This Jungian Life

When we betray ourselves, we abandon our values, needs, or truths to gain approval or avoid discomfort. This leaves us disconnected, fragmented, and unsure of who we really are. These patterns often start in childhood, where conditional love or invalidation teaches us to hide our authentic selves to stay safe or gain acceptance. We see this in our daily lives—staying in unbalanced relationships, ignoring our emotions, overworking, or making choices that don’t align with who we are. We justify it, suppress what we feel, or take on others’ beliefs without realizing how much it costs us. Trauma can make this worse by teaching us to keep our needs small or invisible, while societal norms push us to conform and silence our inner voice. To heal, we need to reconnect with our true selves. That means facing the parts of us we’ve denied, listening to our intuition, setting boundaries, and taking small steps toward living in line with our values. This isn’t easy, but it’s how we find our way back to a life that feels w