Carl Jung was known to be an introvert, and his split with Sigmund Freud was an essential part of his own psychological development in that it drove him even more deeply into an exploration of this own inner life. Yet, as he dealt with the effects of losing what had been an essential relationship, a loss both abrupt and disorienting, Jung was able to explore his own inner reality to such a maddening and marvelous extent, he emerged with new wisdom, wisdom that would become foundational in his approach to psychotherapy. Born from Jung’s personal healing crisis, and the solitude in which he immersed himself to cope, was Liber Novus, The Red Book, an incredible testament to his personal inward searching, creative process and the self discoveries it yielded. Jung reflected,

“My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you – are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life. Do you still know me? How long the separation lasted! Everything has become so different. And how did I find you? How strange my journey was! What words should I use to tell you on what twisted paths a good star has guided me to you? Give me your hand, my almost forgotten soul. How warm the joy at seeing you again, you long disavowed soul. Life has led me back to you. Let us thank the life I have lived for all the happy and all the sad hours, for every joy, for every sadness. My soul, my journey should continue with you. I will wander with you and ascend to my solitude.”
― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus

Jung’s call to his own soul feels mirrored in the temperature of our current cultural socio-economic and health crisis. Beneath it is a cry for greater intimacy with self, for the purpose that self may be partnered to community with greater awareness and an earnest mutual acceptance and compassion. Is the cry being answered consciously within each of us? As many are acutely experiencing, the sense of separation caused by the pandemic has fueled difficult feelings of emptiness and loneliness, even for those who have quarantined with family. To be required to slow down to such a degree that one can identify the value of exploring their inner life is the great gift of this cultural moment, though nine months into the pandemic it may be feeling similar to a trap.

In considering this, it feels helpful to explore methods for cultivating better companionship to ourselves, cultivating an inward facing curiosity and acceptance, in hope that as a collective, we do not miss this opportunity to recon with our most profound source of creativity and knowing, our own soul. What is the expense of turning away from this opportunity? It’s a high price, more illness, more addiction, more proclivity for emotional and physical violence. While partnering with ourselves in a more conscious way might feel unfamiliar and bereft of reward at the outset, it’s worth suggesting that those feelings of resistance are barriers to a field of gems deep within each of us.

“…and a lonely man like yourself will perhaps find companions. But these are all in yourself, and the more you find outside the less you are sure of your own truth. Find them first in yourself, integrate the people in yourself. There are figures, existences, in your unconscious that will come to you, that will integrate in you, so that you may perhaps come into a condition in which you don’t know yourself.”
― C.G. Jung, Nietzche’s Zarathustra

Across the humanities, multiple individuals who have created significant re-visioning in their personal realities through ritualized practices like writing, music, and painting as they dialogue with their inner selves, can give us hope; in them one encounters richer understanding of the pains, vagaries, and epiphanies available as forms of translated emotional life. The work of Emily Dickinson, or Pulitzer Prize winning poet John Berryman, provide great examples of artists who learned of new brilliant worlds arising from within as they moved toward an excavation of their own unconscious impressions, bringing them to the light of day. Jungian psychology provides a variety of methods for exploration of such material. Active imagination, the process of turning inward to facilitate greater awareness of creative associations and their unique individual implications, came directly from Jung’s findings in his own inner work. Its process and development are seen in The Red Book, which also contains beautiful examples of his prescience regarding the coming historical conflicts, and the jagged realms of group psychology.

Other methods that can be used to build inner companionship include: embodiment practices like dance and yoga, or any work that brings awareness into bodily information provided by the senses, ritual that creates a dedicated relationship with an object of significance that is then introjected – such as using plants, crystals, dolls, bones or sigils, engaging in personal dream work, or the use of mantra and meditation. If one looks into our closely held cultural narratives, it’s easy to find multiple examples of paired characters in adventure tales where the protagonist has an alter ego side kick that acts as a counterbalance to ego drives, calming and centering anxiety and facilitating dialogues that help unpack challenges. [1] When one considers mystical poets like Rumi, one also encounters relationship with an inner companion, Rumi calls this The Friend, to whom greater spiritual awareness and sacred capacities are ascribed.

Perhaps of equal importance to the desire to create inner companionship, is the skill building process of self-exploration in which one suspends fixed identity concepts and beliefs for the sake of curiosity, and a penetrating listening that remains open to non rational, non linear impressions. Rather than needing to understand the function of our inner companion at every turn, we might first engage it with a playful welcome, an open door, an invitation for tea. What ideas do you have about how improved inner companionship might serve first your own resilience, then the communities?

By Andrea Robison, MA, AMFT, Facilitating somatic psychotherapy and creative recovery.
Blog Team Member
Jung Society of Utah

Notes

[1] Podcast: https://thisjungianlife.com/episode-121-not-alone-finding-the-inner-companion/

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