Rubedo, the final stage of psychological transformation in Carl Jung's theory of individuation, represents the moment when a person stops running from themselves and begins to integrate all parts of their psyche, including the shadow. This stage is characterized by six key signs: (1) no longer feeling fundamentally lacking, (2) no longer needing external validation, (3) the end of inner battles between conflicting parts of the self, (4) genuine self-acceptance including one's darker aspects, (5) emotions no longer controlling one's behavior, and (6) choosing wholeness over perfection. Unlike perfection, which eliminates what is difficult to look at, wholeness learns to contain all aspects of the self, allowing a person to be strong yet need support, independent yet long to be loved, kind yet experience anger, and mature yet react like a wounded child. This transformation brings a profound peace that comes not from resolving all problems but from no longer dividing oneself into acceptable and unacceptable parts.
Signs You've Reached “Rubedo” - The Final Stage Of Awakening - Carl Jung
Added:Before we begin, take a moment to look back [music] on your own journey.
Have there been periods in your life when you achieved many of the things you once longed for, yet deep inside still felt an emptiness that was difficult [music] to name?
Many people see that feeling as a sign of being lost, or assume they simply need to try harder.
But according to Carl Jung, sometimes those feelings do not arise because you are on the wrong path.
They appear because a deeper transformation is quietly unfolding within you.
Jung called the final stage of this transformation rubedo.
It is not a state of mystical enlightenment or a perfect life free from suffering, doubt, and difficulty.
On the contrary, rubedo is the moment you stop running from yourself.
It is when the parts of you that once stood in opposition begin to find common ground.
It is when you no longer strive to become someone else to be accepted, but gradually begin to feel at peace with who you truly are.
So, how can you recognize that you are entering this stage?
There are very clear signs, yet they often emerge so quietly >> [music] >> that many people fail to notice them.
Let us walk through this journey [music] together because the subtle changes you are experiencing may in fact be signs that you are moving closer to the most authentic version of yourself.
One, what is rubedo?
To understand the signs of rubedo, you first need to understand [music] what rubedo truly is.
Seen through the eyes of Carl Jung, rubedo [music] is a profound image of inner transformation.
It speaks of the moment when a person no longer tries [music] to cut away the uncomfortable parts of themselves, but begins to realize that those parts also belong to [music] the whole of who they are.
Jung borrowed the concept of rubedo from medieval alchemy.
At that time, alchemists believed that base metals could [music] be transformed into gold through a series of stages.
But Jung saw in that journey a much greater symbol.
To him, the process of turning metal into gold mirrored the process by which a human being moves from a fragmented life governed by fear and ego toward a life that is deeper, truer, and more whole.
Before rubedo, according to alchemical symbolism, one must usually pass through nigredo.
This is the dark stage where old identities begin to dissolve.
In real life, nigredo may appear as a crisis.
You lose your sense of direction.
You no longer find meaning in the things that once motivated you.
You begin to question your work, your relationships, your self-image, even the person you have spent years becoming.
Many people [music] call this failure, but from Jung's perspective, sometimes what is collapsing is not your true self, but a shell that has become too small to contain you.
Then comes albedo, the stage of purification.
This is not perfect healing, but a time when you begin to see more clearly. You recognize old patterns. You understand why you always needed validation.
Why do you fear rejection?
Why did you try so hard to please [music] others?
Why did you feel resentment toward people who dared to live more freely than you did? Albedo is like cleaning a window that has been covered in dust for years.
The world outside does not necessarily change immediately, [music] but the way you see it becomes clearer.
Then Rubedo arrives, though not as dramatically as you might imagine.
It does not necessarily come as a moment of revelation, nor as a morning when you wake up feeling suddenly enlightened.
More often, it arrives [music] quietly.
You begin to react less strongly to the things that once caused you to lose control.
You no longer need someone else to constantly affirm your worth.
You still have emotions, but they no longer carry you away as they once did.
You still have a shadow, but you no longer see it as proof [music] that you are bad.
You are still imperfect, but you no longer use that imperfection against [music] yourself.
Carl Jung once wrote, "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
Awakening comes when you can turn toward the darkness without being consumed by it.
It comes when you are honest enough to see your whole self, yet gentle enough not to condemn yourself for what you find.
What is important to understand is that Rubedo does not turn you into a person who no longer suffers.
You will still have difficult days.
[music] You may still doubt yourself.
You may still be triggered by an old memory, an unintended remark, or a fear you thought had already passed.
But one thing has changed. [music] You no longer believe that every moment of weakness means you have returned to the beginning.
You begin to understand that maturity is not about never falling [music] again.
Maturity is about knowing how to return to yourself each time life pulls you away.
Rubedo [music] is the stage in which the ego no longer tries to control every aspect [music] of life.
The ego is the part of you that wants to define, protect, organize, >> [music] >> and control everything.
It is necessary because it helps you function in the world.
But, when the ego becomes the sole ruler of your inner life, you begin to live as though everything is a test of your worth.
A criticism becomes proof that you are a failure.
Someone leaving becomes proof that you are unlovable.
A goal not yet achieved becomes proof that you are not enough.
Rubedo emerges when the [music] ego begins to step back, not disappearing, but no longer sitting on the throne within you.
That is why Rubedo often feels like coming home, not returning to a place outside yourself, but returning to an inner state where you no longer have to perform.
You do not have to be strong all [music] the time.
You do not have to be positive all the time.
You do not have to be constantly improving.
You do not have to turn your life into a performance of healing.
You can simply be a human being >> [music] >> with both light and shadow, with wounds that have healed, and wounds that still ache, with wisdom already gained and parts of yourself that are still learning how to grow.
So, when we speak about the signs that you have reached rubedo, we are not looking for evidence that you have become perfect. We are looking for quieter transformations.
The way you stop feeling fundamentally lacking.
The way you no longer live for approval.
The way your inner battles begin to soften.
The way you accept yourself. The way emotions no longer control you.
And the way you choose wholeness over perfection.
If for a long time you have felt that something inside you has been changing, yet you could not find the words to describe it, perhaps rubedo offers a doorway through which understanding can begin.
Now, let us explore the seven signs that you are moving closer to rubedo, the final stage of awakening in the spirit of Carl Jung.
Two. Sign one. You no longer feel lacking.
One of the clearest signs of rubedo is that the restless sense of searching begins to soften. Not because you suddenly have everything. Not because life has somehow become perfect. [music] But because something within you no longer believes that peace always exists somewhere else.
At another time. In another version of yourself. For much of your life, you may have lived with the feeling [music] that something was missing.
A better job. More money. A more attractive body. More confidence. More discipline.
More success.
And because that sense of lack [music] became so familiar, you gradually mistook it for motivation itself.
You thought you were growing, yet beneath that [music] growth, there was a quiet voice whispering, "Once I achieve this, then I'll be okay.
Once you get the promotion, you will feel more valuable.
Once you have a stable relationship, you will feel more lovable. [music] Once you earn enough money, you will feel secure.
Once you are no longer anxious, no longer wounded, no longer carrying those darker parts [music] within you, then you will finally feel complete.
But the strange thing is that after every achievement, the feeling of fulfillment rarely [music] stays for long.
It appears briefly, like morning light [music] passing through a window, and then quickly fades away.
Your attention shifts to the next goal, a new milestone, a new standard, a new reason to postpone your own peace.
Rubedo begins when that cycle no longer convinces you the way it once did.
You may still desire success.
You may still want to earn money, >> [music] >> love deeply, build, create, care for your body, and improve your life. But the energy behind those desires has changed.
Before, you pursued them because you believed you needed them to become worthy enough.
Now, you pursue them because they are a natural expression of who you are, not evidence [music] of your worth.
This is a profoundly important distinction.
From the outside, others may not notice anything different. You still go to work.
You still make plans.
You still set goals.
You still [music] make an effort.
But internally, you're no longer running like someone being chased.
You no longer live as though every achievement is a courtroom where you must prove that you deserve to exist.
I remember an afternoon in a cafe, opening my laptop with the intention of creating yet another plan for work.
