You knew I couldn’t stay away.
Well, I knew it. I didn’t think this whole thing would be complete without some form of retrospective and thoughts on all these quotes, like an epilogue (right, the afterward? the aperitif of a book?).
So I’ll provide a very fast recap of how each write-up affected me because you don’t know that. You just know how I approached them. I am going to try to limit myself to less than 150 words for each recap.
Each day will link to each post. You’re welcome. Every red word other than the title is a hyperlink. You can like the quote and it will take you to Goodreads. I’m sorry…
Here we go:
C.G. Jung quotes (showing 1-30 of 257)
tags: chemistry, relationships
I wrote this about my relationship with my husband and it was largely based on a comment my brother made at our rehearsal dinner about me being like mercury and my husband being like granite. At first (and for the past 19 years apparently) I’ve been hurt by that comment, but in writing this post, I became unhurt. It was transformative and healing. The crap we do to ourselves at times is staggering.
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tags: knowing-others, perception, self-awareness, understanding
Yes. I love and hate this quote. I can’t say that writing about this did anything for me other than bring to the forefront of my consciousness my own hypocrisy. That’s good. I guess. For a dead psychologist. Mad props to Jung.
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tags: introspection, psychotherapist, secrets, self-awareness, visions
I actually drew something for this post and I will admit that I got caught up in the drawing quite a bit; doing that: applying a totally different technique to a way of processing can have that effect on me. I guess that’s why lists and graphs and quadrants have such profound effects on people; a visual interpretation is an often forgotten sense when it comes to processing.
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Day 4: Thursday, June 20: “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
tags: life-experience
We are so much more than our pasts. Our pasts are finite, unchangeable yet some of us can transfix ourselves on the past, become obsessed with it so much that we lose our place in what’s our infinite future. What would you rather have: certainty that is behind you, unchangeable and over or the infinite possibility of “yes”? This quote challenges me daily to be my best, even as I ignore my laundry. Yet I know that ignoring my laundry is not progress.
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DAY 5: Friday, June 21: “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”
Word. That’s all I gotta say. This one hit home with a lot of people. Lots of people have endured broken promises. Writing this has helped me create a sort of social contract, code of ethics with myself and abide it. It’s important to our children that we do what we say we will do.
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tags: darkness-self-knowledge, social
We can’t pretend to know anyone without knowing ourselves first. This was a hard quote for me to sit with. I have a lot of things in my past that I would like to put aside, but I need to deal with before I feel “clean.” This quote reminded me that I’m not alone.
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I remember exactly where I was when I first started to think about this post: I was in the car with my husband and we were going to Costco (of course) and I was really struggling with the concept of “inadmissible” content and how we all have these moments of so-called views. I’m still not sure it’s loneliness. Comments on this were good.
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tags: intelligence, morality, psychology, reason
This is when Wayne started to become a regular commenter on this series and I dig everything he’s said. It took me about halfway through this post for me to start making any sense myself and I’m still not sure I had a complete thought about it. I didn’t really like this quote too much. The funniest part of all this? I think this post got the most views ever. “Monkeymind” it must’ve been the tag…
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tags: self-awareness, self-discovery
Heck yeah! I love this quote because it made me wake up and stop complaining. A lot of these quotes did, actually. This whole series is really about accountability and growth if you ask me. Jung was the king of “Keepin’ it Real.” He must’ve been such a bummer at a keg party.
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tags: addiction, psyche, psychology
Yeah. I came out on this one. I tend to be the awareness/morality police. It’s because of my need to over compensate for my loose childhood when I’d stand outside penny-candy stores and beg for a nickel to visit the soda jerk.
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― C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
tags: childhood, psychology
I started to notice that some of these quotes were going to repeat themselves and their themes. This quote reminded me of my feelings of helplessness at times and that it’s “normal” to feel helpless. Sometimes growing up is a life-long process.
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DAY 12: Friday, June 28: “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
tags: authenticity
Loved it. So much hope in this quote. Still loving it; riding its wave.
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Yeah, this was deep and true. I wanted to do it justice; I looked up the word “soul.”: soul |sōl|noun1 the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.• a person’s moral or emotional nature or sense of identity: in the depths of her soul, she knew he would betray her.• emotional or intellectual energy or intensity, esp. as revealed in a work of art or an artistic performance: their interpretation lacked soul. I enjoyed writing this post. It was cathartic. Thanks, dead Jung.
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DAY 14: Sunday, June 30: “Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.”
tags: psychiatry, sanity
Lots of popular culture references in this one. We are all a bunch of people who think we’re tougher and cooler than we actually are. The trick is coming to terms with it all anyway.
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DAY 15: Monday, July 1: “There’s no coming to consciousness without pain.”
Holla. This was a post about other people’s pain but my connection to it. I tried to avoid being all personal and what not, but I finally went deep into my own personal history and told a story about the pain from an argument with a loved one. It was through that argument and that pain though that I learned a lot about myself and how I treat people. I changed a lot after that.
