to us. By recognizing these traits in others, we can identify similar qualities within ourselves that we might be denying. Jung stated, “The projection brings with it a moment of enlightenment because it reveals to the individual that he has been attributing to others what is essentially his own.
” Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis. In summary, Jung’s insights into anxiety and depression highlight the importance of self-awareness and the necessity of confronting our shadows—both the weaknesses and the strengths we suppress. By embracing the totality of our character, we can transform our lives and achieve a more profound sense of well-being.
to us. For not only do most of us repress similar character traits, but we also tend to project elements of our shadow onto other people. If, therefore, we pay attention to which character traits of our friends and family bother us, we may also gain a glimpse of our own shadow.
In addition to observing others, another way to bring the shadow into the light of consciousness is to reflect on the motives for our actions, especially actions we are ashamed of, and to be open to self-criticism when it is warranted. For, as Jung notes, often the only thing that is preventing us from seeing our shadow is the ability to be honest with ourselves: “With a little self-criticism one can see through the shadow” (Carl Jung, *Aion*). Along with becoming more conscious of the shadow, another integral aspect of Jung’s method of treatment was helping his patients find a meaning to their lives.
For Jung believed that when stuck in a deep depression or consumed by an anxiety disorder, to be cured necessitates discovering a “role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life” (Carl Jung, *The Symbolic Life*). To understand what was meant by this, we can turn to an encounter Jung had with a chief of the Pueblo tribe in the first half of the 20th century. Jung was discussing with this man the traditions of his tribe when the chief made the following remark: “Yes, we are a small tribe, and these Americans, they want to interfere with our religion.
They should not do it, because we are the sons of the Father, the Sun. He who goes there” (pointing to the sun) – “that is our Father. We must help him daily to rise over the horizon and to walk over Heaven.
And we don’t do it for ourselves only: we do it for America, we do it for the whole world” (V18). Carl Jung, *The Symbolic Life*. Jung understood that to many in the modern day, this statement would sound crazy and archaic.
But, as he further notes, the members of this tribe did not suffer like we suffer. They were not infected by neuroses, anxiety disorders, or depression. They did not fill themselves with pills each day, and they were not debilitated by addictions.
Rather, this tribe was composed of highly functioning individuals who saw themselves as fulfilling their duty as an actor in the divine drama of life, and their lives were rich in meaning and purpose. Or, as Jung wrote: “These people have no problems. They have their daily life, their symbolic life.
They get up in the morning with a feeling of their great and divine responsibility: they are the sons of the Sun, the Father, and their daily duty is to help the Father over the horizon – not for themselves alone, but for the whole world. You should see these fellows: they have a natural fulfilled dignity” (Carl Jung, *The Symbolic Life*). Jung contrasts this way of life with a Western woman he met.
This lady, as Jung notes, was a compulsive traveler, always running from one place to the next, always seeking, but never really finding what she was looking for. “I was amazed when I looked into her eyes – the eyes of a hunted, a cornered animal – seeking, seeking, always in the hope of something. .
. She is possessed. .
. And why is she possessed? Because she does not live the life that makes sense.
Hers is a life utterly, grotesquely banal. . .
with no point in it at all. If she dies today, nothing has happened, nothing has vanished – because she was nothing! ” (Carl Jung, *The Symbolic Life*).
This compulsive seeking infects many in the Western world. Some run from one destination to another; some chase romantic partners; others are compulsive seekers of money, prestige, fame, or recognition on social media. But whatever the outward form it takes, the underlying motivation is the same – the seeker is trying to run away from the banality of their existence.
They are seeking to fill the void of emptiness that comes from living a meaningless life. But, as Jung explains, this void cannot be filled with things, or even experiences. What fills this void is knowing that we are living in a way that makes a difference, or, as he writes concerning the woman he met: “But if she could say, ‘I am the daughter of the Moon.
Every night I must help the Moon, my Mother, over the horizon’ – ah, that is something else! Then she lives, then her life makes sense, and makes sense in all continuity, and for the whole of humanity. That gives peace when people feel that they are living [as] actors in the divine drama.
That gives the only meaning to human life; everything else is banal, and you can dismiss it. A career, producing children, are all maya compared with that one thing, that your life is meaningful” (Carl Jung, *The Symbolic Life*). Jung was not suggesting that we all adopt the Puebloan mythology; rather, his point is that many people suffer because their life makes no sense.
And the task for those who want to be free of anxiety or depression is to discover this sense. We must, in other words, find a way to justify our existence, so that we, like the Puebloans, can believe that our life is meaningful. For some, this can be accomplished through religion; for others, by contributing in a substantial way to the promotion of values such as justice, freedom, or community; while others will find it through the creative act.
But for those of us in the modern West, where we lack a dominant mythology, it is up to us, and us alone, to discover how we can play a meaningful role in the divine drama of life. For the few who accomplish this task, a fulfilling life will define their future; for the many who don’t, years or decades of pointless suffering and compulsive seeking will be their fate. “I am only concerned with the fulfilment of that which is in every individual.
. . That is the whole problem; that is the problem of the true Pueblo: that I do today everything that is necessary so that my father can rise over the.
. . “Horizon.