I had become accustomed to the feeling that every free moment had to be optimized somehow. [music] Learning another skill, writing another goal, reading another book, reorganizing my schedule, finding another way to become better.
But that day, as I stared at the blank screen, I suddenly realized that I did not truly want to make another plan.
I was simply afraid that if [music] I stopped improving, I would fall behind.
What surprised me was that I did not close the laptop out of laziness.
I closed it because, for the first time, I saw fear disguised as ambition.
I sat there listening to the sound of the espresso machine, watching an elderly man carefully fold his newspaper.
And in that very ordinary moment, I felt something unexpected. I did not need to turn this afternoon into a step forward.
I did not need to extract more value from every hour of the day.
I could simply sit here, be a human being, and that did not make me any less worthy.
It was not a mystical moment.
There was no radiant light, no dramatic awakening.
Yet it left behind a profound stillness.
As though an invisible hand had finally released its grip from my collar.
Perhaps you have experienced a moment like that as well, when you realize that what was exhausting you [music] was not life itself, but the belief that you had to keep becoming someone else >> [music] >> before you were allowed to rest.
There is a reflection from Jung that speaks beautifully [music] to this stage.
The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally [music] insoluble.
They can never be solved, but only outgrown.
Some of life's challenges are not resolved by conquering something more.
They lose their power only when you outgrow the old way you once viewed them.
The feeling of lack is much the same.
You do not overcome it by filling every external [music] gap.
You overcome it when you realize that some emptinesses do not need to be filled with achievement.
They need to be listened to.
Perhaps the feeling that I am not enough is not the truth about who you are.
Perhaps it is only the echo [music] of years spent measuring your worth through the reactions of others.
When rubedo begins to emerge, you stop asking life with desperation, [music] "What else do I need to feel complete?"
Instead, you begin asking with a gentler curiosity, "What part of me has always believed [music] that I am not enough?"
That question brings you back to your center.
And then, little by little, you realize that fulfillment is not a reward waiting [music] at the end of the road.
It is more like the ground beneath your feet.
You have been standing on it all along.
You were simply too busy looking toward the horizon to notice.
This is the first sign of rubedo.
You no longer live like someone who is fundamentally lacking and trying to recover themselves from [music] the outside world.
You begin to understand that the things you build may enrich your life, but they do not create your essential worth. That worth does not arrive after success.
It is where you begin.
Three, sign two. you no longer need validation.
The second sign is that you no longer need validation in the way you once did.
Not because you have become cold, indifferent, [music] or unconcerned with the feelings of others.
Rather, it is because something within you has stopped placing your worth in the hands of outside eyes.
In the past, a single compliment may have been enough to brighten your entire day.
Someone told you that you were talented, attractive, special, important. And immediately, a sense of relief would arise within you.
But that relief rarely lasted for long.
It was like taking a sip of water while thirsty without ever truly finding the source.
You needed another compliment, another sign, another form of reassurance to keep believing that you were okay.
And conversely, a single criticism could send you into a deep spiral. [music] A cold email from your boss, an unanswered message, a puzzled glance during a meeting, an offhand comment on social media, a family member saying, "You've changed."
Small things like these could make you question your entire sense of self, as though your worth were a glass resting on the edge of a table, ready to shatter at the slightest touch.
But when Rupert [music] begins to emerge, that power gradually weakens.
You still hear praise, but you no longer [music] cling to it like a life raft.
You still hear criticism, but you no longer allow it to define you.
A small space begins to appear between what others say and what you believe about [music] yourself.
That space is a sign of inner freedom.
This is also the stage when the begins to lose its hold.
The persona is the social mask you wear as you move through the world.
You need it [music] in order to work, communicate, be polite, and fulfill your roles within [music] family and society.
The problem begins when you forget that it is only a mask and start believing that it [music] is your true face.
You may have spent years protecting that persona, trying to appear successful, trying to appear okay, trying to appear likable, trying to appear strong, trying to become the person your parents, colleagues, partner, friends, or social media audience could accept.
But the more fiercely you protect that image, the more exhausted you become because an image [music] must constantly be maintained, while a real human being simply needs to live.
