Jordan Peterson: Handling Your Darkest Feelings about Existence Itself 

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

The greatest battles you will ever face, are those that are in the battlefield of the mind

The end of the video is profound. "The key to the prevention of the horrors a person does in the future is the reconstruction of the individual soul at the level of each individual"

I sure wish I found these lectures back in high school. Better late than never, I guess

It’s always impressive to listen to him express those profound and complicated ideas with such ease. A great mind.

Darkness can be a strength if you know how to utilize it and turn it into a positive, its not easy and for some not realistic. But it has been my greatest advantage over others. Adhd,ptsd,bipolar,anxiety,psychoses, type 1 diabetic and im still here, giving up is not an option for me and heres why. I want to see the end of my own story. Never give up folks things do get better with lots of effort ofcourse. have patience and appreciation for yourself and 1 day and goal at a time.

a few months after I started listening to Jordan Peterson I joined my local fire service

I lost my first business and went bankrupt, I tried really hard but there are things I could have done differently, there are things I couldve done better and mistakes I definitely made. Losing it set me back years in my career but I watch videos like this to try and resolve that within myself healthily, so I dont repeat the same mistakes

Prof Peterson is probably the most lucid and self aware human i know of.

I'm been in a pit of nihilism in the past months, I really needed this.

In 1991 or 2 my psychology tutor said psychology was right wing because it blamed stress and pathology on the individual. All these years later, peterson has shown thats not such a bad thing..

Write. Just write about your feelings. Then you don't need to act on them. Draw, paint, sing, dance, act in a play...dress up in silly outfits...do what you need to do, but harm none....

“Before a downfall the heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor”. - proverbs 18:12 These words are currently helping me…

8:38 "I might be a darker person than most" *followed by most adorable laugh * LOL

Humility vs. Pride

Another thought: we can be cruel and quite unfair to those who repent. We point the finger at them and say "look, now he finally started to do something useful. Isn't it too late, buddy? Once a thief, always a thief. Why even try?" Hence when we make a lot of bad decisions we often find the straightening out process humiliating when it only means we care so much about the perception of others we're ready to discard our own well being. Again."

I love how his own most strongly held principles shine through in his lectures. I can almost see JP telling himself he's got no right to judge others until he gets his own house in order. He'll tell you the same thing because he truly believes it. It's so refreshing to see someone who isn't selling something. He's just telling you the truth as he sees it. In this day and age, simple honesty like that is so unexpected and so refreshing it's almost enough to make a ya cry.

"the truth has a certain ring to it" Hemingway said .. for me it sounds like beautiful music and this speech almost moved me to tears starting at around minute 10:00

J. Peterson is doing what my parents, teachers and everybody in my life never did. Showing me the very me.

Genius. Absolutely a huge help for those of us who did suffer abuse by the hands of our "loved ones."

10 years a junkie. My mind is always thinking and wont stfu is why i used. Clean 5 months and what he talks about reminds me of addiction. You know its destroying you, you know the right path is to get clean , but take the wrong one anyways.

God bless this great man. I love him dearly. He starts with the individual's responsibility to better themselves, then they can better the world.

this is a very wise man speaking. the world is not right. complain about it, choose an enemy, or see the enemy within in yourself. you are the world and the world is your responsibility. krishnamurti said similar things. but at the very least, at least make it so that the way you move in the world, you are at least your *own* responsibility, and that you're not bringing anyone else/thing down by your being. at least make it to that point

5:45 That's the moment I'm at in my life right now and yes, it was my fault, I had the voice in my head that said "don't do it", I have overriden it with my arrogance and now my life has completely failed and yes that is an incredibly difficult pill to swallow. I cried when he said that, looking back at my mistakes and realizing I was too arrogant to see that I hadn't thought things through, I was underestimating the challenge I was undertaking and overestimating my ability to deal with said challenge. God, this is tough... I still don't know what to do, but I do feel better...

