This is an import passage from Carl Jung about being yourself:
“It is no small matter to acknowledge one’s yearning. For this, many need to make a particular effort at honesty. All too many do not want to know where they’re yearning is, because it would seem to them impossible or too distressing. And yet yearning is the way of life. If you do not acknowledge your yearning, then you do not follow yourself, but go on foreign ways that others have indicated to you. So you do not live your life but an alien one. But who should live your life if you do not live it? It is not only stupid to exchange your own life for an alien one, but also a hypocritical game, because you can never really live the life of others, you can only pretend to do it, deceiving the other and yourself, since you can only live your own life.” Red Book, by C.G. Jung; page 249.
What is so confusing about “being yourself”?
Mixing up your own yearning with that of another. It’s as if the yearning got confused. Is what I long for right or wrong? Will I get hurt if I follow my yearning? Will I get rejected and be alone? Yearning needs to be accepted, as is. Then listen carefully, as you would listen to a child. This way it is possible to separate “your way” from others. Acknowledge the yearning, looking to see what it needs. Then re-guide and re-educate yourself instead of shaming it, rejecting it or “pretending”.
First, if you have confusion, that is good. You are well along the path of evolution. The ones that are perfectly clear about who they are, are worrisome. Most don’t even have the question. They walk around thinking they have it all figured out. This is a sad state of affairs.
Second, Know yourself through: feelings, perceptions, needs, attitudes, thoughts, desires, intuitions, etc. Just to be aware is enough. The conditioning by others runs deep. We started from day one and even earlier getting messages about life from our parents, our culture, and nature on what it means to be a human being. Those messages range from the most intelligent and loving to the most ignorant and hateful.
Third, allow not knowing what to do sometimes and allow yourself to feel the negative emotions of hate and revulsion instead of rejecting them. Then it is workable. The questions that arise from confusion and hate are the best, because if you don’t have a question, you don’t have an answer. For example, if I am hating on someone, I can ask myself, “what is it, I hate in them, that I hate in myself?”. Let’s say the answer is, “I hate how conservative they are”, then I can look at where I am conservative and how I hate it. I may be able to see that my conservative trait has kept me safe in various ways and now I may be able to relax a little of it.
Yes, we need to be grateful for what we have. That is a given, but yearning can be overlooked as trivial, insignificant and indulgent. It holds an aspect of our essence as an individual. The yearning can be misunderstood. Just as a child may be misunderstood. If we misunderstand our vulnerable needs and do not guide with wisdom and sensitivity, it gets lost, only to be rediscovered through more yearnings.
“Our vulnerable” See: Parenting the Inner child of the parent
