In Giving We receive - a practice that breaks our persona

Every act of obedience recognizes that there is a higher authority in our lives.. that there is Lord over us who is entitled to honor and respect 
Photo by tony fortunato on Unsplash

Carl Jung,   the Swish psychiatrist defines the word persona as

a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definitive impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual.

To be in the highly demanding social atmosphere we often try hard  to develop a viable social persona, knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously: a flexible persona relates to the outside world, in identification with our professional presence which inhibits psychological development. A professor identifies himself with textbooks, a state minister thinks her/his state as her/his own political party, a factory manager draws her/his all attention towards her/his organizations budgetary obligations, so on so forth. Thus Jung argues in his book 

^Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London 1983) p 416. 

The result could be

the shallow, brittle, conformist kind of personality which is 'all persona', with its excessive concern for 'what people think'.

 ^Anthony Stevens - On Jung (London 1990) p 43

- an deflective state of mind

in which people are utterly unconscious of any distinction between themselves and the world in which they live. They have little or no concept of themselves as beings distinct from what society expects of them.

  ^ Terence Dawson in P Young- Eisendrath and T Dawson , The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge 1977) p 267,

The stage was set thereby for what Jung termed enantiodromia - the emergence of  repressed individuality from beneath the persona later in life.

the individual will either be completely smothered under an empty persona or an enantiodromia into the buried opposites will occur.

 ^ Barbara Hannah Striving towards Wholeness (Boston 1988)  p 263

Enantiodromia

It is a principle defined by Jung that the super abundance of any force inevitably produces its opposite. It is similar to the principle of equilibrium in the natural world, in that any extreme is opposed by the system in order to restore balance. When things get to their extreme. they turn into their opposite. In the repression of psychic forces that are there by cathected into something powerful and threatening. This is in the line of Yin-Yang of Taoism.

 PC Angelo Benuzzi- The Ourobos in the State

In particular, Jung used the term to refer to the unconscious acting against the wishes of the conscious mind, updating the Greek concept akrasia in modern psychological terms. (^Aspects of the Masculine chapter 7 para 294) .

Enantiodromia. literally 'running counter to' referring to the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course time. The characteristic phenomenon practically always occurs when an extreme, one-sided tendency dominates conscious life. In time equally powerful counter-position is build up, which first inhibits the conscious performance and subsequently breaks through the conscious control.

(^"Definitions" ibid, par, 709)

Enantiodromia is typically experienced in conjunction with symptoms associated with acute neurosis and often foreshadows a rebirth of the personality.

The grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia and what good may very possible lead to evil.

(^The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy tales, Collected Works 9i par 397 )

Now 'In Giving We Receive' - How it helps to overcome the paradox of  persona ?   

Referring Bible; Luke 6:38 ESV 454 

Give and it will be given to you. Good measure , pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it, will be measured back to you.

Few more times 'giving and receiving' are referred in the Bible 

PC 4catholiceducators.com

Every act of obedience recognizes that there is a higher authority in our lives.. that there is Lord over us who is entitled to honor and respect. Due to our temperament, personality or circumstances. we may find some commands relatively easy to obey. Our submission is really tested in the areas where our own nature and situation make obedience more difficult. For most of us money is one of those areas. Our wallet is often the last citadel to fall to God's rule and even when it does fall, it gets rebuilt and re-secured again all too quickly. If only we could remember that Divine Lordship is not a threat; rather it's the place of  greatest safety.

In a video of Innana Sarkis, the philosophy of 'in giving we receive', is beautifully illustrated.

    

Final Thought

Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and indifference toward the wicked.

Patanjali Yoga Aphorism I 33

If we meet someone who is happy in her/his way of life, we are inclined to envy her/him and be jealous to her/his success. We must learn to rejoice in it, as we take pleasure in the happiness of a friend. If someone is unhappy, we should feel for her/him, instead of despising her/him or criticizing her/him for bringing misfortunes upon herself/himself. The virtue of others is apt to irritate us, because we take it as a reflection upon our own shortcomings. We are tempted to sneer at it and suggest that it is only hypocrisy. On the contrary we should delight in it and see it as an inspiration to ourselves to do better. As for the wicked, we must remember Christ's words :

Be not overcome of evil

If someone harms us or hate us, our first instinct is to answer her/him with hatred and injury. We may succeed in injuring her/him, but we shall be injuring ourselves much more, and our hatred will throw our own minds into confusion. So we must practice indifference toward the hurts we receive from others. We must go behind the wickedness of the wicked and try to understand what makes them treat us in that way. Very often we shall discover that we ourselves are partly to blame for their attitude.

Not to further complicate the discussion, we find that every act of giving weakens and even breaks our sinful and selfish nature, the more blissful grace spreads in our hearts. Yes money or kind leaves our pockets, but also sin leaves our hearts. That is a great deal, priceless actually.

Our proper approach toward our fellow human beings is summed up in one of the first of monastic vows:

The bees seek honey. I will shun the habit of the flies and follow that of the bees. I will refrain from finding faults in others and look only for the good. which is in them.

That is a vow which we should all take and try to live up to.