The labyrinth: seeking the center or the exit?
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
As a child, the first time I walked into a hedge maze, I had one goal only: to get out. As fast as possible. I ran, turned, backtracked in frustration. I didn't care where I was - I just wanted to find the way out. It took me years to understand that perhaps I was asking the wrong question.
In Italy we are surrounded by labyrinths from North to South: some have very tall hedges and it's easy to get lost, others offer more visibility and the game is to find the path with your eyes. But beyond the game, the labyrinth carries ancient and powerful symbolism.
In antiquity, through the myth of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth of Crete, it represented the confrontation with one's dark side: to enter it meant facing what we fear within ourselves.
In the Middle Ages, in the floors of churches such as Chartres Cathedral, it becomes a spiritual path: one does not get lost, but follows a single journey toward the center, a symbol of God and inner truth.
With modernity, Carl Gustav Jung brings the labyrinth into the psyche: it is the journey into the unconscious, through the shadow zones and hidden desires, a necessary path to truly become oneself — what he called individuation.
Sometimes in life it feels like you're going backwards. In reality, you may simply be on a new curve of your labyrinth.
These three readings — mythic, spiritual, psychological — ultimately tell the same story: the labyrinth is not an obstacle to overcome, it is a path to walk through. And it is precisely here that the question in the title finds its answer.
The center and the exit, in the end, coincide.
When you have found your center — when you are truly in touch with yourself — the exit comes on its own. Not because the labyrinth is over, but because you are no longer afraid of being inside it.
In the myth of Theseus and Ariadne, the thread is not meant to help you run toward the exit. It is meant to keep you from losing touch with yourself while navigating complex passages, unexpected turns, and moments of doubt.
There is something even rarer, though.
Not just knowing how to hold your own thread — but being able to enter someone else's labyrinth, without losing yourself, without wanting to fix everything, without rushing toward the exit. And at the same time, knowing how to welcome someone into your own: showing them the darkest passages, the turns you still don't understand, the places where you've gotten lost more than once.
It is not a given. It takes trust. It takes a certain kind of courage. And it takes someone who knows how to hold the thread — their own and yours — without ever letting it go.
In the labyrinth there are stretches that seem to lead you away from the center. Curves that make you think you've taken a wrong turn. Moments when you must stop or retrace your steps.
And that is perfectly fine.
Because the center of the labyrinth is not the same for everyone.
For some, it is a courageous choice. For others, it is letting something go. For others still, it is stopping and truly listening to oneself.
The labyrinth teaches us that the journey toward oneself is not linear, but it is conscious. It is not about arriving first. It is about becoming more authentic, step by step.
Why is it still so relevant today?
We live in an age that rewards speed, destination, results. The labyrinth is the opposite: it forces you to slow down, to turn back, to put things in order. It teaches you to listen to yourself and to truly look at what surrounds you.
A pause to seek the center — because when one is centered, every decision is responsible, considered, made with the heart.
A wish to all who read me: may you find your own labyrinth, and within it, may you find your own center.
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