To find yourself is a journey. People want to search for their true self in the midst of the dark recesses of their mind. They don’t understand who they are, and they are on a quest of self. This is the essence of the battling the ego.
They key to finding yourself is understanding your shadow. In Jungian psychology, the shadow is the cesspool of your soul’s darkness. It’s where all your dormant evils reside. That doesn’t mean that you harbor evil inside of you, it just means you can tap into the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is the term used by Carl Jung to describe the cesspool of humanity. It can be good…and it can be bad. Sometimes you see things that you don’t want to see there.
Similarly, we all have our own vices. We sometimes don’t know how to control them. Other times we brave the beasts within ourselves. Nevertheless, these are the things that make up who we are.
Or do they?
Is it not possible that those things that are evil within us are what make us lose ourselves? Maybe they cause us to lose our personality to the point we don’t know who we are anymore. We keep trying to find ourselves, and many people try to find that through their vices. This may be through drugs, alcohol, money, sex, gambling; you name it. But those things don’t complete us; they make us lose ourselves further.
What’s the key to finding yourself then? It’s called synergy. Synergy is the collective combination of two forces acting as one. Now, one might think this means accepting your evils. No, you’re close though. There’s a part of human evil that is necessary in order to be. It’s not the acceptance of evil that makes us who we are…nor is it the denial…there is only one answer to combine two to make who you are.
That missing piece of the puzzle is remorse. Feeling remorse for the evils is where the answer lies. It’s that part of you that feels regret for what you have done that completes your being. Because Allah (God in Arabic) loves those who turn to Him and repent!
“Surely, Allah loves those people who constantly repent to Him (do Tawbah to Him).” (Qu’ran 2:222)
It’s not the combination of your shadow with yourself that makes you complete, it’s the combination of your remorsefulness with goodness that makes you complete! Remember, multiplying a negative with a positive makes a negative, but multiplying a positive with a positive always makes a positive!
To regret your mistakes is not a sign of weakness…and yet it is. It shows you how weak you are before your Lord, but Allah loves that. Because we are his slaves! We were created by Him, and we should worship Him as He should be worshiped! Simultaneously, we become powerful by admitting our faults, because we realize we shouldn’t have done that, and we don’t give into our vices. We hate it, and thus we gain love and respect.
Do you know how much Allah loves repentance? He loves it so much that he would rather wipe out a people because of them being sinless because how good they were just so that they would repent, than let them remain.
“I swear by the One in whose hand is my soul! If you did not commit sins, Allah would have surely gotten rid of all of you, and He would have surely brought another people who would commit sins – so that they would then seek Allah’s forgiveness (for their sins) & so He would forgive them.” –Prophet Muhammad (SWS)
Synergy is the easy access to your greater power by repentance. It’s admittance to your faults and thus gaining power. Because repentance means forgiveness and forgiveness means goodness and goodness means a heavier scale on the day of judgement.
We’re not perfect. So that’s why we need to synergize ourselves with our admittance to our faults by repentance and our already goodness. We can’t accept evil by any way, shape, or form, but we also have to realize our mistakes and admit to them. Otherwise, we would be in the category of those who are arrogant.
Why don't you return to Allah and ask Him to forgive you. Allah is Forgiving, and Merciful. (5: 74)
Try to keep conscious of your mistakes and weep because of the major ones. Abstain from evil as much as you can, and don’t despair of Allah’s mercy, knowing that if you are to take another wrong step, He will forgive you should you turn to Him yet again.
“Guard your tongue, stay in your homes and weep over your sins.” –Prophet Muhammad (SWS)
Finding yourself is a journey. But once you repent and truly believe in it, you will attain success. By repenting and realizing Allah’s mercy, you will already have found yourself! It’s not hard; it’s just about trusting in Allah. It is then that you will make the subconscious…conscious.
“Never despair of Allah’s mercy. No one despairs of Allah’s mercy except the unbelieving people.” (Qu’ran 12: 87)