Becoming Whole Quotes

“Jung says, “Here one may ask, perhaps, why it is so desirable that a man should be individuated. Not only is it desirable, it is absolutely indispensable because through his contamination with others he falls into situations and commits actions that bring him into disharmony with himself. From all states of unconscious contamination and non-differentiation, there is begotten a compulsion to be and to act in a way contrary to one’s own nature...For these reasons individuation is indispensable for certain people, not only as a therapeutic necessity, but as a high ideal, an idea of the best we can do. Nor should I omit to remark that it is at the same time the primitive Christian ideal of the Kingdom of Heaven that ‘is within you.’ The idea at the bottom of this ideal is that right action comes from right thinking, and there is no cure and no improving of the world that does not begin with the individual himself.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“There are three aspects of the feminine element of being in the Jungian approach. The first one is being grounded within one’s own nature. The second one is the capacity to then be truly related to another person and to other people. And the third aspect, which is another aspect of eros, is how personally related we are to life.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“Amor Fati means accepting our fate, a term from Nietzsche that both Jung and Campbell were fond of using. This is really a second-half-of-life need—that is, a state of longing for meaning. We are thrust into this state after experiencing the psychological heroism of the first half of life. As you may know, heroism, in the first half of life, describes the quest for independence, identity, and a place in the world. We need this heroic attitude in order to overcome and subdue the dragon of our dependency needs. Heroism supports our struggle to achieve a place in the world and stability in love and work. But when midlife, unhappiness, trauma, or illness thrusts us into the search for meaning—as well as the need for the support of our own depths and the Divine within us, the Self—a new kind of heroism is called for. This heroism is the ability to say yes to our fate, to what is already happening to us, to dive into it and into our own depths.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“There is no formula. Lisa began this quest with active imagination by having continuous dialogs with the witch and herself, as a young girl. She discovered that there is joy in finding what has been lost and in cultivating feelings and potentials that have laid fallow for a lifetime. As our final session was coming to a close, Lisa leaned forward and said to me, “Looking inward has helped me feel the presence of love in my life. That something has been interested in me all along, guiding my life, supporting it in some strange way—trying to become known by me. It’s somewhere within myself. It seems funny I had to seek it, while at the same time allow it to find me. It brings a sense of peace, or serenity, no matter what hardships I have to face.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“The journey of individuation is in this sense a continuous coming home to ourselves that gives us the ongoing courage to face the suffering involved in allowing our buried talents to emerge, and to realize the innate wisdom within us—that can only be forged by the fires of feelings and passion that bring our soul to an inner glow.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“We must not fall into the typical shadow defense of our culture’s scientific complex which is to think that to name something means we have some control over it. I’ve heard many, many people say something like, “that’s my money complex—but, I’m doing better at it,” or “that’s my critical mother—but I’m doing better than I used to.” This approach is missing the point of healing and transformation. It is simply causing a new inner battle on a different level. It continues to split us against ourselves, rather than helping us find wholeness and solidity. This error reflects a cultural complex which is that we are taught to live our lives according to the ways of Mars, the god of war and not the ways of Eros, the god of love and relationships. Our society teaches us that war is the way. We declare war on poverty, drugs, cancer, our weight, in fact on whatever symptoms are giving us the most trouble. We declare war on ourselves in this process. And, as far as I can see in my lifetime we rarely, if ever, win these wars. Why don’t we ever win some of these wars, we might wonder? Well, let me suggest an answer on the personal level, because as you know, Jung thought that in today’s world that’s where change must start. Most of the complexes that really trouble us come from problems in Eros, those related to love and relationships. They are wounds of the lack of love, the lack of understanding and personal concern, the lack of affirmation in childhood, and these events founded our complexes. Even wounds of fate, like my mother’s death when I was a child, which was a trauma, brought a wound of Eros because one of its major sources was lost, I was abandoned. Abuse is a betrayal of Eros. There are, of course, many more than I have named. The point I want to make is that you cannot heal wounds to Eros with the techniques of Mars: aggression, suppression and control. Yet that is what we try to do. We want to overcome, defeat our complexes.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“It is no small task to learn to see our depression, anxiety, weight, relationship problems, addictions, and illnesses as efforts of our psyche to heal us—as symptoms that are trying to get us to change, in ways that will help our lives become better on a more profound level. Jung calls learning to value our problems and how they can lead us into becoming transformed, the “teleological aspects” of symptoms.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“In fact, we are chosen for it, by something deep within us. And, our awakening—the crack in the illusion of how we are living—our call, generally comes in the form of a personal crisis that lasts, repeats, or gets worse until we begin to answer the call or repress it with such force that it becomes a serious set of emotional or physical symptoms, and we end up in lives that are spiritually and emotionally congealed.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“What have you done with my life?”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“Jung loved to tell “The Rainmaker Story” which he used to illustrate our journey of return to ourselves. This story is so popular in our circles that you may have heard it before. In this story, a remote village in China was experiencing a prolonged drought. The fields were parched, the crops were dying and the people were facing starvation. They had done everything they could. They prayed to their ancestors; their priests took the sacred images from their temples and marched them around the parched fields. But no prayers or rituals brought the rain that they so badly needed. In despair, the villagers pooled their last few resources and sent for a rainmaker from far away. When the little old man arrived, he found the cattle dying and the people in a miserable state. When the people asked him what he wanted, he said only a small hut and a little food and water. He went into the hut, closed the door, and left the people wondering what he was doing. On the third day, it began to rain. When he emerged, they asked him what he did. “Oh,” he replied, “that is very simple. I didn’t do anything. I came from an area that was in Tao, in balance. Your area is disturbed, out of balance, and when I came into it, I became disturbed. I retreated to the little hut to meditate, to bring myself back into balance. When I am able to get myself in order, everything around me is set right.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“All of us, no matter who we are, in the pressures of our busy, complicated lives, lose this fundamental relationship to ourselves, again and again. We get caught in false “doing” that isn’t rooted in the ground of our being, the Self. False “doing” manufactures a hollow or false sense of identity and accomplishments. It assaults us with formulas for changing and bettering ourselves, that ultimately leaves us feeling diminished, frustrated, or empty, like imposters.”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

“The meaning of ‘whole’ or ‘wholeness’ is to make holy or to heal. The descent into the depths will bring healing. It is the way to the total being, to the treasure which suffering mankind is forever seeking, which is hidden in the place guarded by terrible danger.” – C. G. JUNG, C. W. VOL. 18, PARA. 270”
― Bud Harris, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation