What happens when the story that once gave your life meaning stops working?
In Episode 36 of Conversations for the End, I sit down with Jungian analyst and author D. Stephenson Bond to explore personal myth, the movement of psychic energy, and what happens when we find ourselves psychologically outside the stories that once oriented our lives.
Beginning with Carl Jung’s famous confrontation with the question, “What is the myth you live?”, we explore why the collapse of a personal or cultural myth can leave us feeling lost in the wilderness and why that disorientation may also mark the beginning of psychological transformation.
Drawing from his book Living Myth: Personal Meaning as a Way of Life, Steve explains personal myth not as something consciously invented by the ego, but as something that gradually emerges through our relationship with the psyche.
We discuss Jung’s theory of libido and its progression and regression, why psychic energy can suddenly disappear from careers, relationships, identities and ambitions that once felt meaningful, and what it might mean to “follow the lifelines of libido” when this happens.
From there, we explore dreams, active imagination, symbolic consciousness, the relationship between directed and fantasy thinking, and why individuation frequently involves allowing an established identity to be taken apart before something new can emerge.
Finally, we turn from the personal to the cultural. If myths themselves have life cycles, what happens when the dominant myth of a civilisation begins to lose its vitality? And could the myths that eventually reorganise a culture first begin quietly within individual lives?
A conversation about losing orientation, trusting the psyche, following what possesses genuine psychic intensity, and learning to live within myth while knowing that it is myth.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introduction
02:14 What myth is modern man living?
03:06 Jung, Freud and the collapse of a cultural myth
05:51 Jung’s descent and the search for personal myth
07:07 Falling out of myth and entering the wilderness
09:30 Why human beings need myth
11:42 The modern midlife crisis and seeing through the cultural myth
14:48 Depression, anxiety and the loss of orientation
15:35 Living myth and Jung’s theory of libido
18:21 What happens when libido disappears from your life?
19:23 Progression and regression as the tides of psychic energy
20:20 Why psychological disorientation can be necessary for growth
22:59 “Psyche shows the way”
23:08 Dreams, active imagination and the defeat of the ego
25:00 Following the lifelines of libido
28:00 Symbolic resonance, intensity and where psychic energy is moving
29:44 Grief, complexes and being called into the depths
31:17 Being psychologically taken apart and rebuilt
33:47 Why the ego struggles to trust the psyche
34:34 The Self and the limits of conscious control
36:09 Why personal myth is not a life hack
38:13 Personal myth as a lifelong process
39:13 Symbols, rituals and the unfolding of individuation
41:56 Psyche wants to be embodied
42:54 The limits of psychological language
45:05 Why genuine individuation takes time
46:40 Directed thinking vs fantasy thinking
48:00 Play, imagination and symbolic consciousness
51:49 Has modern culture become dominated by directed thinking?
53:52 The life cycle of myth
55:05 The death and renewal of cultural myths
56:41 What myth is trying to emerge now?
58:08 The new myth and Edinger’s unfinished temple
58:55 Where to find D. Stephenson Bond
Find D. Stephenson Bond
Website: dstephensonbond.com
YouTube: D. Stephenson Bond
YouTube: History of Ideas
Books: Search D. Stephenson Bond on Amazon
Instagram: @conversationsfortheend
TikTok: @conversationsfortheend
YouTube: @conversationsfortheend
Spotify: Conversations for the End
Apple Podcasts: Conversations for the End
Title Music: Vines
#CarlJung #JungianPsychology #PersonalMyth #Individuation #depthpsychology
