“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung

Process is what I like to call the scattered mess before things become clear. It’s what your bedroom looks like after you’ve emptied all the closets and drawers to sort through what goes and what stays, but before you’ve put anything back. What can we say about the process? It’s messy, non-conforming, has no logical organization to it, and everyones’ process will look completely different. It is also an indispensable guide to figuring out what has real meaning in our life. It’s a tool to do the inner sorting of what stays or goes. Of course as the quote suggests it’s not always fun times, going through the process of bringing our darkness into the light of conscious thought is long and difficult work. We are being asked to look at and sort through all the things we’ve spent a lifetime avoiding. It’s going to be tricky, and it’s going to take some guts.

The definition of process is, a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. When it comes to the work of the soul this does not necessarily mean a tidy, logical list that gets us from point A to point B. Usually it is more like a free-for-all that we figure out on the fly. We are all flawed, all imperfect, that is part of the package of being human. We also have less than shining moments in our history, these are the raw materials we have to work with. These glitches are the very things that help us to move forward. They form the spring board that propels us toward the person we were meant to be. To whatever extent we bring these shadow complexes to light, the more whole we become. There is an art to it, and just like walking the tightrope without a net, it can be a terrifying art.

This art is called soul making. These pieces we recognize and restore from the darkness tell us more of the story of who we really are. This is not the façade we show to the world, but our real inner workings. They give us a more complete picture of who we really are. Going through our process of pulling the shadowy pieces out can begin to help us heal them instead of just being caught up by them. It gives us the ability to see what we are doing and this allows us to change. Actually, it’s one of the few things we do control. We have it within us to change and transform who we are, what we do, and how we respond to a situation. In the end, we’re all we’ve got to work with. We honor the process because it helps us to see where we’re at and then to figure out where we want to go. Honoring our individual process helps us cross the bridge between the two. Whatever it is, writing, talking, drawing, it’s about bringing to light that which was unknown to us before. We sort, discard, embrace, and in the end the process brings about our transformation.

There is another miracle in all of this, because the work we do on ourselves is also our contribution to transforming the world. When we aren’t driven by what haunts us the more we own who we are, the more whole we become. This is the only way to heal anything, a bad situation, an argument, pettiness, anger, the hatred we see in the world. There is only one real solution and that is to work on ourselves. Gandhi said it beautifully, “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world…as in being able to remake ourselves.” Because when we stop carrying all the darkness we become the light that helps others do their own work.

We are the pebble thrown in the water. All of our actions have a ripple effect. This idea is nothing new, it is age old information. It’s the basis of every major religion and certainly Jungian psychology. But it is powerful information. It all starts with the self and what we do with our self. This is what the process is all about: our path to wholeness.

So honor the process wherever you are in it, and keep working with what calls to you. The gift it brings is wholeness.

kb