My cousin Emily, 34 years old, works as a communications manager for a health care company in Chicago.
She lives alone in a small apartment, has a cat, a calendar packed with obligations, and a very familiar habit.
Every night before bed, she reviews everything she posted [music] that day.
A work-related update, a photo from a cafe, a short reflection about self-care.
If a post received a lot of engagement, she felt more valuable. If it was met with silence, she began wondering whether she was becoming boring, invisible, or no longer worth noticing.
Then one day, during a team meeting, a younger colleague commented that Emily's campaign felt a little too safe and lacking personality.
Under normal circumstances, that remark would have kept her awake all night.
She would have gone home, opened her laptop, reviewed every slide, criticized herself, and imagined everyone judging her.
But that day, something different happened.
She felt her chest tighten for a few seconds.
She felt a wave of defensiveness rise within her.
Then she paused.
She asked herself, "Am I hurt because this feedback is wrong or because it touches the fear that I'm no longer exceptional?" That question changed everything. For the first time, she did not turn criticism into a verdict on her worth as a human being.
She turned back to her colleague, asked for more specifics, listened carefully, revised the campaign, and that evening, she posted nothing on social media.
Not to prove that she had matured.
She simply no longer felt the need to be seen that day.
It was a very small sign, but a very profound one.
Rubedo rarely arrives through dazzling moments.
>> [music] >> It arrives when you can be misunderstood without rushing to explain yourself, when you can receive feedback without [music] collapsing, when you can allow others to disagree with you without experiencing it as rejection, [music] when you can do what is right even when nobody applauds.
What is fascinating [music] is that this transformation does not make you withdraw from others.
Quite the opposite.
You become more open because when you are no longer busy protecting [music] your image, you can truly listen.
You no longer need to turn every conversation into a defense.
You no longer need to win every argument.
You no longer [music] need to prove that you are always right, always good, always intelligent, always in control.
[music] As Rubedo matures within you, the voice inside becomes clearer than the noise outside.
It does not shout.
It does not need to overpower anyone.
It is more like a small lamp in a dark room, bright enough to help you see where you stand.
You can still learn from others, but you no longer hand them the authority to decide who you are.
You can still love others, but you no longer lose yourself to be kept. You can still be praised, recognized, [music] and appreciated, but those things become gifts rather than oxygen.
If you have ever experienced a moment like Emily's, share your story.
It may be that such an experience is one of the quiet signs that Rubedo has already begun to emerge in your life.
Four, sign three, the inner battles end.
Many people do not realize that most of their energy is not drained by what happens outside them, but by the conflicts [music] taking place within.
One part wants to change, while another part is afraid.
One part wants to live honestly with its emotions, while another rushes to judge them.
You want to leave behind something that no longer fits, yet at the same time you fear losing the familiar sense of security it provides.
And so, years pass in a quiet struggle that is rarely [music] called by its true name.
What exhausts you is not the fact that you have conflicting emotions.
What exhausts you is the belief that only one part of you is allowed to exist.
The parts considered strong, kind, or acceptable are welcomed.
While the parts that are vulnerable, angry, fearful, or ashamed are pushed away.
Instead of listening to yourself, you begin fighting against yourself.
You are not only sad, but you criticize yourself for being sad.
You are not only angry, but ashamed of your anger.
>> [music] >> You are not only afraid, but you condemn yourself for not being stronger.
This reflects a psyche that has [music] not yet been fully integrated. The parts of yourself that you reject do not disappear.
They become the shadow, holding everything you once felt compelled to hide to be accepted, loved, or safe.
If anger was seen as dangerous, it was pushed into the shadow.
If your needs were treated as a burden, they were buried.
If love seemed conditional on obedience, the rebellious part of you was locked away.
But what is hidden does not stay silent.
It often returns as overreactions, procrastination, self-sabotage, jealousy, resentment, or an unexplained sense of exhaustion.
What appears to be a lack of discipline may actually be a neglected [music] part of you resisting.
What seems like over sensitivity may be emotions trying to express what has been ignored [music] for too long.
