“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
— Carl Jung
When I used to go on first dates, I had a question I liked to ask.
I’d say it casually… like it wasn’t loaded at all.
“So… how did your parents ‘ef you up?”
I didn’t always say it that way. Sometimes I softened it, depending on who I was sitting across from.
But the question was the same.
Because you always get something from that question. It’s a fun little conversational playground when kept lighthearted but also sensitive if that’s where the conversation goes.
Whether someone can name a dysfunction, soften it, pretend everything was perfect (red flag, anyone?) or how ever the conversation moves from that question: that’s information.
If they turn it into a joke: information. Guardedness? That’s information too.
Once you ask it enough times, you see some interesting patterns.
Not necessarily in the details of what happened (or didn’t happen), but in how people talk about it.
Sometimes you hear something that sound like the typical:
“I wasn’t disciplined enough.”
“My parents worked a lot.”
“They just had really high expectations.”
… and you can feel there’s more there, even if it’s not being said. (And nothing needs to be read about that on a first date when nerves may run high but… it can be illuminating.)
None of these answers automatically mean something is wrong.
That’s not the point.
It’s not a pathology test. It’s not a test at all, really.
It’s sort of a perspective curiosity:
Everyone has their own individual answer. Their own perspective of how they’d do it different and how it shaped them for the better or worse.
From the most stable families to the most chaotic ones, everyone can point to something.
We think we’re reacting to what is happening in front of us.
But a lot of the time, we aren’t. We’re reacting to something that felt familiar.
These may be just personality traits.
They also could be survival adaptations.
And this is where Jung’s idea of the shadow stops being abstract.
The parts of you that helped you adapt do not disappear just because you don’t look at them.
They keep running.
Quietly.
Until you notice them.
And this is where the conversation usually softens too much.
“Just be aware.”
“Just notice your patterns.”
Okay.
But what does that actually look like?
It can look like catching yourself in the moment.
And not immediately explaining it away.
The People Pleaser:
The Independent Self Sufficient:
This is the part where it stops being interesting…
and starts being uncomfortable.
I had a moment like that recently with my daughter.
Nothing big. I handled something wrong…subtly… but I knew it.
She told me it wasn’t a big deal.
And I could feel my brain starting to justify it.
Explain it. Soften it. Make it make sense.
And then I stopped.
Because I could see what I was doing.
And I said, “No, it is a big deal.”
Because the alternative is convincing myself I’m right.
And then doing the same thing again.
That’s the difference.
Not perfection.
Just the willingness to see it clearly…
without rewriting the story to protect yourself.
Your conscious mind makes decisions.
Your unconscious mind makes patterns.
And patterns create outcomes.
So over time, it starts to look like the same kinds of relationships, the same kinds of conflicts, the same kinds of endings and… it’s easy to call that fate.
But it might be something simpler. Maybe you’re not choosing it. You’re repeating it.
And once you see that… even a little… you have a choice.
Not a perfect one. Not a permanent one. Just enough to pause.
Just enough to not do the exact same thing again.
You don’t get to choose where you begin.
But you do get a say in what you keep repeating.
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