E.1-5: You’re Not Who You Pretend to Be — and That’s Holy
In this episode you will learn:
🔥 In this episode of The Christian Jung Podcast, Angela Meer guides us through the sacred process of unmasking — the moment when the version of ourselves we've carefully constructed no longer fits the shape of our soul.
Through the lens of Jungian depth psychology and ancient Christian mysticism, we explore the spiritual and psychological role of the persona — the mask we wear to be accepted, and how the Spirit gently invites us beyond it.
We talk about:
🎭 What the persona is — and why it’s not the enemy
🕊️ How spiritual growth begins when the mask cracks
🔥 Why honesty, not impressiveness, leads to wholeness
📖 Biblical archetypes of unmasking — from Moses to Esther to Paul
🧠 A powerful case study from Jung involving dreams, performance, and identity
💬 Angela’s own story of undoing religious perfection through the Song of SolomonWhether you're feeling the tension between who you appear to be and who you're called to become — or you're longing to meet God in a more honest and intimate way — this episode is an invitation to step out of the role… and into the real.
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Episode length: 17:00
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Transcript
There comes a moment in every soul’s journey when the mask we've worn to survive… starts to suffocate us.
Carl Jung called it the persona — the character we play to be accepted, applauded, even loved.
It’s the smile you wear when you're breaking inside.
The perfect theology you quote to avoid the trembling mystery.
The “good Christian” costume that keeps you safe in church… but small in your soul.The persona is not evil. It’s protective.
But it’s not who you are.And when the Spirit starts to whisper…
when dreams begin to fracture the image…
when anxiety or anger or apathy rises like smoke from something burning underneath —
it may be a holy sign:Your real self is trying to break through.
Today, we’re not just talking psychology.
We’re talking surrender.
Unmasking.
And stepping out of the role — into the real.Because wholeness won’t come through being impressive.
It comes through being honest.It’s time to meet the you behind the performance.
Let’s awake your holy wonder.
Stay with me.
what’s under the mask?
Carl Jung defined the persona as the mask we present to the world — the identity we craft to fit into society, family, church, or culture.
It’s not false in the sense of being a lie.
It’s false in the sense of being incomplete.
It’s the “you” that performs well at Bible study…
but collapses in silence at home.
The version of you who knows the right answers,
but longs to ask the real questions.
The word persona comes from the Latin for “mask” — originally used in Greek theatre to denote the role an actor played.
But here’s the catch:
The longer we wear the mask,
the harder it becomes to tell where it ends and we begin.
Jung warned:
“The danger is that people become identical with their personas — the professor with his textbook, the minister with his sermon, the Christian with their image of righteousness.”
But Scripture, too, speaks to this inner division.
In Matthew 23, Jesus calls out the Pharisees — not because they lacked faith,
but because they performed it:
“Everything they do is done for people to see… On the outside you appear righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
The persona is what keeps us polished.
The Spirit, however, wants us whole.
In storytelling, we meet the persona in every hero's journey.
Think of Moses — the Egyptian prince raised in privilege, hiding his Hebrew identity.
It isn’t until the mask shatters — through murder, exile, and wilderness — that he meets the burning bush and hears his true name called.
Or Esther — cloaked in royal garments, silent about her people.
Until the mask becomes too heavy.
And she steps forward with trembling courage:
“If I perish, I perish.”
Or even Peter — who declares his loyalty to Jesus in public… but denies Him three times by firelight.
These are not stories of failure.
They are stories of transformation.
Of people who wore masks… until they didn’t.
Because the mask may help you survive —
but only truth can help you live.
Jung believed that to become whole, we must confront the persona.
Not to destroy it — but to see through it.
To recognize it for what it is:
A role.
A container.
A first stage of identity that must be surrendered if we want to meet the sacred fire of the self.
And Scripture agrees.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18:
“And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His image…”
Unveiled.
No mask.
No persona.
Just the radiant, wrestling, real image of God in you — becoming.
What if the mask you’ve worn — the role you’ve played —
was never meant to last forever?
What if the tension you feel inside is not a sign of failure,
but the Spirit inviting you into freedom?
You don’t have to destroy the persona.
You only have to loosen your grip on it.
Because underneath it — waiting like a buried treasure —
is the you God dreamed up before the world told you who to be.
And that version?
Doesn’t need to be impressive.
Just real.
Before we go to this quick break, I want you to think: what are three ways that you ‘perform’ in life? How are those three things keeping you from getting to the real you that Jesus is bringing to the surface?
what’s in your cellar?
Jung once treated a man in midlife — brilliant, respected, and deeply religious.
He was a professor. A public intellectual.
Someone others admired for his clarity, discipline, and moral uprightness.
But he came to Jung not for advice on success…
but because he was feeling disconnected from reality.
He would be lecturing students, attending church, or reading Scripture — and suddenly feel like he was watching himself from far away.
Jung listened. And instead of offering a solution, he asked a question:
“Who are you performing for?”
The man was startled. “I’m not performing,” he said. “This is who I am.”
But the dreams told another story.
He dreamed of a house — orderly, elegant, filled with books and icons.
But beneath the house was a cellar.
And in the cellar, a voice was calling to him — weeping, singing, raging.
In the dream, he refused to go down.
Jung told him:
“That house is your persona. The cellar — that’s your soul. You’ve built a cathedral of intellect. But the Spirit lives in the ground floor.”
