u/IntergalacticPodcast

• Just to be clear (there may have been some confusion) this wouldn't be a live audience, but the listenership of the program.

I'm hoping to have a conversation with someone knowledgeable about Carl Jung and Jungian psychology for an interview.

I'd like to approach it from the ground up, who Jung was, the basic ideas behind his psychology, and what Jungian psychology actually means today for an audience that may be completely unfamiliar with his work.

I'm particularly interested in having someone who can explain the concepts in an accessible way rather than assuming the audience already knows the terminology.

I generally have Tuesdays and late Sunday evenings available for recording. I'm also open to having two knowledgeable people join the conversation if that would make for an interesting discussion.

If you're interested, feel free to comment or send me a message. I'm happy to provide more details about the project.

I could see my breath in my first car because it got so cold. These days, I live in the desert, and it takes 10 minutes of the car running just to not be miserable.

TL;DR: I found that one way to figure out who you are and what you actually want is to force yourself to listen to your own thoughts.

Journal honestly. Record yourself reading what you wrote. Listen to the recording as if you're listening to another person. Repeat it consistently for a few months.

You'll start hearing patterns; complaints, excuses, things you say you want but aren't pursuing, and things you blame on other people.

It can be uncomfortable because you eventually have to confront yourself. But once you can honestly say, “Yep, that's me,” you can decide whether you're willing to keep living that way.

For me, that realization led to actually changing things I'd been putting off instead of continuing to complain about them.

If you need to know who you are, look inward.

.................................................

I think I accidentally figured out a way to see oneself more clearly. A few years ago, during the pandemic, I started realizing how much I was complaining. Same problems. Same frustrations. Same conversations in my head.

And the annoying part wasn't necessarily that the things I was complaining about weren't real. Some of them were. It was that I kept complaining about them without changing anything.

Eventually I got pretty annoyed with myself. I had become comfortable. Too comfortable, probably. I'd gotten into this pattern of staying places longer than I intended to because I liked the people, or because it was familiar, or because moving on felt like a hassle.

I'd always tell myself I'd do something different eventually. Sometimes eventually never comes. The pandemic basically forced me to look at my life and realize that if I didn't start making some changes, I was probably going to keep doing the same thing for years. I'd probably die doing never having done them.

So I started journaling, but then I added something else.... I recorded myself reading what I'd written and I listened to the recordings.

That's it.

Write.

Record.

Listen.

I kept doing it and I started hearing myself talking as if I was listening to another person. Somehow, it's different when you actually hear yourself say something.

When a person is journaling, they can write, "I'm frustrated because ____," and move on, but when you hear your own voice saying it, and then hear yourself say basically the same thing again three days later, and again the next week, you start noticing patterns. You hear how often you complain. You hear the excuses. You hear the things you blame on other people. You hear the things you say you want but aren't actually doing anything to get. You hear the things you're afraid to admit you want.

I did it.

There were things I heard myself saying that made me think, "Wow. If somebody else talked like this, I'd be annoyed with them too."

That was uncomfortable, but it was also useful.

Because there is a big difference between knowing intellectually that you have faults and actually hearing yourself demonstrate them.

It's very easy to recognize somebody else's hypocrisy. It's very easy to tell someone else that they're making excuses. It's very easy to see that someone else is unhappy because they refuse to change anything.

Then you hear yourself doing the exact same thing, and suddenly you find yourself throwing rocks at your own glass house. There isn't anybody else to blame. That's the interesting part.

Looking inward is a confrontation.

Maybe that's what people mean when they talk about confronting the "shadow." I've gotten more interested in Jung because of this, although I'm not sure I need Jungian terminology to explain what happened.

You have to confront yourself. Your past self, your current self, the person you thought you'd become, the person you still want to become.

Your fears.

Your excuses.

Your expectations.

Your disappointments.

And sometimes the person you hear on that recording isn't somebody you particularly like. That's scary, but I think there's something on the other side of that.

Once you accept that it's you, you can ask a much more useful question:

"Am I going to keep doing this?"

Because wanting to change and actually changing are two very different things.

I eventually started acting on some of the things I had been complaining about. I moved, I changed my circumstances, I did things I'd been putting off.

I moved to Florida because I'd always wanted to live by the beach, then I moved to Utah because I'd always wanted to live in the mountains.

Those weren't necessarily easy decisions, especially leaving family behind. But I realized that I had spent a lot of time waiting for the right moment, the right circumstances, or sometimes even for someone else to make the first move.

Eventually I realized nobody was coming and that it was up to me.

And that experience taught me something else. I think a lot of us are more capable of changing our lives than we realize. The hardest part may not be the change itself. It may be admitting that you want something different.

So I've started journaling again recently.

Not because I think I have myself completely figured out. It's actually quite the opposite. I'm trying to figure out what's next. Where I'm stuck. Where I'm making excuses. Where I'm telling myself I'm helpless when maybe I'm not.

That's why I've been thinking about this so much lately, and also, a few times I've shared the process with people here and they said that they'd never considered it, but here it goes...

If you're curious, try it. Don't overthink it. Get a journal and write honestly, then record yourself reading it.

Listen to yourself. I did this a month at a time and repeated for 3 months.

You might hear some things you don't like. Don't immediately explain them away.

Just listen... You might discover that the person you've been complaining about is actually yourself. And you might discover that you've been waiting for permission to change something that was yours to change all along.

I don't know if this will work for everyone, but honestly, what do you have to lose by trying?

If you need to know who you are, look inward.

