Why You Shouldn't Always Pull Yourself Together

Take the ladder down into your psyche.

Have you ever felt a longing to let yourself completely fall apart?

All you want to do is stop the ceaseless forward and upward march, and sink into an abyss of unnamed emotion, feelings, and thoughts. You wonder for a moment what it would be like if, just this once, you went against all the advice for success and happiness and productivity and dropped instead into the unnamed, unformed, still, and silent part of your psyche. What would it feel like to follow the ladder down into your subconscious, instead of up, up, and more up?

You feel that you're on the edge of a meltdown, a burnout, or an internal earthquake that could shatter everything you've ever believed in, worked for, or valued. It's hard to see that this also means you're on the edge of a breakthrough, a revelation, and a rebirth.

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

~Carl Jung

So, you say to yourself something like:

• I can't let go. If I do, I'll never come back.

• What's wrong with me? I have to pull myself together.

• I have too much to do, I need to get with it.

• I'll get behind; I'll lose my place.

• There's no logical reason for me to stop.

And you pull yourself together, get back to the activity, the movement, and the busyness. You get back to doing.