The Personal Myth II: Why is it important?
"It is extremely important for a person to know his own myth, because that dominates so much of the characteristics of that person. To know his myth, to be conscious of it, means that one can cooperate with that myth, and do the best possible job with it." (Robert A. Johnson, "The Holy Grail," YouTube.)
When Robert A. Johnson says that he is a monk ("The Personal Myth I"), he points out that this does not mean he lacks relationships (he is not literally a monk or a hermit), but that "it gives some idea of what you can expect from me and what you can't expect from me." He dares to say this because he knows what he is and has decided to honor that. He does not intend to strangle his personal myth in order to live up to the expectations of others. If we relate this to the quote above, he is not making a stance against his surroundings but rather an agreement with himself.
We more or less know where we belong and where we do not, but a significant portion of the population strives to perform in places where they do not belong and identifies with the assumed role or convention—"this is how one is supposed to be." Once Johnson, as an adult, realized and began to actualize his myth, he no longer expected himself to be anything other than what he truly was. Through his myth, he finds home, becomes creative, and compensates for his withdrawal through consultations, books, and lectures.
Even if we do not, like Johnson, know our myth, we are still, in any case, living according to some myth—the question is whether it is our own or someone else's. In the seminar "The Personal Myth in Turbulent Times" (YouTube), Jungian analyst and author James Hollis describes how, as children, we pick up our "script" from our family and childhood environment. This script is used to build our understanding of ourselves and our world—how one should be, what applies in this environment, how one should not be. This narrative may serve us well by making us adaptable, even in an environment that does not suit our temperament or typology. It ought to be a provisional, practical solution, however, but it is influenced by archetypes, reinforced by our complexes, solidified over time, and eventually incorporated into our psychological structure as an unconscious, and in relation to our true personality, false identity.
Not only do we have the script or mythology of our family and immediate environment to relate to, but we are also immersed in our specific culture, which, bluntly put, rewards or punishes our unique traits. A person born with the archetypal monk’s drive is forced, for the sake of self-preservation, to manifest an entirely different mythological image, such as that of the hero. He is expected to be rational, outgoing, and ambitious—and must likely be so to succeed in the culture he is part of.
As children, we make our parents’ narrative our own, then that of school, and finally that of working life. By middle age, we risk not only living according to a pattern that is not our own but also, in order to be strong in the role, unconsciously identifying with it. We have lost contact with our "instincts," with our personal myth. This is, as mentioned before and to use Jung's terminology, highly neurotic, for we are in conflict with ourselves. If we are lucky, the question arises: Who am I, really?
But this classic question can actually miss the mark. When we talk about our personal myth, the question of what I am may bring us closer to the core. (Slattery, "The Value of Learning Your Own Myth," YouTube.) For Jung, Faust represents a learned man constantly seeking deeper knowledge and meaning, making a dangerous yet valuable pact with the suspicious "other." But this myth does not mean that Jung is Faust (who), but rather that he is an alchemist of sorts, willing to put himself at stake in his thirst for knowledge (what). However, since the "what" is personified, the archetype acquires a particular, fairly specific dynamic that Jung must relate to and cooperate with. Johnson expresses this point by defining his humble myth as that of a monk or a hermit; that is, not a "who" at all, but entirely a "what" that drives him to live alone with his work and spiritual development.
Understanding one's myth, as these two examples illustrate, can be more or less terrifying. Our ego, our identity, as described above, may be far from the core of the myth. The personal myth may very well challenge us at our foundation; it may even have been something we have avoided in favor of an assumed easier and more appreciated path. But Johnson and Jung are "at home" when they live their respective, perhaps to us repulsive, myths; they live meaningful lives. There are no guarantees that a personal myth is pleasant or in line with the ego’s preferences.
The personal myth is important to understand because it is there, influencing our lives, whether we are aware of it or not. Unconscious content tends to manifest negatively in our lives because it conflicts with the ego. Becoming aware of the personal myth means, as Robert A. Johnson humbly remarked, that one can cooperate with it instead of being in conflict with one’s own nature. A personal myth that we are not conscious of becomes rigid over time and operates compulsively and/or gives rise to negative symptoms. A personal myth that we become aware of, on the other hand, becomes adaptable and flexible, and thus more individualized.
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