The Descent That Heals
Learning to listen when the Unconscious begins to speak
photo from “For the Love of Donkeys” facebook page
There was a time I thought I was losing my mind. Not in a dramatic, falling-down-the-stairs kind of way. It was quieter than that. Slower. A hollowing out of things that once felt certain. What I believed about my life, my roles, and my goals started to shift like sand under my feet.
I didn't have the language for it at the time, but now I know: I was descending. And I wasn’t alone.
Carl Jung walked this same path. After his break from Freud, Jung turned inward. He didn't just retreat into silence or self-care. He began an intense dialogue with his dreams, waking visions, and inner images. He let the unconscious speak. He painted what he saw. He wrote down what he heard. And what emerged was Philemon, a winged figure who became his guide. Not a metaphor, but a presence. A soul-companion: a psychopomp.
Jung later described Philemon not as a product of fantasy, but as a voice that came from beyond his conscious mind. It was a kind of wise inner elder who helped him distinguish between what his ego wanted and what his soul needed. Through this relationship, Jung began to understand the Self not just as a part of him, but as the whole of who he was trying to become.
“The years when I pursued the inner images were the most important in my life. Everything else is to be derived from this.”
— Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
That sentence hits me like a lightning bolt. I’ve been there, and maybe you have too.
Most of us don’t get a dramatic rupture like Jung’s. For me, it was more like waking up inside a life that no longer felt like mine. A job, a relationship, a role, all of it began to feel off. Dreams became vivid. Old patterns stopped working. I couldn't strategize or schedule my way out of it. I just knew something was knocking, and it wasn’t going away. I turned from the intellect, a place of comfort, and entered the unknown.
In Jungian psychology, this is called the beginning of individuation, the process of becoming whole. The Self begins to emerge, not as a perfected version of you, but as the true you. The version of you that includes all your contradictions, your shadow, your dreams, your body, your instincts, your creativity, your grief, and your joy. The Self is the totality of your psyche. It is not just the conscious ego, but everything waiting in the wings.
Jung saw the Self as sacred and numinous. It is not something you achieve but something you meet. Most often, it arrives when the ego no longer knows what to do.
There’s no single map, but there are signs. You might recognize them. Your dreams shift from mundane anxieties to symbolic, archetypal landscapes. You start seeing synchronicities: odd, meaningful coincidences that feel like guidance. You feel drawn to nature, solitude, art, or poetry. These are things that don’t fix you, but hold you. A mysterious figure appears in dreams or imagination, someone wiser, older, and deeper. Your normal tools like logic, overthinking, or productivity stop working the way they used to. You feel like you’re unraveling, and yet something inside you knows this is not the end.
This isn’t pathology. It’s invitation.
Jung taught that the Self often shows up in symbols. These may include mandalas, wild animals, goddesses, children, kings and queens, broken buildings, or rising oceans. These are not just metaphors. They are living images from the unconscious that want to be seen, heard, and honored.
Sometimes the Self shows up in stillness. Sometimes in awe. Sometimes in a dream so real it haunts you for weeks. Sometimes it speaks as a deep inner voice that says, “No more.” And sometimes it appears as a flash of clarity in the middle of heartbreak.
When we meet the Self, we are not meeting our “best self” or our “higher self.” We are meeting something wiser than that. Something ancient, something sacred. And often, something that has no interest in our five-year plans.
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
— C.G. Jung
Jung didn’t heal himself by fixing or striving. He listened. He let the unconscious speak. I tried that too. Slowly. Quietly. And here’s what I found helped.
Instead of analyzing my dreams to death, I sat with them. I chose an image—a deer, a staircase, a crying child—and asked it questions. I let it talk. I wrote down what it said. Sometimes I painted. Sometimes I cried. Every time, I learned something new.
I created what I called My Red Book. It’s not tidy. It’s filled with scribbles, symbols, poems, and conversations with parts of me I used to ignore. It’s the most honest thing I’ve ever written.
When the outside world mirrors your inner state, pay attention. That book you randomly pick up, the lyrics of a song, the timing of a phone call; these aren’t accidents. They are weigh points.
We don’t have to do this alone. Jung had Philemon, and he also had Toni Wolff, his close companion and fellow thinker. I had a soul friend. A Jungian therapist. A few trusted people who didn’t try to fix me. They held space. They asked better questions.
This descent doesn’t follow ego timelines. I wanted to be “done” in a few months. It took years. And even now, I’m still learning how to listen, how to trust, and how to live from that deeper place.
You come back to your life, but not the same. You might leave a job or relationship. Or you might stay, but bring a truer version of yourself into it. You become more honest. More whole. Less interested in perfection and more committed to truth.
You stop chasing worth and start tending to soul. You make room for paradox, mystery, and not knowing.
You learn to trust something beyond the ego’s grasp. You don’t become someone new. You become more of who you’ve always been. The less I did, the more I grew.
Here’s a metaphor that holds me. Imagine you’re walking through a dense forest with only a lantern. That lantern is your ego, your rational mind. One day, the flame goes out. You are lost in the dark.
And then, a mirror appears.
Not just any mirror. This one does not show how you look, but who you truly are. It reveals your wounds and your wonder. Your shadow and your spark. It reflects the parts of you you left behind, and the path forward, not lit, but felt.
That mirror is the Self. And sometimes, we have to lose our light in order to find it.
You are not lost, broken, or ill. What once guided you has finished its purpose. The Self is opening, and Soul is rising to guide the way.
written by Bren Littleton
Tin Flea Press c. 2025
photo from “For the Love of Donkeys” facebook page.