Up: [[Compulsion]] Created: 2025-10-03 Updated: 2025-10-12 Course: Compulsion as the Great Mystery of Life with Margaret Klenck for Washington Jung Given that [[A Spark is at the Core of Any Compulsion]] and that spark can result in anything from a short-lived passion to a lifetime commitment, or from an annoying compulsion to a full blown life-ending addiction, wouldn’t we be better off avoiding or turning away from these intensities of experience? Jung says absolutely not, that if we do we’re going to suffer depression, anxiety, or a stuckness that gives us a small and unfulfilled life. Or we will plunge into the extreme of the addictive state that we’d been trying to avoid. This is one of the many things I love about Jung. He believed in taking on whatever is happening and following it through to its conclusion. That’s what gives us our unique journey. That’s what leads to the possibility of wholeness. There’s no guarantee that encountering and working with a compulsion is going to be a pleasant and uplifting experience. In fact, the opposite is pretty much a sure thing. But it is guaranteed that every compulsion *forces us to encounter more of ourselves.* (Jungian analyst, Margaret Klenck)