This man has helped me more than anybody in my entire life I'm 44 years old

Jordan Peterson speaks so clearly and logically and at sufficient speed that I'm pretty sure the way he handles public speaking is to just not even acknowledge that the audience is there. I never get the impression that he's actually talking to them, but rather that he is just speaking his thoughts as he imagines them play out in the air around him, existing completely inside his own mind.

I literally asked God for the most comprehensive life experience I could live. So I definitely asked for the misery I've loved through.

Could be a Christian? Understands the sinful nature of man!! A reporter once confronted Paul Washer attacking him for suggesting that everyne is a sinner. Washer looked at him and said, "if I could only have a camera that could record, in pictures, every thought that you had for the past hour, and if I was to play that video for all the people who "know" you, you would runaway and never been seen again." The reporter left in silence.

It's quite disturbing that the response to the Columbine killers was mostly, from my non-USA experience, pointing fingers and placing the blame. That actually completely plays into the pathology of all future school shooters. They rebel against a shallow, system where fake people only care about themselves and their own schemes... the response to that rebellion; Fake people only caring about themselves and their own schemes... It baffles me that it's so rare, if not non-existent, in popular culture to acknowledge that life is unfair, cruel and can seem utterly pointless. Maybe people would be far less likely to develop such psychological issues if people could just acknowledge some darkness from time to time.

i like this jordan peterson

Jordan Peterson is amazing. Not only is he honest enough with himself to admit that there is darkness within himself. And within everyone, but he then has the balls to come out and say it loudly. We truley do all have evil within ourselves as human beings. And that is what sets apart a good person from a bad one, the ability to overcome those tendencies and do whats right regardless. What makes someone good, or godly is not being void of evil, but triumphing over it.

The most intelligent speech I heard so far in my life, he said things i subconsciously suspected but for the first time I listened, I thought life had no meaning and,as a result, my actions could not have meaning either, but the way one thinks changes everything, thinking of every action as meaningful is probably excruciating but it is the only way that prevents one from falling in the abyss

I'm a simple man: I see Professor Peterson, I like. Even when I don't always agree with him, I still love thinking about what he has to say.

" who wants to be the one who blames the victim for the catastrophe? ". A highly salient question.

I know exactly what he means, and I love how he embraces the darkness within

Send this to friends in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting incident. I'm seeing lots of "No one can possibly understand these motivations", and not only is this untrue, but it is critical that everyone does just that.

I can always count on the comment section from Jordan Peterson’s vids to give me inspiration. Huge thanks to you all ✌️❤️❤️

I am dealing with myself at the moment being horribly truthful. It stings but is mind blowing in its capacity to heal oneself. Facing my demons head on..

I can’t help it. I hate everyone. So much. Because I wanted so much to love people and did love them but they didn’t love me in return. People are so incredibly, incredibly disappointing. So lacking in loyalty, so selfish. I have high expectations of myself and if others. And because we all fall so short, I loathe us all.

I understand that darkness well. I'm feeling better knowing I'm not the only one.

I think this is the type of message, or maybe *the* message that could save people. Pointing out and acknowledging, for the first time for many people that you HAVE a darkside, we all do, some just experience it more than others, some maybe never experience it at all or think it doesn't exist because they don't explore it fully or nothing in their life brings it out as much as other people have experienced. Don't let the realisation of this itself take you. It is the realisation that you have it, and then to feel it and to feel the depths of it which can be unbearable sometimes. But what we don't hear is the other side - there's another side to it, the end of it, the flip side, the light at the end of the tunnel. Once you've acknowledged that it can be real and that it does it exist, you can acknowledge and know that you can be above it. You can conquer it and win and put it at bay. That doesn't mean it's not in there. You have to know it IS there, and that means feeling it, before you conquer it. What a message of hope and empowerment.

It's not the loneliness, yet the feeling of emptiness I can't/can deal with

7/11 was a part time job!

The amazing philosophy of not questioning any status-quo and blaming everything on oneself. This is how society stays complacent.

"I am guilty before all and for all."

