The Soul’s Contradictions Are Sacred Clues

In the work of inner alchemy, contradiction is not a flaw, it is the fire beneath the transformation.

We often imagine the self as something that must be made coherent, consistent, and clean. But Freud’s radical insight was that the human subject is not unified. Rather, we are internally split. Our desires are layered, often opposing, and rarely conscious in full. “The ego,” Freud wrote, “is not master in its own house.” We want and do not want at the same time.

A client might say: “I want to end this relationship, it’s toxic. But I can’t leave.” Or: “I hate my job, but I sabotage every opportunity for change.” These are not logical inconsistencies. They are truths of the unconscious. The symptom whether it’s anxiety, procrastination, or self-sabotage is often a compromise between conflicting desires.

From a Jungian lens, this is the tension of the opposites: the raw material of transformation. Kabbalah speaks of it as the interplay of divine attributes: Hesed (expansion) and Gevurah (constriction), both essential, both sacred.

Here’s the paradox: The same soul that longs for success may fear becoming like the parent it resents. The part that yearns for intimacy might also fear the loss of autonomy. A woman may long for motherhood but unconsciously carry the fear of becoming her own mother. The body holds the contradiction when the mind cannot.

These aren’t errors in the psyche. They are psychic truths—what Freud called “truths of the repressed.” They do not yield to logic but to listening.

In spiritual psychoanalysis, we do not resolve contradiction by choosing sides. We welcome it. We listen.

We ask:

What does this contradiction protect me from?

What does it reveal about my inner vows, my ancestral imprints, my unlived griefs?

How might this inner division be the threshold of a deeper transformation?

To heal is not to eliminate paradox. It is to embrace the sacred space it opens—to become whole, not pure.

The soul is not linear. It is mythic, symbolic, and radiant with contradiction. And in that, it is entirely alive.