Over time, the man began to descend — both inwardly and emotionally.
He explored music, emotion, and dreams — things he had dismissed as childish or irrational.
He began to cry for the first time in decades.
He re-read Scripture not for argument, but for mystery.
He wrote in his journal (later shared in Jung’s records):
“I thought I was called to be a teacher of God.
But now I wonder if I’m being invited to become a lover of God —
with all the mess, the beauty, and the surrender that implies.”
He didn’t abandon his persona.
He simply stopped mistaking it for his identity.
Jung said this,
“The center of our being, which is both divine and deeply human… the imago Dei within us, {is} waiting to be known.”
🕊️ Reflection
Sometimes the voice of God doesn’t thunder from the heavens.
Sometimes it sings from the basement.
And no matter how polished the house looks upstairs —
if we want to be whole,
we must be willing to descend into the reality of who we are.
losing my religion (persona)
Losing my religious persona was deeply challenging because it had been embedded within me since I was a child. Maybe you recall that a few episodes ago, I had had an awakening where I realized I needed more than just good theology. I actually wanted Jesus to be the lover of my soul.
For me, this descent into the cellar began as I read and re-read Song of Solomon. I didn’t have good theology about this book: just a general sense that the story of two lovers represented me and Jesus.
I realized through the Song of Solmon that I was like the Shulamite woman, but unlike her, I didn’t voice my failings to my Lover, I hid them and covered them up.
This began to change the way I spoke to Jesus. My persona mask began to drop because I no longer wanted to keep anything from Jesus. Paul went through something like this too:
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
“In the Christian Jung community, I go deeper into how I actually applied this in real time — and what happened next. You are given all the tools you need to learn to what is awakening within you and to inspire your Christian faith into the realm of Spirit. Go to AngelaMeer.com to join us.
Drive the Jungian aspects home:
🌑 How the Persona Forms (and Why It Had to)
We don’t choose our persona consciously.
It begins as a survival instinct.
As children, we learn quickly what earns approval… and what gets silence.
We shape ourselves to fit the expectations of our family, our church, our culture.
We become good, smart, helpful, quiet, strong —
whatever keeps us safe and loved.
In Jungian terms, the persona is adaptive.
It’s a bridge between the individual and the collective.
It helps us function in the world, wear the “right face” for the right role —
parent, pastor, professional, worship leader.
The danger isn’t that we wear it.
The danger is when we forget we’re wearing it.
In Galatians 1:10, Paul wrestles with this exact tension:
“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
At some point, the persona — once protective — becomes a prison.
biblical personas that fell away
Why the Persona Becomes a Barrier
What begins as survival can end in stagnation.
We stop listening to the wild God inside us, and start performing for the world around us.
We curate our faith instead of embodying it.
We manage our image instead of revealing our soul.
But the Spirit has never been interested in images.
In the Old Testament, when Israel begged for a king to represent them —
a figurehead, a persona of strength —
God lamented.
“They have rejected Me as their King.” (1 Samuel 8:7)
Because God doesn’t work through personas.
He works through presence.
This is why Jesus — the image of the invisible God — did not come in royal robes,
but with dust on His feet and questions in His mouth.
He came as Truth — not performance.
And He calls us to do the same.
🔥 The Sacred Undoing: When the Mask Cracks
In Jungian process, the confrontation with the persona often marks the beginning of individuation —
the turning inward, the sacred unraveling of who you thought you were…
so you can become who you really are.
This unraveling usually starts with dissonance:
Burnout from “being good”
A sense of hollowness, despite doing everything right
Dreams that challenge your identity
A crisis of faith that cracks the image
Sound familiar?
Jung called it a breakdown of the outer frame — a collapse that creates room for the inner self to rise.
Scripture calls it dying to self.
Not annihilation — but transformation.
As Jesus said in Luke 9:24:
“Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will save it.”
But here’s the paradox:
What you’re losing… wasn’t you to begin with.
🕊️ Biblical Archetypes of Unmasking
Throughout Scripture, the Spirit calls people out of persona into presence:
Jacob lies, manipulates, performs — until he wrestles with God and is renamed Israel.
David, a shepherd, puts on Saul’s armor — a literal persona — before realizing he must face Goliath as himself.
Paul wears the mask of religious zeal — a Pharisee of Pharisees — until he’s blinded on the road and sees the truth.
Even Jesus asks:
“Who do you say that I am?”
He wasn’t looking for titles. He was inviting relationship. Identity. Depth.
Invite Reflection:
I Ask you in each episode to reflect on their own mystical practices or to start incorporating contemplative exercises in your life.
“As you reflect on today’s episode, I encourage you to spend an hour deeply reading the Song of Solomon. See how the persona of your life reacts to this deeply resonant piece of poetry that one of my secular professors once called the best piece of poetry in the ancient world. Let the experience move you, not just preach at you.
“Next episode we are going to discover why dreams are so vital to understanding our soul and its dance with our Creator.
“We’ll be here every week, diving deeper into the profound union of faith and psychology. Join me again, same time next week, to continue your journey toward God as Divine Spirit.”
But as we end today…
Moment of Silence:
Encourage 3-5 minutes of quiet reflection: “Take a few minutes now to sit in silence before God. What is He showing you in this moment?”
Closing Prayer (St. John of the Cross):
“O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn,
O night that has united the Lover with His beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.”