This is profound

i would love to see Jordan discuss Terrance mckenna's work, especially Food of the Gods and how he perceived hallucinogens and their boundary dissolving, ego obliterating properties being dangerous to any dominance hierarchy.

I’m listening to this for the first time. Just at the right time. Mahalo Jordon…. So many humans can go this deep. It’s easy with good people with purpose.

omg! finally someone speaks pure truth... love you

Fantastic man.

Listening to Jordan Peterson has awoken a great power lying dormant in my inner being and is rapidly transforming my life.

I told my brother this, that I look at my life circumstances and say everything is my fault. Not in a hyper-critical way, but as a way to claim ownership and power to change my circumstance

Hard to overstate how spot-on Dr. Peterson is here.

'The people who are most wise who have commented on that say the same thing over and over which is the key to the prevention of the horrors of Auschwits and the gulag in the future is the reconstruction of the individuals soul at the level of each individual.' - Jordan Peterson

This video gave me goosebumps

A bad breakup with my ex girlfriend who I loved brought me through my own personal inferno with a very fine tooth comb. This man has changed my life

I revisited this clip in the wake of the shooting in Florida, and this really is the perfect explanation as to why this stuff happens. It's amazing to me how more people don't understand this type of thinking.

What an amazing video by far my favorite of Peterson clips. I knew this guy was brilliant but it is clear to me now that he is a light Warrior archangel here on Earth. #JordanPeterson believe me that I truly get you, thank you for having the courage to tell us the truth, this world is 99 times brighter because you have took in the responsibility to make it so thank you in behalf of the past and the future of human existence. 🙏

This is one of the clearest lectures of JP. Sometimes he is obtuse which is unfortunate. But here. He is as clear as it gets. 👍

G-d knowing that humanity in the 21st Century will need hope... Gave us Dr.Jordan B. Peterson.🙏🙏🙌🙌🙌👊👊

I have seen how Dr. Peterson expressing the disappointment of being betrayed or being denied of being himself in the rubin report interview while talking about Pinocchio. It shows how much he really wants what he wants, and set out to be this great. It is a real awakening to me..

There's a lot of truth in what Dr. Peterson says here in addressing much of the evil we've been seeing in our world lately. But He made two observations which I thought could be expanded further: 1. He says that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was led to write The Gulag Archipelago after seeing religious people in the prison camp (many of whom we know were and can presume were Christians, given Russia's history), who were different from everyone else, inherently good. Peterson says that after Solzhenitsyn came to a realization about his own "mistakes", or sinfulness, which had led him to his dire circumstances, he was led to write his influential book, which was key to dismantling totalitarian communist philosophy, and thereafter, the Soviet Union. What I see in this story which Peterson did not mention, is that it was actually the testimony of faithful Christian believers living morally right lives (though not by their own power, as we in the faith know all to well) that was the transforming factor in Russia. Were it not for God's people living faithful lives in obedience to their savior's instructions, it may be possible Solzhenitsyn would never have come to his realization. My point is this: when God's people live the way He tells them to, the world is transformed (or restored) into a better place. This is the saving power of Christ put on display. 2. Dr. Peterson mentioned that Jesus was a human who dealt with the same evil nature, the same temptations, as that of a fellow human for whom he died- Eric Harris, one of the shooters of Columbine. He mentions that for Jesus to take all of the sins of mankind upon himself as he claims to have done, he would have to had understood that within him dwells the same kind of evil. I would go further than he did here and say that Christ ABSOLUTELY knew that. Two of the last things Jesus said before he was crucified were: "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing.", and "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" The difference between Jesus and us is slight, and yet vast. He was completely human, but also completely God. He struggled against every evil temptation that His human nature lead him towards, yet He did not give into it at any point. He suffered in His life on earth, but He was raised in a glorious, victorious return. To say "they don't know what they are doing" meant He did. He knew what this was all about. He saw our evil, the same evil He faced, and yet understood it and fought against it. This came at a great cost to Him: his own life, the guilt and burden of all evil being laid upon Him, and a temporary separation from the Father with whom He shared perfect unity. ("My God, why have you forsaken me?") The difference between Jesus and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who saw evil in himself as the cause of the evil seen in Soviet communism, is that while Jesus possessed all the potential to live sinfully, He didn't. Ever. And that changed the world. Because to us "objective" Westerners who don't believe in miracles, just as life on a planet with unsuitable living conditions would be a miracle, so is good existing in a completely broken society, or world, even more of a miracle. Those people living good lives in a Soviet gulag didn't do so on their own power- such evil would have overcome even the most philanthropic atheist. But when we are weak, then He is strong. When we face evil in this world, it is only by the power of God's own Spirit living within us that we are able to face it and, even more, to live good lives in spite of it.