And what feels like an inner contradiction may simply be [music] different parts of your soul asking to be seen.
Rubedo begins [music] when that war is no longer necessary in the way it once was.
Not because all conflict [music] disappears.
Not because you always know exactly what to do.
But because you no longer see the different parts of yourself as enemies.
You begin to sit with yourself the way a mature adult sits [music] among frightened children, not punishing any of them, yet not allowing any of them to tear down the house.
You listen.
You discern.
You understand that each part is trying to protect you in its own way, even if its methods have become outdated [music] and no longer serve you.
You have probably seen the film Logan.
On the surface, Logan is a strong [music] man, nearly invincible, someone who has survived countless battles and losses.
But inside, he is divided by wounds that no physical strength can heal.
He carries the pain of those he has lost, the guilt [music] of what he could not save, his anger toward the world, and the exhaustion of continuing to live. For years, Logan tries to isolate himself from meaningful connection, as though distance from others could protect him from being hurt again.
Yet that very withdrawal becomes its own invisible prison.
Viewed through Jung's lens, Logan's journey is not merely a battle against those [music] pursuing him.
It is a journey of reconciliation with the parts of himself he spent [music] years trying to bury.
If Logan clung only to the image of the unbreakable hero, he would continue denying the very real pain within him.
If he surrendered entirely to his bitterness and suffering, he could be consumed by that darkness.
True transformation emerges only when he accepts that both belong to him.
One part carries countless scars. One part still possesses the capacity to love.
One part wants to run away. One part remains willing to protect others.
One part is exhausted from fighting. And one final part learns that vulnerability is [music] not the opposite of strength.
That is when Logan's inner war begins to come to an end. The same thing happens within you when rubedo emerges.
You stop trying to become a version of yourself made only of light.
You also stop fearing that your darkness defines the entirety of who you are.
You begin to realize that peace [music] does not come from destroying half of yourself, but from returning your scattered parts to their rightful places.
As the inner war softens, your decisions become clearer.
Not because life becomes simpler, but because you are no longer being pulled [music] in 10 different directions at once.
Your intuition also grows stronger.
Because intuition is not some distant mystical force.
More often, it is the deeper voice of a soul that has become quieter.
When your inner world is no longer a room filled with arguments, you begin to hear what you have truly known all along.
Perhaps this is when you begin to understand that the goal is not to become a person without contradictions.
The goal [music] is to become a person spacious enough to hold those contradictions without being torn apart by them.
And when that happens, you no longer [music] need to fight yourself to feel worthy of peace.
You begin to feel peaceful because at last, the parts of you that were once divided have been invited [music] to sit at the same table.
Five, sign four. You accept yourself.
Next, one of the greatest achievements of psychological maturity >> [music] >> is the ability to look directly at the parts of yourself you once tried to hide. Not to condemn yourself, not to prove [music] that you are flawed or inadequate, but to look with a depth of honesty profound enough that at last you no longer need to run from yourself. For much of your life, >> [music] >> you may have tried to be a good person.
Good in the eyes of your family.
>> [music] >> Good in the eyes of society. Good in the eyes of your partner.
Good in the eyes of your colleagues.
You wanted to be kind, calm, generous, self-controlled, [music] unselfish, free from envy, free from pettiness, free from [music] weakness.
And because you wanted to be loved, you learned to push those less appealing parts of yourself deep [music] below the surface. But what is pushed down does not disappear.
It simply changes its place of residence.
Jung called this part the shadow. You may encounter your shadow when you become disproportionately angry over something small. When you feel envy toward a friend's [music] success, but force yourself to smile as though nothing is wrong. When you insist that you do not need anyone, while in truth you are only afraid of rejection.
[music] When you try to appear generous, yet quietly [music] carry resentment because you are always expected to be the understanding one.
Moments like these do not [music] make you a bad person.
They simply reveal that there are parts of you waiting to be seen.
Rubedo emerges when you no longer need to construct a perfect image [music] to feel worthy.
You begin to acknowledge that you can be kind and still have moments of selfishness.
You can love someone deeply and still experience jealousy.
You can be mature and still feel afraid.
You may have healed many things and still carry wounds that have not yet fallen completely silent.
These truths no longer shatter you the way they once did because you no longer mistake one difficult aspect of yourself for the entirety of who you are.
While accompanying my younger brother during a hospital stay, I met Mia, a nurse working the night shift in Phoenix.
She seemed strong, caring, and always ready to help others.
Most people knew her as the one who solved everyone else's problems.
One evening, I found her sitting alone in the hospital courtyard, quietly eating a vending machine salad with tears in her eyes.
There was no major crisis.
She had simply realized how angry she felt.
Angry at demanding patients.
Angry at co-workers who constantly asked for favors.
Angry at herself for never truly saying no.
What troubled her most was the thought, "If I feel this much anger, does that mean I'm not as good as people think I am?"
For years, Mia had built her identity [music] around being the person who always takes care of others.
But that night, she saw the cost [music] of that role.
She was not only exhausted from doing too much, she was exhausted from pretending [music] she never felt resentment.
A few weeks later, a co-worker asked her to switch shifts on her only day off that month.
Mia paused, then simply replied that she couldn't.
She did not over-explain [music] or apologize.
To her surprise, the co-worker responded, "No worries. I'll ask someone else."
As she looked at her phone, Mia felt a quiet sense of relief.
She had not become selfish.
She had simply stopped betraying herself to preserve an image that no longer felt true.
This is self-acceptance in its deepest sense.
It is not saying, "That's just how I am.
Take it or leave [music] it."
That is not maturity.
It is merely another form of defense.
True acceptance is when you can face the truth about [music] yourself without running from it.
Yet, also without using [music] it as an excuse to harm others.
The paradox is that the more you accept your darker parts, the less power they have over you.
When you deny your anger, it often leaks out through sarcasm, coldness, or sudden outbursts.
When you acknowledge it, you can listen to its message before it becomes a weapon.
When you deny your jealousy, it may turn into judgment.
When you acknowledge it, it may reveal something you deeply desire, but have not yet permitted yourself to pursue.
Rubedo does not make you a person without darkness.
It makes you a person who is no longer afraid of being discovered.
And when you no longer live in fear of being [music] discovered, a very quiet kind of freedom begins to emerge.
You do not need to edit [music] every expression.
You do not need to hide every crack.
You do not need to transform yourself into a more [music] acceptable version to remain loved, included, or welcomed.
Peace does not come from ensuring that others see only the beautiful parts of you.
Peace comes from being able to see your whole self >> [music] >> without turning away.
And if this sign has touched something within you, stay with it because the fifth sign will lead us into an even subtler transformation where you begin to realize that the very thing that once pulled you furthest [music] away from yourself may also be the doorway that guides you home.
Six, sign five. Your emotions no longer control you.
In the past, you may have been swept away by your emotions without even realizing it.
When you were angry, you did not simply feel anger, you became that anger.
When you were sad, >> [music] >> you did not simply experience sadness.
You began to see your entire life through the lens of that sadness.
When you were afraid, you did not merely carry fear within you.
You handed it the steering wheel and allowed it to decide [music] what you should say, what you should avoid, whom you should trust, and which opportunities you should abandon. This does not mean you were weak.
It simply means that there were emotions within you that had been present for so long without ever [music] being properly heard.
They were like guests who had been knocking on your door [music] for years, but because you feared the sound of the knocking, you kept turning up the music to avoid listening.
Then one day, they stopped [music] knocking.
They began pounding on the door.
In rubedo, your relationship with emotion begins to change. You still grieve when you experience loss.
You still feel anger when you are hurt.
You still feel anxiety in the face of uncertainty.
You do not become so calm that you are emotionally numb, but a new space [music] begins to appear between you and your emotions.
You can see anger rising within you [music] without immediately turning it into sharp words.
You can feel fear tightening your chest >> [music] >> without allowing it to decide your entire future.
You can watch sadness enter the room of your inner life without rushing to force it out.
This is a profound shift because in the past you may have believed that maturity meant controlling your emotions perfectly.
Yet, the more you tried to control them the more they found ways to return in different forms.
