The Body Remembers What the Mind Denies: Looking at Boundaries Through the Lens of Carl Jung
- Joseph Lucketta
- Sep 9, 2025
- 11 min read
One of the first steps in the healing process of narcissistic abuse comes in the form of creating boundaries. But what happens when you refuse? What if the thought of retracting from the one who’s taken so much from you and/or your family feels like self-destruction? By looking at this process through the lens of Carl Jung, we can find how your true self breaks through. The mind often pretends to be sovereign, to rule the empire of our existence with its words, its arguments, its images of order. But there is an older ruler, one that predates the spoken word and remembers truths long before reason learned to weave them into sentences. It is the body.
The body is not a machine for carrying the mind. The body is the oldest archive of the soul. It remembers what the mind has denied, forgotten, or even betrayed. Many of you who identify as empaths already know this in your bones. You sense the tension in a room before a word has been spoken. You feel the heaviness in another's chest as if it were your own. You wake in the night with aches or anxieties that are not strictly yours. And yet your rational mind will attempt to dismiss it. It will tell you that you are overreacting, imagining, exaggerating. The psyche is endlessly clever in its defenses. But the body does not lie.
The empath’s body carries the burden of what consciousness is unwilling to face. When I speak of somatic boundaries, I do not mean fences erected in the outer world. I mean the invisible thresholds within you that determine whether you inhabit your own life or whether you surrender it to the unconscious demands of others. A boundary is not a wall, but a living membrane as permeable as skin, capable of both contact and separation. For the empath, this membrane is often too thin, too porous, too willing to absorb what belongs to others. You become a vessel for another's grief, another's anger, another's secret shame. And when the mind insists on harmony, when it says, "I must keep the peace. I must keep loving. I must keep serving." The body protests. It trembles. It aches. It grows ill.
Carl Jung once said that the body is the shadow of the soul. If this is so, then the empath's body is doubly shadowed. It not only contains your own unlived life, but also becomes the theater where the unlived lives of others enact their hidden dramas. Have you noticed how often the empath suffers from inexplicable fatigue, digestive pains, migraines or skin conditions? These are not simply medical curiosities. They are symbols. They are the voice of the unconscious calling through the body, saying, "You have carried what was never yours to carry.”
Let me take you into a dream. For dreams are the royal road into the deep structures of the psyche. Imagine a woman walking through a forest at night. She holds a lantern, but its light is dim. Behind her trail, a group of figures, faceless, silent, yet heavy with presence. They cling to her cloak. They pull at her steps, but the woman does not turn because she fears what she might see. Instead, she whispers to herself, "I must keep moving. I must keep the peace. I must bring them all to safety.” But her body slows, her knees weaken. At last, she falls upon the earth and the figures step over her, vanishing into the trees. Only then does she realize she has never seen her own face in the lantern's glow. This is the dream of the empath. The faceless figures are the unowned emotions of others. The lantern is the fragile ego trying to make sense of overwhelming psychic currents. The body collapsing is the truth when you deny your own face, your own life. Your soma will not permit the deception indefinitely. It will fall to the ground to remind you, “You too are flesh. You too are soul. You too must live your own existence.”
The boundary then is not a cruel rejection of the narcissistic person. It is an act of reverence for the archetypal law of individualization. Individuality demands that each soul must live its own destiny, bear its own cross, descend into its own depths. When the empath interferes, when you take upon yourself the pain that is not yours, you rob the narcissist of the chance to encounter their own shadow. You become the scapegoat, the sacrificial vessel. Your suffering may feel noble. even Christlike, but often it is unconscious complicity. The archetype of the Savior is powerful, but when lived without awareness, it devours the carrier.
Your acknowledgement that the body remembers this is to step into the mystery where suffering becomes transformation. You may ask how do we know when what we carry belongs to us or to another? The answer is rarely simple. The unconscious does not mark possessions with name tags, but the body whispers clues. When an emotion arises suddenly disproportionate to the event, when a heaviness floods you in another's presence, when you wake with an unexplainable dread after listening to someone's story, pause. Ask the body, “Is this mine or is this the echo of another?” The mind may rationalize but the body will give you sensation, contraction, nausea, trembling or release.
