Who Am I? and What Am I?
Hello and welcome to this month’s blog. These blogs offer strategies and tools that you can use between counselling sessions, after counselling (like doing maintenance on a car), or simply to help you stay up to date with the latest developments in Story Image Therapy (SIT)®.
What does it mean to live our lives as Jungian inquiry? It means that every day we need to ask ourselves questions in consultation with ourselves, and the wisdom of our ancestors. That is, spending time becoming more conscious of what’s in our unconscious.
To help people to go deeper during SIT, I often refer to something my father taught me. He said that people need to know NOT JUST WHO THEY ARE, BUT ALSO WHAT THEY ARE.
The “Who Am I?” questions are fairly easy to answer. They are things we consciously know about ourselves—like our age, qualifications, or what we do for a living.
The “What Am I?” questions require deeper thinking. To answer these, we generally need time to “sit” and reflect (that is why I call my therapy “sit” for short… as in to sit and pause for reflection). For example, you might:
- Write a story about your life in the third person, asking yourself the Who Am I? and What Am I? questions.
- You might imagine yourself as an observer—like watching a movie about yourself as the main character. You then ask the character the following Who Am I? and What am I? questions.
- You might draw a picture of yourself, then write the story of what you observed based on:
| Who Am I? (Ego) | What Am I? (Personal Unconscious) |
| My name is…? | What do I stand for, represent or believe in? |
| I live in…? | What do I appreciate the most about my life? |
| I earn an income by…? | What is my passion and purpose? |
| My relationship status is…? | What am I willing to give to get my needs met? |
| In my spare time, I like to…? | What am I willing to take in order to help others? |
| The colour I love the most is…? | What did my ancestors do when they had difficulty in life? |
| My favourite food is…? | What do I value as important in life? |
| The music that makes me happy is…? | What situations, people, circumstances or events can I learn from in the past, to help me in the present? |
| When I feel stressed, I usually…? | What if I told myself a new story? What would it be? |
| My hobbies are….? | What do I see when I look in the mirror? Is this a reflection of my ancestors and in what ways? |
I have written more about this method in my soon-to-be published book entitled The Magic of Jung. The focus is on adolescent healing through SIT—how you can help young people to become more resilient, or how we as adults can heal our adolescent wounds. The Magic of Jung is due to be published later this year by Feather Knight Books. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, enjoy your everyday Mythic Moments. Like the ancient Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers would say, live each day as if it was your last. Your life will be so much the richer for it.
Cheers, Dr Toula