Every part of you is mirroring your soul. Allow your heart to tell…
What guides us?
As long as I can remember I have been fascinated by the mystery: Why are we here and what guides us?
In high school I was enchanted by psychology. Freud, Erikson, Pavlov and such opened a new world for me and awakened a thirst for knowledge. I wasn’t confident enough to apply to study psychology in the Helsinki University, so I headed to study psychiatric nursing. I loved basketball and the labyrinths of the mind, so I grew to be a therapist in a warm work environment with my clients as my teachers.
I read and read and even so there was a voice inside my head: “Annika, this is not all.” As I left playing basketball at 30, the deep spiritual questions arose in a new way through learning theosophy, chakra systems, spirit guides, reincarnation. These were my spare time activities in search of missing pieces. It was as if living on two floors: during the day on the floor of Western psychiatry and in the evenings on the enchantment of the Orient.
Dare to find yourself… You are so much more than you can imagine!
Dreams, thoughts…
You must know the feeling when something finds you, literally jumps at you. This is what happened to me in the spring of 2012 in a used bookstore in Lappeenranta, when in the middle of many books, Carl Gustav Jung’s autobiography fell into my hands. I read the book and I knew I had found what I was looking for. I found a teacher, who already during his time (1875-1961) wanted to find a wider understanding between the teachings of East and West. A teacher who understood the deeper meaning of dreams and the ancient effects of the collective unconsciousness. A teacher who saw how spirituality was a built-in human faculty and who welcomed creativity into the inner work. A teacher who believed that we do “not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
Inner calling
I just couldn’t resist this inner call. Following it I have graduated as a Jungian psychoanalyst from ISAP in Zürich (International School of Analytical Psychology). Through miracles, courage, trust and hard work the pieces fell into place. As is obligatory for any growth, it has not always been easy and not without sacrifices, but the journey has rewarded me with a deeper understanding of myself and of humanity. And the journey continues.
Jung tells a story how a “normal” student came to him and wanted to be an analyst. Jung said to him: “”Do you know what that means? It means that you must first learn to know yourself. You yourself are the instrument. If you are not right, how can the patient be made right? If you are not convinced, how can you convince him? You yourself must be the real stuff.”
