This Jungian Life

Holding the tension between opposites was one of Jung’s foundational precepts. Although contradictory views are often a better witness to truth than one-sided conviction, beliefs and decisions often serve to relieve ambiguity, anxiety, and threat. Jung says, “The ego keeps its integrity only if it does not identify with one of the opposites, and if it understands how to hold the balance between them. This is possible only if it remains conscious of both at once. However, the necessary insight is made exceedingly difficult not by one’s social and political leaders alone but also by one’s religious mentors. They all want decisions in favor of one thing, and therefore the utter identification of the individual with the necessarily one-sided ‘truth.’” We need to suffer the tension a plurality of voices and views produces. Holding the tension of opposites grows consciousness, wholeness, and soul. HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:  “I dreamed I had a little bird like a cockatoo who was my friend. He would press his head