RockneCAST

Carl Jung: Unlocking the Power Behind the Shadow (#265, 20 Nov. 2024)

In this episode, Rockne Cole delves into the profound insights of Carl Jung, particularly focusing on the concepts of the shadow self and the collective unconscious. He draws connections between Jung's theories and popular culture, such as Star Wars, to illustrate the importance of confronting one's inner fears and desires. The conversation emphasizes the necessity of self-reflection and authenticity in personal growth, encouraging listeners to engage with their inner selves to unlock their true potential.

Duration:: 39m
Broadcast on:: 20 Nov 2024
Audio Format:: other

I've got a lot of grandbabies, like, a lot a lot, and when it comes to finding a gift for each other, you know, it could add up. But this year, while I was making my way through Walmart, I realized I don't have to spend a lot to get the gifts they'll love. And OPI mini-mani sets, I'm gonna do so much nail art. Haha, yeah, a Lego set, my own a wall of water bottle. Ooh, and that's just half of them. Shop great gifts there's sure to love for $25 and under at Walmart. The sounds of the season can often sound like this. So, why do we get into grandkids? But with Hilton's season to stay sale, they could sound a bit more like this. Or this. Stay and save up to 20% off when you book before January 5th at Hilton.com. Hilton, for this day. Minimum two nights day required excludes luxury in all inclusive properties, terms, and conditions apply. Holy cow dunes of Iraq because my mind is like, well, I'm reading the work of Carl Jung, the arch-types, and the collective unconsciousness. And my mind is blown. Normally, I wait until I actually read the book, so I have the credibility. Before I do a "Rocky Cass" on a book that I've read, I'm only 30 pages in. But this is so good that I wanted to focus in on two pages of the first 30. And my mind is totally blown. And I hope your mind is as blown as mine is dudes. We're going to cover pages 20 and 21 of this book. And we're going to explore the concept of the mirror, the shadow. Number one, number two, AI. Listen to that. We're going to be covering Yoda and training loop at the Dagobah system. And number three, we're going to explain why it's so important to confront your shadow so you can live and unlock the most best, most powerful version of you. Dudes, I hope I get this right. I feel kind of pressure. So tune in and listen in. Psychology was a topic that I had zero interest in in undergraduate. I was like, you know, psychology majors was like thumb check from, like, what cola that was like. Yeah, I'm a psychology major, like as a predicate to going into like, social work. Before I thought of psychology as kind of like, you know, Freud and Carl Jung, I just had no interest in this topic about 15 years ago, I kind of started getting interested. That was kind of this little flowering where a lot of people were interested in like neuroscience, you know, like Descartes, air, Antonio, DiMazio, those sorts of things. No interest in the topic at all. But I came across the work of Carl Jung. Many of you are like, oh my God, you don't know who Carl Jung is. Well, no, I didn't know who Carl Jung was. I'm not that smart. I'm trying to share with these mind-blowing things that I'm learning. I think I came across Carl Jung through my counselor. I am not positive. I think he talked about this book Carl Jung, the arch types and the collective unconscious. And what the hell? I'm going to buy the book and like a lot of books that I buy, it kind of sat on my shelf for like a year and a half. And finally, I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to go read Carl Jung. And it is like, holy cow, have you ever read a book where you read it and you're like, and your mind is just like, well, like, you read one page, you're like, and then you read another page and it's like, hey man. That's the way this book is. So like, when you read this book, like, put it in, like, get into a place where no one can hear you yelling and screaming and being blown away because it is so good. And a lot of you are like, oh my God, could you just finally read the damn book? And I'm like, okay, I'm going to. So, so here, so what is, what is Jung known for as it were, like, if you go to professor and be so young as no one for the collective and consciousness and archtypes would significantly influence the work of Joseph Campbell, who in turn inspired George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, and we'll get into that. But in these two pages that I'm going to cover 20 in 21, he really first elucidated the concept of the shadow self, and why that's so important. And here, Jung is playing on the work of Sigmund Freud, who he mentions essentially in the first or second page of the book, Freud, of course, looked deeply into our subconscious self, but mainly personally, mainly like what was going on you internally that was causing certain types of neurosis that can kind of manifest themselves. Jung kind of takes it on a different track. He looks into this question of, yes, this unconscious self, but he connects it to the collective unconscious, these kind of mystical elements that we all share with humanity, the kind of hardwired into us and create these kind of hardwired desires that we all have, that yet we don't really fully understand. So that's what this book is about. And then these collective unconscious that we all kind of are wired to love as these archtypes that are heroes and saints and evil villains, all these different archtypes that are presented in these classic stories that we all love in Star Wars. So he gets into this at page 20, he gets into this concept here, I'm just going to read it. And then I'm going to read in the rest, so you're just going to have to indulge me with this, but it's so good. And then we'll get into Luke and the Dagobah system. So here he's describing the unconsciousness or the unconsciousness, the unconscious. And why it's so important to dive deep