Modern culture often treats collapse as interruption.

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]If you, right now, are going through a period where your life feels unstable, I need you to say this with me. The collapse of stability in your life is sometimes necessary for transformation.

[00:00:09]I'm going to explain why. With psychologist Carl Jung, said we must struggle all the time to consolidate our consciousness and its attitude.

[00:00:15]Basically, the what he's saying is when a good thing has got us somewhere, we want to hold on to it. You basically protect the person you worked really hard to become. But then, Carl Jung turns this upside down. He says that the unavoidable battle with the years leads to stagnation and a desiccation of the soul. So, what does it mean? It means that even the personality that once gave you growth will eventually become rigid.

[00:00:37]Your convictions harden into slogans, ideals become kind of habits, enthusiasm becomes a kind of performance. And when that happens, something in us will begin withdrawing inwards. Carl Jung says, "Life wants to flow into the depths."

[00:00:50]But because that previous life was so stable, we tend to resist it. We cling to old identities, old images, and old ways of understanding ourselves because it feels safer, it feels known. Yet, many mythologies across cultures return to the same motif, that of the nekyia or katabasis, a descent into the underworld. And for Jung, this symbolized something psychologically very real, the descent into the unconscious, what he called the real subterranean life of the psyche. And Jim Hillman notes that this other world exists within us psychologically, but also exists externally, right? We see it in dreams, we see it in psychological movements, but we also see it in life events, like breakups, like grief, like exposure to traumatic events. And we tend to find this difficult. And that might be because our culture generally finds this idea very difficult. James Hillman notes that culturally, we suffer from a loss of relation with death and the underworld. But the general message is Carl Jung believed we must descend sometimes, because sometimes we cannot grow on the surface alone. And from the ego's perspective, this can feel catastrophic, very destabilizing, despair, fragmentation, and psychological disorientation. Terrible by all accounts. And unlike the often talked about dark night of the soul, you fall into a a deeper kind of descent in what's called the Nigredo, the blackening. As James Hillman notes, there is a very real possibility we won't make it out. Descent often does carry a real danger. Now, here's the crucial bit to remember. Jung said, "Every descent is followed by an ascent." Sometimes your psyche demands sacrifice, surrender of a stale identity so something new can emerge. That is ultimately an adventure. These descents can be great, be small, but they are necessary. There are boons, there are treasures, there is wisdom in the underworld. Do not be afraid to take the descent. Consider grounding, relationship, and symbolic containment to help you in that process, but do not be afraid to take it. If you like the video, follow the page, subscribe on YouTube for more videos like this and podcasts with amazing guests every 2 weeks.