Through a Jungian Lens

Gulf of Thailand sunset

Another scene of the sunset taken on the first evening in Pattaya is one that is all about alchemy for me, a fitting image for this is my task in Thailand – transformational change. Of course in making such a claim I want to qualify this with a bit of reality and caution. Transformational change isn’t all about some mystical and spiritual transformation from ordinary person into some sort of Buddha or Christ-figure or anything even remotely approaching some world-changing being. Rather, for me it is about little things.

Each time I dive into the unconscious, usually as a somewhat unwilling participant, doubtful and dubious of what is going to happen, I seem to suffer with the exposure of some inner darkness I wish didn’t exist, an inner darkness that I hope is nothing but a figment of my imagination – “Did that really happen, or am I making it up?’ sort of darkness coming to light.  Once exposed to the light I have a few choices; well, not really. I can own up to the facts, the moods, the events, the shit exposed and do it without laying blame, refusing to take the role of victim; or, I can deny, deny, deny; or, I can justifiably lay blame and become a victim thus relieving myself of any personal responsibility for becoming a better person, for healing myself.

For me, it is all about owning the shit – it happened, I was there, I am now here. I need to acknowledge the shit that happened to me, the shit I received, the shit that I caused. I need to release its power over me. And the only way to do this is to expose it to the light of logos, to allow the sun to remove the cancerous cells and leave me lighter in both spirit and in dead weight.

Thailand is my fiery furnace where I am risking the exposure of darkness, risking sanity and relationship. What will emerge? I don’t know and in the end it doesn’t matter. For this is about process for now. And I have learned to trust the process.