into it and hear Jung writes, unconscious is commonly regarded as a sort of encapsulated fragment of our most personal and intimate life, something that Bible calls the heart and considers the source of all evil thought. In the chambers of the heart dwell wicked blood spirits, swift anger and sensual weakness. This is how the unconscious looks when it's seen from the conscious side, but consciousness appears to be essentially an affair of the cerebrum which sees everything separately and in isolation and therefore sees the unconscious in this way too, regarding it outright as my unconscious, hence it's generally believed that anyone who descends into unconscious death into a suffocating atmosphere of egocentric subjectivity and in this blind alley is exposed to the attack of all the atrocious beasts which the caverns of the psychic underworld are supposed to harbor. I mean, isn't this just so good? And so here I think he's getting into where a lot of the fear of madness when you descend into the own depths of your own heart, do you kind of go crazy, do you kind of lose your connection to reality and hear and I kind of quibble with the Bible calls your heart where you have all these things, but I kind of quibble with that a little bit. But the bottom line is the healing being in had these incredibly strong primal forces dwelling below what we're consciously aware of and if you're not paying attention to those really incredible forces that you have within you, you can go in some really deep dark directions if you're not in alignment with what's going below the surface, which Jung holds the unconscious. Now here he gets into the first kind of key insight, true, whenever whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his true face. His own face, whoever goes to himself, risks a confrontation with himself, the mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it, namely the face we never showed the world because we hover it with a persona, the math of an actor, but the mirror lies behind the math and shows the true face. This instantly got me to thinking about Star Wars, do you know an empire strikes back when Luke is set to the Dagobah system so he can train with Yoda, remember that scene? Once element of that particular training session, I never understood as a kid. Do you remember when Yoda encouraged Luke to go out into the swamp and search for something and confront his deepest darkest fear and then Luke all of a sudden while he was in the swamp, Darth Vader and that used to freak me out as a kid and then they engage in the combat, then he wins and then the Darth Vader falls and he sees Luke in the actual Darth Vader's mask and I was like, "Oh my God, that's kind of a scary scene." But here, what is it really getting into as part of his training in terms of controlling his emotions? Yoda encourages him to look at the deepest dark, the shadow cell, what's going on beneath these elements of evil and darkness that we all have within us that compete with the forces of light and if you're not aware of what's going on, you can make some incredibly difficult decisions, you can make some incredibly bad choices and it's scary, it's scary to look in the mirror and it's really look at what's going on. Sometimes when I get on the scale in the morning, excuse me, I have a little bit of cough, I thought about pushing pause, but what the hell, maybe AI will fix this. But sometimes I'm like, "I don't know if I want to look on the scale because I might be a little tabby." I think I still look pretty good, but I think there's a fear there, right? When you look in the mirror, you're like, "Oh shit, I don't really look that good." And so it's like, "Wait, who you are?" That's what's going on. Of course, he's only talking about looking at face, he's talking about looking and meaningfully looking at all of these aspects of your inner self, they're these powerful primal horses that people have, that people are wired for that lie beneath the surface. It's the people that activate those forces can unleash incredible amounts of power, aligning the deepest desire with the conscious line. But why don't more people do it? It's scary as hell. There's all these different things going on and desires beneath the surface. And so a lot of people don't want to do it. So when I was drinking a bottle of wine tonight, what I was doing is I was trying to avoid that shadow itself. I was trying to get myself away from that. I was trying to numb myself. A lot of people do it with destruction, but it's incredibly important to do it. So here's the next that Jung explains why it's so important to confront what you're looking at in the mirror. And here's what he says, and this has made me think of Luke and the Dagobah system. This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to brighten up most people. For the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided. So as long as we can project everything negative into the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved. We have at least brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow, Jung writes, is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some formless. It cannot be argued out or rationalized into harmlessness. Then he continues. This is exceedingly difficult because it challenges the whole mind and the whole man reminding him at the same time of his helpful helplessness and ineffectuality. Strong natures should rather call them weak. Do not like to be reminded of this, but prefer to think of themselves as hero who are beyond good and evil and to cut the Gordian knot instead of untight it. That is the issue. So many people don't look into these elements of themselves. Why? Because no one wants to acknowledge them. These forces, these desires, these impulses, and so they try to run from them. They try to distract themselves to try to medicate themselves, but they are present. They are part of the human being. And as Jung writes, the shadow has always been part of the human being. And so here he is saying, the issue is don't run away from it. Just don't cut it, untie it, or better yet, I would say unlock it. And here, Jung writes, and here, is your mind being blown right now? Are you experiencing the full activation of the mind that I am? Like, I don't like God, this is so good. Nevertheless, the account has to be settled sooner or later. In the end, one has to admit there are problems which one simply cannot solve on one's own resources. Such an admission has the advantage of being honest, truthful, and in accord with reality. And this prepares the ground for a compensatory reaction from the collective unconsciousness. You are now more inclined to give heed to that helpful idea or intuition. Or to notice those thoughts which had not been allowed to voice themselves before. Perhaps you will pay attention to the dreams that visit you at such moments, or reflect on inner and outer occurrences that did take place just at this time. And here he writes, "If you have an attitude of this kind, then the helpful, while powers slumbering in the deeper strata of man's nature can come away and intervene for helplessness and weaknesses are the external experience and the external problem of mankind." Absolutely love this. You know, we just had an election with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. I doubt, maybe Trump has read Carl Jung, I doubt it. I think Trump probably reads a lot. He watches a lot of Fox News, and by the way, I watch a lot of Fox News too. I mean, so I'm, I'm not, I'm not, if you need them. I don't think he's probably read a lot of Carl Jung. I'm just saying. But if you want to look at someone who is totally in tune with his instincts, and who he is as a person, it is Donald Trump. He absolutely 100% is authentically the exact person they see. He may be incredibly flawed. He may be incredibly, you know, have different issues, but people try to understand the, the phenomena. Well, it is, he listens to his instinct. He listens to the powerful forces from within. And he also then connects this to this powerful collective unconsciousness that we all possess. So if you look at the Trump phenomena through the Jungian framework, you will see the answer into his power, and that it cannot be simply dispensed with by a ad. You know, these little ads that the Dems think are really clever, like it's usually at House wife and like Wabasha, Wisconsin saying, I voted for Donald Trump. And no, I just think he's wrong on the military, and I don't like him anymore. You're not looking at the underlying phenomena, Trump is tapping into something deeply authentic and powerful, these primordial forces that we all have, the desire for a hero, the desire for someone to lead, to lead against the forces of darkness, conversely, every time I listen to Kamala Harris, I'm like her, her advisors are so incompetent, they're telling her what to say. It's obvious she doesn't believe, believe it, there's no connection to the authentic cells. I think if you're looking at the phenomena of Obama in his first run, he connected to these powerful primal forces, this desire for a hero to lead to a series of racial justice of humankind, and to lead us to a place, a much better place where all people were treated with dignity and respect. And that is the power of this Jungian analysis. It's funny because for the longest time, I thought that, you know, like, Freud, it was kind of like an academic topic, and then, you know, like young, it's like, it's kind of like Foucault, really, oh my god, if he read Foucault, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and you get some Tweety professor that's like, we're trying to display this airy addition. My mission though, like, I wish like people at McDonald's would read Carl Jung. I wish, I wish I could get more people at like McDonald's and Walmart, maybe I'll, maybe I'll be like a peddler of stoicism at Walmart or I think these are, these are open and accessible to everyone. I want to be, I want to bring this philosophy to the world because it's so powerful and psychology. There are so many people that suffer and yet have no insight into why they suffer. That requires this deep, but and here's the interesting insight. It's not that the unconscious can constantly be tapped because the way that the brain has evolved is our ability to know what's going on below these kind of wild instincts that we all have. Is it directly accessible at all times, we're not necessarily aware of who we are. One of the things that I used to like to say is that I am the ultimate expositor of me. I could not be right on everything, but I can be the expositor of what the hell's going on in Rocky Cole's line, but is that really true? What Joe asks us to do is to look in the mirror and to be silent and to reflect on these powerful signals that are coming from within. Now, one of my pet peeves with some people, and Kevin, I hate to admit, this kind of is a pet peeve sometimes I have with you is that you're all focused on the external and that you kind of disagree, like anyone who thinks differently isn't properly thinking about the truth. Well, have you ever thought that maybe some people are processing it in a different way? I mean, that doesn't necessarily mean that we're not getting into the truth. But my pet peeve with some aspects of Christianity is that they encourage you to not look at what's going on inside, right? They just say that, "Oh, your heart is evil and you just need to worship God in it so you believe all these good things will flower down within you." I think you can easily resolve Harle Field with this powerful creator, because what he's really saying is that the creator wired you with these emotions. You're designed to pay attention with them. My episode on "Tik Nok Han" with the definition of mindfulness, the Chinese lettering for that, the pictograph, means now in the top and mind, heart in the bottom, mind, or heart. Now, mind, heart, and where do you access these powerful inner thoughts in Melissa Science? So that's why I think meditation, or a meditative-like practice, is so important, because this is where you are more likely to get these powerful insights from the unconscious. