START WITHIN

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

― C.G. Jung

As humans, we are first and foremost wired to survive. So our brains evolved to be hyper focused on the objective, physical world. Which is why we live our lives mainly on the physical plane. Looking to satisfy our longings, and fight our battles, in our outer reality.

We believe that as soon as we land our dream job, get that pay raise, that new home, finally find our other half or lose them for that matter, we’ll surely find happiness or fulfillment. Even with something as abstract as our purpose, we still hold on to the notion that we will find it out there.

Sometimes we achieve what we wanted, only to find our anxiety resurface after the brief period of novelty and excitement wears off. Maybe it doesn’t completely hit us until we wake up one day and notice we’re living the life we always dreamt of, yet the angst persist. Other times we acquiesce to our banal reality and give up on our exhausting and futile longings, goals or dreams. Thinking to ourselves we just don’t have what it takes to achieve and attain those things we yearn and long for. Which leaves us worse off, knowing that not only don’t we have the things we imagined to be our salvation, but we don’t have them because we didn’t have what it took. Further sinking us into a state of angst and despair, which quietly simmers under the surface of what should otherwise be a perfectly good life.

We also fight our battles in our outer reality. Fighting, overtly or covertly, with our spouse for not getting it, with the mother in law for being so passive aggressive, the boss for not listening to our ideas, the kids for constantly misbehaving, the co-worker for being such a douchebag, Johnny for bringing Jane to the get together, the traffic for being so horrible, cars for cutting in front, and on, and on, and on. We live in constant battle out here.

We go most of our life trying to attain or achieve those things we imagine will give us the life we want. While fighting our way through everything that bothers, angers us or gets in the way. In other words, we live our life purely on the physical plane. Yet we seldom stop to question; what is it I’m truly after, what I’m I actually basing my desires and dreams on, what is this anger really about, what about this situation is truly bothering me? We continue to hold our focus on our outer reality, not knowing what within us is animating it. Our lives consist of chasing carrots and confronting or running away from sticks, completely blind.

The brilliant Carl G. Jung beautifully captured this phenomenon when he said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate”. What a powerful and profound observation. Herein lie the keys to our freedom and our aliveness.

As long as we fail to realize that the outer reality is nothing more than the canvas where our inner reality paints itself, we will go our entire lives trying to attain or fight things without any idea of what’s really animating them. It is no wonder we often feel as if we are spinning in circles, shooting in the dark. We need to shift our focus inward, if we are to truly engage with what is real in our lives.

This is the purpose of this blog, to explore the journey it takes to uncover our true self, gain the inner mastery needed to overcome our limiting habits/patterns/beliefs, so we may freely express our selves at the service of a worthy cause greater than ourselves, our purpose.

Join me!