The Art of Becoming Who You Are: Morgan Stebbins on Carl Jung, Spirituality, & Individuation

What if the thing you're trying to get rid of is actually trying to tell you something?A compulsion you can't shake. A mood you want to snap out of. Anger you're trying to talk yourself out of. Jungian analyst Morgan Stebbins argues that these aren't obstacles on the spiritual path. They're clues. A mood isn't something to eliminate — it's something to question. Anger isn't just a problem to manage — it might be a messenger. And the road itself isn't straight: individuation, Stebbins says, is full of dead ends and wrong turns, with no universal formula. You don't inherit a way of becoming yourself. Follow what compels you, he says, and it leads somewhere you don't expect.Morgan Stebbins is a Jungian analyst with a doctorate in religious studies and hermeneutics, and the author of A Jungian Approach to Transforming Compulsion (2026). He is also a longtime Zen practitioner and, improbably, a lifelong elite athlete — in the 1980s he represented the United States in field hockey at the Olympics, and in 2022 won his age group at the USA Triathlon National Championship at 61.Timestamps:00:00 The Secret of Human Life: What Compels Us  To Do Anything09:20 Withdrawing the Guru Projection: Zen, Power, and theDanger of the Teacher14:27 Four Vows at Twelve: How Morgan Stebbins Found CarlJung24:50 Religion as a Map of the Psyche & PsychologicalFunctions39:50 Building a Daily Practice Around  Inner Images44:19 "Wrong" Paths: Gandhi, the Prophet Jonah,and the Question of Bliss50:43 Does the Spirit Have a Plan? Moods, Images, and Faust58:34 Focus and Follow: Inside a Method for the Unconscious01:14:38 When the Body Speaks: Illness, Autoimmunity, andIts Limits01:20:35 Translate and Act: Finishing the Method with aDream01:25:49 What if Your Anger Has a Message?01:29:25 Individuation and Nirvana: A Comparative AnalysisIntro & outro music by Benjamin Bigelow #individuation #jungianpsychology #spiritualgrowth #comparativereligion #carljung #religionandpsychology #spiritualpodcast #wholeness