We humans will never stop glorifying our own existence.

This guy is so wise love hearing his lectures

At first, when I began reading Eric Harris' journal, I was sympathetic and partially agreed to certain bits, but then I noticed a pattern - he is SO full of himself. He was a damn hypocrite who wouldn't survive the scrutiny of his own gaze. The most ironic thing is that he kept mentioning how beautiful self-awareness is. Don't make me laugh...

Jordan peterson is my hero

11h11 - You are on the journey , I have also been in the deep deep dark places , I have finally broken the surface back into the light, Its a surprise to breathe and smile and see the value in life again...for all of you...embrace whatever positives you can cling to it like the lift raft it is

Mr. Jordan I listen to you all of the time and the things you say and the way you interpret and present your thoughts on all topics is absolutely brilliant an straight forward I am an older man with an I.Q of 140 recently tested .. anyway I can't understand how people don't get it ..... But I often think it's me meaning when I see any problem or situation I immediately have to analyze it and figure it out on the spot ...things that others find hilarious or fun and intriguing is boring and mundane to me.. how do I navigate these proclivities of mine to analyze everything every day and claim some of the ignorance that is blissful if you will and be a part of the levity people experience with the small irrelevant idiosyncrasies of life and just be part of it ....I will be honest intelligence comes with a hefty pricetag and is a huge pain in the ass .... I wish I could talk with you and get some advice on this subject so that I can maybe circumvent myself to join the crowd ...sorry guys and thanks for not bashing my post......hint

I dont like how he said he might be wrong, this resonated with me THE MOST. Love ya JP

I think many people never feel that darkness, and God blessed them deeply. But I understand exactly what you mean. Some are born with a dark turn of mind. A lifelong battle to subdue their own viciousness.

I flipping love this man and his thoughts. How lucky are his students?!

See, I watch this, I hear it, I agree with it, it all makes perfect sense. In the morning it will be like it never happened. Maybe I just need to watch this and other videos each and every day to keep my mind off of the darkness within me. I watch these videos last week and felt better the next day but then the darkness came back. I watch this again and I am refreshed with the truth of life's issues and problems and our ignorances for what cause our fall. I want to rise, not to be king but to fly like a bird. That's my biggest wish.

But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you... so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also - Kahlil Gibran

He is one of the most intelligent speakers I've ever heard. Watching his interviews are also interesting because seeing how he speaks and takes time to think before answering makes you better able to see his intelligence and realize that he's very informed and seems to know what he's talking about. I only say seems because I'm not informed enough to say everything is fact and correct. I assume so because he seems to answer he doesn't know to what he doesn't.

Jordon Peterson is constantly call you to the heroic adventure. You may not be a wizard, but you're capable of magical things, good or evil.

Perfectly clear and freeing. I know my worth is in my identity and my heart filled with Love and I AM in battle my mind to protect my treasures.

