Quarrels With The Inferior Function – An Intuitive Tale

Today we shall continue the subject of my last post, and explore the inferior function.

This turned out completely different than what I had planned, as I allowed my intuition to come through.

I hope you enjoy this one, it gets very personal.

This was the quote that inspired me: 

The Inferior Function is:

“The ever- bleeding wound of the conscious personality, but through it the unconscious can always come in and so enlarge consciousness and bring forth new experience. As long as you have not developed your other functions, your auxiliary functions, they too will be open doors, so in a person who has only developed one superior function, the two auxiliary functions will operate in the same way and will appear in personifications of the shadow, animus, and anima. It is only when you have succeeded in developing three functions, in locking three of your inner doors, that the problem of the fourth door still remains, for that is the one which is apparently not meant to be locked. There, one has to succumb, one has to suffer defeat, in order to develop further“. (Psychotherapy, Marie Von Franz, p.99)

I had to deal with the ruthless facet of the inferior function since I was very little.

As an introvert guided by intuition, my natural tendency is to build a world of fantasy and completely detach from reality.

In this post, I won’t get into much detail, but let’s just say that the environment I grew up in made me want to be in this fantastical reality even more.

The weird thing about intuition is that it’s guided by the images that come from the unconscious. And these very images are awakened by the external reality.

For a moment, just imagine that every concrete object possesses a correlated subjective unconscious image. And in order for intuition to work properly, you have to suppress your sensation, staying with the images.

Let’s say you’re feeling extreme pain in the middle of your chest. Sensation will focus on the bodily sensations, however, in the background, you might see a heart being pierced by an arrow.

This example might seem very simple, but with intuition, things can get crazy really fast. Sometimes I might be talking with someone, and out of the blue I’ll see the face of a disfigured clown laughing, or a dragon laying an egg. (Like WTF?)

Something very recurrent was seeing animals, and even “feeling” them very near me.

This kind of experience makes you doubt your sanity fairly quickly.

Coming from a Christian background you can imagine how these experiences were interpreted. I even “felt” and saw demons.

With my typology, the outer world doesn’t seem like the real world. It’s weird, and you don’t want to “feel” reality.

So what happens next?

The inferior function rebels against us because it has no place in our life due to our conscious attitude.

Since we’re not relating to it in a healthy manner, it’ll find a way to be seen. And when we try to fight back, things become dark.

In my case, the unconscious wanted me to get in touch with the external reality and my body.

So I developed a sort of hypochondria and was a very sick kid. I was also very fat and had 25kg more than today.

Furthermore, sensation is what makes you adapt to external reality, and this involves being good with time management, knowing how to make money, being consistent, and actually materializing ideas.

And there I was living on my intuitive bubble, lol.

I always find a way to laugh about these things, it really helps when dealing with dark shit.

Anyway…

When dealing with the inferior function we can never win.

We have to find a way to come to terms with it. And this process is always very laborious and lengthy.

Because the inferior function lies in the unconscious, we can’t touch it directly. Otherwise, our ego complex might be completely shattered.

We must develop it in a symbolic manner. And not only that, we have to create a sacred space in our lives for it to “play”. And expect absolutely nothing from it.

In this process, the main function will always try to come on top, that’s why it’s so difficult.

For instance, I had many dreams where I was playing music. And instead of me just focusing on it, my intuition was already 10 steps ahead building a business around it.

I was thinking about creating a new IG profile (I even had the perfect name), I created a list of songs I had to rehearse, there was more equipment I had to buy, and the list goes on…

The same thing happened when I got into specialty coffee, and obviously this doesn’t work.

We have to allocate time for it to express itself and just enjoy it for the sake of enjoying it.

Nowadays, I’m very healthy, I go to the gym regularly, I enjoy my specialty coffee, I enjoy cooking Italian dishes, and I play my guitar.

However, we can’t ever forget that the inferior function is always lurking.

And whenever our conscious attitude isn’t adequate, or the Self is demanding growth, we’ll have to face it, again and again.

One of the reasons I love Jungian Psychology so much is because it provided me with a way to understand the crazy things I went through.

I learned that intuition isn’t something that comes from the outside. But it’s a fruit of our unconscious, and it uses symbols as a self-representation.

Therefore, I can learn this language. And the way to dissect most of the intuitive flashes is by going about it as you would interpret a dream.

Something crucial is knowledge of symbolism, so you can compare your intuitions with these symbols.

In that way, it’s possible to create a healthy relationship with what comes from the unconscious. 

Not only that, the inferior function has a way of expressing itself in a healthy form.

Lastly, we always have to remember that our main function only works adequately when in harmony with the inferior one.

Rafael Krüger

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