“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” —Carl Jung

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

—Carl Jung

We come into this world without a choice of where we are born, the beliefs that surround us, and the circumstances that guide us. The mind is always absorbing whatever information and understandings that surround us, yet we are unable to be aware of everything we absorb.

We tell ourselves narratives about our beliefs, our morality, and our sense of self.

But what lays within our unconscious that provides us knowledge about the source of some of those beliefs, desires, and emotions that we fail to truly understand?

 “The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”

—Carl Jung

Our minds have a pull towards this “either/or” and dichotomous way of thinking. This is the condition for our human thought — and at times it’s useful. But the human condition is not so clear, as our minds are forced to make quick interpretations of subjective experiences, where we then attempt to place them into clean categories.

However, this leaves no room for ambiguity. And we find wisdom in the ambiguity of our human experience.

Knowledge is not the same as wisdom.

  “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

—Carl Jung

This calls back to the first quote, as within our unconscious is our darker self waiting. The darker side of ourselves is something we all have, and when we fail to understand it, our unconscious self projects out into our relationships and actions in life.

So, it’s about recognizing that everyone we encounter is having their own inner battle and process of understanding the unconscious.

When we interact with others, we are not dealing with them as they believe themselves to be; instead, we deal with them as we would view them through the lens of our own experiences. Everyone is a reflection of ourselves.

-Brenden Weber, MEDIUM, 3 Carl Jung quotes that changed my understanding of the self