How I Found Carl Jung (Or How He Found Me)
Lately, I've been tripping over Carl Jung videos—or more accurately, the algorithms on my social media seem determined to hand them to me.
At first, I would scroll past quickly, recognizing the name but not feeling any real connection to it. Then one day, something made me pause. I watched one short, then another, and before I knew it, I was engulfed in the powerful narrative-style video presentations. Snippets of his writings, reflections, and interpretations—layered with voiceovers that somehow went straight to the center of me.
It felt less like stumbling onto something new and more like something familiar tapping me softly on the shoulder. Something I was meant to hear now, at this time in my life.
Who Was Carl Jung?
I'll be honest: I had to go look up his credentials. We all know the name, but I didn't know the years he lived or the full weight of who he was.
Carl Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of analytical psychology. His work reached far beyond traditional psychology, exploring dreams, symbols, mythology, spirituality, and the unconscious.
He gave us concepts like archetypes, the shadow self, synchronicity, and one of his most profound ideas: the journey of individuation. Once I started reading more about him, everything I'd been watching began to connect in a way that felt eerily personal.
Individuation: The Message That Stopped Me Cold
Of all the Jung videos I've watched, the one that stopped me cold was about individuation.
Jung described it as the lifelong process of becoming your true self—the self you were meant to be before life, expectations, obligations, or other people guided you off course.
The video explained individuation as a kind of "going home," not to any physical place, but returning to the inner self you were originally designed to grow into. And that struck me deeply.
At 65, I can feel myself moving in that direction—not in a dramatic way, but in a quiet, profound way. I wish I could remember every word from the video, because the message landed with such force. What stays with me is the recognition that I am finally circling back to who I was meant to be all along. It's a combination of bravery, but not really bravery, and anger.
I found this eBook on Amazon about Carl Jung's "Individuation." - Note, I haven't read it; I included it for anyone interested.
The Pull Away, and the Pull Back
What unsettled me most was how clearly Jung's message mirrored my own life.
From childhood onward, it was so easy to be pulled off course—into other people's ideas of who I was, what I should do, who I should become.
I remember being seen as delicate, even though I knew I was anything but. I wasn't upset by the misunderstanding; I was puzzled by it. I knew that wasn't me, even if I didn't yet know how to show who I truly was. Flash forward to today, my best friend often reminds me how strong I am. She sees me.
And Jung's explanation—that our original direction can be interrupted or reshaped by the world—made me see how far I had drifted without even realizing it.
Yet here I am, decades later, feeling a powerful pull back toward the girl I was at five—the girl who instinctively knew who she was!
I'm Trying Not to Be Angry - This is Personal, But I Have to Say I'm Dealing With That Feeling Right Now
I'm trying not to be angry, because I'm not an angry person. I don't believe in living in an angry space.
Truly, I don't carry anger or fear around with me. I feel it when it happens, and let it go, as I will with this anger. Psalm 23 repeats in my mind constantly, and it saves me.
But these Jung videos stirred something that surprised me. Not anger toward anyone—not my parents, not the world—but something closer to grief mixed with frustration.
Anger at myself. And yet, how can I be angry at a five-year-old child who simply loved, and wanted, and felt the need to play the piano?
At five years old, the piano felt natural to me. My teacher made sure to let my mother know that I had a gift. But when we moved away to another province, my parents were focused on building a life.
When my mother said we couldn't afford a piano—and I couldn't take lessons without one—I felt THEIR stress immediately. We had previously lived with my mother's parents, who had a piano.
So even though the piano awakened my soul, I didn't insist. I didn't plead. It wasn't in my nature to burden anyone. And so the piano-playing version of me slipped quietly out of existence.
But the writing version of me never left.
From eight years old onward, the poems, lyrics, and lines that arrived in the middle of chores, or in quiet moments, just kept coming. From humor to world events to parents to made-up lyrics, it was all penned to paper.
They're collected in my book We Will Have Morning Smiles—fifty years of my world in words. And now, as I put those words to music—finally allowing them to breathe in the way I now know they were meant to—I can't help but think that if piano had stayed in my life, I might have been doing this decades sooner.
Here's how I'm dealing with lost time: I've created a Time-Traveling version of me (lol, that creative side just won't leave) - You can check out the two "Back to the Future" shorts I've created so far. They're on this playlist from YouTube:
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The next curveball came after high school.
In high school, I was accepted into three universities for psychology, a field I had long wanted to pursue. But again, I was talked out of it. Steered elsewhere. Redirected. It only lasted a year before life pulled me into yet another path that wasn't mine.
So yes, I do feel angry at myself for letting others steer me: friends, family, men, expectations, interpretations. I'm legitmately p*ssed.
And yet, through Jung's lens, I now understand that this reckoning is part of the return journey. Part of going home to myself.
I don't want to leave this earth, when it's finally my time, without becoming my truest, most whole self. That self is the one who writes. The one whose words are her spirit and her soul.
The one who puts those words to music, spoken voice, or anything else that lets them live. I want to leave that behind. Every last piece of who I really am.
I need to return home, to me. And most of all, forgive everything, everyone, especially myself.
If you'd like to listen to my words, put to music, here's a playlist of what I've completed so far of the hundreds of lyrics and poems I've written over nearly 57 years. Every song includes information about when the words were written and the story behind them. "Measures" is my most recent, written at 64. I'm sharing work from 1968 (I was 8 then) til today, and tomorrow's words that are yet to come.
In closing, I'm reminding myself that it is THIS life that I lived, not the one I thought I should have, that inspired these poems and lyrics. And, my children are the best reason I took this path.