To learn the somatic language is to reclaim your boundaries. Yet beware, for denial is subtle. The empath may say, “I am only compassionate. I am only caring. I am only sensitive.” But often, this is a mask. Underneath lies fear - fear of conflict, fear of abandonment, fear of being unloved. If you do not carry the others burdens, thus the body carries what the mind denies. Your stomach holds the anger you will not speak. Your shoulders bend beneath the guilt you cannot name. Your skin erupts with the shame you have absorbed, but never questioned. Every symptom is a symbol, every ache a message in analysis.
Carl Jung witnessed patients whose migraines ceased when they learned to refuse the manipulations of their families. He saw rashes disappear when a woman dared to say no to her lover's endless demands. The unconscious does not rest until truth is lived in the body. For the empath, the path of healing is not to stop feeling but to learn discernment. Compassion must be married to wisdom. Love must be wed to boundary. Otherwise, love degenerates into self-betrayal and compassion into quiet martyrdom. The archetype of the mother is instructive here.
The great mother nourishes, but she also devours. She holds the child close, but she must also let the child go. The empath who always nourishes becomes the devouring mother, swallowing the individuality of others by carrying what should be theirs. True maternal love knows when to step back, to let the child fall, to let the other suffer the necessary pain of growth. This same archetypal truth must guide you in your relationships.
You may recall that Jung spoke often of the shadow. The empath’s shadow is not cruelty or indifference. It is rage. It is the raw instinct that says, “Enough!” This is mine and that is yours.” Because you fear this instinct, you repress it. You deny it. You call it selfish, unspiritual, unloving. But the shadow will not disappear. It will erupt in the body as illness or in relationships as sudden outbursts or in dreams as violent figures demanding recognition. The task is not to suppress the shadow but to integrate it - to say, “I too am capable of anger. I too must protect my life. I too have the right to be whole.” The somatic boundary is therefore not merely a psychological technique. It is a sacred act of individuation to tell your body, “I will listen. I will no longer deny your signals. I will no longer betray your wisdom.” That is initiation.
For the empath, the initiation is often painful. It feels like abandoning love, like betraying your mission of healing. But in truth, it is the opposite. Only when you live within your own soma, only when you honor your own boundaries can you offer authentic love. Otherwise, your gift becomes poisoned with resentment, exhaustion and unspoken demands. You see, the unconscious of the narcissist recognizes when you carry their burden. They may not say it aloud, but they sense it. They sense your willingness to absorb and they exploit it unconsciously. Thus, a secret collusion is formed - the narcissist and the empath locked in a dance of projection and absorption. To break this dance is to break a spell. It is to say, “I return to you what is yours. I carry only what is mine. I will meet you soul to soul, not body to body.” And yet, do not imagine that the task is one-and-done. It is a lifelong dialogue. Each encounter, each relationship, each dream will test your boundaries on you.
The empath’s path is not to escape sensitivity but to sanctify it. To feel deeply is a gift of the soul. But without boundary, the gift becomes a curse. With boundary, it becomes medicine. Not only for you, but for those around you. You may wonder why the empath’s body speaks so loudly while the mind insists on silence. The reason is that the psyche seeks wholeness. What you deny in thought does not vanish. It is driven into the depths of the unconscious and from there it emerges through the body. The body becomes the living parchment upon which the unconscious writes its forgotten truths. Every migraine, every fluttering heartbeat, every inexplicable nausea is a letter in this hidden script. If you listen carefully, you will find that the body is speaking the language of archetypes.
Consider the dreamer who comes into analysis with chronic chest pains. Medical doctors have found no cause. She dreams repeatedly of being pressed beneath the ocean, her ribs breaking, her breath stolen. When we explore her life, we discover she has spent years caring for a partner who is perpetually drowning in his own despair. She cannot breathe because she has denied her own need for air. Her soma carries the message her mind refuses to accept - that love without boundary is suffocation. Once she acknowledges this truth, her chest pain begins to subside. You see, the body always remembers the boundaries you have failed to draw. This is why I tell you, if you are an empath, you must become a student of your own soma - not merely its pleasures but its tensions, its resistances, its collapses. When your shoulders ache ask yourself, “Whose weight am I carrying?” When your stomach knots, inquire, “What anger have I swallowed that was not mine?” When fatigue overtakes you, ask, “Where have I drained my life force to nourish what is not mine to feed?” In each answer, you will find the seed of your individuation.
