Facing Your Soul

Let’s prove Carl Jung wrong

When he accepted the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this week, Robert De Niro made a speech—a call to action for all global citizens to help restore liberty and art to our world amidst times of political upheaval and economic uncertainty. He ended his speech by saying: Vote. Write your congressman. And vote.

I love Robert De Niro, but I think it’s time we all admit: writing your congressman and voting is not enough. Protests are not enough. So what’s the answer?

We have to change. We have to change OURSELVES if we want our world to change.

Gandhi understood this 80 years ago when he wrote:

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.” (1946)

I have learned this to be true over the last three years of working on myself intensely—getting to know myself deeply and spiritually. Focusing on healing ALS, yes—but doing so by changing myself to become the version of me who is already healed.

As I have changed, my world has changed. And I am deeply inspired to help others do the same. Heal. Change.

I know—change is not easy. Well, it is for most life forms other than humans. But despite its inevitability, change for us folks is terrifying.

As Carl Jung said:

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.”

And so that’s what we do. We outsource the change we need to make onto others—and then blame others when they don’t make the change we are to afraid to make in ourselves.

I am oversimplifying, yes, but I know you understand my point. Your world… your life… will change when you change.

When doctors told me there was no known cure for sporadic ALS, I decided to heal myself. I began a journey to figure out how to do that. How to undo whatever I had done that opened the door to dis-ease in the nervous system.

I don’t blame myself for the disease. I was not conscious of the conditions I was creating, nor was I capable of making choices other than the ones I made at the time.

But I knew to save my life, to change my destiny, I would have to change.

Gandhi was certainly not alone. The principle that transformation of the world begins within is a thread that runs through the wisdom of many of history’s most enlightened souls—spiritual, revolutionary, and mystical.

And so on this Memorial Day weekend, I honor my grandfather, Irv Lazar, who served our country in World War II in the South Pacific. Grandpop is over 100 years old and still doing really well.

When I asked him if he was scared to fight in the war at only 18 years old, he responded:

“I was so proud to be American. I would walk by an American flag and tears would run from my eyes. So when my neighbor got drafted —a guy who had a bunch of young kids—I went down to the draft office and enlisted. I took his place.”

Wow… Times have changed, haven’t they?

Now it’s our turn.

Face your soul. The kingdom of heaven is within.

I love you, Grandpop. I love you all.

Aaron