This poem is inspired by my blog post ‘The Role of Archetypes: Jung’s Approach to Inferiority and the Collective Psyche’. You can find the full post here:
We all carry places
where we feel small—
a quiet shrinking in the chest,
a whisper of not enough.
But what if the smallness
was not a flaw—
but a beginning?
We start our lives
tiny, trembling, dependent,
and from that soft beginning
we learn to rise.
The very place you feel weakest
is the soil where courage
learns to bloom.
So look inward—
into the dark rooms of the psyche,
where the parts you disown
curl like forgotten children
waiting to be seen.
The pieces you call “inferior”
are not stains to scrub away—
they are shadows holding truth,
tenderness, memory,
and the map back to yourself.
You are human—
and still unfolding.
Inferiority can warp itself
into masks—
the loudness of superiority,
the silence of self-rejection.
But if you listen closely,
it is simply an invitation
to evolve.
To say:
This hurts.
This scares me.
This part of me wants to grow.
Some rise by serving others,
finding purpose beyond themselves.
Some rise by meeting the hidden parts within
and turning toward them
with compassion.
There is no wrong doorway
into your own becoming.
So sit with the places
where you feel less than.
Let them speak.
Let them show you
what still longs for light.
And then rise—
not in perfection,
but in understanding.
You were meant
to shape yourself
from the inside out—
courage in one hand,
shadow in the other—
walking toward wholeness.
And when you finally step
through the doorway your fear once guarded,
you will see this truth:
Your “less than” was never a verdict—
it was a lantern.
Your shadow was never your enemy—
it was your guide.
And the smallness you once feared?
It was simply the narrowing
before the opening—
the inhale
before the becoming.
You do not grow away from yourself.
You grow into yourself.
And what you meet there
is not weakness—
but the beginning
of your strength.
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