Do not imagine that this path is free of terror. To set boundaries for the first time feels like betrayal. It feels like murder, like killing the sacred bond that ties you to that other person. That is why so many empaths collapse into illness before they awaken. The unconscious chooses the body to dramatize what you cannot yet enact consciously. If you will not say no, your immune system will. If you will not rest, your nervous system will. If you will not release the burdens of others, your organs will rebel. The body is ruthless in its devotion to the truth. The archetype of the wounded healer is crucial here. You who feel everything are destined to know the wound. For without the wound, there is no wisdom. But you must not confuse the wound with your identity. Too many empaths become prisoners of their wounds, believing that to suffer endlessly is their role.
The true healer is one who transforms the wound into medicine and who says, "I will not deny the scar, but I will not live as the scar alone." You are called into the underworld of another's pain. You taste it. You embody it. But you must return. You must ascend. If you remain in the darkness forever, you will forget the sun. The boundary is the pass back into the light. It is the rope that pulls you up from Hades into the day. Perhaps you are asking, "But how? How do I draw the boundary when my body has forgotten how?" The first step is to reclaim anger.
Anger is not the enemy of empathy. It is its guardian. Anger says, "This is my sacred ground. And you may not trespass.” Without anger, love has no shield. Many of you have been taught that anger is destructive, sinful, unspiritual. You have buried it in your muscles, your stomach, your skin. But anger, when purified, is holy. It burns away falseness. It separates what is yours from what is not. If you can befriend your anger, you will begin to feel the natural edges of your being.
The second step is to return what you carry. This can be done ritually, symbolically, somatically. When you feel the heaviness in your chest that belongs to another, breathe it out as if releasing smoke. Imagine placing it back into the hands of the one who owns it. Say, even silently, "This is not mine. I return it to you with compassion. Such gestures awaken the archetypal psyche. The unconscious responds to ritual more readily than to rational arguments. You may think it childish, but the soul does not speak in logic. It speaks in symbols.
The third step is to inhabit your own body more fully. Many empaths live half a step outside themselves, scanning the environment, watching for danger, absorbing scenes. But your true sanctuary is in your own flesh - practices that anchor you - breathing deeply into your belly, moving rhythmically, touching the earth with your bare feet. These are not trivial. They are ways of telling the unconscious, “I choose to live here in this body, in this life without embodiment.” Your boundaries will always dissolve. Yet, even as I give you these steps, I must warn you, no method is absolute. What matters is not the technique, but the consciousness behind it. If you draw a boundary from fear, it will become a prison. If you draw it from resentment, it will become a weapon. But if you draw it from the archetype of self, from the recognition that each soul must walk its own path, then your boundary will shine like a sacred circle. Within that circle, love can flourish without distortion.
Some of you may now feel the stirrings of guilt. You fear that to withdraw from the suffering of others is selfish. But I tell you, to live without boundaries is the greater selfishness. For then you impose your own unconscious need to rescue upon the other and you deprive them of their own growth. True love allows the other to suffer what is necessary for their soul. To carry their suffering for them is to mistrust the ability of the Lord Jesus to take their yoke upon himself – to allow them to reach out to the greatest healer of all.
I must also speak of projection. The empath is vulnerable to carrying the projections of others, especially of those who do not face their own shadows. The narcissist, the manipulator, the perpetual victim - they find in the empath, the perfect canvas upon which to paint their disowned parts. And because you are porous, you receive these projections into your body. You live as if their hatred were your hatred, their fear, your fear, their shame, your shame. This is why discernment is essential. When you feel a sudden wave of emotion, pause and ask, "Does this belong to me? Whose voice speaks in my blood?” If you can ask this question with sincerity, the unconscious will begin to reveal the truth.
The path of individuation is never isolation. We need each other. We are bound in the collective unconscious. But connection without boundary is fusion. And fusion is regression. The child fuses with a mother for it has not yet found its own ego. The adult must separate or else remain an eternal child. Many empaths are still children in this sense grown in years but still fused to the emotions of others unable to claim their own psychic territory. Individuation demands that you step into your own sovereignty even if it means disappointing those who depend on your endless availability. Do you see now why the empath's body is such a sacred teacher? The body never lies. It never abandons the truth of your soul. Even when your mind betrays you, even when your ego insists upon denial, the body will hold the memory. It is both your prison and your liberation. If you listen, it will tell you where your boundaries are broken, where your truth has been compromised, where your soul longs to be free. To listen is the first step. To obey is the second and to integrate the shadow, that is the lifelong work of becoming whole.
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