Your mind is a maze

The problem: Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.” — Carl Jung

Let’s dive into this quote.

The unconscious is anything that lies beneath our surface level of awareness. It’s what lies beneath the tip of the iceberg so to speak.

These could be the underlying thoughts of evil, corruption, greed, anger, etc. that slip out every once in a while and we wonder where they came from.

These are typically hidden from us. Lying dormant in our subconscious. The subconscious plays a huge role in our lives, but we are unaware.

Think of the mind as an elaborate maze.

A maze is like porn to the curious mind.

You, as an individual, are inside the maze. When you’re in the maze, you can only see what’s right in front of you. You are only aware, or conscious of what’s directly surrounding you.

Now, how do you get out of the maze?

You pick a direction and go. You always have 2 options. Walk until you reach a dead end, or randomly change directions anytime you get to a new path.

As a kid going through a maze, I would just aimlessly run around the maze. Not paying any attention to where I came from, or which path I previously took.

Anytime you pick a new path, you are leaving the opportunity of the previous path on the table. This can get you lost very quickly.

And you become overwhelmed because your brain left so many open loops unfinished.

However, when you hit a dead end, you took that path to its conclusion.

This allows you to map out that path in your mind. Think of this as literally mapping out the path on a piece of paper.

Initially when you hit the dead end, you feel frustrated and defeated.

But you also get a sense of relief.

Your brain knows what’s at the end of the path, and it knows that it came to its natural conclusion.

It closes the curiosity loop.

This is powerful.

Let’s take this analogy of the mind as a maze and apply it to ourselves.

We aimlessly wander around life, continuously opening curiosity loops, without ever closing them.

Our subconscious mind is lost in the maze.

You can apply this to any aspect of your life.

But I want to focus on your dark side.

• Anxiety
• Feeling lost
• Overwhelm

Think of where you are at in life, right now.

You are probably feeling like you’re trapped in a maze.

And you have no idea how to get out. Not only that, but you don’t even know which direction to take next. You are dead center in the maze.

You have 4 different directions to go, and you’re overwhelmed.

So what do you do?

Pick one.

Let your curiosity guide you.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness visible.” — Carl Jung

Pick a thought, feeling or desire that you are curious about.

Explore it. Sit with it. Meditate on it.

You must bring this desire to its conclusion.

Close the curiosity loop.

This may take minutes, days, or years.

It depends on how deeply rooted in your subconscious the desire is.

We spend our entire lives walking around like NPC’s (non player controlled characters).

AKA mindless sheep following the herd.

In order to break out of our negative patterns, and escape our so-called “fate.”

We must explore this dark side of ourselves.

The dark side has as much, if not more depth than our conscious mind.

Explore it all.

It isn’t easy. Some are more difficult than others.

It may be much easier to explore, say an odd sexual fantasy, or a desire to get back at someone, than it is to explore your people pleasing tendencies, your poor relationship with money, or your seemingly never ending anxiety.

All are important. All should be explored.

Curiosity was given to us for a reason.

It is our guide. When we deny our curiosity the ability to explore these dark desires, they get more and more dark, and they control us on a deeper level.

Remember, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.” — Carl Jung

Learn to love the parts of yourself you aren’t “proud of.”

Thank you for reading!

If you received value from this newsletter, then please share it to help others, and help me grow!

P.S. This newsletter is far from perfect. But I’m sending it out anyway. I procrastinated long enough.

• Noah AKA- Noah The Arc