The Power of Initiation Cycles

Ever felt like you always date a similar type of person who is wrong for you? Do you tend to take jobs in companies with similar dysfunctions or work for the same type of “bad” boss repeatedly? Do you get taken advantage of by people a lot?

Just bad luck? Maybe.

But there might be something else going on. Why might you have these repeated scenarios where you find yourself dealing with similar people or similar circumstances?

It just might be the repetition of similar circumstances are opportunities to awaken to something about yourself as they highlight something within you, an unresolved issue that has been in your unconscious probably since childhood. These repeated circumstances are prompting you to bring an issue into your conscious awareness where you can deal with it, allowing you to integrate the wisdom and become more whole.

Jung would refer to these repeating cyclical loops in your life as “initiations”. The word initiate comes from a Latin word meaning "to begin, originate," and "to instruct in mysteries or sacred knowledge." In this way, you can look at the cycle of initiation as providing a window into ways you can gain deeper knowledge of what’s going on with you, instructing you on how to become more of who you really are.

Initiation is said to reveal yourself to yourself. In other words, an initiatory cycle, if done consciously and with purpose, allows you to refine your ability to let go of what doesn’t work for you anymore. And because initiations happen multiple times during your life, going through initiations can gradually create awareness that helps you reconcile unresolved issues.

What is an Initiation?

You experience numerous initiation cycles throughout your life, large and small, whether or not you celebrate them. You can recognize a potential initiation because they occur during challenging or difficult incidents and new life phases that test or stretch your limits. They are a typical and important part of everyone’s life. When you become aware of being in an initiation cycle, you pay attention to what’s happening and your part in the situation to resolve unfinished business from childhood to become more of your best self.

Familiar Initiations

You are probably most familiar with cultural initiations, ceremonies that mark entrance into a new life stage or admittance into a group. Think baptism into a religion, getting married, or pledging a sorority in college. Like the formal initiations, if you consciously process what is happening, you will grow at least a little into a new way of being with the idea that you are able to grow into a better version of you.

Three Phases of Initiation

Unlike these more formal cultural initiations, psychological initiations don’t have formal rituals to them although they do have a general pattern to them, consisting of 3 main phases: separation, ordeal, and return. It’s a simplified version of The Hero’s Journey, described by Joseph Campbell.

During separation, you either willingly or unwillingly find yourself in a situation where you experience a change in yourself or your circumstances. In this phase you realize that what was “normal” isn’t happening.

In the ordeal phase, you are fully in the unfamiliar, not normal situation, where circumstances have changed and/or people’s interactions with you are not what you’re used to. The ordeal can be anywhere from mildly irritating, like having to work with someone you don’t like to downright awful, like losing a job or getting a divorce.

By raising your awareness during this phase, you can step back and see your part in what’s happening. Getting perspective like this is key to revealing any of your unconscious thoughts and behaviors that have been influencing since you were a kid.

At some point, the ordeal calms down, or you ignore it, or it ends. In essence, you return to a more settled circumstance, whether or not the other person remains part of your experience and whether or not you actually get some insight from the situation.

During the 3rd phase of return/reintegration, the best-case scenario is you will have realized something about yourself and will reintegrate yourself and your new way of being into your “new normal”. That is, you have gained insight into how limiting beliefs or coping behaviors from childhood were getting in your way. Doing this allows you to stop thinking and behaving in unproductive ways, thereby transforming into a better version of you.

If you don’t get an “aha” about yourself, then, similar types of people or situations will keep happening for you until you “get it”. As Carl Jung is famous for saying, “What you resist persists.”

Initiation Example

To illustrate how this plays out, you may have worked with someone who was challenging or irritating to be around. Your interactions with this person represent a separation from what you usually experience (getting along with most people), and you enter into a different “world” (of nasty comments, being ignored or irritated or hassled).

With this challenging person, there is probably at least one aspect that makes interactions with this person difficult, or an ordeal. Your usual ways of relating don’t work. You might believe the other person is incompetent or careless. You might do things to pick up their slack, or you might feel threatened or put down by them … any number of things. You could be doing and thinking any number of things during the ordeal of interacting with this person.

The ideal situation during the ordeal of an initiation cycle is that you become aware of the negative reaction you’re having with respect to the irritating person or set of circumstances. That’s a signal to you take a hard look at yourself and the dynamic you are now a part of.

You might recognize an insecurity in you that contributes to the interaction. Or the other person may have a disagreeable characteristic that reminds of you of a parent, relative, or sibling. It could be you’re acting out childhood hurts or trying to work out the conflict from childhood with that family member. These are all possibilities to look for.

However, if you do not reflect on the circumstances and your reactions during the ordeal, you are likely to repeat similar fact patterns with the same or similar people in the future. And that’s why the same type of person or situations might keep happening to you – you haven’t paid attention to your part in the challenging interactions to resolve these issues from childhood.

The beauty of these “underworld” initiations is the opportunity for self-reflection. If you open yourself up and take the opportunity for sincere reflection, you can learn more about yourself, and use what you learn to become more of who you are really meant to be. When you fully integrate the lessons from these initiatory experiences, you not only resolve issues from childhood, you develop a deeper sense of yourself.

Initiation in Mythology

In mythology, the waxing moon that sheds its shadow and a snake that sheds its skin are references to the death and renewal that comes through initiation. Like the moon that “dies” when it wanes and is “renewed” when it waxes, and the snake that can grow larger once it sheds its skin, initiation does for you – allowing you to shed off the old to grow into a bigger life. The idea is to die to who you are to be reborn as a better you.

Often, you’ll see a character enter the forest, go under water, or go into the Underworld. These places are metaphors for going into the unconscious like you do when you enter an “ordeal” and reflect on what’s happening during an initiation cycle.

You can read more about the story of Persephone who had her own adventure into the Underworld here.

Like Persephone and her trip to the Underworld, when you “return” from an initiation during the third phase of the cycle, you can have “seeds” of new realizations and new learning to ingest and digest that tie to the experience. If you approach your initiatory experience consciously, you will glean new insights and wisdom from the experience that help resolve old issues from your childhood. This insight allows you to shed the skin of an old issue and provides you with a renewed sense of yourself as you go forward in life.

Conclusion

There will be more challenges ahead, more initiations, as though each is tailored for you to help you grow as a person. But if you don’t take time to recognize you’ve separated from your norm, reflect on your ordeal, then integrate the “seeds” of insight from the experience, you will remain stuck in old patterns of thought and behavior, repeating the same unpleasant cycle over and over.

The power of initiation cycles is real. Take them seriously.