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Carl Jung

Face up to what needs to be done.

Jung's central claim: the parts of yourself you refuse to see don't disappear — they go underground, grow stronger, and eventually drive your decisions from below.

The Shadow​

The shadow is not evil — it's everything you've disowned. Anger you decided wasn't acceptable. Ambition you learned to disguise. Capacity for cruelty you've never named. What you don't integrate, you project onto others.

  • Individuation is the lifelong process of becoming whole — integrating the shadow rather than repressing it.
  • The persona is the mask worn for the world; confusing it for the self is the first error.
  • What you most resist in others is often what you've most successfully buried in yourself.

Self-Knowledge​

  • The unconscious communicates in symbols: dreams, slips, compulsions, and the things that inexplicably unsettle you.
  • Self-knowledge is not introspection alone — it requires encounter with what you don't want to find.
  • Character is not built by avoiding difficulty but by confronting it with enough awareness to choose how you respond.

Facing Reality​

  • "Face up to what needs to be done" is not a productivity maxim — it is a psychological one.
  • Avoidance is not neutral; every avoided truth accumulates as shadow material.
  • The courage to see clearly is prior to the courage to act: you cannot do what you cannot first acknowledge.

Context​

  • Agency — individuation as the deep foundation of genuine self-direction
  • Character — Jung's shadow work as the mechanism behind character development
  • Perspective — seeing yourself clearly before you can see the world clearly
  • Purpose — meaning as the product of integration, not avoidance

Questions​

What is the relationship between shadow integration and the capacity for genuine agency — can you truly direct your life while large portions of your psychology remain unexamined?

  • Which of your strongest opinions about other people might be projections of your own disowned material?
  • Jung argued that what you refuse to face grows stronger underground — what in your current situation are you managing rather than confronting?
  • If individuation is lifelong, what does partial completion look like — and is a partially integrated person more or less dangerous than one who hasn't started?