Philosophies for Life 73: Carl Jung - How Your Dark Side Can Reveal Your Life’s Purpose (Jungian Philosophy)
Mar 7, 2025
22:01
In this podcast we will be talking about the steps you need to take so that your dark side can reveal your life's purpose, according to the philosophy of Carl Jung. Carl Jung's psychology is called analytical psychology and his philosophy is dubbed as “Jungian philosophy”. Jung’s most famous theory is ‘the individuation process.’
According to Jung, the entirety of an individual’s being can be described by our psyche: encompassing all our conscious and unconscious aspects. At the center of our consciousness which is everything we are aware of - is our ego. But there is so much outside of the ego that we do not acknowledge. In the center of our unconscious, meaning everything that is hidden to us, lies our shadow or our dark side. According to Jung, in our unconscious lies the key to finding our purpose in life. This is because the purpose of your life is not something objective or universal: it is something unique to you. The purpose of life, according to Carl Jung, has nothing to do with what you achieve. It has to do with who you are and how you act. In this video we will talk about the steps you need to take so that your dark side can reveal your life's purpose, according to the philosophy of Carl Jung.
So here are the steps you need to take so that your dark side can reveal your life's purpose, according to the philosophy of Carl Jung.
01. Get To Know Your darkness
02. Work on Yourself
03. Take Action
04. Embrace Fear
05. Accept The Bad
I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast and hope that this wisdom on how to let your dark side reveal your life’s purpose, from the philosophy of Carl Jung will be helpful in your life.
Carl Jung, together with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, is one of the 3 founders of psychoanalysis which is a set of psychological theories and methods aiming to release repressed emotions and experiences - in other words, to make the unconscious conscious. Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875 and died in 1961, leaving behind great works in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology and religious studies. Jung had Freud as a mentor for a good part of his career but later he departed from him. This division was painful for Jung and it led him to found his own school of psychology, called analytical psychology as a comprehensive system separate from psychoanalysis. If classical psychoanalysis focuses on the patient’s past, as early experiences are very important in personality development, analytical psychology primarily focuses on the present, on mythology, folklore, and cultural experiences, to try to understand human consciousness. One of the most important ideas of analytical psychology which Jung founded is the process of individuation, which is the process of finding the self - something Jung considered an important task in human development. While he did not formulate a systematic philosophy, he is nonetheless considered a sophisticated philosopher - his school of thought dubbed “Jungian philosophy”. Its concepts can apply to many topics covered in the humanities and the social sciences. A good part of his work was published after his death and indeed there are still some articles written by him that to this day have yet to be published. Some of his most important books are: “Psychology of the Unconscious”, “Man and His Symbols”, “The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious”, “Modern Man In Search of a Soul”, “The Psychology of the Transference”, “Memories, Dreams, Thoughts”, and “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious”. Besides being a great writer and a researcher, he was also an artist, a craftsman and even a builder. His contribution is enormous and there is a great deal we can learn from his works.
According to Jung, the entirety of an individual’s being can be described by our psyche: encompassing all our conscious and unconscious aspects. At the center of our consciousness which is everything we are aware of - is our ego. But there is so much outside of the ego that we do not acknowledge. In the center of our unconscious, meaning everything that is hidden to us, lies our shadow or our dark side. According to Jung, in our unconscious lies the key to finding our purpose in life. This is because the purpose of your life is not something objective or universal: it is something unique to you. The purpose of life, according to Carl Jung, has nothing to do with what you achieve. It has to do with who you are and how you act. In this video we will talk about the steps you need to take so that your dark side can reveal your life's purpose, according to the philosophy of Carl Jung.
So here are the steps you need to take so that your dark side can reveal your life's purpose, according to the philosophy of Carl Jung.
01. Get To Know Your darkness
02. Work on Yourself
03. Take Action
04. Embrace Fear
05. Accept The Bad
I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast and hope that this wisdom on how to let your dark side reveal your life’s purpose, from the philosophy of Carl Jung will be helpful in your life.
Carl Jung, together with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, is one of the 3 founders of psychoanalysis which is a set of psychological theories and methods aiming to release repressed emotions and experiences - in other words, to make the unconscious conscious. Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875 and died in 1961, leaving behind great works in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology and religious studies. Jung had Freud as a mentor for a good part of his career but later he departed from him. This division was painful for Jung and it led him to found his own school of psychology, called analytical psychology as a comprehensive system separate from psychoanalysis. If classical psychoanalysis focuses on the patient’s past, as early experiences are very important in personality development, analytical psychology primarily focuses on the present, on mythology, folklore, and cultural experiences, to try to understand human consciousness. One of the most important ideas of analytical psychology which Jung founded is the process of individuation, which is the process of finding the self - something Jung considered an important task in human development. While he did not formulate a systematic philosophy, he is nonetheless considered a sophisticated philosopher - his school of thought dubbed “Jungian philosophy”. Its concepts can apply to many topics covered in the humanities and the social sciences. A good part of his work was published after his death and indeed there are still some articles written by him that to this day have yet to be published. Some of his most important books are: “Psychology of the Unconscious”, “Man and His Symbols”, “The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious”, “Modern Man In Search of a Soul”, “The Psychology of the Transference”, “Memories, Dreams, Thoughts”, and “The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious”. Besides being a great writer and a researcher, he was also an artist, a craftsman and even a builder. His contribution is enormous and there is a great deal we can learn from his works.