Make the Unconscious Conscious

A note to young leaders.

Carl Jung once observed: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

In the movie Rocky Balboa (2006), Rocky speaks of “the basement” – his metaphor for the unresolved emotions and unfinished business we bury deep inside ourselves.

Messages, events, relationships and feelings that serve or reinforce our ego are welcomed and integrated by our conscious mind – but anything that threatens our identity, we banish to the dark, waterlogged cave of the subconscious.

Over time, we keep piling stuff in there. Eventually that material will float up and ask to be integrated.

The cave we fear to enter holds the treasure we seek – go there, dive deep.

Make the unconscious, conscious. Shadows love to hide in shadows. Usher yours into the light.

The treasure I speak of is a gentler, wiser, more compassionate you.