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tags: life
I wrote several posts in a row on one day while on vacation and at this point, I was ready for a break. I felt I was running out of steam, out of “material” because we’d been trapped in this house for three days while the rain fell outside. I am glad my dog freaked out the night before, else I wouldn’t have had anything to write about. Check it out.
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DAY 17: Thursday, July 3: “In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”
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Something wonky happened between these two days (17 and 18) and I remember it distinctly; there was a weirdness at the WiFi place I was using and I had to reload the quotes and these two swapped in order of rank by people who liked them; in that short amount of time, about two days, someone had read the July 4 quote and liked it enough to bump the order. No matter, they’re both still here, but I remember scratching my head and thinking… “WHA—?” but that’s part of the secret order isn’t it?
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I love photography and for some reason it just struck me as a great metaphor for this post. Since I’ve written it though, I do catch myself setting up a photo more than I thought I did. It’s interesting, what this “subconscious” does when we’re not paying attention. I’m sure I do lots of things I’m not aware of. Like eat too much Cap’n Crunch.
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DAY 19: Friday, July 5: “Whatever is rejected from the self, appears in the world as an event.”
tags: connection, psychology
I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it still. But I liked what Wayne had to say in the comments. True to form, I inverted a little and played with the words. I had to. I switched “reject” with “embrace” and make sense of it all. I had to see this as an exchange in the cosmic sense. I still do. I can’t believe that our unconscious or rejected thoughts manifest as negativity. Weird. I guess I’m thinking about this pessimistically. It’s a pretty good post.
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tags: life, mistakes, psychology, truth
This was one of my favorite ones and not just because I ratted myself out for my stupidity. We all make mistakes. It’s how we learn. It reminds me of that great line from “Batman Begins”: “Why do we fall down, Bruce?” to which a very young and adorable Bruce Wayne replied, “To learn to get back up.” This was a fun post.
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DAY 21: Sunday, July 7: “Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.”
tags: wisdom
I liked this post. It made me feel good about my age and how far I’ve come and how much I’ve learned and the habits I’ve formed. I can’t believe I argued with myself online. You poor people. Goodness. I feel like this is drivel now. Is it drivel??
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Day 22: Monday, July 8: “The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.”
An interesting debate on that one (above). Apparently I was dead wrong. The comments are great; I also read some stuff in Brené Brown in Daring Greatly about parenting and showing for our children that our lives do not stop just because they are born; that while our children enrich our lives, they are not our LIVES. It’s interesting. More to come on that…
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Day 23: Tuesday, July 9: “We cannot change anything unless we accept it.”
― C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul
This one was helpful to me. I came to some conclusions about what I say and what I do and how they sometimes don’t mesh as much as I’d like to think they do. Take my laundry for example. No. Really. Take it.
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Day 24: Wednesday, July 10: “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
tags: self-acceptance, self-esteem, self-love
Yes, warts and all. It’s also very liberating to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “This is it. I’m just like everybody else: human.” It’s the inner stuff many of us turn away from and while I didn’t do too much of it in this post, I’ve done a lot of self-confrontation in this series. Lots. Deep stuff and real stuff. I’m better for it.
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I loved this quote, but I had a hard time with the “will to power” thing, so I changed it to “control” and that set everything up perfectly. It’s sad how many people think control is love. I remember a line in “Goodfellas” when one of Joe Pesci’s girlfriends said laughingly and partly awkwardly, “He hates it when I talk to anyone else; he’s so jealous! It’s crazy!” Yeah. Crazy is right. Never confuse love with control. Ever; and never confuse “weakness” with purity; I know plenty of “weak” people who are freakin’ master manipulators.
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― C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
tags: anxiety, christianity, denial, faith, forgiveness, love, morality
This was hard, it was almost academic for me. I loved working through it though. I learned that loving ourselves is where it all begins. Nothing else is truly possible or pure without that. I also allow for myself that it can wane. I don’t have to love myself all the time, but I should have a basic love for myself.
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Balance! Loved this quote. I think lots of people went on vacation when this weekend came around; lots of drops in readership, but It’s ok. I loved this quote. I get to remember that there’s a swing to every swung. 🙂 and through this quote we had a nice discussion about “compassion” and that it must include ourselves and that what we often think of as compassion can really be enabling and codependence instead.
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Oddly, I wrote about venison. I didn’t know where it all came from. I write in the moment, but I wrote about gun laws and venison and hunting. I don’t have a gun, I don’t hunt and I have eaten venison, twice in my life. One time was just before I wrote this post.
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tags: depth-psychology
I love to play and I play to live and I live to love. That’s it. We must have fun in order for work to make sense. Read it; it’s a short fun post. It has Scarface and Sesame Street’s Don Music in it…
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tags: conscience, pride, psychology, self, superego
The end! The last one! I am glad it ended on this one; it was good and it is good to be true to ourselves and listen to that voice. Always. It will never steer us wrong.
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That’s it — I’ll write soon again. I just need a little time away now. (I know, I said that yesterday….)
Thank you.
Grass Oil by Molly Field 