Carl Jung’s Secrets to Self-Acceptance
Why you should take your inner life seriously
Who I am now, not who I was, is how I’m getting closer to my truth. Iconic psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist Jung observed that we experience life in two halves. “The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it,” he said. But the goal isn’t to be perfect, but whole. Jung wrote that the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
Self-acceptance is freedom.
But it’s also a battle. If you can win it, you will awaken your complete self, all of yourself, the good, bad and the ugly. The good news is you will completely control what you become. You will integrate all of yourself to bring out the best in you. But your best life begins with self-acceptance.
“We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. I am the oppressor of the person I condemn, not his friend and fellow-sufferer. I do not in the least mean to say that we must never pass judgementin the cases of persons whom we desire to help and improve. But if the doctor wishes to help a human being he must be able to accept him as he is,” Jung observed.
