The Jungian individuation that I am going through is a process that is making me question everything, I realise that I have in life learnt new belief structures as I have journeyed through my own individual path that have changed from my original belief systems. I am moving to question it all again. Isn’t it prime time with the world in the chaos that it is , that all of us start to question every part of our self? All of us really need to start to take a magnifying glass to all parts of our life and ask what beliefs and behaviours need changing?
It was a question my analyst posed to me ‘do you believe in reincarnation?’ I said yes 100% , I remember not really ever even questioning whether or not life went on after death , this was something I came to when I started to venture into spirituality and eastern philosophy through my yoga studies. We spoke about it, he didn’t believe in reincarnation. This stuck with me after our session .. what if reincarnation was another of my projections, something I have believed in because it allows me to feel safer about death , maybe it’s an excuse so that I can for whatever reason allow the next life to ‘take care of it’ or feel I get another shot at. It’s a belief like this that can really alter how we live. All our beliefs absolutely control how we live and yet we rarely question them. I asked myself am I living any differently believing that there is incarnation ? and yes I am , there are parts of me that are not fully giving to this life , there are parts of me that working hard to heal so I don’t have to ‘carry onto the next life’. It’s not the subject matter that’s the problem , it’s how the belief carries an energy that impacts our thoughts that transcends into behaviour and those behaviours impact the world around us.
I was imagining the power if all man started to study their own psychology , how the world would change. For instance most people would argue that they individually think that they treat animals well, yet we live in a world where we have drove most animals near to extinction , the way animals are treated in the food industry is abhorrent and downright evil. We have animal rescue centres for every type of animal in every city because we neglect , abuse, treat animals in such an unloving , uncaring and disconnected way. This is not the evidence of a world that treats animals well . If the same question was asked ‘does the world treat animals well’ I am sure it would be a no . As a group we are open to say what’s wrong , as a group we are happy to point out what needs fixing but as individuals we rarely want to take a look at our own behaviour and contribution to behaviours that we deem as wrong.
“If any considerable group of persons are united and identified with one another by a particular frame of mind, the resultant transformation experience bears only a very remote resemblance to the experience of individual transformation. A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal. …
… The group experience goes no deeper than the level of one’s own mind in that state. It does work a change in you, but the change does not last. JUNG [“Concerning Rebirth,” CW 9., pars. 225f.]”
We all try to muster ourselves into groups, collect with those who have similar beliefs because it makes us feel safer. We feel right, we feel like we belong. The collection of our beliefs can suppress the individual and the individual questioning their belief because the group mentality allows the same belief to be reinforced and not questioned.
We are all currently pointing our fingers outwards , it’s them, it’s that … lord knows I love a good blame session, but does it actually CHANGE anything? The truth is can we take beliefs that we have and begin to question the alternative so that we may change certain ways we live.
I believe in reincarnation , but I am willing to question that, as it allows me to look into how that belief may be dictating certain areas of my life, in a detrimental way. Gosh I have accumulated so many beliefs and want to stick by them is much easier … what a lot of work it is to go into that and spend time pondering that when I could be thinking over what colour to have my hair , or go shopping for clothes for the entire day , or bury my head in my yoga practice ( these were my behaviours for hiding from really working with myself and the real important stuff that this world needs us to be doing.) This is where we have been led, the group has led us to be focusing on detail that has no big impact on changing this world, but really does keep this world in its own destructive nature and individuals in their own destructive cycles. How do we break out of the groups and the cycles ? We begin to question our INDIVIDUAL beliefs … I work like this with those who work in my groups, I lead them to question it all , their behaviours , their beliefs about themselves, its easy trying to get others to see those parts you see that they don’t, but when it comes to yourself and these subconscious behaviours have to be pulled forward like a mighty wrecking ball and then you have to battle the ego who tries to push it back. I understand the process, none of us are different in that sense we have to go through the same difficult process. As difficult as it is , it is also utterly fascinating, this makes my world and my life so much richer, juicy and full of a sense of how crazily complex we are as humans.
I decided that I do believe in reincarnation and that is happening to me right now as I continue to put to death the notions that I have accumulated from ‘the groups’ and try to really explore myself individually. I am in the process of reincarnation as I break down yet another set of beliefs.
“To be that which you are is the bath of rebirth. --Jung, The Red Book, Page 266
