The Shadow of The Puer Aeternus (And How To Integrate It) – Part IV
Conquer The Puer Aeternus and Puella Aeterna IV
18.02.25
This is the 4th part of my Conquer The Puer and Puella Aeternus Series.
Today, we’ll explore the biggest shadow of the Puer Aeternus and practical steps for healing and integration.
The Shadow of The Puer Aeternus
After reading the first part, perhaps you’re thinking that I’m a hardcore fan of the hustle culture and that you’ll have to sell your soul to “the system” if you ever want to get better. Well, I wouldn’t blame you if that’s the impression you got, especially since Carl Jung and Von Franz used to say that the cure for the Puer Aeternus and Puella Aeterna is hard work.
That’s why a crucial distinction must be made between mere work and meaningful work. To accomplish that, I’d like to bring the concept of Resistance, coined by Steven Pressfield in his amazing book The War of Art. Pressfield says that Resistance, with a capital R, is the enemy within and is in direct proportion to how important the task is for the development of our souls.
In other words, the cure isn’t mindlessly working but moving in the direction of our fears and putting our talents in service of something greater than ourselves. Accepting this task is always terrifying as it puts us in a vulnerable position and it demands our fullest devotion.
Resistance always shows its hideous face when we’re about to accomplish something great. That’s why it’s easy to know when we’re on the right path because when we refuse this calling, we feel like a part of us is dying. Conversely, when we’re fully engaged in this mission, every cell of our being awakens.
In that sense, meaning lies in embracing the responsibility of developing our talents and being in service of other people. Now, this is no easy task, and accepting this calling puts us in a direct confrontation with the shadow of the Puer Aeternus.
A negative mother complex always evokes a constant search for comfort and a bad relationship with matter. Since the Puer is constantly choosing their fantasies over reality, in a general sense, his biggest shadow is the body and the practical aspects of life.
That’s why nothing can be solved intellectually, we must take action and get our hands dirty. In that sense, the good enough parent is the one who is capable of frustrating childish illusions and helping their kid accept and adapt to the real world. That’s exactly what we have to do for ourselves.
Healing Is A Construction
As I said in the previous chapter, few people understand that healing is a construction and not a single moment in time. Moreover, Jung states that time is an irreplaceable factor for healing. For some weird reason, we as human beings have a hard time grasping this notion.
I notice this with my clients very frequently, there comes a point in which they’re experiencing themselves differently. Most of their anxiety and depressive feelings are gone, and they’re feeling more confident and motivated to give life to their projects.
I always ask them what changed and I confess that by now this is kinda of a tricky question. All of them tend to attribute these changes to a single moment. They say that something happened in their workplace, they finally had a tough conversation with their partners, or even that “one day they just woke up differently”.
By now, I’m already used to these replies and this is the moment I do the best I can to show them that there was a build-up leading to this moment. I emphasize that all of those tiny seemingly insignificant actions finally paid off.
This realization is crucial to evoke a sense of agency. With that, they finally understand that they’re not subject to external events, they’re now in control and can perpetuate this new state. The truth is that what truly works isn’t sexy. The real magic lies in what we usually neglect, our mundane daily actions and choices.
In this light, it’s only possible to craft a new sense of identity by backing it up with actions. You need concrete proof. Every time you experiment yourself differently, you’re beating Resistance and solidifying a new version of yourself.
You create momentum for your mind to shift every time you decide to go to the gym and eat healthier, when you say no to a toxic family member, or when you work on your projects instead of doom-scrolling and watching adult videos.
You choose to change today and when you least expect, you’re doing it effortlessly because this is the new you. Every tiny action matters, that’s why the healing process is quite simple, however, it evidently requires effort and discipline.
The main key is reconnecting with the body which in turn anchors us in reality. The Puer has the tendency to live exclusively in his head. As a result, he’s constantly fighting imaginary demons in his mind, worrying about the future, and indulging in useless pondering about the past.
To make matters even worse, he always tries to solve everything intellectually. He even knows all the niche psychological terms and loves to teach their friends about it. However, despite all of their accumulated knowledge, nothing changes. Precisely because the Puer always avoids taking decisive action.
However, the only way to break free from the spell of neurosis is by facing our fears. We must accept things as they are and stop running from making tough decisions. While we’re indulging in “what ifs” and wishing that things were different, we’ll never heal.
It’s only productive to look at the past when we use our insights to make changes in the present moment. Our life happens in the now and by addressing the obstacles that are right in front of us, we finally stop resorting to fantasies and build important skills to adapt to life.
This takes us to a decisive point, Resistance only strikes to kill and if we’re going to beat it, we must build a solid foundation first by developing a proper routine with healthy habits and fixing our environments. This is how we can practically integrate the shadow of the Puer and Puella Aeternus.
The Body As Shadow
It’s important to understand that the unconscious is projected upon the body and it directly influences our psychological state. That’s why it’s important to work on regulating our nervous system which allows us to build tolerance and diminish negative emotions such as shame, rejection, and abandonment.
We can accomplish that by deploying emotional regulation techniques. Amongst my favorites are meditation and Yoga Nidra, practicing felt sense awareness, journaling with automatic writing, creative expressions such as music, and of course, physical exercise and healthy eating.
