“If one inclines to regard the archetype of the self as the real agent and hence takes Christ as a symbol of the self, one must bear in mind that there is a considerable difference between perfection and completeness. The Christ-image is as good as perfect (at least it is meant to be so), while the archetype (so far as known) denotes completeness but is far from being perfect. It is a paradox, a statement about something indescribable and transcendental. Accordingly the realization of the self, which would logically follow from a recognition of its supremacy, leads to a fundamental conflict, to a real suspension between opposites (reminiscent of the crucified Christ hanging between two thieves), and to an approximate state of wholeness that lacks perfection… Where the archetype predominates, completeness is forced upon us against all our conscious strivings, in accordance with the archaic nature of the archetype. The individual may strive after perfection but must suffer from the opposite of his intentions for the sake of his completeness.”
~C.G. Jung, Aion II, ¶123
Perfection is sterile, clean, linear, controlled.
Wholeness includes contradiction. It’s messier, but more honest, more human.
There is a tension in me I’ve never been able to dissolve, but I’m becoming better at holding it:
The gap between the man I strive to become and the one life shapes in spite of my efforts.
I make plans, I act, I do my best to deal with resistance and challenges.
I try to shape my path toward what I perceive as valuable and aligned with the unfolding of my nature.
But again and again, I observe as the Self – through dreams, conflicts, and synchronicities –
adjusts my conscious striving, reshaping both my inner life and the outer path I walk.
Firmly reminding me:
“You are not seeing the whole picture.
You desire X, but what you need now, in your journey, is Y.
And although it feels like defeat, failure, like going in circles~
If you stay open, containing the pain, and keep going with hope, you’ll see:
I carry the outlines of your wholeness.
I guide you there.
It includes pain, and the transformations born through it.
Embrace yourself.”
As Jung wrote,
“The individual may strive after perfection but must suffer from the opposite of his intentions for the sake of his completeness.”
When I strive to be perfect, and therefore one-sided,
only light, only good, only strong, only successful~
I suffer the backlash of reality, which ensures I remember:
I am not allowed to be only one thing, to identify with one of a pair of opposites.
The price is always a hit, a fall, a deflation.
Projecting my shadow onto my brother is the instinctual, automatic, unconscious way.
But the moment I become aware of this psychological truth, I am called, ethically, to remind myself:
This is *my* projection.
Again and again, I must do the inner work of recognizing it,
of seeing the hidden part in me that I’ve located outside,
and choosing to know it, rather than disown it.
And I must do so with compassion.
For myself, for my brother, for the parts of me that were exiled and forgotten.
Otherwise, I only add to the endless, multiplying wars
between partners, within families, across nations,
that threaten both the existence and sanity of our inner and outer worlds,
when we try to make others pay for what we refuse to face within.
The more I reach upward, the more I’m pulled downward.
The shadow insists on being seen.
The wound insists on being felt.
The totality of my being refuses to allow the neglect of any part.
Sometimes, healing comes uninvited.
A dream presents itself.
An unplanned meeting softens what I thought was solid.
A surprising silence that holds what words cannot contain.
A tear I didn’t expect.
A breath I finally take.
A word I didn’t know I needed to hear.
There is mystery and grace in the process,
in life, in healing.
Wholeness has its own timing,
its own creative ways of finding us.
Like the Christ-image suspended between thieves,
not above them, not beyond them, but between them~
I am asked to hold the tension, not resolve it.
And there, in the conscious crucible of opposites,
I glimpse something greater than perfection.
Something Sacred.
This task is not mine alone.
Each of us is asked, in some way,
to bear the burden of becoming whole.
And some days, that burden feels unbearable.
But still – we are called.
I wish all of us the courage to see,
the strength to act from that seeing,
and the grace to accept the parts of ourselves
we still struggle to hold.
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