Even if we feel we are the most wilful individual in the world, invisible forces have shaped who we are.
Jung concluded there was a point in all our lives, where the rules we are used to playing by no longer serve the life that is waiting for us.
We need to walk into a new chapter of who we are.
As we learned through the neurobiology of perception series, as we grow we learn rules to help us survive and thrive. Some of them consciously – but most of them unconsciously. Most of us have built our personality on autopilot in way that was intended to help us thrive in the first phase of our lives.
But for many of us there comes a moment when we realise that the rules we have lived by – and used to secure our success to this point – don’t seem to have the same power they used to.
Maybe we’ve reached a milestone in our career or lives, or have some sort of foundations in place that marks success: the job, the accolade, the house or the children. This noticing can happen at any age and at any time – but usually when we’re safe in some way.
For some people this is a welcome contemplation: a still quiet voice saying ‘it’s time to make a change’.
For others it might come as a dawning sense of being lost, in a funk, or a malaise that won’t go away.
For others it comes a little more forcefully. Maybe a quiet desperation at feeling endlessly stressed or exhausted – or at the extreme end of the experience maybe a burn-out, a health issue or life-changing event that stops the old way of doing things in its tracks.
“'We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung, CW 8”
– Carl Jung, CW 8
Founding father of depth psychology Carl Jung talked about this as a deeply human and usual experience.
He used the analogy of a great midday transition from morning to afternoon: where many of the rules we learned to help us thrive in the early stages of life – our perceptions, reactions, motivations – will not serve us for the next stage of the journey.
Most of us have been conditioned by our surroundings, culture, experiences, close connections. A big part of sustainable transformation is understanding what rules you have consciously – and unconsciously lived by.
Understanding which ones are still helping you – and which ones might be pulling you back – is a critical part of navigating any transformation or new chapter.
What are they? Which ones will really serve you moving forward?