Moreover, this work primes us to experience more positive emotions. According to Barbara Fredrickson, positive emotions amplify our creativity and learning capacity, make us envision new possibilities, boost our resilience, and allow us to bounce back from adversity more quickly.
We feel more capable to face our fears and gain the necessary perspective to finally investigate our stories and patterns productively. Not only that but by transforming our bodies, we’re also transforming our minds and generating a new attitude. To me, that’s the real secret and where the magic happens.
Allow me to illustrate my point by sharing a personal story. Over 12 years ago when I used to pack an extra 25k (55 lbs) of pure fat, I was tired and sleepy all the time. Honestly, I felt disgusting when I looked myself in the mirror. I was weak and constantly avoiding the challenges of life.
My attitude was to constantly do the least amount of work possible and never fully commit to anything. I was a passive spectator watching my life being wasted by playing video games, eating copious amounts of candy, and watching adult videos. Yeah, it wasn’t a pretty sight.
When I was about 19, my family and I made our first international trip to visit my uncle in the USA. At the time, I was already extremely addicted to food, I just couldn’t stop eating! I guess you can imagine how many burgers, pizzas, and ice cream I had during this trip. By the way, I still remember that obnoxious greasy brown bag from 5 guys. It was my favorite.
A few days later after we got back, we went shopping for new clothes and I got my usual size, medium T-shirts and 42 on pants. When I went to try them on, they didn’t fit. I looked myself in the mirror barely breathing and was overcome with shameful tears.
That was the first time I objectively understood I was slowly killing myself. I manage to suck it up, and I remember returning all the t-shirts and buying a bigger pair of pants. This experience changed me. I knew I had to do something not only about my health but life in general.
That same week, I spent the little savings I had buying a set of dumbbells, a few weights, and a bench. I started consuming every video I could find on bodybuilding and fell in love with it. I’d experiment with new things every week and I finally witnessed my body changing.
After dropping 25 kg I wasn’t the same guy anymore. I learned to rely on myself, I knew I could have goals and achieve them. I knew I was capable. Those sets of weights saved my life and I mean it.
Many people preach that we should accept ourselves the way we are and be completely passive about it, but I disagree entirely. When we truly love ourselves we do everything we can to change and we hold ourselves to the highest standards. Not because we’re punishing ourselves, but because we know we’re capable of more and we want to achieve our potential.
That’s why the easiest way to change our sense of identity is by focusing on creating new behaviors. The more we accumulate concrete proof, the more we experience our identity shifting. As a client of mine says, we have to build our “bank of evidence”. Every time I picked my dumbbells I was affirming to myself that I was strong, focused, and disciplined.
After 6 months this became my new reality because I experienced it deeply in my body. People think they have to be motivated or enter the right mindset to change, but it’s the other way around. You first do the thing and your mind will begin shifting accordingly. You need to experiment yourself differently so your mind can change.
In this light, the body is the symbolic vehicle for learning how to mature psychologically. By engaging in some form of physical activity, we learn how to go all in and build perseverance. We can change our relationship with pain by realizing it’s a vital part of the process. There isn’t progress without struggle and nothing truly valuable just falls on our laps, we must conquer it.
The Puer has the tendency to compensate for his lack of action and results by indulging in megalomaniac fantasies, but by working on fully being in our bodies, we can learn to be present and focused. Moreover, the Puer learns to address what’s right in front of him and slowly builds on it. This commitment allows him to finally overcome the provisional life and develop long-term thinking.
Once I heard that the attitude you have about one thing is how you tend to do everything. In other words, if you’re lazy and permissive when it comes to taking care of yourself and your body, this bleeds into your work and relationships.
In that sense, I learned that self-esteem is acquired by first honoring the agreements we make with ourselves and second, by giving life to our repressed qualities and desires. We already addressed the latter in previous chapters, so I’ll focus on the first part now.
One of the easiest ways to see this process is in our relationship with food, that’s why I encourage all of my clients to track their calories. This forces us to be more mindful, make better decisions, confront our urges, and place boundaries on ourselves. The paradox is that the more discipline we have the more freedom we experience. Paraphrasing Kant, you’re only free when you choose to do what you don’t want to do.
Moreover, the more we’re attuned to our bodies the less we experience compulsions and finally create a healthy relationship with pleasure. The boundaries we must place in our relationships always start with ourselves, we shouldn’t expect the respect of others if we don’t respect ourselves first. The more we honor these commitments, the greater our self-esteem.
In a deeper sense, the body symbolizes Eros and our commitment to fully engaging with life. Being in our bodies involves accepting our human limitations, it humbles us, and we’re brought down to earth. Moreover, saying yes to life ceases the longing for the eternal mother and self-destructing behaviors.
In conclusion, to beat Resistance and create an audacious life, we must stop the bleeding first by reconnecting with our bodies and focusing on the practical aspects of life. Realistically, it takes six to twelve months to build a strong foundation.
But don’t get discouraged and skip the first step because if you do this right, these are skills that will last for a lifetime. Once we’ve built this solid foundation, we naturally feel more motivated and our authentic interests and desires come to the surface. This takes us to the next step, meaningful work.
Rafael Krüger – Live an Audacious Life
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