

Those traits that we dislike, or would rather ignore, come together to form what Jung
called the Shadow. This part of the psyche, which is also influenced heavily by the collective
unconscious, is a form of complex, and is generally the complex most accessible by the
conscious mind. During my school years, obviously our hormones were changing and our liking
for opposite sex starts to develop. Long story cut short, I fell for this boy and he liked me too and
we were dating but he choose to cheat and then I found he was cheating, I was still a young 13
year old who was heart broken in love and not once did he do this, over several occasions I was
hurt and finally I decided to conceal myself from the cruel word, from the insensitive boys who
did not understand me. I was too naïve to call it love, but the attraction and the infatuation and
the following heart break put me in tough situation, I could not tell my parents, I spoke to friend
but did not help. And then I came this person I never thought I would be and till date I think why
did I built my walls so high to not let people enter or if they did, to hurt them before they hurt
me. Following what happened with the 13-year-old me, I did let myself fall in so called “Love”
but I didn’t allow myself to fully devote to that person, I always had aces up my sleeves, I
always was detached from the person. I always took the step of hurting them before they did it to
me. And my defense mechanism being in place I instantly blamed what had happened to me and
thus wiping off the blood from my hand. Why should I take the responsibility when I can put it
on someone else’s shoulder? I wasn’t mature enough to think then but this part of me I hated the
most and still hate the most. I cannot confess to myself that I have commitment issues, that I am
still the 13-year-old hurt girl, I still want a second chance, I cannot trust, who and why should I
trust this world full of liars and mean people?

A song by Pink “Just give me a reason, just a little bit’s enough. Just a second, we are not
broken, just bend and we can learn to love again. It’s in the stars, it’s been written in the scars on
our hearts we’re not broken just bent and we can learn to love again.”

It kills me to listen to this but is very close to me, because I know the fault lies within and not
outside that I am looking for to put the blame on. But the blame game will stop and that day, I
will have to bear the burden of my wrong doings despite what has happened to me despite what I
have done or haven’t.
Understanding Self through Reflection

Jung said that the Persona is an element of the personality which arises “for reasons of
adaptation or personal convenience.” If you have certain “masks” you put on in various
situations (such as the side of yourself you present at work, or to family), that is a persona. The
Persona can be seen as the “public relations” part of the ego, the part that allows us to interact
socially in a variety of situations with relative ease. I have always been attracted to people who
are “fun”, bring life in a party or a gathering. I am very adventurous to say and very social. I
have my share of persona that I put in order to look “cool” sometimes, probably to avoid
someone a few times. But usually I think I call myself as this fun, jumpy person. But am I that or
is that a Persona that I carry and have taken it too seriously? Pondering over it I think it is not a
Persona but a trait that I try to enhance even after possessing it because for me this trait defines
me and makes me who I am, it is something that people tell me they like. Is it because people
like or I like it is the question I need to answer? But that I might not be ready today. This
personality also helps me to forgot and enjoy, rather than to crib and cry about things going
wrong. It allows me to shield myself from being vulnerable. Vulnerability from what is inside
the fear of being left out, alone and not having anything that other person thinks is not likeable in
me. I want to be likeable, I have never been the popular kid in my teenage, although I had friends
who were popular but I feel I was at the margins, I wished to enjoy and feel what it was like to
be popular, even though a lot of people knew and I knew a lot of people but they were just
acquaintance for me not my friends. Actually, one can never have so many friends, because true
friends are limited and the capacity and responsibility and amount of energy you have to put in to
have true friends is a lot, and thus one can never have many friends but acquaintances. Coming
back, I always wanted to be famous and thus I preserve and enhance this personality of mine.
The compliment I get from people of being mature and yet announcing by my behavior time and
again that the child in me is still ageless. I think that is a part of my personality that I will always
cherish and not let go, because not only is it likeable, it allows me to be someone who can deal
with her issues in a childlike way, by crying or yelling or anything but at the same time once I
am done doing these things, just like a child I forget and move on. Those things then don’t bother
me. And its like a sun that shines after rain, brining rainbow along with it.
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Individuation, to Jung, was the quest for wholeness that the human psyche invariably
undertakes, the journey to become conscious of his or herself as a unique human being, but
unique only in the same sense that we all are, not more or less so than others. Consciousness
comes from conflicts from the outside world and one’s own inside opposites. A person I might
project something on the outside but I am different on the inside. Like having a fight and outside
I might be forgiving in nature and kind but on the inside is dark, I may react in ways to seek
revenge and make the other person how they made me feel. But this conflict is resolved when I
think about these and bring it to the conscious that I am actually thinking this and do I want to be
this person or not? Will it satiate my soul? Is the dark inside of me getting some good left inside
of me. I see this as Cognitive Dissonance, basically this phenomenon whereby we have a natural
drive for consistency, in that our belief system must be consistent with itself and it must be
consistent with our actions. I often have quite different thinking and actions for which needs
congruency, and thus the conscious thinking begins, in order to bring all at surface for organizing
what I feel and how I react. Like a lot of times I will push people away but then in my heart I
know it’s not their fault and problem and I feel like apologizing, so what I do is keep pushing
them away, say things that are not very nice and the to put things in consistent I start thinking
about them in those terms. This a habit that is very bad and I often indulge in this without having
a reason or thinking consciously as to why do I do this ? What motives are behind this
behaviours , or what will I achieve? Questions that are still unanswered. Unconscious that still
have to be brought to surface to be faced with utmost bravery.

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness.” As Jung said, the days
are as long as the nights and perhaps it is not possible to be happy unless we have experienced
sadness also. Our behaviour is shaped by our previous experiences and our future aspirations we
can perceive the same situation in a myriad of different ways. The important thing was to
recognise this when we make our assumptions.