I grew up near a small town that felt really limiting. There wasn't much to do there, and I left almost immediately after high school because I wanted adventure and to see what else was out there.

Leaving was probably the right thing for me. I've experienced a lot of things my teenage self only ever imagined was possible, and I've built a life somewhere else, so I don't actually regret leaving, but lately I've been thinking about how much I still want that place to be better. Not necessarily because I want to go back and live there. I don't think I can. I've built a life elsewhere, and "home" is kind of a foreign place to me now.

It's more that I wish my hometown had been the kind of place where my teenage self could have thought "This place is actually pretty great. I might still leave someday, but I'd love to come back after my great adventure."

Sometimes I fantasize about winning the lottery and going back and fixing up the downtown. Nice buildings, places to walk around, indoor mini golf, coffee, ice cream, pizza... just some cool places to hang out. I wouldn't even want my name attached to it. I'd just want people to walk in and think, "Yay, there's actually something neat to do here."

I think some of this is anger. Those people let the town die. But I also know that's not really fair, and I don't even know if I'd even like most of the people there anymore. Maybe I'm just trying to nourish my child-self a little. Give him the place he wished he'd had.

I don't know. It just feels strange to have escaped somewhere, built a life I love, and still wish I could somehow make the place I escaped from better.

I'm not defending billionaires. I'm pointing out that outrage culture seems to constantly need a new villain, and right now billionaires are the latest target.

I have a theory that it's important to keep listening to new music as you get older, not because today's music is necessarily better, but because it gives your brain new timestamps.

Everyone has songs that instantly transport them back to high school, college, a first relationship, or a specific summer. Those songs became markers for a period of your life.

The problem is that a lot of adults stop discovering new music and just replay the soundtrack of their teens and twenties. It's comforting, but I wonder if it comes at a cost?

If you never build a new soundtrack, what songs will instantly take you back to 2023? Or 2024? Or 2025? Without realizing it, you're missing the opportunity to create new nostalgic anchors for different chapters of your life.

I think continuing to discover new music isn't just about staying current; it's about giving your future self a way to vividly remember the present.

Trying to find some decent looking PDFs to hang on my wall for my favorite teams.

Not sure why I'm struggling to find a decent one, but if anyone could help, I'd be grateful.

It's been years since I last asked women out, but messaging another podcaster (like myself) or youtuber guest who has 37 total views somehow unlocks the exact same soul-crushing humility. It's like my brain goes, "Ah yes, I remember this emotional state." Suddenly I'm 22 again, convincing myself that "Hey, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" wasn't just a slogan invented by people who'd never felt this humiliation before.

In BOTH cases, I was doing MUCH better when I was letting them come to me haha.

Mostly just joking, because I've had some really awesome guests lately, but still... it burns.

I went to a concert recently, and the singer thanked the audience for continuing to support live music. It made me wonder whether the art form is facing some kind of decline.

I don't follow music as closely as I did when I was younger, and I don't hear people discussing it nearly as often as I used to. But that might just be because I'm no longer part of the demographic that drives music trends. I honestly have no idea what younger people are listening to or how they engage with it.

So I'm curious: are young people still going out to see live performances at the same rate they used to, or has the shift toward streaming, social media, and online experiences changed the way people connect with music? And if so, is live music actually suffering, or is it simply evolving into something different?

I was thinking tonight about some of the viral sensations from the early days of YouTube and wondering where they are today.

If you could hear the backstory or a "where are they now?" type interview with someone who briefly captured the internet's attention before fading from people's hearts and minds, who would you choose?

For some background, I sort of discovered a lot of what Jung teaches on my own. When I later tried to figure out what it was, I was pointed in this direction.

Without going into too much detail, it was a wild adventure that led me here. But when I listen to most Jungian lectures or podcasts, I don't feel that same sense of adventure. There are a couple of people who talk about it in a way that makes it come alive, but they're the exception. I've also seen these ideas expressed through music, TV, and art, and those mediums feel much closer to what I experienced.

There have been a handful of speakers who do a good job of describing it in a way that resonates with my own experience, but for the most part I struggle to relate to what I hear and read.

Has anyone else found Jung through their own experiences before ever reading him? If so, what was that like?

Why does so much Jungian content feel so different from the experience that led many people to Jung in the first place?

Am I alone in feeling this disconnect, or have others experienced it too?

Who do you think does a great job of capturing the spirit of Jung's ideas?

I can't remember where I saw it, but I'm pretty sure that there is a podcast ad swap somewhere here on Reddit.

I'm considering doing this soon.

If you were to make an ad for your podcast, how long would it be, what would it consist of, and why?

I bet if I were Mexican, I could suggest tacos for dinner without hearing, "Really? Mexican food again?"

I could eat tacos every single day.

They'll explain why they hate their job, their relationship, their location, or their life in general. Then someone suggests a change, and suddenly every reason why change is impossible appears.

I understand that real responsibilities exist. Kids, health, finances, family obligations and those things matter. But those are not the situations I'm talking about.

I'm talking about people who are unhappy but refuse to take even a chance at something different because they're afraid it might fail.

But here's the thing: if your current life is misery, what exactly are you afraid of losing?

People treat change like the risky option. They imagine everything that could go wrong. They never imagine what could go right.

A life reboot is scary, but it also has something your current situation may not have; hope.

You can always go back. You can adjust. You can try something else. But staying in a life you hate and hoping it magically improves isn't a plan.

At some point, you have to ask yourself: if nothing changes, where will you be five years from now?

If the answer is "still miserable," then maybe the bigger risk isn't leaving.

Maybe the bigger risk is staying.