Carl G. Jung’s individuation is the cure for anxiety and arrogance.

“I will try to explain the term ‘individuation’ as simply as possible. By it I mean the psychological process that makes of a human being an individual, a unique indivisible unit, or ‘whole’ man”-Carl G. Jung

At the beginning of every story there is a status quo, a protagonist living a simple or not so simple life with a zone of comfort that he understood well. After the status quo, we will see something the protagonist is lacking, whether it be the loss of a loved one, a skewed personal philosophy, or a fear. Although reluctant to change there comes a time where the world views our protagonist and says “nu-uh get out there” and throws a curveball of conflict and chaos that pushes him out of his “status quo” and forces him to step into his journey, and that’s how the heroes journey begins.

That was a gross simplification of Jung’s concept of individuation, a concept that lies within every one of us, but we fail to conceptualize even though it happens to us every day. The heroes’ journey where he leaves his conscious comfort to go on a journey that he did not know he needed, because a lot of the time our conscious comfort might be our unconscious hell.

“the hero Is making do, but he feels something missing, a sense of discomfort or tension. The hero needs to change, even if they are unaware of that need”

We often think that we are the masters of our will, very rarely maybe never in human history has that been the case. In truth there are demons and spirits from the shallows and the deep of our sub-conscious that are as powerful as ancient gods, they set us humans apart from the cream of the crop to the compost. As ancient gods tend to be, our inner gods are many and we continue to discover them until this day.

For example, Steven Pressfield’s “resistance” is the demon of love, the enemy of the artists’ muse, and the advocate of procrastination. The very recent research of the “strength deficit”(I know the lackluster name) which is the discrepancy between the strength of the muscle when contracted involuntarily and voluntarily, and the fact that we can tap into this reserves of strength willingly with our mindset. and only those that have control over this god can do feats of strength and endurance like swimming around Great Britain, the 453kg squat, and the 501kg deadlift.

Amongst these gods lie Carl G. Jung’s “individuation”, the heroes’ journey that we are bound to go through again and again like a cotton candy machine until we become either beautiful cotton candy or nothing.

The heroes’ journey not only determines our growth as a human being but also our personality and perspectives, but it’s not as obvious as it might seem. Because in movies and novels this journey is a hike across mountains, lakes, deserts, oceans, and even outer space, that’s not easy for us to relate to. But if we were to compress that long arduous journey, into a noticeably short almost indiscernible story that could happen multiple times a week, then we get closer to the real deal.

The process of individuation happens every time a conflict happens in our lives and we are forced to adapt and learn from it. Interestingly enough the adaptation part happens not nearly enough compared to the conflicts, why? because its painful to learn. To learn we must admit our faults, and not only that, we must admit the faults in our being! We must let a piece of ourselves that has been a part of us for whoever knows how long die!

But after we manage to do that and learn, then we become a better person from it. If you look at the series of individuation as a chart, you will see valleys where we fall into chaos from the conflict, and the hills where we reassemble ourselves and become better than who we were.

This happens many times, sometimes even multiple times a day but then the question arises, if we are constantly fluctuating between our chaos and order, between our terrible self(the valley) and our righteous self(the hills) so to speak, then who are we?.

And the answer to that would be, whoever you choose to identify with. You can identify with the hills and the best of you which is the arrogant way to do it, or you can identify with the worst of you which makes you nihilistic, but above all that you can identify “the self” as one who organizes the fluctuations, you are not who you are at your worst or best, you are the infinite who governs it.

This becomes the cure to anxiety and arrogance, because how could you be anxious when you know you’ll grow infinitely, and how could you be arrogant when you know you’ll fall every time you need to grow, once you realize this and remember it every time you face hardship, you become the owner of this god, and one step closer to self-mastery.