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Carl Jung and Awakening Your Higher Self

Updated: Jan 27

Awakening your Higher Self is the real meaning of BEing. Carl Jung, the godfather of diving deep into the psyche, saw the potential for greatness within us all. But reaching it requires confronting some hard truths. Most people look to external influences and religious icons for self-awakening. People don't try to awaken their Higher Self, which is the answer to ALL of their problems, as either they don't know how to, or they are not prepared to do the inner work that is required.


Yet it is the most rewarding thing that you will ever do.


Carl Jung says the real action starts with a deep dive within your Self. Looking inward - exploring your darkness, shadow self, thoughts, and emotions - is where you’ll find the answers to your Higher Self. This is the realm of the unconscious. This is the unknown unknown in the Johari window. This is the realm of 'God-consciousness'. Are you ready to dive in and find your Self?



Enlightenment, Jung argues, starts within. He believed it wasn’t about achieving a state of perfect light or bliss. It’s about confronting your own psyche, understanding your depths, and integrating them into a more whole sense of Self.


A key Jungian concept is the Shadow, the unconscious part of your personality that holds repressed desires, instincts, and emotions: What you weren't allowed to feel as a child. Enlightenment, for Jung, involves bringing these hidden aspects of yourself to light and integrating them into your conscious awareness. 'Shadow work' is often challenging but crucial for your Higher Self.


A sense of wholeness, power, and purpose is within reach if you are ready to make the unconscious conscious. “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate,” Jung said famously.


Let’s dive deeper into Jung’s observations. Jung wrote that “The whole point of Jesus’s life was not that we should become exactly like him, but that we should become ourselves in the same way he became himself. Jesus was not the great exception but the great example.” He was a shining beacon of light to all of us.


Carl Jung’s insight into Jesus’s life opens the door to a refreshingly personal interpretation of Faith. The path to meaning and Self-awakening is using wisdom to embrace our epic journey of becoming our Highest Selves.


According to Jung, Jesus was the ultimate example of internal Self-awakening, a process Jung termed 'individuation.'


Jesus wrestled with doubt, felt temptation, and faced rejection. Yet, through it all, he honed his connection with the divine, the spark within that makes him the Christ. That spark lives in you, too.


Our path to our Higher Selves might involve similar wrestles. We fight for our beliefs and values, overcome insecurities, and shed masks that don’t fit.


You don't need to hold yourself against a religious icon. Your journey is yours to blaze. Just like Jesus, challenge what holds you back and fight for what makes you come alive. That’s how you become the most radiant version of you - not a pale imitation of someone else.


Jung wrote “The world will ask you who you are, and if you don’t know, the world will tell you.” And they will tell you again and again.


The world barks this question in your face: “Who are you?” And woe betide the soul who mumbles. Know thyself. Carl Jung made psychological and philosophical observations - a world indifferent to your self-discovery will provide its own, often limiting, inaccurate, answer.


We spend most of our days playing assigned roles - son, daughter, partner, employee, friend. But beneath the masks, a shadow self awaits, an unexplored Higher Self. The question becomes less “What box do I fit in?” and more “What is the essence of my BEing?” A life lived in default is a soul slowly suffocating.


The world, in its pragmatic way, puts us into pre-built boxes. But labels are dehumanising lazy shortcuts, denying the complexity within yourself.


Accepting the world’s definition is a slow surrender, dimming your inner light. You become a character in someone else’s play, your potential buried beneath a pile of “shoulds” and “supposed-tos.”


Jung wrote that “One does not become Enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”


According to Jung, we can’t find Enlightenment in external light but in confronting the darkness within. Complete self-awakening is a brutal descent into the abyss of our own psyche. Carl Jung did this himself, and this was his superpower. When he wrote 'The Red Book', Jung descended into and explored his own subconscious, and this was the source of all his later works.


It’s confronting the darkness within. It’s tough. Most people would rather project a fake, 'perfect', flawless image than face the messy, hidden corners of themselves. But the former approach is potentially fatal.


Real awakening happens when you look inward, when you confront the darkness and integrate it. The path to Enlightenment might be dark and scary, but it’s the only way to see yourself - and the world - with clarity.


Our shadows, flaws and dark parts of ourselves we are afraid to confront. If you are brave enough to face them and accept everything, even the strange and unsettling, you will experience true self-acceptance. “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people,” Jung said. Our unconscious selves (hidden thoughts, desires, fears) have more to teach us about ourselves than the parts of ourselves (conscious selves) we “think” we know. It’s the path to becoming truly whole.


Integrate your shadow and use it for good. Jung warns fearing your “madness” gives it too much control over the direction of your life. You push it down, but it leaks out. You see its reflection in others, judging them for what you can’t accept in yourself. You project it and see it as flaws in others. Fear creates distance. But accept your “madness”(your hidden passions, desires, and unconventional thoughts), and it becomes your teacher. But by accepting it, you find freedom. You express yourself wholly.


Adyashanti wrote that "Life is the guru that never stops teaching. The challenge is to pay attention."


Owning your shadow - the anger, jealousy, and fear - is the first step to integrating it, to transforming it from a dim light into a source of strength. Until we integrate the shadow, we remain incomplete: We remain powerless. Once we integrate it, we are unstoppable.


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



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Hello,

I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person. 


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