I've heard it before, but that part about losing a relationship with the truth in society hit me. I live in a very far left wing, progressive city in england. More and more I'm meeting new people who espouse things I heavily disagree with and i say nothing for fear of social suicide. For example on multiple occasions I've been told that the fact I'm a CIS white male means i essentially cant understand suffering or strife and dont really have a say due to my privilege. Despite the fact I grew up in a council house with a family on seriously low income, and have at 26 only just got a job above minimum wage. Also listening to conversations about how the west is only a patriarchal oppressive society that needs a communist revolution to be saved. I think my silence is a combination of fear and the fact I dont know if I can articulate myself properly in a situation where 5-10 people are perceiving me and an alt right, oppresive, patriarchal male and I need to not only prove to them that's not true, but also show them that their views are the ones that are going to damage society. I guess it's a case of saying what I really think and accepting the fact I'm going to lose 90% of my friends. But I guess it's better to keep that 10% who either agree with you, or don't find the disagreement reason to dislike you

This man needs an audience with the world. He understands how to stop this duality of left vs right.

I want to stop the video cause I overthink and don't like thinking about disturbing situations. But I have so much faith in his teachings that I know by the end I will reach some sort of enlightenment.

He reminds me of a modern day Atticus Finch

I see that Jordan Peterson was feeling for those affected by those atrocities mention. I may be wrong, but it looks like he's also trying to understand the mindset of those responsible for them. I can relate to your passion. God bless you. You are a rare breed from the good Lord. He has chosen you to help heal the world of these evils that live here on Earth..

I've got so many "dank memes" suggestions from RU-vid, I accidentally read the the title as handling your dankest feelings.

He calls upon us to take responsibility for the darkness in us, but doesn't have the way, the truth and the life to do it.

Listening to this as I work out right down the street from Columbine, such sad circumstances

Peterson has incedible insight into the human condition

Once I realized that if I commit suicide consciousness is in every one, and as far as I can see I am consciousness itself, reality itself, only it only exists with consciousness. So my suffering goes nowhere. This organism goes blank but my true self lives in everything living. So either kill all life/human life, or try and alleviate suffering in your life in in your other lives. Ride the wave. Anything in between is akin to self harm.

When you have something to say, silence is a lie.

YOU are to blame for the things going wrong in YOUR life is a great way of thinking and being.. why? It means ONLY YOU can change whats going wrong and YOU have the ultimate power.. I love this idea .. that could bring up so many negative feelings has an ultimately positive outlook to life ..

How do I know when I'm facing my demons? How do I know I'm being truly honest with myself? I think I am but I really can't tell anymore.

Jordan is good at telling people how to "straighten themselves out." He never confronts the question of why it's worth doing so (as opposed to killing oneself). I've watched many of his videos. He's silent on the matter, as he is in this video in which he had the opportunity to touch upon the subject directly. He got close toward the end, but there seems to be some gap deep down in his meta-ethics that prevents him from honestly asking, "What's the point of it all?" I think he knows the answer. But he also knows he can't admit it to himself. This is just my impression, but he strikes me as someone who's been down that road before and doesn't want to go back at all costs. He reminds me of Peter W. Zapffe somewhat, in his way of speaking about existential issues, except I think Zapffe was much more honest and consistent in taking his train of thought toward its ethical conclusion (antinatalism). Peterson is too pragmatically minded to grapple with the question 100% honestly, and that's a shame. He's a smart guy, and wise in some ways. If only he could shed all that desperate reactionary nonsense about building families and submitting to tradition. He's happy to carry the boulder, pass it along to others who didn't ask for it, and tell you it's all for the best. Ask him what's at the top of the hill. And he blinks. "Get back to work." God bless him, I can tell he means well. I'm glad some people find inspiration in his words.

The mass shooter suicide content is brutal. This guy is amazing

Decoding the Edgelord

Protect this man

We have set up an illusive and false goal for our children. We have told them their aim should be happiness and self fulfilment. This keeps them focused on their wants a desires. Life is hard and the acts that serve others make it meaningful!

