When we Lost Rituals, We Lost Ourselves

How Initiation Shapes Our Journey to Selfhood

Initiation is a theme that cuts across all cultures, mythologies, and psychological landscapes, marking the transition from one phase of life to another. Though many traditional initiation rituals have disappeared in modern society, the process of growth and transformation is still very much alive, though often more subtle and harder to define. We experience it in various forms throughout life, particularly during adolescence, where the threshold between childhood and adulthood becomes a challenging and sometimes painful journey. In this blog, I’ll explore the concept of initiation using the movie Labyrinth (my all time favorite movie!!) as a metaphor for the psychological journey of adolescence, while drawing on Jungian concepts to understand the process of self-discovery and individuation that continue throughout our adult lives.