As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. — Carl Jung
It’s not always easy. It’s not always fun and games. Pain. Loss. Grief. Depression. Sometimes darkness descends like a soggy wool blanket and try as we might, we can’t see the light. When depression feels like a permanent condition, getting out of the hole seems an impossible climb.
There’s a story about a pilot whose plane went into a tailspin. Nobody had ever come out of a tailspin before. Instead of trying to slow the plane down as all the others had done before him, this pilot thought, What the hell, why wait? So, he floored it. And the plane miraculously came out of the tailspin.
With that story in mind, I decided to dive deeper into the darkness to find my way out. I googled Carl Jung and clicked on the Shadow.
Seek and ye shall find, as the good book says. What I found is that shadow work often boils down to radical self-acceptance. Talk about a rabbit hole.
As soon as I managed to accept myself as the absolute worst person in the world, an utterly ego-deflating possibility reared its head: what if I’m just an everyday asshole? Well, folks, I accepted that, too. Next thing I knew, I was laughing and making friends with my bad self.
When we accept the Shadow, we get shown the light. Jung might call it Synchronicity: I must have said it a hundred times – I feel like I’ve lost my connection to Spirit. And there on the screen came the words, “… we need to reconnect with the great mystery.”
The ultimate personal journey.