About Columbine, it was clear these kids parents left them to their own devices and were not offering any actual guidance/ parenting. This is absolutely encouraged 24/7 in the west. The saying goes "an idle mind is the devils workshop". We are letting a generation down over here. Dad left? It's argueable Dad is popularly considered a non entity in the west, anything about men is considered laughable here. Men don't accept being sidelined anywhere, even here. Dad doesn't speak up or leaves because he's constantly maligned, especially in America. It takes a man and a woman to make a child- it also takes both to raise it properly. Sorry if that doesn't fit the new narrative but we sure seem to have a lot of problems with the new way of upbringing- fyi if you don't Raise a child nothing good will come of you're decision to have one.

Now I write this cautiously because I have tremendous appreciation for Jordan Peterson. Please discuss! I suspect Peterson appreciates the metaphoric truths of the Old Testament (very accurately), yet undervalues a pivotal truth expressed in the New Testament. Namely Grace, and - what Fritz Perls called the topdog vs. underdog. What he describes here with Cain is essentially the topdog/underdog split. Here is Jennifer Mackewn: "The more the aware or controlling part tries to change, the more the unaware parts may resist; so change which is driven by willpower, coercion or persuasion is likely to be short-lived, because it is inherently divisive and dualistic and engenders a split in the vital energies of the person between unassimilated introjects of externally imposed rules and the other aspects of the self which can manifest as rebellion, passive aggression or apparent but lifeless conformity. Those parts of ourselves that we disown or try to deny have great unacknowledged power and the 'underdog' is inclined to win, as anyone who has ever made New Year's resolutions and then 'found' that they have dropped them a week later may well recognise." So for Cain, the New Testament (or Gestalt) approach is to stop battling against himself (as symbolised by Old Testament God’s blaming leading to a worsening of his acts) and instead to honestly contact the truth - including the truth of those less understood or aware 'vital energies' that (in being less known) led him to be vulnerable to the attraction of seductive and destructive acts in the first place. The underdog energies that were misappropriated (by insufficiently developed or entirely dysfunctional conceptual schemes) and so led to those depraved actions will at best be temporarily shamed or coerced into lifeless submission (or at worst provoked into monstrous malevolence!) by the judgemental topdog (symbolised by the Old Testament God). Alternatively if bought into awareness with full acceptance and understanding of what they are actually about - and the fact that they are real and DO come from 'somewhere' - then they can be known and their energy productively utilized (or released and dispersed if this is the case) in other ways. Honestly witnessing with a view to organising and resolving ALL the parts of our intrapsychic battle is the solution. And this starts with removing the shame and listening to what is actually going on. We do not discover our ultimately divine nature by lambasting the failed and unintegrated aspects of ourselves. Doing so only makes them go 'underground' and become surreptitious, and steadily grow larger and more out of control (as with Cain). Not only is Jesus "dying for the sins of mankind" symbolic of demonstrating that sin lives within all of us, it is also - perhaps more importantly - symbolic of transcending the negative human consequences of (and failure of) Old Testament legalism. Jesus rejects the resultant self-lambasting of the sinner for the sin - which leads to more sin and suffering rather than less - "Which is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’?”". The Old to New Testament is a spiritual progression from the states of externally imposed structure and discipline (necessary for childhood) to the transcending adult response-ability and maturity (integrated self-discipline and self-structure), and experience of the divine as a 'mystical union'. It is an expression of the fact that our sins (within us) are not ultimately our 'fault' and that the experience of this revelation is what enables us to transcend our sins (rather than remain slave to them and so bound to forever repeat them) and to 'sin no more' and become ‘of the spirit’. This is essentially Arnold Beisser’s ‘Paradoxical Theory of Change’. "Change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not. Change does not take place through a coercive attempt by the individual or by another person to change him, but it does take place if one takes the time and effort to be what he is -- to be fully invested in his current positions. By rejecting the role of change agent, we make meaningful and orderly change possible. "

"Irrational impulse to an unwise urge." Niel Peart.

We are not always responsible for our own lifes. Meaning... There are a lot of interactions in life that make us not be able to be happy. And, sometimes, others are directly or indirectly responsible for our own unhappiness. It doesn't mean that we have to blame the other, but recognize that and make something about it.

Thank God for Peterson.