This is it! The last day of 30 Days of Jung! Are you as bittersweet as I am? I sort of can’t believe I started this a month ago. Yet, it is just like me to start something (a 30-day program) in the middle of something else (like a month). I have learned a lot about myself and I hope you have learned a lot about yourself while also learning unsolicited information about me.

>insert: HUGE AWKWARD SMILE AND NERVOUS LAUGH.<

The first post was on the 19th anniversary of my wedding’s rehearsal dinner and I wrote about the chemistry between two people and the last one is about our intuition.

Welcome to Day 30 of “30 Days of Jung,” my series, wherein (soon, I will start repeating myself, like now) I take a famous quote of Carl G. Jung‘s and try to make sense or refute or invert or disembowel it or where I turn into a heaping pile of mush because of it in 1,000 words or less.

If you don’t know who Jung is, he formulated the theories of introverted and extroverted personalities, the stages of individuation, the basis of the “Meyers-Briggs” personality (INFJ / ESFJ, etc.) tests. He’s a “father” of modern-day psychoanalysis. In short, he’s a badass. But he’s dead, so he can’t be with us today.

Here is today’s:

“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. ”

― C.G. Jung

I guess the only way I get to pick an ending here is to choose another quote, but I won’t. I’ll stick with this one because I know there’s a message in it for me.

When I am about to say something I don’t mean or that I shouldn’t say or which needs rephrasing, I often get a physical sensation and I’d like to say that it’s subtle, but it’s not. In fact it’s so NOT subtle that I have to work consciously to ignore it, steam ahead, push through and possibly wreck something.

It’s a sensation in my solar plexus and it’s an equivalent to a tap on the shoulder, except that it’s a tug on the gut. (That was almost a palindrome.) And if I had to put a “word” on it, it would be this: “No,” or “Stop,” or “Don’t” or “Wait.” Sometimes I notice it most when I don’t mind my own business. When I speak for others, when I talk over people, when I tell people what to do or try to influence them when I have no right. Hypocrisy and / or being a busybody are HUGE vibration messed-uppers.

I suspect that tug is my “something is out of tune.” (Jung was not very clever with the analogies or metaphors… ‘tune’ — what are we on Broadway?).

Actually, I eat my words now.

I had to stop what I was doing a moment ago and save this post. But I didn’t have a title, so I had to think of one and as I typed “attune,” I thought of our spirit being attuned to someone or something or ourselves and then I thought of “harmony” as in being in harmony with our actions and our thoughts and then I got the gist of this quote, that when Jung said ‘out of tune‘ he might have been talking about our inner conscience (of course and obviously), but I also get the sense that he was talking about the larger cosmic vibrations and harmonies and that when we fight them, we do know it and we can feel it; an unsettling, a twitch, a nagging thought….

I am sitting here nodding at myself like a churchgoer, looking at the NO ONE sitting next to me with a knowing glance, “Mmm-hmmm…”

I’m such a dork.

Anyway, yes, we do know when we are acting against our better sense and our better selves.

When we gossip. (Guilty.) Is it for malice or good? 

When we yell. (Yup.) Can we be kinder and still make our point?

When we know, without hesitation, that what we are considering doing needs more time.

When we put ourselves last. When we ignore our intuition and allow unhealthy people in our lives. When we enable. When we become codependent. I know this.

So how do we change this? How do we become attuned to the correct way and the healthy way to act?

We slow down.

We listen and don’t feel a need to respond right away.

We don’t judge.

We allow ourselves the very thing we’d allow anyone else: time.

I was one of those people who had to have the answer, had to be a first-responder, had to have a witty retort because I wanted people to like me. I just read a great post, “You Like Me? You REALLY Like Me?” by Mary Swan-Bell. It resonated with me because this is where Mary’s taking the gloves off and is saying, “I don’t need you to like me anymore,” and I totally dig that. She’s not against anyone, she’s just “FOR” herself. She’s “pro-Mary.”

I’m in this place, a lot like where Mary is, where I’m at peace with where I am and that I’m gonna be OK when someone doesn’t like me. That is my natural state: neutral and at peace. I can feel it when my conscience is telling me, “This isn’t what you want to do. You know it. Stop faking.” The best part is that it’s all on me when that happens: I can stop what is unhealthy or out of tune it as much as if I decide to start what is healthy or in tune. All of us have this opportunity: we don’t have to wait for something to react to, we can just be in tune.

That concept used to bother me a few years ago. I was afraid that if I became neutral that I would lose my “edge”: my sharp wit and my clever observations. It’s still there, I still make mistakes, I still joke around, but I don’t feel a need to do it to Be Someone Else. I do it when it feels right. There’s no more jockeying for position.

My yoga retreat is on my mind a lot now; I’m clearly distracted by it and I feel like my writing is affected by it all. I’ve been receiving an email a day for the past couple days from the retreat organizers and I’m getting nervous and happy and curious. They sent me our daily schedule and it’s going to be so jam-packed! From 6am until 6pm we will be in an actively yogic frame of mind: learning, chanting, eating, sharing, posing, meditating and practicing. It’s going to blow my mind because I want it to. I’m ready.

I know how I feel whenever I leave my twice-weekly traditional 90-minute yoga classes: like I’m a feather in the air, gently wafting down to the sidewalk… I can only imagine how I’ll be after 12 hours straight every day for 16 days. I might glow and float.

Yes, the diet concerns me: Nothing but fruits, vegetables and dairy for the entire time. Fruit likes me. I’ll just leave it at that. Some are predicting I’ll be “cut” and toned; I really have no clue; I think I’ll be different… not sure how… In the summer, I’m a vegetarian for the most part. Except for those burgers last night… and three nights ago… oh, and the Costco pizza…I guess I’m really not that much of a vegetarian. Pesto? Does pesto count? And lots of brie? If I could have a yoga mat made of brie, I’d be all set.

So I plan to write again soon this week; I do want to tell you about my trip to rainland Canada. I have lots of pictures and had a great time.

I can feel though that I’m starting to peel back, separate a little from “this world” that I’m in now; I’m already mentally packing for my retreat; thinking about where I’ll hide the Slim Jims and the Cap’n Crunch and I wonder…. is it out of tune to think like that? I’m partially kidding; I talk a good game… I’m pretty sure though that I’ll be ready to commit. After all, I don’t do anything halfway. So much for neutrality. But I’m excited! I start this weekend for a quick three-day primer, then shove off on the 25th for the mountains.

Sigh…

Ok, back to the quote. Yes…

So listen to your gut and you’ll be in tune. It’s really fairly simple. You’ll know when you’re not; you’ll feel it and it won’t feel right. You’ll have a hard time letting it go and have a deep soft, yet nagging need to make it right or different. That’s good. Listen to it. Don’t be afraid to do the right thing. It will make you uncomfortable and that’s when you know you’re growing. We all know how it feels to have growing pains. If you’re in constant comfort, you’re doing something wrong. A good life is one that makes you do a double-take every once in a while.

So … yeah. I’m at my word limit. 30 Days of 1000+ a day. This has been great. I feel like asking someone to take a photo of me with all you guys…

Will you sign my yearbook?

I almost feel like Dorothy when she was about to start clicking her heels…

Thank you. Really, thank you for reading whatever you have of this series. I plan to post while I’m away, if the spirit moves me. Maybe just a picture every once in a while or maybe some really heavy-duty observations. We will see. But I already have my title: “Missives from the Mat.”

…bye! for now! 🙂

xo