Individuation: Is Individuation A Lifelong Process?

When someone is born, they will have a separate body but that will be as far as it will go. Not only will they be unable to see that they are separate from everyone and everything, they will also lack a sense of self.

This is why it has been said that each human being needs to go through two births in order to truly be born. The first is, of course, the physical birth, and the second is the emotional birth.

Two Key Parts

Unlike when a rabbit or a mouse is born, for instance, they will be in a highly undeveloped state. They are then not just going to need the contact of their mother and feeding for a little while, they will need years and years of the right care.

‘Good enough’ care will do and this will be a time when they will need their mother’s presence, attunement, touch and love, along with the fulfilment of their basic needs. Receiving this care will allow them to gradually develop a sense of self.

The Next Step

After they have been in their mother’s world for a number of years, their father will start to play an important role. In a way, it will have been as though they were in a room and their father is then there to take them out of this room.

Their self of self will have been developing thanks to their mothers care and responses, and their fathers presence will enable them to fully separate from their mother. He will take them away from the unconditional world and out into the conditional world.  

A Very Different Experience

In their mother’s world, they would have been loved unconditionally and seen as special; whereas in their father’s world, they won’t be loved conditionally and they might rarely be seen as being special. One world could be seen as soft, while the other can be seen as hard.

To handle the other world, their father will provide them with support and guidance and help them to develop self-belief, courage competence and resilience. The mother will then have taken care of their feminine aspect, and will continue to do so, and their father will take care of their masculine aspect.

Other Elements

At this stage, it might have become clear that this is a very black and white view of childhood development. Undoubtedly, it is not always like this but what the above does is provide a rough outline of what takes place.

Anyway, one important inner drive that will play a part in one being able to develop into an individual will be their fight/aggression instinct. In addition to the guidance that is being provided externally, this drive will give them the need to become their own person.

A Sovereign Being

The years will go by and there will come a point in time when they will not only have separated emotionally from their parents, but they will have also separated mentally from them. This will allow them to live their own life and to come to their own conclusion and to form their own views.

Through being secure and comfortable in their own skin, they will be able to stand with others and they will be able to stand by themselves. Still, this doesn’t mean that they will have completely separated from their parents.

Dealing with the Remnants

For the rest of their life, they will probably need to let go of expectations, fears and beliefs that were passed onto them from their parents and other family members. Further, there will be the expectations, fears and beliefs that they have picked up from society that will need to be rooted out.

And no matter how loving and supportive their parents were, they can still have parts of themselves that ended up being disowned and need to be reintegrated. Moreover, what can also need to be reintegrated are any parts of themselves that they had to disconnect from as a result of trauma or a stressful circumstance.
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Inner Harmony

However, although this is a lifelong process, it is likely to be very rewarding and what enables them to have an even richer experience on this earth. This is because one will become more together internally, becoming more whole and this will mean that their life will be more in alignment with who they are.

This is not how it will be for everyone on this earth, though, as some peoples early years wont have been a time when they received ‘good enough’ care. They will then have had a physical birth but they won’t have had an emotional birth.

A Very Different Reality

From the outside, they will look like a separate human being but that could be about as far as it will go. Their sense of self will be in an undeveloped state, with them seeing themselves as an extension of others and they might not have their own mind either.

One can then go along to get along and they can accept whatever they are told and believe whatever the people around them believe. Asserting themselves and forming their own conclusions will then be seen as something that would put their very survival at risk, as they are in a boundaryless state and lack a strong sense of themselves.

Stunted

The part of them that would allow them to slowly individuate, their fight instinct, may have been covered up. They are then not going to have the desire or to feel safe enough to become their own person.

At their current level of development, living their own life and thinking for themselves won’t be of any interest. For this to change, they will need to go through the other developmental stages.

Awareness

If someone can relate to this, and they are ready to start this process, they may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided by the assistance of a therapist or healer.   

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk