Sigmund Freud thought that the memories of bad things that happened to us in our past (especially during childhood) could sometimes return to haunt us, messing up our lives. This viewpoint turned us into helpless victims of a past that cannot be changed.
But for Carl Jung this explanation made no sense. Everything in nature, he reasoned, is part of evolution. So if this type of thing happens so often, to so many people (as it undoubtedly does), then it must bring some kind of evolutionary benefit.
What could that be?
Jung realised that different people get upset about different things. An event that upsets one person might have no effect on someone else. And different people will often interpret the same event in different ways.
This means that, in a sense, we each choose which events we get upset about and what we imagine those events mean.
This means that whatever upsets us most is a gift of gold.
Because in a world filled with messages telling us who we should be — how we should live, what we should buy, who we should vote for, and so on — the things that upset us most deeply also show us what we care about most.
The things that upset us most are the things we hate most: and they are the opposite of what is most important to us.
What upsets us about a situation is the absence of what matters most to us. And so, once we know what that is then we can start to rebuild it: both in ourselves and in the world.
The things that trigger us remind us of our priorities. No matter what anybody else says, they show us who we are, what we care about, who we most want to become.
Then, as Carl Jung said,
“I am not what happened to me I am what I choose to become.”
So what seemed like a ‘problem’ to Freud is actually an opportunity: it’s another signpost pointing us towards what will most inspire us to move through this time of change with passion, energy, and enthusiasm.
And when we understand this, then we can start to transform our emotions to help us achieve what matters most to us.
All this is another step to becoming antifragile: using the changes around us to make us stronger and more focused on what matters most to us.
Can you think of something that has upset or enraged you recently? Did it paralyse you? Or did it inspire you with energy and enthusiasm to do what you can, with others, to build a world that is the opposite of that?
Inner Leadership is a framework and a set of tools for building inspiration in a time of change.
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(And remember: you can’t learn to swim just by reading about swimming, you also need to do the practice.)