Suppressed anger may become coldness.
Denied sadness may become exhaustion.
Rejected fear may become the need to control everything.
Jung did not see emotions as psychological waste that needed to be eliminated.
>> [music] >> He saw them as doorways into the unconscious.
Put simply the unconscious is the part of you that continues operating even when you are unaware of it.
Your memories, wounds, desires, fears, and old patterns.
Emotions are often the way the unconscious knocks [music] on the door of consciousness.
They do not always speak in clear words.
Sometimes they speak through [music] tension in your throat. Through an anger that feels disproportionately large compared to the situation.
Through the urge to run away [music] or through a sadness that arrives at the end of the day even when everything outwardly seems fine. You can see this in the story of Johnny Cash.
He was a legendary American singer-songwriter who spent many years living between extraordinary success and deeply painful inner struggles.
Behind the powerful image he projected on stage was a man who wrestled with addiction, guilt, loss, and shadows he did not know how to face.
Rather than being defeated by those struggles, Johnny Cash gradually learned to stop running from his emotions.
Instead of hiding them, he poured them into his music. He transformed pain into song, inner conflict into honesty, and his most personal experiences into something that could touch millions of people.
That journey was not about eliminating darkness, but about learning how to face it.
Emotions were no longer something to be buried or controlled at all costs.
They became messages that helped him understand himself more deeply.
The pain did not disappear, but it no longer controlled his life from the unconscious.
The same thing happens within you when rubedo begins to emerge. You stop asking, "How can I stop feeling this?"
Instead, you begin asking, "What is this emotion trying to tell me?" That is a very different question.
It does not turn you into a victim of your emotions, nor does it turn you into someone who must suppress them.
It places you in the role of a person who knows how to listen. Anger is much the same.
It is not always something negative.
Often, it reveals that one of your boundaries has been crossed or that something has been wrong for a long time.
But if anger takes control, you may end up harming the very thing you are trying to [music] protect. When you learn to listen to it rather than be carried away by it, anger can become a source of strength that helps you [music] establish clearer and healthier boundaries.
Sadness is not the enemy either.
It often shows you what truly matters to your heart.
You grieve [music] because something has been lost, because a love has changed, because a dream no longer fits who you [music] are becoming, or because a former version of yourself has passed into the past.
If you rush to push sadness away, you may miss [music] its deeper message that your heart has loved, hoped, and formed meaningful attachments with great sincerity.
Sadness is not the enemy either.
Sadness often reveals what matters.
You grieve because something meaningful has been lost.
After all, a love is no longer what it once was.
After all, a former version of yourself has passed away, or because a dream that once felt real no longer fits who you are becoming.
If you rush to push sadness away, you may also miss its message that your heart once cared deeply, hoped deeply, and formed genuine attachments.
When emotions no longer control you, life does not become flat or emotionless.
It becomes clearer.
You begin to realize that you are something larger than any single emotional state, like the vast ocean that can hold anger, sorrow, fear, love, >> [music] >> hope, and disappointment without being defined by any [music] one of them. And perhaps, when you stop seeing emotions as enemies, you begin to realize that they were never here to destroy you.
They came to guide you [music] back to the deeper parts of yourself.
Seven, sign six. You choose wholeness over perfection.
This is perhaps the clearest sign of rubedo and also the point at which the entire inner journey begins [music] to reach maturity.
You no longer choose perfection.
You choose wholeness.
It sounds simple, but to arrive at this realization, many people must pass through years of striving, disappointment, self-correction, self-criticism, and ultimately the understanding that they were never born to become a flawless product. They were born to become a real human being. For much of your life, you may have been taught that you needed to become better, study better, work better, communicate better, love more correctly, live more healthily, become more successful, more composed, more healed.
Even on the path of personal growth, you may have quietly turned yourself into a project that constantly needs fixing.
You looked at your fears as flaws to be erased.
You saw your vulnerability as a [music] weakness to conceal.
You viewed your past as a stain that needed to be scrubbed [music] away.
You treated difficult days as proof that you still had not matured enough. But rubedo brings a very different realization.
