Jung described the inner life as the secret life we all lead, that we have constant companionship with our unseen, unconscious inner selves. Dreams, imagination, day dreams and visualisations , sudden inner understandings, new ideas, hunches, intuitions all come from the flow of energy between the conscious and unconscious mind. The modern mind has tended to dismiss this connection. I have been reading Robert A Johnson's work again recently and given many of my clients are trying to increase their self awareness and self understanding I thought I would quote him directly:
'In modern western society we have reached a point at which we try to get by without acknowledging the inner life at all. We act as though there was no unconscious, no realm of the soul, as though we live full lives by fixating ourselves completely on the external material world. We try to deal with all issues of life by external means - making more money, getting more power, starting a love affair or 'accomplishing something' in the material world. But we discover to our surprise that the inner world is a reality we ultimately have to face.'( Inner Work' Robert A Johnson. 1989. Harper Collins)
How strengthening it is to begin to understand ourselves in this way , to explore our motivations , our senses, sensations and anxieties from the perspective of 'what are they telling us?' and instead of trying to silence 'the critical voice inside ' to befriend it and begin to experience the resources the inner life can bring to our day to day life and our leadership tasks.
(I must also acknowledge a facebook post from Eileen Sullivan, tellach.com who pulled out this quote from Johnson and also was part of stimulating this blog. )
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