Inner Transformation and Time

“…modern man believes he loses something — time — when he does not do things quickly; and yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains, except kill it…”E. Fromm

Individuals, especially in the northern and western parts of the world, have artificially contracted time. Although they have an enormous amount of information at their disposal, they do not possess the awareness and consciousness needed to understand and use it. This prevents both individual and collective transformation.

One of the archetypes, one of the most offended myths today, is Time: distorted by excessive speed, by constant urgency, and by denial.

The only true Journey we undertake is our life, which includes all the experiences that flow with us day after day.

The phase of our journey that we fear most is old age, which we want to last as long as possible in order to postpone, as much as we can, the death we so dread. Death, when it occurs in old age, arrives when the love around us is no longer perceived; the senses feel the absence of love, and Eros hands us over to Thanatos.

In order to be lived well, old age needs slowness, listening, care, companionship, and respect. It is the senex, the archetype of old age, but we deny it, hide it, and isolate it.

The denial of time produces an offense against another great myth: Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love, to whom we do not allow the journey through old age. Many individuals deny their own bodies the chance to transform, to become marked, furrowed, and to reveal their own history.

Time and space have been so filled that we no longer have enough of either; anxiety and anguish are often our traveling companions.

On the journey of life, when time is respected, if one has the courage to cross unknown spaces, to feel defeated and disoriented, if one accepts the need to slow down or stop, it becomes possible to discover things about oneself that have never been seen or imagined before. Fatigue and fear are encountered, but the most important part of life begins: transformation.

Flour, water, and yeast, once mixed, must wait for the time of rising, and then for the heat and time of baking, in order to be transformed into bread.

The necessary time was required for the initial elements to be transformed into a new product, completely different and complete.

One cannot be in a hurry.

A good wine, too, is the product of a complex transformation that takes place thanks to a careful process of cultivating the grapes, harvesting them, pressing them, fermenting them, and much more.

One only has to know how to look in order to notice how many “journeys” take place around us, and how many symbolic transformations occur when time is respected. Eros is present every time care, competence, and attention are exercised.

The simple metaphors of bread and wine show how the transformative journey produces something that is no longer what it was originally. It is something else.

Clocks.

Not all human beings manage to undergo their own transformation. They settle for a state of moderate well-being and end their lives without ever having stepped off the airplane. Jung says that in the first half of life the human being lives a kind of ride, an adaptation to life: one confronts and competes with friends and peers, forms a new family, and achieves goals at work.

After the age of forty, one of the most important stages begins in the journey of the Hero who lives within every human being. In midlife, the Hero encounters bewilderment: what was once certain and clear is no longer so; the vision of things changes, sometimes it is overturned. One stands before one’s own “dark wood,” and the journey into one’s own hell begins, as Dante’s genius had already described.

The hero must courageously cross valleys and rivers, look into the eyes of the monsters and shadows encountered along the way, and not retreat. Some succeed; others do not. This phase of life is often marked by symptoms of anxiety, anguish, and deep discomfort, which signal the need for inner change.

Hand with birds.

Sometimes analysis accompanies patients on this journey.

For some, therapy may be only a tourist’s journey: they are content to look a little here and there, to feel some improvement in symptoms, a little less anxiety and anguish, and then they interrupt therapy, thinking they have reached the goal.

The transformative journey requires time, courage, and humility.

Heraclitus, in 480 BCE, in his work On the Origin, said:

“No matter how far you go, you will not discover the boundaries of the soul, not even if you travel every path, because the soul unfolds abyssally.”

We can glimpse only some of our inner parts and approach only some of our shadows.

The true traveller is the one who does not make rigid plans, does not rely too much on guidebooks, and does not carry too much money. The true traveler is the one who is willing to experiment, to change itinerary, to struggle, to make unexpected stops, to feel exhausted, and yet to continue the journey, to go beyond.

When do the true journeys in life begin? Unexpectedly: abandonments, unforeseen trials, bereavements, failures, unexpected successes, illnesses, conflicts with others. Sometimes, during such trials, real journeys are undertaken; one moves away from the place of suffering and pain — whether as an escape or in order to avoid it.

At times, solitude and silence are necessary in order to feel oneself, in order not to be distracted. Only in this way is it possible to encounter our shadows, the missing part of ourselves, and draw new energy from it.

Zen says: “Wherever you go, you have already been there.”

Jung states that we already have everything within us. Our going forth leads us in search of the Self, of our wholeness, which is already within us.

Often, painful symptoms inform us that, on the inner journey, we are crossing painful complexes that trap us and of which we must become conscious.

Our ego does not know this. The ego organizes the journey, but the unexpected is always lying in wait.

The black cloud that blocked airports across Europe for days and days caused distress, anger, and fear among passengers, who were forced by events to encounter their limits and their fears. Now they know themselves better.

They lived through an extraordinary experience: we “travel” when we encounter our inner boundaries.

The journey lies in that encounter. Transformation lies in that encounter.

Remembering the past, what happened to us along the stretch of life already traveled, means recognizing it and experiencing it again. This allows us to bring back to ourselves what we had removed or kept very far away, to redraw it, to no longer fear it, and even to hand it over to a present that moves toward the future.

This is the transformation that takes place when we do good work on ourselves. In this way, one can emerge from neurosis, because the present gives space to the past so that it may be experienced again, while simultaneously opening itself to a future time. Thus the psychic process is freed from the repetition of what has been blocked by the past, which represents the mechanism of neurosis.

Path 2.

“…Take the different temporal tensions, speaking metaphorically: the stream, the torrent, the river, the waterfall, the ocean. Their union gives rise to an unrepeatable rhythmic design, which is the author’s feeling of time brought to life, similar to a new organic formation…”

A. Tarkovsky