My Fourth Session with a Jungian Analyst ( Do I have what it takes?)

We started our session again with my analyst asking how my week went. I mentioned how I am more aware and mindful of my feelings as they come up. I have mentioned a girl I had been dating now for about 2 weeks and that I have been paying close attention on how my feelings develop as this relationship continues.

I then mentioned that I had finished listening to the book “The Choice” and I was already through half of the second book “ The Gift” both by Edith Eger. My Analyst was surprised and made a impressed face because I went through these books so fast. I described how I cried at least ten times listening to the first book, and how powerful the message was. The second book is also great and more like a guide on how to manage our feelings as they go up and down reacting to our lives' dramas.

My next comment was how I had not been remembering my dreams lately, as my mind has been racing since waking up in the morning and that always makes it really hard to remember them. I did however remember one dream where I dreamt with another pro surfer, this time surfing in a place I find very scary and I choose not to surf it but the pro surfer did. My analyst said that what comes up to him is that because I keep dreaming about the pro surfers, that means that there is a part of me that wants to be an excellent Jungian that can really surf the waters of the unconscious and just to be aware of it. He went on and said that he keeps telling people that Jung’s concept of Individuation, we all have in our lives our purposes, individuation. At first in our dreams, we dream we are in public transports, Train, buses. Then as we move on we are in cars, sometimes somebody else is driving and sometimes we are driving. Next we are on motorbikes or bicycles, then walking then walking along a path. Finally we found ourselves walking along where there is no path. You have to make your own path, and that is the Individuation.

I started describing that the one of the biggest shifts in my life in the past few years is how even though I love surfing and can not live without it, I now find more important to evolve as a human being instead to just stay on the pleasure and ego trip train of Surfing. That I still think that surfing is great to connect us to nature, to meditate, stay fit and young. However, surfing is a very selfish sport where most of the time, specially if it is a crowded spot, all we care about is catching our waves and we all become very anxious, upset, angry, aggressive when we do not get our share of waves and other people also show over and over again that they are only out there for themselves and would not care less to give you a fare run for your waves. It is a very testing and self reflective environment. My analyst said, that there is only two things in life that matter one is empathy or more accurately compassion, being able to tune into not only out of fate, the other one again is mindfulness, being more and more accurately aware. That if we get compassion and mindfulness developed that is a good life.

We then had a very funny moment, I was a bit naïve and asked how does it feel to be whole after doing our individuation, as I would not have a clue. My analyst just said I have to ask the Dalai Lama on this one. We both laughed.

I asked him what course he would suggest me that it would put me in the right direction to help people, I did say that I was not planning in becoming a Jungian Analyst as that was way out of my league, specially knowing that I do not have a traditional degree in mental health etc. He went on that if I do choose to apply to become a Jungian Analyst that he would support me. My only problem would be for the actual fact that I don’t hold a degree but that the next intake for Jungian Analysts would not be for another three of four years. I was not expecting for him to say that I could at least try for the Jungian Training, and just knowing that he thinks I have the potential to become one, made me really consider it.

More on that another time, until the next blog.