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to sit like a swami in a high mountain for 10 hours straight. But what it does require, it does require a period of time where you can be quiet, where you can have an hour or two, and you can access this in a variety of different ways. So it's kind of like in the matrix where they go in and they literally plug something into the back of their neck to access the matrix. Our little entrance into this world comes through silence, comes through a meditative practice, comes through the ability to do a morning journaling practice. You need to set this time, but it doesn't have to be sitting in meditation. You can also just go for a walk, an hour or two, and to kind of reflect on what are the thoughts that the subconscious mind is sending to you. In terms of how effective you are, what your desires are, are you feeding your soul? Are you feeding the soul in such a way that you are creating the most powerful version of yourself? Now one of the things to counterbalance this is the whole point of feeding the soul is not to become selfish, is not to become someone who's only focused on your own ego, but it's to be the most powerful, vibrant version of you so that you can serve your family, your loved ones, your coworkers, your community. That's the whole point. And so that's why I think it's so important if you really want to kind of change your life to try to access these early morning hours where you can, which is least likely to take away from other people that you love. And imagine if you have three kids and you're like, kids, I'm going to go get some me time while you guys can just kind of stay at home. You're most likely to access these, the subconscious during the morning. So I think this is where I'm accessing the work of Carl Hugh, I'm only 30 ages and, and this is just two ages. And so that's what I want you to, my call to action to you is, is take time, whether it's through a walk, whether it's through a morning journaling practice, whether it's getting up early in the morning to access your shadow self and to think about it and pay attention to things. Like how are things going? Are things going, one of the things when you can control it, you can actually change and one of the ones that you can't change, but let's get into like what happens when you start paying attention to these, to these, this inner world and here, you only starts to identify here are some of the fruits of paying attention to that inner world. Perhaps you will pay attention to the dreams that visit you at these occurrences or will reflect on a certain inner and outer occurrences that take place at this time. If you have an attitude of this kind, then that helpful powers slumbering in the deeper strata of man's nature can come awake and intervene for helplessness and work weakness are the external experience and the eternal problem of mankind. And then here he says, to this problem, there is also an eternal answer. Otherwise it would have been all up with humanity long ago. When you have done everything that could possibly be done, the only thing that remains is what you could still do if you only knew it. But how much do we know of ourselves precious little to judge by experience? Hence there is still a great deal of room for the unconscious, rare as we know for it, calls for a very similar attitude and therefore has the same effect. And then he kind of concludes on just this age. He says the necessary and needful reaction from the collectible unconscious expresses itself in our typically formed ideas. That is why Trump is so powerful because people had a need for leadership, for return to traditional ideas, for power, for authenticity, and that became manifest in this particular man. Whether he's aware of it or not, I think he kind of realized it that he was speaking to this deep bond that ties this whole Lincoln used the word the mystic cords of memory in his first inaugural. And I think that's a good way to describe it. We all have these mystic cords that resonate not only with us individually, but society writ large and it's just kind of like blows the mind. But they said it's not easy to access this shadow world, this powerful sense of self that we all have. And here Young writes, "The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well." But he writes, "One must learn to know oneself in order to know what who one is. For what comes after the door is surprisingly enough, a piledless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty with apparently no inside and no outside, no above, no below, no here, no there, no mind, no line, no good nor bad. It is the world of water where all life floats in suspicion, where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living begins, where I am individually this and that, where I experience the other in myself and the other than myself experience me." The sounds of the season can often sound like this, "So why do we get into grandkids?" But with Hilton's season to stay sale, they could sound a bit more like this, or this. Stay and save up to 20% off when you book before January 5th at Hilton.com. Hilton, for this day, minimum two nights day required excludes luxury in all inclusive properties, terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name of your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. I mean, this is like, this is like, so powerful. Are you tracking and sweating? You know, my greatest fear is when I come across these powerful ideas that will blow your mind, that I will transmit it in such a way to get you to read this book. Guys, I want you to order one thing, you know, if you're struggling right now, or if you feel like you need kind of some insight into what's going on, do you think you know you, but do you? None of all that you do, and do you know that you have this