You begin to understand that the deepest purpose of life is not to become a perfect version of yourself, but to become a whole one.
Perfection seeks to eliminate what is difficult [music] to look at.
Wholeness learns how to contain it.
Perfection says, "I can only [music] be accepted when I am free of flaws."
Wholeness says, "I can see my flaws without turning them into my entire identity."
In Jung's view, this reflects the spirit of individuation.
Put simply, >> [music] >> it is the journey of becoming yourself in the deepest sense, not the version most praised by society, nor the image most carefully controlled by the [music] ego.
The ego is the part of you that prefers clarity, order, and recognition.
It wants you to be successful, kind, strong, >> [music] >> stable, and in control.
But the self, the deeper and more complete dimension of your being, does not demand that you appear perfect. It simply invites you to return to the fullness of who you are.
You can imagine this through the image of a handmade clay vessel.
If the vessel were mass-produced in a factory, >> [music] >> every curve might be identical, the surface perfectly smooth, the glaze so even that nothing deviates from the standard. [music] It would be perfect in a technical sense.
But a vessel shaped by human hands is different. There may be a small indentation where the potter pressed too firmly.
The glaze may be darker [music] in one corner.
The base may not be perfectly symmetrical.
To the perfectionist eye, these are flaws.
But looked at more closely, these marks reveal that the vessel has passed [music] through hands, fire, time, and life itself.
Human beings are much the same.
>> [music] >> The dents within you are not necessarily things that need to be erased.
They may simply be the places where life has touched you.
The uneven places within you do not necessarily diminish your worth.
They may be where your story becomes more real.
Rubedo does not transform you into a vessel without marks.
It helps you stop hating the marks that have shaped who you are.
When you stop trying to become a perfect version of yourself, you begin to understand more deeply the meaning of these words.
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
And to do that, you cannot keep only the bright, lovable, socially acceptable parts.
You must learn to look at the darkness, the failures, the vulnerability, and the desires you were once afraid to name.
Wholeness means you can be strong and still need support.
You can be independent and still long to be loved. You can be kind and still experience anger.
You can be mature and still react at times like a wounded child.
You can be successful and still have days when you feel lost.
You can have traveled far along the path of healing and still find yourself revisiting old patterns.
This does not mean you have failed.
It simply means you are human.
Perhaps in the past, every time you noticed an imperfect part of yourself, your immediate [music] thought was, "I need to fix this."
But when rubedo appears, the question inside you becomes gentler.
You no longer ask, "How do I get rid of this part?"
You begin asking, "What is this part trying to help me understand?"
Vulnerability may [music] be reminding you to rest.
Anger may be pointing toward a boundary that has been crossed.
Jealousy may [music] be revealing a neglected longing. Fear may be protecting an old wound that has not yet been comforted.
When you choose wholeness, you are not giving up.
You still take responsibility for your [music] actions.
You still apologize when you hurt others.
You still learn, change, and grow.
But, you no longer grow from self-hatred. [music] You no longer need to strike yourself with shame to force yourself forward.
Growth begins to feel more like a homecoming than a battle. [music] This is why rubedo brings a very different kind of peace.
Not peace because everything has been resolved, but peace because you no longer divide yourself into parts that are allowed to exist and parts that must be exiled.
You no longer try to become someone else to be loved.
You no longer wait until you are perfect before allowing yourself to live [music] fully.
Rubedo is the natural result of a deeply human journey.
The journey of daring to face yourself, healing old wounds, and reconciling with the parts of your soul that were once rejected. And perhaps the greatest lesson of this stage is something that many people spend [music] their entire lives searching for.
Awakening is not about rising above your humanity, but about finally learning how to live fully within it.
Before you leave, [music] I would love to know, among all the signs we have explored, how many do you recognize in your own life right now?
I would be deeply grateful to hear your story.
And perhaps your experience may become a light for someone else who is finding their way back to themselves.
Take a moment to click like to support the channel.
Share this video with anyone who may be moving through similar inner transformations because they too may be searching for a language to name what they have been experiencing.
>> [music] >> And don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications so you can continue this journey with us in future videos.
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