infinite power within that if you pay attention to these forces, it's scary to go in there. Once you do, you can just unlock these incredible primal forces within you that are so essential to be the best version of you. It's scary. It's kind of like when Luke went to the Dagobah system and tried to confront his greatest fear, whether he would become his father, I am not my father, you know, it's kind of funny, like when we grow up, we all tend to things like, oh my God, I'm going to be a better looking version than my dad, you know, or my mom, I remember when I was at a literary society and this woman came up to me and she was like, and Luke, God, you look just like your dad. And it's like, yeah, my dad's kind of a good looking guy, but I'm kind of like, oh, thank you. You know, these fears that like, can you transcend from where you call, I mean, you're always very proud of your heritage, but are you special? Are you able to kind of punch up from where you came and can you be the best version of you? And I think this is where all the world traditions, nice to be kind of blown away by people like Bruce Lee and still and martial arts, I thought it was so cool, it was a kind of magic. And as a society do that, well, part of it was is this exploration of the shadow self, the ability to control and coincide and live with alongside your fear. I think every human being, even the toughest of tough feels fear. The difference is, is they're able to live alongside it to acknowledge it and they even activated for a higher purpose. They're able to unleash through meditation, through practice, through ritual, all of these powerful forces from within. And I think it's hard to move forward, it's hard to be the best version for you, if you're not able to like, listen to these deep, friable instincts. And I think this very much explains the phenomena of Trump. I doubt he's rent Carl Jung, he may have hurt him somewhere. One of the things that's very powerful about Donald Trump, is he listens to his instincts? He's not listening to received wisdom. What he's doing in, he's tapping into his own primal forces. In those primal forces of authenticity, charisma, and then connecting to these deep, collective unconscious, where we desire these heroes, these strong figures, is exactly what explains his phenomena. And I think it is awareness of this that allows us to access all of these wider cultural forces. So that's it for this episode of The Rockin' Cast. I'm only 30 pages in that Carl Jung, but this page, these two pages, were so good. And so my call to action to you is, is Rick and Reed Carl Jung. With the type of book, where even if you don't have a lot of time, each age is just kind of mind-blowing. So I hope you'll be able to really dive deep and enjoy the power of Carl Jung. One movie, recommendations that I think you might really enjoy after having read this work, "Inception." I didn't want to watch that for a long time. I'm not the age where my daughter's old enough where she recommends movies that are really good, that I haven't, I hadn't heard of it, but I didn't really want to watch it. I was like, I kind of didn't get it, I kind of didn't get why "Inception" was so awesome. But it's totally Carl Jung. I mean, it's just like, oh my gosh, you know, the director of the, I think it's Christopher Nolan. Definitely it's read Carl Jung. It's all about Carl Jung. I think Christopher Nolan probably has Carl Jung's poster all throughout his house. I mean, he loves Carl Jung. And obviously, I think the Wachowski brothers too with the Matrix. The Matrix is very Jungian too, in terms of, you know, if you really look at it through that lens. So I don't know, one of the, I think the tragedies, I think, of higher education is so many people are like, "Hey, what are you going to do with psychology?" As if it's just kind of this external, not that important, not that interesting. You know, I didn't even need that. And then tends to be taught in such a way where it's like, you know, can you understand the complexity of Carl Jung? And I'm sure there are probably people out there that are Jungian professors that probably want to punch in the face because they probably turn people off to Carl Jung through their own attempted display of their air condition. So I kind of want to just punch them in the face, these people that do damage, because my goal is the opposite. So I hope I'm not turning you off to the work of Carl Jung. I hope you're like, "Oh my God." It's just like, "I'm going to reach Carl Jung." So read this book, it is Carl Jung, the arch-times and the arch-types and the collective unconscious. It is so good. It's a very thick book, but you don't have to read. Like you can get, like each page is chock full of insight. Each page is potentially life-changing for you. So if you like can't handle it, then don't read it. If you really want to understand what are these primal forces going on within you, read the word of Carl Jung. That's it for this episode of The Rock Me Cast. I kind of busy week this week, you guys. I don't know that I'm going to be able to get to my episode on Blackhawk, but I'm going to try to get to you a really good episode on Blackhawk. We'll probably do some tech episodes and these sorts of things. That's my dad's 90th birthday this weekend, so I'm preparing for that. But we are going to be able to do some great, great The Rock Me Cast, and I do hope that you will recommend this Rock Me Cast to other people. I hope you read the work of Carl Jung, and if you do, please let me know, Rock Me Cast at gmail.com, the call at gmail.com, and together you and I will keep growing up this podcast, growing it, and making it really as big as Rogan. That's my goal. Someday I'll be a lot of people. Right now there's like 10, but 10 of you tune in quite frequently, so I'm very, very appreciative of that much gratitude to you. So this is that fourth, this is that, this is this episode for The Rock Me Cast, until next time you and I see each other on The Rock Me Cast.